Illustration as Ethnographic Thinking

Get a PDF copy of this workshop →

Download

Workshop Description

This laboratory explores illustration as an ethnographic method—a practice of thinking through lines, textures, and gestures. Drawing is not treated as representation but as observation in motion: a way of tracing relations, atmospheres, and affects that often escape words.

In anthropology, the act of drawing has long been intertwined with description and imagination—from the early field sketches of Franz Boas and Alfred Cort Haddon to contemporary multimodal experiments in ethnographic art and visual anthropology (Taussig 2011; Marcus 2018; Ingold 2013). Drawing becomes a form of inquiry where seeing and knowing unfold together.

Tim Ingold (2013) describes this as “correspondence”: lines that follow the movements of life rather than fixing them. Donna Haraway’s (2016) notion of “staying with the trouble” encourages an ethics of attentiveness that drawing performs through slowness and care. Meanwhile, Michael Taussig (2011) frames drawing as a “nervous system” of thought—immediate, embodied, and uncertain.

Through this workshop, participants will practice drawing as a way of thinking ethnographically, not as artistic mastery but as attunement to material, relational, and atmospheric worlds. They will work with quick sketches, diagrammatic visualizations, and illustrated fragments derived from their own field notes or memories. Each participant will produce a small visual portfolio, culminating in a collective display exploring how lines can think, sense, and speculate.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this workshop, participants will:

  1. Understand drawing and illustration as analytical, relational, and speculative ethnographic methods.
  2. Experiment with different visual techniques—line drawing, diagramming, layering—as ways of knowing.
  3. Develop a reflective and ethical practice of observation through slowness and care.
  4. Produce a visual portfolio that translates ethnographic fragments into illustrated forms.

Requirements

This workshop welcomes participants from anthropology, design, and the arts. No drawing skills are required—only an openness to experimentation and observation.

  • Participation: Attendance and active contribution in all sessions are essential; peer feedback and group reflection form part of the process.
  • Materials provided: Sketchbooks, pencils, pens, brushes, ink, tracing paper, and markers will be available. Participants may also bring personal notebooks, digital tablets, or previous field notes.
  • Technical access: Basic scanning and reproduction equipment will be provided for digitizing drawings; analog drawing is encouraged, though digital illustration tools are welcome.
  • Readings: Short daily readings (30–45 minutes) ground the conceptual framework.
  • Engagement: Each participant contributes a visual portfolio and reflective text to the collective display, Lines of Inquiry.

Daily Structure

Day 1 – Drawing as Observation

Morning | Concepts & Discussion

• Read:

  • Ingold, Tim. 2011. Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. London: Routledge. (Selections on “drawing as correspondence”)
  • Taussig, Michael. 2011. I Swear I Saw This: Drawings in Fieldwork Notebooks, Namely My Own. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Introduction)
  • Discussion prompts:
    • How does drawing differ from photographing or writing?
    • What happens to perception when we draw instead of describing?
    • Can a line be a form of ethnographic attention?
Afternoon | Field & Studio Practice
  • Field sketching exercise: 3 sites, 10-minute sketches each—focus on movement, texture, and atmosphere.
  • Return to the studio: annotate sketches with brief field reflections.

Output: Sketchbook series “Three Scenes.”

Day 2 – The Line as Relation

Morning | Concepts & Discussion
  • Read:
  • Ingold, Tim. 2013. Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. London: Routledge. (Chapter “Lines and Surfaces”)
  • Haraway, Donna. 2016. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. (Introduction)
  • Discussion prompts:
  • What does it mean to “follow a line” rather than “capture a form”?
  • How can the line connect species, materials, and temporalities?
  • How does drawing enact care?
Afternoon | Studio Practice
  • Exercise: “Relational drawing.” Draw not objects but relations—between people, infrastructures, or nonhumans.
  • Experiment with overlapping and connected lines.

Output: Relational Drawing (A3).

Day 3 – Diagramming Worlds

Morning | Concepts & Discussion
  • Read:
  • Lury, Celia. 2021. Problem Spaces: How and Why STS Thinks with Fragments. Cambridge: Polity Press. (Selections on visualization and problem-spaces)
  • Marcus, George E. 2018. “Ethnography through Thick and Thin Revisited.” Field Methods 30 (4): 345–359.
  • Discussion prompts:
  • How can diagrams help think through complexity?
  • What distinguishes a scientific diagram from an ethnographic one?
  • How does the act of mapping become drawing?
Afternoon | Studio Practice
  • Create a diagrammatic drawing based on field memories or multispecies relations.
  • Layer text and symbol, blending analysis with composition.

Output: Analytic Diagram (A3).

Day 4 – Atmospheres and Affects

Morning | Concepts & Discussion
  • Read:
  • Stewart, Kathleen. 2007. Ordinary Affects. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. (Selections)
  • Myers, Natasha. 2020. “Curating the Planthroposcene.” Environmental Humanities 12 (1): 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-8142198.
  • Discussion prompts:
    • How can drawing capture atmospheres or moods?
    • What does it mean to draw something “more-than-human”?
    • How do composition and color evoke care?
Afternoon | Studio Practice
  • Produce two affective drawings—one from life, one imagined.
  • Add brief textual fragments (quotes, overheard words, sensory notes).

Output: Atmospheric Pair (2 drawings).

Day 5 – Lines of Inquiry: Exhibition and Reflection

Morning | Installation & Discussion
  • Curate the collective exhibition Lines of Inquiry.
  • Group critique: how do the drawings converse as ethnographic propositions?
Afternoon | Studio Practice
  • Write a 300-word text “What Drawing Taught Me about Method.”
  • Collective reflection: what happens when lines begin to think?

Final Deliverables:

  • 3–5 illustrated ethnographic fragments (A4–A3)
  • 75-word label
  • 300-word reflection

References

  • Haraway, Donna J. 2016. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.  
  • Ingold, Tim. 2011. Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. London: Routledge.  
  • Ingold, Tim. 2013. Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. London: Routledge.  
  • Lury, Celia. 2021. Problem Spaces: How and Why Methodology Matters. Cambridge, UK: Polity.  
  • Marcus, George E. 1998. Ethnography through Thick and Thin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.  
  • Myers, Natasha. 2020. “Curating the Planthroposcene.” Environmental Humanities 12 (1): 23–50. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-8142198.  
  • Stewart, Kathleen. 2007. Ordinary Affects. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.  
  • Taussig, Michael. 2011. I Swear I Saw This: Drawings in Fieldwork Notebooks, Namely My Own. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.