“The Graphic in the Ethnographic” or How to Engage in Graphic Modes of Storytelling

While there is a wealth of theoretical reflection on what graphic anthropology can contribute to anthropological scholarship, both methodologically and epistemologically, there remains a gap in guidance on how to actually produce ethnographically informed graphic pieces.

In this talk I will ask how creating a comic can contribute to the research process and how this process raises two crucial questions. The first pertains to the narrative: how can I turn my ethnographic material into a story and what form should that story take? Although this may seem a technical question, it contains a deeper one: how is knowledge produced? How can we visually represent this process of knowledge production?

To explore these questions, I will delve into the methodological and epistemological affordances of graphic anthropology and guide you through a series of practical exercises designed to help you reflect on and engage with drawing as an ethnographic method and a mode of storytelling.

Letizia Bonanno is a senior research fellow at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology (IKSA) at the University of Vienna.

The lecture is part of the current seminar series "Anthropologies of Skill and Making" at the Department of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology, University of Graz.