'Skin has eyes and ears': audio-visual ethnography in a Sepik society

Vávrová, Daniela (2014) 'Skin has eyes and ears': audio-visual ethnography in a Sepik society. PhD thesis, James Cook University.

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[img] Video (MP4) (Film: Skin has eyes and ears) - Supplemental Material
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[img] Video (MP4) (Video clip: Camera as Catalyst) - Supplemental Material
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[img] Video (MP4) (Video clip: Dialogic Recording with the Ambonwari) - Supplemental Material
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[img] Video (MP4) (Video clip: Ambonwari Recordings 01) - Supplemental Material
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[img] Video (MP4) (Video clip: Ambonwari Recordings 02) - Supplemental Material
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[img] Video (MP4) (Video clip: Waykakrarin) - Supplemental Material
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[img] Video (MP4) (Video clip: Kay Wurukrarin) - Supplemental Material
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[img] Video (MP4) (Video clip: Terrence Trilogy Part 01) - Supplemental Material
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[img] Video (MP4) (Video clip: Terrence Trilogy Part 02) - Supplemental Material
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[img] Video (MP4) (Video clip: Terrence Trilogy Part 03) - Supplemental Material
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[img] Video (MP4) (Video clip: Jeffrey & Abel 01) - Supplemental Material
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[img] Video (MP4) (Video clip: Jeffrey & Abel 02) - Supplemental Material
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[img] Video (MP4) (Video clip: Jeffrey & Abel 03) - Supplemental Material
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[img] Archive (ZIP) (Slide show 01: Jeffrey's photographic art) - Supplemental Material
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[img] Archive (ZIP) (Slide show 02: Fishing with Augustina Awsay) - Supplemental Material
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[img] Archive (ZIP) (Slide show 03: Kurang for Terrence) - Supplemental Material
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View at Publisher Website: https://doi.org/10.25903/vpzk-wy47
 
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Abstract

My PhD thesis is based on several visits and a year of fieldwork in Ambonwari village of East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. It deploys audio-visual methods to explore how people shape, and are shaped by, their social and cultural environment through their sensory experience. I focus on the visible arɨm 'skin, body' and the invisible wambung 'insideness, understanding', as the main sources of people's experience. My aim was not simply to explore these Ambonwari understandings of experience but to follow insights derived from Maurice Merleau- Ponty and David MacDougall, among others, in order to understand the reciprocal function of these sensory engagements as ways of knowledge. I chose to have the camera as a mediator in my research and a catalyst for an 'exchange of vision' between myself and the Ambonwari. I discuss the possibility of seeing the invisible by changing one's skin and I take my audio-visual material, Ambonwari recordings, and our public film screenings to explore this concept. Both, in the text and in the audio-visual material, I highlight how Ambonwari concepts of 'skin' and 'insideness', and the seen and the invisible, structured their experience of film viewing and filmmaking. In doing this I outline an approach to visual ethnography that stresses the sensual properties of the Ambonwari visual experience.

Item ID: 28025
Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
Keywords: Ambonwari village; anthropology; culture; ethnography; experiences; Papua New Guinea; PNG; seeing; senses; sensory; Sepik Province; viewing; visual; visualising; visualizing
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Audio-visual material is also available from the Related URLs field. The audio-visual material is:

Film: Skin has eyes and ears

Video-clips: Camera as catalyst; Dialogic recording with the Ambonwari; Ambonwari recordings (1-2); Waykakrarin; Kay Wurukrarin; Terrence triology (1-3); Jeffrey & Abel (1-3)

Slideshow 01: Jeffrey's photographic art

Slideshow 02 (including mp3 audio): Fishing with Augustina Awsay

Slideshow 03 (including mp3 audio): Kurang for Terrence

Date Deposited: 17 Dec 2014 05:32
FoR Codes: 16 STUDIES IN HUMAN SOCIETY > 1601 Anthropology > 160104 Social and Cultural Anthropology @ 100%
SEO Codes: 95 CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING > 9502 Communication > 950205 Visual Communication @ 50%
95 CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING > 9599 Other Cultural Understanding > 959999 Cultural Understanding not elsewhere classified @ 50%
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