Media Anthropology and Visual Anthropology

In Media Anthropology and Visual Anthropology we focus on the central role the media plays in shaping cultural and social processes in contemporary life. Research and teaching in these areas are geared to analyzing developments at both global and local levels. The Department has two main areas of focus:

One is theoretical and empirical treatment of the mediatization, visualization and digitalization of culture and society. These questions are approached fromacultural research- and anthropological perspective, and include issues such as media use, media-networks and hegemonic representations / forms of media counter-strategies, to name but a few. In practice this can embrace such subjects as digital archives and memorial culture; media in the context of forced migration and asylum; Digital Storytelling in higher education; or studio photography in Cameroon.

The second area is how different audiovisual and digital materials and technologies are used in cultural research, and current methodological developments in the area of Visual Anthropology. The Department is one of the leading Institutes in the field of Sensorial Ethnography, Visual Discourse Analysis and Collaborative Film Research. 

Ethnographic Film and Ethnographic Film Festival

Ethnographic Film represents an additional feature of research and teaching. The Department has its own editing rooms and professional equipment allowing it to produce home-grown audio-visual output and ensure professional training in the required methods and techniques. An increasing number of the Department’s students chooses the possibility to produce their BA or MA thesis in the form of a film or another audiovisual piece. Student productions are screened before a broad public side-by-side with the latest international film offerings during the Department’s annual Ethnographic Film Festival.

Here you can find a number of audio-visual projects that have been produced by or in collaboration with students at our Department.

In/Visible - University of Bremen
50 Years of the University of Bremen

The film series In/Visible portrays people and places at the University of Bremen that tend to remain invisible in everyday university life. The films open up unusual and surprising perspectives on the University of Bremen. The films were made as part of the seminar 'In/Visible - University of Bremen' at the Department of Anthropology and Cultural Research. The seminar was funded by the project fund “50 Years of the University of Bremen”.