Visual ethnography and Kurdish anthropology by Kameel Ahmady
The first part of the paper Media consumption, conformity and resistance: a visual ethnography of youth culture in Iranian Kurdistan by anthropologist Kameel Ahmady has been published on KurdishMedia. Ahmady wanted to examine the factors which shape a sense of belonging among young people in Mahabad, a town on the north-west periphery of Iran.
His methodological approach is interesting:
I used reflexive visual methods, asking them [the young people] to take their own photographic pieces dealing with themes they saw as relevant to local current events and their place within these processes. The works they produced were then placed in a week long public exhibition in Mahabad, where further data was gathered in a Guest Book of reactions to the event, as well as participant observation notes taken at the time.
Kameel Ahmady has an interesting website with an image gallery and we also can read some of his articles and papers, mostly dealing with Middle East issues.
UPDATE (15.10.06): Part II of his paper Media consumption, conformity and resistance: A visual ethnography of youth culture in Iranian Kurdistan is out
