Walking with video

Pink, Sarah. (2007). Visual Studies, 22 (3), 240 — 252

In her methodological proposal of "walking with someone" to learn his or her experiences, Pink further inquires into "how the integration of video into this method can serve as a catalyst for creating ethnographic understandings of other people’s experiences and communicating about these to a wider audience" (p. 243).

Her ethnographic study stems from the emphasis of the sensory nature of sociality and empathetic learning by sharing the same sensory experiences. In particular with respect to walking or moving body, she quotes Ingold, "Locomotion, not cognition, must be the starting point for the study of perceptual activity’ (Ingold 2004, 331; 2000, 166; as cited on page 245).

As to benefits of using video in the method, she wrote:

First, video provides us with a tool that can enable embodied communication about, empathetic understandings of and representations of other people’s perceptions of their environments. Second, ... the film/videomaking context serves as a process through which people, things and sensory experiences are drawn together. (p. 245)

Pink attributed David and Judith MacDougall to a key development of a participatory and reflexive form of observational anthropological filmmaking. Building on this approach, Pink defines the method of walking with camera as a place-making practice, for film explores and gathers experiences, things, people, relationships, and so forth, while "meandering" the routes taken by the film subject (p. 247). With respect to empathetic experience of watching such ethnographic films, Pink wrote:

Some types of ‘indeterminate’ experience generated through viewing the embodied experience of another represented in ethnographic film would not necessarily transcend culture, but would allow us to make culturally framed reflections based on our empathetic responses to filmic representations of others’ experiences. (p. 248)

Here, concerning about application of ethnographic knowledge outside of academia, Pink argues for the empathetic engagement that film or video can invite to viewers.

As to walking with camera with a subject, Pink describes a representation of people's experience, thus producing historical text.