Outline of an interdisciplinary method: from counter-visual ethnography to tracing

This visual essay shares ideas from a collaborative project that brings together visual art and social science research in a novel way. Though it has much in common with conventional approaches to ethnography, counter-visual ethnography is a unique approach to qualitative research in the social sciences insofar as it focuses on what is missing, removed, or absent from the world around us. Counter-visual analysis requires a process of investigating and reflecting on the research site (including visual representations of it) to excavate and re-interpret buried meanings or other relevant interpretations. We offer a guide to producing creative, artistic works out of counter-visual ethnography. The essay is structured chronologically, beginning with a short note on the social science starting point of this work. We open with reflections on our research in Uranium City, Saskatchewan, where this project began. We then outline the method going from counter-visual ethnography to palimpsest and tracing. This involves a collaborative, community-engaging approach to art and knowledge mobilisation that bridges traditional academic disciplines. We conclude with comments on additional ways to extend use of this technique and additional empirical sites where this interdisciplinary visual method could be applied.