The Potential of Digital Storytelling as an Ethnographic Research Technique in Social Sciences

By using ethnographic research techniques, we can ask questions in order to understand some issues in the social sciences such as experience, the unique, the ordinary, daily life, emotions etc. However, it is possible to query the proficiency of current ethnographic techniques to design dialogic research and to convey the experiences of the ‘subjects’ of the field research. Techniques such as in-depth interviews, informal interviews and even the focus group depend on the dichotomy of the researcher who asks questions and the subject who responds to them. However, designing dialogic field research requires refusing those dichotomies, which can be considered to be inherited from a positivist understanding of science. In this article I discuss the potential of any digital storytelling workshop as an ethnographic research technique, with regard to three issues that seem problematic in current ethnographic techniques: integrated research processes; power and hierarchy relationships; and conveying the voice of subjects. The discussion of this article results from two academic experiences: One of them is my ethnographic field research experience for my doctoral dissertation; 1 the other is the digital storytelling workshop entitled When I was in the field: Digital Stories from Young Academic Women. 2 First, I


In need of new ways of knowing
In a very real sense, the ethnographer may be profitably understood as a storyteller. (Grills, 1998: 199) The dominant epistemology of science in "trying to know" by certain question patterns and certain techniques is that, while it regards a number of fields and experiences as insignificant and far from being scientific, it does not have need to know them as well. As Law stated in his book After Method: Mess in Social Research, there is: [N]o doubt some things in the world can indeed be made clear and definite. Income distributions, global CO 2 emissions, the boundaries of nation states, and terms of trade, these are the kinds of provisionally stable realities that social and natural science deal with more or less effectively. But alongside such phenomena the world is also textured in quite different ways. My argument is that academic methods of inquiry don't really catch these. So what textures are they missing out on? If we start to make a list then it quickly becomes clear that it is potentially endless. Pains and pleasures, hopes and horrors, intuitions and apprehensions, losses and redemptions, mundanities and visions, angels and demons, things that slip and slide, or appear and disappear, change shape or don't have much form at all, unpredictabilities, these are just a few of the phenomena that are hardly caught by social science methods. It may be, of storytelling) as an ethnographic research technique. We wanted to discuss the problems of ethnographic research techniques that we encounter in the field and see if DST has a potential that allows us to ask new questions. course, that they don't belong to social science at all. But perhaps they do, or partly do, or should do. (2004: 2) This argument holds that it is not possible to proceed with a science that assumes objectivity purified from value, surrenders its scientific manners to researches at the rate of their being repeatable by others, deems uniqueness worthless and is in pursuit of universal realities. Therefore, there are valuable objections not only towards the positivistic understanding of science, but also towards the positivistic viewpoint of social sciences. One of the strongest critiques comes from Cultural Studies which finds it valuable to be curious about, to discuss and ask questions about daily life, race, popular culture, and gender and women's studies. These approaches further define the boundaries of science with one of feminism's most important discourses: "The personal is political" (Hanisch, 1970), Which opens personal experiences and private issues to discussion in the context of political analysis. It can be said that all these new research fields stemmed from the need to ask new questions. It seems to me that the need of science for new perspectives, vision and a different mode of knowledge can possibly be met by the answers generated from these objections that I mentioned above.
With the increase and diversification of the issues that we can investigate in social sciences, it has become more important to discuss the adequacy of current research techniques. Even though ethnographic techniques allow us to ask questions about the experiences, perceptions and the meaning systems of subjects, these techniques need to be criticised in terms of three aspects: 1. Are these techniques sufficient to design a research process that has an integrated structure rather than the sum of separable stages, from the beginning to the end of the research? Can we design dialogic field research, where knowledge is produced and interpreted in cooperation between the researcher and the subjects? 2. Are these techniques sufficient in effacing the hierarchical power relationship between the researcher and the subjects?
3. Are these techniques sufficient to represent the experiences, perceptions and meaning systems of the subjects?
The first question is one of the vital issues about ethnographic research techniques, because this is the point where we can see the shadow of positivist understanding of science having fallen upon ethnographic techniques. According to the positivistic viewpoint, a research is a structure that comprises separable stages. In other words, there are questions that can be asked to build up the research object (as the first stage), there are some techniques to collect data (as the second stage), there are some criteria to interpret the data (as the third stage). Research is the sum of these separable stages. Unfortunately, it is possible to see that ethnographic researches have almost the same separable stages. In this separable structure, the researcher and the subjects come together just at the second stage, while the data is being collected. But the researcher is alone at the other two stages, when the research object is built up and the data is interpreted. According to this separable structure, a researcher is a person able to know which questions she/he will ask and to interpret the responses. This structure has defined the hierarchical positions of the researcher and the subjects in the beginning of the research and this approach, as Wolf has stated, "entails and encourages distance and non-involvement between the researcher and researched and assumes that the researcher may objectively see, judge and interpret the life and meanings of his/her subjects" (1996: 4). An approach of conducting science with a dominant understanding of hierarchy, which is established on the duality of the researcher/researched, deserves some criticisms.
When we (all participants and facilitators of the workshop) discussed the hierarchical positions of the researcher and the subjects, in the digital storytelling workshop entitled When I was in the field: Digital Stories from Young Academic Women, it turned out that we had designed our field research along this separable structure. So, there was a problem.
Because in our field research, all of us, as both facilitators and participants of the workshop, had experienced similar difficulties in trying to interpret the data; in other words, in trying to tell the stories of the subjects in the context of the collected data. For example, Feride, one of the participants of the workshop told her story, as follows: It was one of my first in-depth interviews for my dissertation's field research. I was a little bit nervous. But it was a good interview, we drank tea, chatted, had fun. But after this interview, when I started to listen to the recordings and to try to categorise the data, I suddenly began to cry. I felt sad and alone (15 th March 2013).
"Face with the Sameness." One of the stories of the DST workshop entitled, "When I was in the field: Digital Stories from Young Academic Women", 2013, Ankara. http://vimeo.com/91293008. I experienced a similar difficulty. The subjects had remained in the field and I had to interpret the data alone. My field research took five months in Gaziantep and we spent a lot of time with the subjects. Yet, after the fieldwork, when I turned back home and began to interpret the data, I realised that there was something that I could not understand clearly enough. I felt as Feride did. There are a lot of experiences like these.
For a dialogic research process that enables subjects to participate in the research from beginning to end, we need to design the research as an integrated process rather than separable. Therefore, with such an integrated process, the researcher may not feel alone while interpreting the data; as well, the contribution of the subjects to the research may be increased.
To include the subjects in the process of interpreting data, as Atay (1995) has explained in his article on the dialogical research process, reduces the power of the researcher's initiative in interpreting and publishing the data. This point brings us to the second question: Are these techniques sufficient in effacement of the hierarchical power relationship between the researcher and the subjects? "A Travel Story in Field". One of the stories of the DST workshop entitled, "When I was in the field: Digital Stories from Young Academic Women", 2013, Ankara. http://vimeo.com/91301104 The power relationship between researcher and subjects constitutes one of the most sensitive discussion topics concerning method and techniques. Such a relationship is grounded in a dualistic viewpoint and as Hekman has stated dualisms always imply hierarchies and hierarchies always imply control (Bleier, 1984: 164;Haraways, 1978: 36; cited in Hekman, 1990: 121). The ability to decide to begin and end the research, which is under the initiative of the researcher, constructs a relationship based on hierarchy. This relationship is of great importance as it has a determining effect on the research process.
Wolf points out 3 interrelated dimensions of power: 1. Power differences stemming from different positionalities of the researcher and the researched (race, class, nationality, life changes, urban-rural backgrounds); 2. Power exerted during the research process, such as defining the research relationship, unequal exchange, and exploitation; 3. Power exerted during the post fieldwork period -writing and representing.
(1996: 2) What is the meaning of "the hierarchical power relationship between the researcher and the subjects"? In the context of this article's discussion, it would be better to define where the power relationship is, rather than what it is. Thus, I would like to mention the last two dimensions that Wolf points out.
During field research, an in-depth interview technique gives the power to ask questions almost solely to the researcher. In other words, the precedence to ask questions frequently causes the researcher to establish power over the subjects. On the other hand, this situation of the researcher may cause them to be perceived as an authority on the issue by the subjects. "In cases where the participants perceive the researcher as an authority or an expert, they can hesitate to explain their views or thoughts with the fear of giving inaccurate, incomplete and insufficient information" (Kümbetoğlu, 2011: 487 visual data by taking photos, and videos and script data of her/his observations by keeping a field diary. All these records build up the main parts of a story; but not the story itself.
They reflect the perceptions and inferences of the researcher about the story. It is certain that all these perceptions and inferences rest on a scientific basis, yet the problem is, who interprets the data; both the researcher and the subjects or just the researcher her/himself?
This question is important because, as Kümbetoğlu has stated, "[p]eople, always, remember and quote their narrations with many other things going on together. How a researcher conceptualises this complicated social reality and depicts the world of the participant, is directly related with the theoretical orientation of the researcher" (Kümbetoğlu, 2011: 485). 4 It is likely to say that there is a relationship between the theoretical orientation of the researcher and his/her own story, which consists of their own priorities, fears, ideology, imagination, interests etc. Because of this relationship it is impossible to talk about either a value-free description of the field or a value-free interpretation of the data.
The term ethnographer quite literally translates from its root words as, 'one who writes about a people'. In writing, we make decisions about the story we will tellhow the tale will be made theoretically interesting, what questions we will engage with our work, and what aspects of our research will be presented and what will be set aside. Through this process, lived research and the experiences that accompany it are represented and mediated by text. (Grills, 1998: 199) The researcher redirects not only the data but also the subjects and the process of the field research. In the context of this assertion, I would like to discuss the third question concerning the sufficiency of the current ethnographic research techniques to represent the experiences, perceptions and meaning systems of the subjects. To summarise, the researcher's redirection may affect not only the interpretation but also the production process of the data. In their stories, participants use visuals (photography from their albums, drawings, videos or any visual that they produce or find) and self-expression skills to tell of their unique experiences. So, it can be said that the stories of the participants include ethnographic data. For example, in the stories of the workshop entitled When I was in the field: Digital Stories from Young Academic Women, it turned out that we had to face fears in the field due to being women. It was not one of the topics of the workshop; it appeared in our stories spontaneously. We realised it after we saw each other's stories. This is not the only reason to offer the use of the digital storytelling workshop as an ethnographic research technique. The workshop process itself can also be used as a technique of ethnographic research. 5 So, at this point it would be better to talk on the structure of the workshops.
A digital storytelling workshop consists of six co-creating stages, which Şimşek explains as follows: Every workshop opens with the story circle, followed by more technical processes such as the script-text writing, voiceover recording, sound editing, image production and editing, and putting the digital story together using the available software. This technical workload is relieved with a final dialogic stage in the screening session, where participants see each other's digital stories as finished digital pieces. (Şimşek, 2012: 59) In digital storytelling workshops, beginning with a story circle produced around a concept, rather than beginning with direct or indirect questions, minimises the redirection and eliminates the power of the researcher as much as possible. Before discussing how this is managed, it will be better to define what the story circle is: The story circle is also the stage where the facilitators convince the participants that everyone has stories to tell and they are worth sharing. No story is more valuable than any other, and there cannot be a hierarchy among stories. As the story circle is a dialogic stage, Dialogue provides one of the strongest aspects of digital storytelling workshops as an ethnographic research technique, owing to the fact that it can overcome the difficulty of establishing mutual trust between the researcher and the subjects. From the very start, for the researcher to be telling, sharing and producing his/her own story under the same roof and conditions as the subjects of the research, renders the digital storytelling workshop as a more promising research technique than other techniques in enabling the trust relationship which is desired to be created. Nevertheless, such a cooperative production process allows the researcher and the subjects to experience something about the research, together. And such an experience may also help to establish a trust relationship. A person or a group of people comes into other people's lives, keeps records of these lives, and collects data about them. In this process what happened to those people who came into their lives, took a record, and what was the data collected about? What kind of a relationship is established with them? How do they participate in this process? What kind of relationship is developed between the researcher and the subjects? How are they affected by the research? (Selek, 2009: 115)  and to move at the end of the workshop, increases the visibility of participants in the research, thus to a great extent saving the benefit gained from being unilateral.
Using ethnographic research techniques such as participating, observation, informal and in-depth interviews can supply only a representation or translation of the subjects' voices.
Writing up someone's experiences and meanings inevitably causes this representation/ translation. However, at the same time it diminishes the voice -and also visibility -of the subjects of the field within the research. But, if we can include the voice of the subjects, in other words, if we can directly use the stories of the participants in the research, this allows the subjects to represent themselves. At this juncture, one of the strongest aspects of digital storytelling emerges: the opportunity for the participants to tell of their unique experience using their own voices, instead of going through a researcher's representation.
As distinct from ethnographic research techniques such as participating observation and in depth interview techniques, "[i]n digital stories, voice not only tells a vital narrative but it also captures the essence of the narrator, their unique character, and their connection to the lived experience" (Lambert, 2013: 63).
The opportunity of self-representation that is provided by the digital storytelling workshop becomes important especially for disadvantaged groups, such as LGBT, minorities, refugees, poor, prostitutes etc., who do not have the opportunity to represent themselves in the mainstream media, where they may be exposed to discrimination or have prejudices expressed against them. Self-representation is not the only reason for increased visibility; the other is the circulation capability of digital stories through a variety of media. "In addition to face-to-face in-group and public screenings, the circulation of digital stories through a website dedicated to Digital Storytelling projects, or through social networks such as Facebook and YouTube, can be an effective way of sharing digital stories with wider audiences" (Şimşek, 2012: 203 -Its capability to reduce the power and redirection of the researcher and to establish a mutual trust relationship between the researcher and the subjects. On the other hand, it has been emphasised that there were some difficulties that must be overcome. First of all, all participants asked the same question: While working with groups which we can define as disadvantaged such as migrants, prostitutes or minorities, although rendering their experiences visible through their own voices is a potential that the digital storytelling workshop should take into consideration, can this also turn into a problem (handicap) while working with participants who are illiterate or who have never used a computer before? If I were to provide an answer depending on our workshop experiences that we have gained under similar conditions, I can state that many difficulties that the story production process may involve can be overcome through the interactive and sharing relationship established in the workshops between the facilitators and participants. 7 The other problem expressed by the participants was related to the financing of the research. In order for a researcher to be able to evaluate the potential of the digital storytelling workshop as a research technique, she/he should be provided with the necessary technical equipment as well as the necessary training for being a workshop facilitator. However, one of the participants, Nihal, had a suggestion to overcome this problem: Maybe you will think that is not realistic but I would like to suggest something. To summarise, there are some difficulties in putting the potential of digital storytelling workshops into practice, but also it can be regarded as an ethnographic research technique in social sciences in which the components of the digital stories and the workshop processes -that I mentioned above -are taken into consideration. Yet, the digital storytelling workshop form is certainly not a magic wand; putting this potential into practice depends on how the researcher and the subjects experience the workshop process.