2005. Dori Griffin.

The photographs in this book were taken in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, during the Multimedia Interdisciplinary Research project in Anthropology sponsored by the University of Florida, coordinated and directed by Maria Rogal. During seven days in Playa, eight students and three faculty engaged in lectures, discussions, and fieldwork centered around ethnography, visual representation, consumer culture, and tourism. Located south of Cancun on the Maya Riviera, Playa del Carmen is a popular tourist destination in the midst of rapid expansion. The MIRA project was design to introduce participating students to ethnographic methodologies during the course of exploring the nature of tourist consumption in playa.

Of considerable interest to our group was the question: what gives an image ethnographic value? The interdisciplinary nature of the project provided us with multiple theoretical perspectives on and a variety of practical approaches to photography. While answers to this question turned out to be elusive, we were able to produce a rich variety of images, as well as exchanging thoughts and perspectives between distinct and often isolated disciplines.

The four series of photographs I have included in this book comprise one version of my own exploration of this central question. More than anything, the photographs and accompanying texts document my own experiences and questions as a newcomer to the field of visual ethnography. Far from capturing the reality of others’ daily lives, the images here establish my own position in relationship to the people and practices I observed. Operating in an alien intellectual framework proved to be stressful, exciting, and ultimately rewarding. In my attempt to see outside the boundaries of my own discipline, graphic design, I discovered that the questions I consider as a designer—how to represent others, how to acknowledge one’s own position as a filter of information, how to treat ideas and people with visibly manifested respect—inform work in other disciplines, as well.

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