Ethnographic drawings and the benefits of using a sketchbook for fieldwork

The visual record of drawing is not just a graphical documentation, but also a way of doing research and obtaining knowledge. The potential of ethnographic drawings for anthropological fieldwork and their relations to ways of making records and visual research is explored through discussion of topics related to the methodological challenges posed by fieldwork. These include accessibility, memory, temporality, spatiality, visual perception, ways of recording, dialogue with informants, participatory methods, and results sharing. Drawing contributes positively to anthropological research and vice-versa: researching anthropologically contributes to drawing the world about us, both anthropology and drawing are ways of seeing and ways of knowing the world. Showing drawings in the way that they were produced in fieldwork is a type of proof of what was observed, but is also a way to avoid the fallacy of disguising and distorting the inherent subjectiveness of the ethnographic enterprise.