ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with a brief consideration of the role of the camera in learning about complexity. Some methods – Video-Reflexive Ethnography (VRE) included – foreground the experiential and emotional dimensions of care. VRE distinguishes itself from these kinds of ‘technical engagement with the world’. Clinical handover, infection control, end of life, autism, and respect in care, breast milk use in neonatal intensive care units, patients’ experiences and more are all open to VRE intervention. In contrast to this, VRE sets store by retrieving everyday experiences in as unprocessed a form and format as possible: as visual footage capturing events in real time. VRE renders engaging with complex circumstances conditional neither on ‘understanding the dimensions of complexity’ nor on the deployment of conventional data gathering methods that objectify the aspects of complex circumstances. In tandem with other efforts and approaches, VRE can offer special impetus and elicit unusual levels of energy among those struggling with systems, practices and relationships.
