ENCOUNTERS through art, ethnography and pedagogy Erasmus Project

Project Title

ENCOUNTERS through art, ethnography and pedagogy

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Research and innovation

Project Summary

The main goal of this project is to collaboratively develop critical methodologies for student research at the intersection between the practices of ethnography, arts, and education. We are applying the term ‘arts-based ethnography’ to describe the innovation in this project: a methodological fusion of approaches to student research that are both experiential and participatory, as they draw on both contemporary artistic practices and recent developments in ethnographic research methodologies, and educational perspectives. We are interested in the ways these approaches overlap in the exploratory fieldwork phase of research, in the experiential outputs that emerge from these practices, and in their impact on the contexts that are engaged.

The overall innovation in this partnership will thus be to develop a methodology that combines:
a) research approaches (particularly ethnographic / anthropological / participatory approaches to research)
b) site-specific and participatory forms of artistic practice, as a way of engaging with local communities / agents / situations in a non-representative way.
c) educational perspectives, utilizing an understanding of pedagogy in terms of participatory and collaborative knowledge production.

The term ‘non-representative’ in this approach to student research means not just depicting local contexts, but finding ways of engaging with them and offering tools to co-create, and for local participants to tell own narratives or to be self-reflective. In other words: the practices of arts, research and education as a way of engaging ‘with’ rather than making a study ‘of’. Furthermore, to explore the potentials of these methodologies as educational practice, as activism, as shared research, and as dissemination.

Bringing together a team of artists, ethnographers and pedagogues, our goal is thus to develop a “methodology of the encounter”: new ways of conceptualizing the intersections of these practices and also to develop new approaches to teaching these concepts in the context of higher education.

The core of the partnership will be shaped by joint explorative student summer courses in Lesvos, Greece, held each summer during the project period. Through the joint lens of ‘the encounter’, students will explore how ethnographic fieldwork, arts-based research and critical pedagogies can produce situations and new ways of knowing, experiencing and engaging with the physical landscapes, social situations, institutions and people – ranging from the locals, tourists or refugees.

After the encounter, student research may lead to producing outcomes such films, podcasts, soundscapes, performative art, webpages, public scholarship or social action. Our goal is thus to develop a methodological approach that informs every stage of student research from conception to outcome. The long-term benefit of this innovative methodology range from allowing a broader set of outcomes from student research, to ways of bridging the gaps between everyday forms of knowledge and formal education.

Other project activities include a new student programme at Athens international ethnographic film festival, Ethnofest, where students from the partnership and beyond will be invited to present and discuss their arts-based ethnographic and educational work in novel formats. The student programme will include exhibitions, performances, film screenings, critical discussions on ethnographic films, and also a symposium with lectures and discussions of the works and topics presented. Also, the project includes three multiplier events that refect the project experiences outside Greece, in order to disseminate the project results and also underline the transferability of the methodology.

The intellectual outcomes, or deliverables from the project, include:
– A curriculum that sets up the site of exploration for developing and testing the methodology
– A methodology of “arts-based ethnographic student research as socially engaged practice”, as described
– A digital platform to extend ways of collaboration and dissemination before, between and after periods of real-life encounters in student research, and the overall project experiences as such
– A series of experimental exhibitions or showcases of student works during the annual Athens international film festival (Ethnofest)
– A special journal issue as an open, online and multi-modal dissemination where students and instructors (artists, researchers, educators) share their reflections and experiences and work

The project partners are:
– Arts Cabinet, arts organization, UK
– Athens international ethnographic film festival, Ethnofest, Greece
– Raketa, artist group, Sweden
– University of Agder, Norway (coordinating partner)
– University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
– University of the Aegean, Lesvos, Greece

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 449994 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITETET I AGDER & Country: NO

Project Partners

• PANEPISTIMIO AIGAIOU
• Arts Cabinet
• Anthropologiki Etairia Athinon – Ethnofest
• UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM
• R A K E T A