ABSTRACT
Multimodality is about the platforms we use as we produce our work (social media, blogs, websites), and the social media that ripple out from them as people share, comment, remix, and appropriate. Finally, multimodality is the acknowledgement that people are engaged in anthropologies of their own lives, and that these productions (YouTube videos, Instagram photos) are worthy of attention as ethnographically intended media in their own rights. By multimodality, then, we recognize anthropology along two complementary axes – a horizontal one that links together phases of anthropological research that are oftentimes held distinct from each other, and a vertical one that links our anthropological work to the anthropologies of our collaborators. Moreover, with the development of new media, new media platforms, and new forms of collaborative work, we have seen these axes multiply. Ultimately, multimodality takes the arbitrary divisions we make in our work and in our collaborations to task, and offers up new possibilities for old dilemmas. This presents exciting possibilities for ethnographic media production and creates new emergent works, partnerships, and audiences. To the point of this book, anthropology has been multimodal for quite some time we will argue. But the recognition and academic validation of a multimodal anthropology started in the US in 2017.
