Embracing Other Visual Methods
Across the PASTRES sites, researchers used various complementary methods, which are discussed next.
Re-photography: gaining a longitudinal view
Visual materials from archival sources (whether available in official archives or people’s photograph collections) can provide perspectives across time. Comparing current and past images can provoke discussions, for example, about how uncertainties have changed and how pastoralists’ responses have evolved. In Isiolo, Kenya, the research traced changes from 1975 to the present, using photographs taken by Gudrun Dahl, an anthropologist who had worked in the area before, and updating photographs of the same sites.
Pastoralists fill jerry cans at the water pan in 1975 and 2020. Credit: Gudrun Dahl (left), Goracha (right).
Documentary photography and video - capturing diverse images
In Tunisia, India, and China, photography and videography carried out by researchers, sometimes together with professional photographers (Nipun Prabhakar in Gujarat) and with the youth from the community (Golok and Kokonor), allowed particular social events and moments to be documented – whether that was sheep-shearing in Tunisia, the pastoralist camp and grazing routines in Gujarat, or the yak festival in Amdo Tibet. Local people pointed towards particular customs and cultural events they wanted to document. The photographs and videos became useful later in the research documentation and sharing of findings, for example, through the newspapers and websites.
Gujarat. ‘Jyaan maal ne maja aave
tyaan amane maja aave’ [Where the
sheep are happy, we are happy], say
Rabari pastoralists, who trace their
mythical origins, their avatar, to shepherding. Dedicated to the welfare
of their animals, the shepherds travel
far and wide in search of the choicest
fodder and emerging opportunities.
Credit: Nipun Prabhakar.
Tibet. A winning yak at the yak beauty contest in Golok, Amdo Tibet. In the words of the organiser: ‘Pastoralists, especially young pastoralists, are abandoning yaks too. They sell their yak cheaply; some even give up on pastoralism and move to urban areas. There are so many uncertainties, especially with the decreased price of the caterpillar fungus these years. As pastoralists, life has to depend on animals – that is the essence of being a pastoralist – and that is why we need to re-establish the significance and the value of the yaks, and this is why we organise such a contest.’ Credit: Palden Tsering.
Tibet. A winning yak at the yak beauty contest in Golok, Amdo Tibet. In the words of the organiser: ‘Pastoralists, especially young pastoralists, are abandoning yaks too. They sell their yak cheaply; some even give up on pastoralism and move to urban areas. There are so many uncertainties, especially with the decreased price of the caterpillar fungus these years. As pastoralists, life has to depend on animals – that is the essence of being a pastoralist – and that is why we need to re-establish the significance and the value of the yaks, and this is why we organise such a contest.’ Credit: Palden Tsering.
Photo elicitation
Photo elicitation is a method of interview in visual sociology that uses visual images to elicit comments. In PASTRES, the researchers captured context-embedded photos of what they thought was essential to visualise uncertainty during their long stints in the field sites. They showed these photos to the community to elicit responses. For example, in Kachchh, India, Borona, Ethiopia, and in Sardinia, Italy, the photos drew out reflections on different themes such as uncertain markets and pricing, perceptions of risks, and changing weather patterns, which highlighted tacit knowledge, emotional responses, and subconscious feelings around issues of uncertainty and how resources are changing.
A wealthy, old, male pastoralist took this photograph to show a new form of wealth accumulation, while a poor, young female saw poverty driving youth to be daily labourers. Credit: Malicha.
For more detailed information on these methods, explored through cases from the sites, see Chapter 2: Decoding Uncertainty in Pastoral Contexts through Visual Methods by Shibaji Bose and Roopa Gogineni in the book Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Development.