ESRC Polaris House, North Star Avenue, Swindon, Wiltshire, United Kingdom SN2 1UJ Telephone +44 (0) 1793 413000 Web http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ COMPLIANCE WITH THE DATA PROTECTION ACT 1998 In accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998, the personal data provided on this form will be processed by ESRC, and may be held on computerised database and/or manual files. Further details may be found in the guidance notes
Research Grants PROPOSAL
Document Status: With Council ESRC Reference:
Future Research Leaders - Full Proposals Organisation where the Grant would be held
Organisation Division or Department
Research Organisation Reference:
Media Geographies
Geography
Project Title [up to 150 chars] New media geographies of photography and video Start Date and Duration a. Proposed start 01 October 2012 date
b. Duration of the grant (months)
36
Applicants Role
Name
Organisation
Principal Investigator
Division or Department
How many hours a week will the investigator work on the project?
Geography
22.5
Classification International in nature? Yes Please give details Two components of the fieldwork will take place out of the country. One field season will be in Cambodia (in and around Phnom Phen) and another in San Francisco (United States of America).
Page 1 of 13
Date Saved: 22/02/2012 09:57:47 Date Printed: 22/02/2012 13:13:10
Objectives List the main objectives of the proposed research [up to 4000 chars] The primary objective of the project will be to encourage and interrogate the current and potential uses of new media (Web 2.0 and beyond) technologies within geography. There is a growing interest in geography in the use of video, photography, audio recording, new interactive media creation and web dissemination. Researchers are finding that the media offer new methodological possibilities and that the utilisation of these media often drastically increases the reach and impact of their research. These technologies, as well, are increasingly being been as instrumental teaching aids for a new generation of mediasavvy students and vital to new was of working in the media and need to be drawn into academic practice. In order to realise this primary objective, a New Media Geography Network (NMGN) will be established based at […] to act as a hub for discussion around these issues and more. Our secondary objectives, all of which complement the primary objective, fall into three categories: empirical, capacity building and demonstrative. First, three empirical projects will be undertaken using audio/visual technology to demonstrate the potentials and pitfalls of new media geographies. Two of these projects will use video. The first video project will be a more 'traditional' ethnographic documentary about people, place and politics centred on graveyard dwellings in Cambodia. This documentary will be filmed at the 2013 Cambofest film festival and beyond. The second video project will create a record of a landscape under change in London at the 2012 London Olympic site one year after the event has completed, building on a previous documentary about London's pre-Olympic waterways that has now become a school course module. The final project will be a nocturnal photo tour of San Fransisco, a project of scale that will reveal the hidden social and infrastructural entities that keep our cites running, followed by an exhibit of the work at the Center for Land Use Interpretation in Los Angeles in collaboration with the University of California Berkeley Institute of Urban and Regional Development (IURD). All three projects are linked by a notion of using new media to reveal 'the hidden', which, I argue, is one of the primary benefits of doing new media work, building on my previous research experience (see CV). The second capacity building stand of objectives will be accomplished through a series of three seminars (aimed at 30-40 participants) at […] following each of the three projects. Using our empirical field recordings as a starting point, we will invite other researchers from within the NMGN and beyond to submit their own multimedia work, reaching out beyond geography to any discipline interested in critically interrogating the potentials and boundaries of these methods. The ensuing discussions about how we use these media, and in what context, will help to work thought what has already been done (for instance in the field of visual anthropology) and to unravel the potentials for their use. Finally, the power and value of the methods will be demonstrated. Partly though new media channels themselves, but also through publications will be submitted to international journals which are working on ways to incorporate new media into their publications. The publications produced under this FRL grant will serve as archetypal examples of how new media can be deployed effectively and with analytical purchase. Summary Describe the proposed research in simple terms in a way that could be publicised to a general audience [up to 4000 chars] This Future Research Leaders grant will be used to form a new research group based at the Geography Department at […] called the New Media Geographies Network (NMGN). This organisation will work to help geographers utilise new media, especially video and photography, in their research and provide a webspace for social scientists to discuss and debate theoretical and practical issues surrounding research. Over three years, I will undertake three major visual projects tied together by a common theme of 'hidden urbanisms', each with a slightly different focus and technique, to set an example for how new media work can be done in geography. Each project will be followed by a seminar at […] built around a specific aspect of new media geography that relates to the project for that year and a scholarly publication outlining what has been learned. Below are the three proposed projects. In year one, the first hidden urbanism is located in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. There I will make a video documentary with people who have moved into graveyards where the government has illegally taken their land. This project, called Living in Graves, will use a participatory video approach, collaborating with the people being filmed. The film will then be shown at a local film festival. Back in […], it will underpin a seminar called Media Geographies I: New Uses for Participatory Video about the benefits and dangers of filming sensitive, emotional issues such as this. An article on the topic will also be published in the Page 2 of 13
Date Saved: 22/02/2012 09:57:47 Date Printed: 22/02/2012 13:13:10
journal Critical Asian Studies and a presentation given at the International Visual Sociology Association (IVSA) conference. In year two, the second hidden urbanism is in London. Returning to the site where, in 2010, I filmed a documentary on the then upcoming Olympics called London's Olympic Waterscape, I will do follow up interviews and video recordings for a new documentary called Olympic Afterglow?. This film will complement the earlier film (that is now used for a school course module) and will address issues of how film can be used to document changes in landscape and place over time. Following filming, the second seminar in the series will be held at […], this one entitled New Media Geographies II: Video, Landscape and Place. A paper on the project will be submitted for publication in the International Journal of Heritage Studies where I published about London's Olympic Waterscape previously, and the research will be presented at the 2013 Royal Geographical Society international conference. In year three, the hidden urbanism is nocturnal San Francisco with a final project called Nocturnal Giant. This photography project will be a series of 500 pictures depicting San Francisco over the course of one night, focussing on the small events that take places people often don't notice, like street cleaning, trash pick-up, night-time revellers and quite 24 hour cafes. Returning to […], I will hold a final seminar in the three part series entitled New Media Geographies III: Scales of Media building on this research. An article on this final project will be submitted to the journal Urban Geography and presented at the annual Society for Visual Anthropology conference. In the course of these projects, I will be working with three organisations. The first is a film training company called InSight where I will be taking courses in documentary filmmaking. The training I receive from Insight will be used on project but also re-taught through the New Media Geography Network and the three […] -based workshops. The second organization I will work with is the Center for Land Use and Interpretation in Los Angeles who will provide equipment and facilities for display of my images from San Francisco. Finally, I will spend one term abroad at UC Berkeley, working in the IURD. The skills gained there will, again, be brought back to […], utilised and taught. Academic Beneficiaries Describe who will benefit from the research [up to 4000 chars]. Perhaps one of the greatest contributions of this Future Research Leaders (FRL) project is it's benefit to the academic community, especially but not only researchers working in geography. The proposed New Media Geography Network (NMGN) will act as an intellectual hub for researchers who are working with, or interested in working with, new media and Web 2.0 technologies. The NMGN will, early in it's establishment, be promoted heavily within the discipline using forum boards and email lists to ensure a wide swath of involvement. The website for the NMGN will also include links to relevant training, equipment and publications which will assist researchers in initiating projects, following through with audio/visual research and sharing those results with an interdisciplinary academic audience. Importantly, the NMGM will lead by example. Through the Cambodia case study, we will demonstrate how video can be used to capture landscapes in transition and to document sensitive cultural issues and contemporary urban problems. Dr […] and I have planned a joint publication from the work for the Critical Asian Studies journal, and a presentation at the Society for Visual Anthropology and will hold a follow up workshop at […] to discuss the social, cultural and ethical implications of the research in the context of participatory visual methodologies. In the London case study, we will show how video can capture change over time by re-visiting a site of previous data collection and overlaying a sort of visual palimpsest unveiling in the changing social voices of the area. A research paper on the project will be submitted to the International Journal of Heritage Studies where I published about the preceding film (Anton et al., 2011). In our third case study, we will endevour to create of visual record not of what is changing or disappearing but what is ignored in a way which may find broader appeal among art and visual media theorists rather than social scientists. An article on this final project will be submitted to the journal Urban Geography and the work will be discussed at the annual Society for Visual Anthropology conference, to again increase interdisciplinary reach. While the network will play an vital role as an academic support community for geographers to gain contacts and initiate new projects, and to lead by example in undertaking such work, it will also provide avenues to multiple platforms for research dissemination. The three annual conferences held at […] will act as a sounding board for researchers involved with, and outside of, the network and give researchers space to 'work through' their experiments with new media, sharing insights on successes and failures. We will push thinking, in particular, about geographical notions of place, landscape, scale, mobility and change and how new media is complicating a complimenting these 'traditional' notions. Page 3 of 13
Date Saved: 22/02/2012 09:57:47 Date Printed: 22/02/2012 13:13:10
These workshops will also be advertised to, and attract, researchers in other disciplines and through this focus on interdisciplinary practice through a geographic lens rather than intradisciplinary insular theoretical innovation. Recognising there is fertile theoretical ground where methods cross disciplines, geographers have much to learn from anthropologists and sociologists in particular about how and why they wield new media. The ideas pitched and reworked at these workshops will then be shared at international geography conferences with the principle investigator acting as the liaison to relay what has been learned and why it is important to geography. It will also seek to encourage internationally recognised journals to expand their notions of 'output' beyond text, linking that to the power of social media and thus to expand the nature of dissemination, working in a time of increased metrics and monitoring of academic output to suggest the respectability and importance of these new media avenues. Staff Duties Summarise the roles and responsibilities of each post for which funding is sought [up to 2000 characters] The principle investigator on this FRL project will have full responsibility for all aspects of the project, including network administration, project implementation, workshop organisation, conference presentation, publication and dissemination. In total, this project will be broken down into the following timeframe: 5% website and NMGN forum maintenance and group support, 20% project implementation, 10% workshop organisation, 5% conference presentation, 20% publication (FRL funded period). 20% diploma in higher education teaching responsibilities, 20% teaching participatory methods and urban processes ([…] funded period). Firstly, it will be vital to spend the first few months working to establish the NMGN. This will include website, forum and email list development and advertising through existing networks and lists to attract researchers. Once the network has been established, it will require much less time to maintain since it will be driven primarily by user-generated content and online social networking. As a result, this 5% resource allocation can be diverted to publication or project work in the second and third year of the grant. Secondly, 20% percent of PI duties will be devoted to project work. This will include 1 weeks of project preparation organizing interviews and preparing equipment, travel and accommodation, 4 weeks of fieldwork and 1 weeks of footage logging, photo editing and data organisation. Thirdly, upon return from fieldwork, 10% of the project time will be devoted to workshop organisation at […], including venue booking, flyer production, organisation, hosting and follow up work. Fourthly, 10% of project time will go toward organizing, preparing, attending and presenting at 3 international, interdisciplinary conferences. Finally, a final 30% of the PI's time will be devoted to publishing and disseminating results from fieldwork, workshops and conference presentations. This concludes the FRL funded period. Impact Summary Impact Summary (please refer to the help for guidance on what to consider when completing this section [up to 4000 chars] This project, as a collaboration between three universities ([…] , UC Berkeley and Royal Holloway, University of London) and two non-profit organisations (The Centre for Land Use Interpretation and InsightShare) has a wide potential for reach and impact within the academy. First, in Phom Pehn, Cambodia, I will be building upon work already initiated by Dr. […] at Royal Holloway, University of London. In that context, we will be working with local community groups in Cambodia, making work which speaks back to the individuals, state authorities and private companies involved in land grabbing, supplying fodder to those community groups an NGOs resisting them by depicting their social lives on film. Working closely with NGOs, who will also be beneficiaries, I will demonstrate the potential in using video to change policy, using video as an advocacy tool to give voice, or agency, to project participants. The second project of the proposal again builds on previous work, that of myself and five colleagues and a film we produced together in 2010. London's Olympic Waterscape, the first film, has been developed into a course module and hosted by the British Library. The new film, entitled Olympic Afterglow?, will expand that education module for a direct academic impact. The resulting film, which can be joined to the last to create a three-year case study of landscape change, will be presented at the second 2-day conference at […] where I will invite policy makers, academics and instructors from InSight to discuss avenues for possible academic uses for documentary film. Finally, this film, with London's Olympic Waterscape, will be screened and discussed at the 2013 Royal Geographical Society conference in the United Kingdom where the merits of film to document long-term landscape change will be the primary focus. We would seek to secure non-academic inputs and discussants Page 4 of 13
Date Saved: 22/02/2012 09:57:47
Date Printed: 22/02/2012 13:13:10
to maximise the appeal of a presentation that should have media appeal. The RGS conference media team and […] Media offices would coordinate news releases. The final project of the proposal period with take place in San Francisco, in collaboration with UC Berkeley and the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI). The University of California Berkeley Institute of Urban and Regional Development (IURD) is a hub for urban thought and planning. The CLUI, in Los Angeles, have pioneered the use of new and visual media as forms of political practice around the built and natural environment, toxic waste, pollution and dispossession. Working alongside these partners will build potential for longer term collaboration and platforms to gain impact in this and future projects through their distribution channels and expertise. The collaboration between these groups during the final project, a nocturnal photography study of San Francisco, will also bridge gaps between academic and private research institutions. The CLUI have expressed a willingness and interest to host the resulting materials in their open archive Land Use Database in the urban exploration / underground category that they have noted is 'popular with visitors and ourselves'. Presentations, meetings and research collaborations undertaken at Berkeley will build strong ties between […] and Berkeley architecture and planning. Upon my return to […], the final seminar in the three part series on video as method will be held. After three years of such events, and a steady stream of publications, workshops, screenings and conference presentations, the New Media Geography Network should be well established, as well as my reputation as a research leader pioneering visual methods in geography. Ethical Information Has consideration been given to any ethical matters raised by this proposal ?
Yes
Please explain what, if any, ethical issues you believe are relevant to the proposed research project, and which ethical approvals have been obtained, or will be sought if the project is funded? If you believe that an ethics review is not necessary, please explain your view (available: 4000 characters) Given that this research will involve human project participants during fieldwork components, steps will need to be taken to assure that those participants are content with the use of their images, and in the case of video production, with the ways in which they are depicted in both sound and image. As a fundamental matter, all potential project participants will be made aware, before any project begins, of the possible ways in which these recordings could be used including, but not limited to, audio or video presentations in person or online, public screenings or displays and various academic research outputs. Transparency will be a key goal - no project participant will ever be mislead by the PI or any assisting or associated faculty in regard to the use of fieldwork data. All research participants must take part in research voluntarily, free from any coercion or bribing on the part of the researcher or the University. For instance, on the Living in Graves project, there may be a social or cultural barrier against depicting people undertaking 'taboo' practices such as touching the dead. Perhaps it might also be dangerous to enter those places if people feel the camera is threatening to expose those taboos. Issues like this will, of course, have to be negotiated carefully between the PI, […] and any project participants. Furthermore, research staff at Durham University who choose to collaborate on aspects of this project must consistently be informed about the purpose, methods and intended possible uses of the research, what their participation in the research entails and what risks, if any, are involved. If at any point the media recorded is used for a commercial or semi-commercial purpose, i.e. using a project participant to promote the NMGN, this will need to be discussed and negotiated on a case-by-case basis. As a final point of contentions, any filming that takes place at workshops will need to be cleared with all parties in attendance beforehand in a similar manner and signage will be posted in those venues to remind participants that recordings are taking place. All this taken into account, it is worth saying that most people now are used to be filmed and photographed, especially in cities, where all of this work is taking place, and previous experience indicates it is not usually negatively perceived. Where it is, it is usually easily mitigated. In any case, all of these ethical issues will be taken int careful consideration throughout the course of the project. Outside of project work and possibly workshop filming, there are unlikely to be any additional ethical considerations.
Page 5 of 13
Date Saved: 22/02/2012 09:57:47 Date Printed: 22/02/2012 13:13:10
Summary of Resources Required for Project Financial resources Summary fund heading Fund heading Directly Incurred Staff Travel & Subsistence Equipment Other Costs Sub-total Directly Allocated
Summary of staff effort requested Full economic ESRC Cost contribution 73299.02
0.00 22557.00 114936.02
Investigators 0.00 0.00 Estates Costs 10431.00 Other Directly Allocated 0.00 0.00 Sub-total 10431.00
Indirect Costs Indirect Costs Exceptions
58639.22 80
19080.00 0.00
Staff Other Costs Sub-total Total
77949.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
15264.00 80 100 18045.60 80 91948.82
Investigator Researcher Technician Other Visiting Researcher Student Total
Months 21.5 0 0 0 0 0 21.5
80 8344.80 80 80 8344.80 62359.20 80
0.00 0.00 0.00 203316.02
% ESRC contribution
100 100
162652.82
Page 6 of 13
Date Saved: 22/02/2012 09:57:47 Date Printed: 22/02/2012 13:13:10
Staff Directly Incurred Posts EFFORT ON PROJECT Period Role
Name /Post Identifier
Start Date
on
% of Full
Project
Time
Scale
Increment Date
(months) Principal Investigator
01/10/2012
36
60
Grade 7
01/10/2013
Basic Starting
London
Super-
Allowan annuation
Salary
ce (£)
and NI (£)
31948
0
7561.24
Total cost on grant (£)
73299.02 73299.02
Travel and Subsistence Destination and purpose Outside UK Cambodia flight, accomodation, subsistance for fieldwork Outside UK San Francisco flight, accomodation, subsistance for fieldwork Within UK London train, accomodation, subsistance for fieldwork Within UK Travel bursaries (x3) for PhD student attendance at […] Workshops Outside UK Travel to the 2012 Society for Visual Anthropology conference Within UK Travel to 2013 Royal Geographical Society annual conference Outside UK Travel to 2014 International Visual Sociology conference Total £
Total £ 3005 6000 4930 900 1400 1445 1400 19080
Other Directly Incurred Costs Description Local Cambodian research assistants (x2) (£450/month each for 1.5 months) to organise and help conduct film shoots, hold informant interviews with graveyard residents and policymakers, interpretation, transcription and secretarial duties. Video kit to conduct interviews - Canon 5D Mark II still/video camera, Canon 24mm f/1.4 prime lens for shooting in low-light conditions, Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM Lens for zoom conditions, headphones, tripod, microphones, case, cables & batteries. 27" iMac desktop computer, 3.4GHz with 2TB hard drive space for PI to edit video and photographs, organise and store fieldworks data. Firewire Hard drives (x2) to store and backup video. 178 Final Cut Studio software for video editing by PI (x1) 690 Blue-ray DVDs for distribution to project partners and public (100+ copies). 600 Documentary film Masterclass training from InightShare Final film professional editing (sound levelling and colour grading) Final film screenings and exhibitions in Cambodia (x1) Organization of media geography workshops (x3) at […] University University of California Berkeley Institute of Urban and Regional Development (IURD) visiting scholar fee. 200 Total £
Total 1350
7379 2160
1200 1800 4000 3000
22557
Timetable estimates of the number of months after the start of the project to reach the following stages: Stage Completion of all preparation and design work Commencement of fieldwork or material/information/data collection phase of study Completion of fieldwork or collection phase of study Commencement of analysis phase of study (substantive phase where research facilities are involved) Completion of analysis phase of study Commencement of writing-up of the research Completion of preparation of any new datasets for archiving Completion of writing-up
Number of Months 3 3 9 9 12 21 36 36
Data Collection If the research involves data collection or acquisition, please indicate how existing datasets have been reviewed and state why currently available datasets are inadequate for this proposed research. If you do not state to the contrary, it will be assumed that you (as principal applicant) are willing for
This project will consist of creative audio/video work (documentary and artistic production) which does not have existing data sets. All final edited videos and photos will be public and easily transferable to the research council online or on a hard drive.
Page 8 of 13
Date Saved: 22/02/2012 09:57:47 Date Printed: 22/02/2012 13:13:10
your contact details to be shared with the affiliated data support service (Economic and Social Data Service) working with the Research Councils. Will the research proposed in this application produce new datasets? Will this data be: Please give a brief description of the datasets. It is a requirement to offer data for archiving. Please include a statement on data sharing. If you believe that further data sharing is not possible, please present your argument here justifying your case. Who are likely to be the users (academic or non-academic) of the dataset(s)?
Yes Quantitative ✔ Qualitative Video recordings and photographs will be produced (documentary and artistic media production). The data produced on these project will be public and freely available for future researchers to access, assess and use.
Governments, NGOs, academic researchers, artist and the public are some of the groups who may be interested in the work produced.
Please outline costs of preparing No costs should be incurred, the Research Council can and documenting the data for simply be given the hard drive with the video/photography archiving to the standards required by files on it for archiving. the affiliated data support service (Economic and Social Data Service) working with the Research Councils.
Page 9 of 13
Date Saved: 22/02/2012 09:57:47 Date Printed: 22/02/2012 13:13:10
New media geographies of photography and video - Case for Support Proposed research: New media, including visual technologies, are rapidly proliferating with the increasing use and ubiquity of digital formats. The popularisation of inexpensive technology, combined with the ability for users to edit and share their own media, has radically changed the social landscape, particularly in the past five years, with the rise of what is colloquially known as ‘Web 2.0’. The social sciences, however, have largely failed to keep pace with the possibilities that new media offer for the advancement of research: both new ways of doing established work and entirely new research potentials (Erickson, 2011, Garrett, 2010). This Future Research Leader (FRL) project will make clear, over the course of three years, the importance that researchers study the use of media in broader social contexts and, more importantly, fold themselves into the mode of practices involved with new media to become active producers and collaborators. This work, in the context of popular Web 2.0 practices, should be undertaken by social scientists not as ‘expert’ media specialists (as has been the case in much visual anthropology work), but as facilitators helping participants to use and engage with media more critically. Increasingly, this is a world where data, media and stories are produced and distributed by people themselves – as citizen journalists (Fish 2009), or through the neogeographies of open source spatial data sharing programmes (Graham 2010). The rise of new types of media and information, and the power they give people, may potentially bypass the traditional roles social scientists have played as legislators and gatekeepers. We urgently need to rethink and rework our roles as facilitators, translators and interpreters if we are not to be bypassed through modes of popular cultural interpretation and made irrelevant in styles of dissemination. Strategies for engaging with the new media will be demonstrated through undertaking three international visual research projects. Concurrently, this FRL project will begin to theoretically unravel the increasingly complex relationship we have with these media and the ways in which audio, video, photography, and web distribution disrupts and enriches traditional geographic notions of space, place, scale and landscape by drawing our sensory attentions to things, people, events and places outside our everyday experience. This will be exemplified through a focus on three empirical projects using new media to reveal the ‘hidden’ in the urban environment. The interweaving of new media into landscape to form a technological palimpsest (Graham 2010) offers many promises. However, at the same time, there is also a need to pay closer attention to the ways in which those technologies also dissever us from the places we reside by encasing our senses in external media that can, at worst, act as a barrier or replacement to tactile experience and, at worst, be used maliciously in unexpected ways as the line between the virtual and the physical becomes increasingly blurred. New media are shaping the ways in which we learn to see and render the urban environment intelligible and these ways of relating to the environment both need to be learned and developed if they are to lead to progressive outcomes (Wilson 2011). These will be critical points of inquiry on this FRL project. This FRL grant period will begin with the establishment of New Media Geography Network (NMGN) based at […], a research support group for social scientists using audio/visual methods. The goal of this network will be to make both methodological and theoretical advancements in regard to use of new media methods, to promote the use of these methods, to offer training and support for researchers using them in their work, to make connections with private sector entities also looking for such training and, most importantly, to critically interrogate the political, social and cultural potentialities, pitfalls and implications of doing new digital media research. The network will span the social sciences in reach, with a particular attention to sparking discussions between sociologists, anthropologists, urban theorists and geographers, four groups who have already begun to delve the potentials of new media and Web 2.0 technologies. This FRL proposal will serve to create archetypal case studies in new media geographies, establishing strong national and international networks of private, non-profit, artistic and academic practitioners. Central to the research agenda are the three empirical projects. These projects will go beyond documentary exposé, forms of digital journalism where these practices have been deployed most prolifically, to reveal stories ‘behind the scenes’ in methodological ways unique to new media.
Each research project will be complimented by a workshop (expected attendance 30-40 individuals) held at […], organized through the newly established New Media Geography Network (NMGN) with interdisciplinary attendance and bursaries available to graduate students looking to use these methods in their work in what promises to be a full and engaging multidisciplinary discussion. Combined with three international conference presentations, a semester abroad at the University of California Berkeley Institute of Urban and Regional Development (IURD) and journal publications disseminating the results of those discussions, this three-year project period will contribute multiple innovative and unique contribution to both academic knowledge and practice. Project background: As part of my PhD in human geography at […], I used multimedia (photography and video) to expose hidden urban places and stories. During my time at […], I received training from the Oxford Academy of Documentary Film (OADF) and was subsequently awarded funded places in two ESRC-sponsored workshops on creative and experimental methods where I refined my techniques. My photographs and video work have been selected for exhibition in a number of galleries, art workshops, conference venues and television productions. I also published three scholarly video articles (amongst the first of their kind): […] ([…], 2010a, […], 2010, […], 2011) and a theoretical piece on video as research method ([…], 2010b). With this FRL scheme funding, I have the potential to not only become a research leader in interdisciplinary visual practice, but also to advance the use of those methods in practical and conceptual ways within geography, making multiple important contributions to the ESRC remit for innovative research methods. As mentioned, each media project, similar to my previous research including the PhD, will reveal hidden places and populations in different urban landscapes using multimedia documentation in diverse contexts (see Doron, 2007), creating three visual documentaries on ‘hidden urbanisms’. While these projects may at first appear disparate, each is an opportunity to use visual methods in new ways to reveal something – whether a story, a landscape, a place or a people. Each project also considers the ways in which researcher might facilitate activism and public engagement by offering project participants voice through sensate media (Routledge, 2005), though this is more or less implicit on each project, as I will outline. In summer 2011, just before the FRL grant period, I will be working as a film consultant on the ESRC[…]funded research project […] ([…]) with Dr […]. In March 2012, as part of that work, I will undertake a one-week refresher course on participatory video (PV) production with InsightShare, leaders in the field for using video as a tool for individuals and groups to build skills to act for change as part of their research. I will then be assisting Dr […] with technical set-up, PV training for project staff, the facilitation of eight community workshops and professional editing of the resulting film. This project – and my role in it – will provide opportunities for communities to participate in consciousness-raising activities (Pain, 2004, Parr, 2007) that I will actively communicate during my FRL grant period to funding agencies and policymakers in Cambodia and beyond (see Pathways to Impact) and give me an opening to build the technical skills necessary and meet the stakeholders which will get the first FRL project into production. Project work plan: At the beginning of the grant period, I will return to Phnom Penh to undertake a second film project, entitled Living in Graves, using the contacts I have made with local NGOs and international development agencies such as the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR) who are engaged in addressing the serious issue of ‘land grabbing’ in the country, an issue recently highlighted by the Oxfam GROW campaign. Living in Graves will follow recent stories of families whose land has been seized and who are forced to move into graveyards, where stone tombs provide shelter for homeless families. The film, like YouTube citizen videos produced by people protesting government land grabbing, will not only provide a powerful means to document – and potentially commit to action on – such illegal evictions, but will also build on my pre-existing expertise on urban dereliction/resurrection, archaeology and the spiritual to develop academic scholarship (see CV). Using
digital video on this project will allow participants to tell those stories in their own words through in-depth interviews and continuous filming over the course of four weeks, in the cinéma vérité style, while creating powerful visual and audio documentation of their experiences. Coupled with public and policy-maker screenings, the reach and impact of this research has the potential to do more than written dissemination might, depicting the sensorially-stimulating human dimension of a phenomenon which has increased since 2004 and is now widespread throughout the country (and a growing problem in Asia generally). Given that this issue goes beyond academic inquiry about the current urban condition in Asia, the reach will extend right into the core of contemporary urban communities. The film will be screened to relevant stakeholders, will also be shown at Cambofest the Cambodia Film Festival in Southeast Asia and anywhere else local community groups suggest to maximize community impact. It will also be copied onto 100 DVDs for distribution to local communities, NGOs, stakeholders, researcher, governments and the public. It is also likely that, if the film has the intended reach and impact that my previous multimedia work did, there is a likelihood it will be used by NGOs and potentially the OHCHR to influence changes in government policy. Results from this first year’s work, and a discussion of who it reached and effected and how, will be presented at the 2012 International Visual Sociology (IVSA) conference and published (as a co-authored paper with Dr […]) in the Critical Asian Studies journal to also ensure interdisciplinary reach. Upon return to the UK, the lessons learned from the Living in Graves project will be discussed in a 1-day workshop entitled New Media Geographies I: Filmmaking for Justice in the winter of 2013, in collaboration with the Centre for Social Justice and Community Action at […], a network of social scientists dedicated to participatory action research. The theoretical trajectory of this conference will, in context to our overall theme of the FRL project to ‘hidden urbanisms’, consider the ways in which sensate media gave give voice to hidden populations. With a particular attention to participatory video, we will discuss the merits of offering agency and voice through Web 2.0 technologies. Additional topics will include the democratising aspects of social media and the dangers (often quite real) of media (over)exposure. Following this initial seminar, I will organize a larger-scale international conference on Participatory Video for Research with our project partners InsightShare and Dr […], screening our range of work using different methods, to ensure private sector engagement and the widest possible audience and impact. In the summer of 2013, as part of the research skill building components of my FRL grant period, I will then undertake a second 15-day film training Masterclass with InsightShare, building on the participatory video training I already received as part of the […] project. Upon completion of the 15-day Masterclass, I will have completed the full range of InsightShare courses and be prepared to begin teaching these skills at […] in a visual geography field school during the 2013 Autumn Term as a NMGN elective course module. The second project, entitled Olympic Afterglow? will begin soon after the completion of this class. In 2010, myself and five fellow researchers from […] produced a documentary, entitled London’s Olympic Waterscape, about the changing waterways around the London 2012 Olympic stadium, funded by the 2012 Olympic Creative Campus Initiative ([…] et al., 2010, […] et al., 2012). The film, which since completion has been hosted by the British Library, has been screened at several film festivals and developed into a secondary school course module at KS3, GCSE and A level. Olympic Afterglow?, the second of the three FRL-funded research projects, will return to the site of the Olympics one year after the Olympic games, in July 2013, to record the status of the dismantled Olympic stadium, surrounding landscape and remaining residents. Interviews will be recorded with prominent Olympic officials, authors and experts, many of whom were interviewed in London’s Olympic Waterscape, to revisit the area with a specific focus on interrogating the preOlympic proposed ‘legacy’ promises. This new film can, of course, update the previous course module. The importance of this particular case study will be in considering the ways in which film can be used (in a more traditional landscape documentary style) to capture largely intangible notions of place, mobility, landscapes, and change with which geographers often deal, using audio and visuals to create specific connections to particular places (Keiller, 2009) as well as to document processes of long-term landscape change. Olympic Afterglow?, like
London’s Olympic Waterscape, will encourage the viewer to move from a role of passive spectatorship to active participation as the spatial politics of event and place are revealed and, again, give voice to a community which will have lost a great deal of its access to media exposure in the post-Olympic drawdown. Following this, in the winter of 2013, a 1-day seminar entitled New Media Geographies II: Capturing Landscape Transformation will be held at […], focussing on the uses of video to depict landscape and place. Results of this research, given the geographic specificity of the project, will be presented at the 2013 Royal Geographical Society annual conference held in the UK. Finally, a research paper on the project will be submitted for publication in the International Journal of Heritage Studies where we published about the preceding film ([…] et al., 2012). In the summer of 2013, in an effort to increase academic and knowledge mobility, I will relocate to the University of California Berkeley, USA, to work closely within the Institute of Urban and Regional Development (IURD), an organisation Berkeley, California, devoted to ‘advancing knowledge and practice that leads to the betterment of cities and regions, now and in the future’ in the development of the final project of the grant. The third project, tentatively titled Nocturnal Giant, will be a nighttime photographic ‘excavation’ of San Francisco. This project will undertaken with the mission statement of the non-profit Center for Land Use and Interpretation (CLUI) in Los Angeles in mind, an organisation dedicated to the increase and diffusion of information about how the world's lands are apportioned, utilised and perceived. It thus connects a political democratising sense of the power of visualising the hidden with a long established tradition of photography as an excuse for, and provocation to, urban exploration (Crang 1996). The project will be 500 long- exposure photographs condensed into a series representing a virtual timelapse ‘walk’ through San Francisco in the evening, a virtual archaeology of a contemporary city, where psychological excavation and delving reveals what is hidden from plain view by opaque urban material layering. The viewer will be taken through place and time, focussing on small rather than large events, documenting the often unseen work that takes place during the night hours to keep the city functioning (Graham and Marvin, 2001, Graham and Thrift, 2007). Nocturnal Giant will use photographs to capture small moments in everyday life that are often overlooked, at a time of day often not experienced, apprehending both nocturnal and idiosyncratic urban forms on visual media. This genre of photography, as evidenced by artists such as Ann Tallentire and others, has become an important way of rendering large scale urban process apprehensible as a step to being comprehensible. The photographs, which will be publically exhibited and the CLUI in Los Angeles in a one-week exhibition and permanently stored in the CLUI Land Use Database, will invite viewers to consider new media social science as a sensate tunnel into other worlds (often hidden in plain sight) revealed though a research process that begins to mirror artistic practices. It thus accords with recent studies by the Tyne and Wear Archives and Museum Service, exploring the power of resonant images from their collections as feedstock to new media sites, and provoking flows of discussion, commentary and interest for issues in social media. While working on this project, I will hold numerous knowledge exchange roundtable workshops, seminars and presentation at the IURD to build relationships between the institutions. Returning from Berkeley, in the winter of 2013, I will hold a final 1-day seminar in the three part series entitled New Media Geographies III: Scales of Art/Media building on this Nocturnal Giant, discussing how media can be used at different scales to do research. The particular trajectory of this talk will be to think about the sensory, the hidden and the overlooked in relation to scale and place and to consider whether new media research has the potential to create worlds from the hidden that incite deeper visceral readings of the city and potentially cause shifting perceptions of what constitutes the city. An article on this final project will be submitted to the journal Urban Geography and the work will be discussed at the annual Society for Visual Anthropology conference, to again increase interdisciplinary reach. The media created by these three research projects will include edited video and photographs which can be put online, used as publications material or exhibited in a more ‘traditional’ format. However, the data will also be retained in it’s raw form to act as a database of ‘stock’ footage and photos that future researchers, or project participants, may want to utilise, returned to the ESRC Research Council for permanent storage on an external hard drive.
To summarise the work we will undertake on this FRL project, through three research projects in three different countries, we are going to interrogate the ways in which our lives are complicated, inspired and documented through new media technologies and Web 2.0 applications. By undertaking three practical, tangible and socially engaged projects that seek socially impacting results that have the potential to effect and change individuals and communities, we will use that work as a spring board to spark discussions on the epistemological future of new media research in the social sciences. The connecting thread of conversation in all three projects relates to multimedia as a sensate passageway into ‘hidden urbanisms’, will include participatory action research and the ability to reveal hidden voices and populations, documentation of largely intangible notions of place, landscapes, and change and new media social science as a sensate tunnel into other worlds (often available but ignored). Each project, as well, will stretch the potentials of new media as a research tool, focussing on geographical contribution and potentials but then threading that knowledge back into discussions with a wide range of social scientists, artists, NGOs, governments and private enterprises. Through this grant period, I will establish myself as a world leader in new media geographies with the support of […] and Professor […], the mentor for the project. Institution and mentor: […] is the […] ranked university in the UK according to the Times University Guide. The […] ranked department of geography is one of the best (in terms of both research and teaching) in the world. More specifically, the department of geography has a reputation for methodological innovation that is in line with this proposal. The department also has research clusters on Lived and Material Culture, Urban Worlds and has strong collaborations with Advanced Photography Studies, Media and the Department of Archaeology (which I have collaborated with in the past). Professor […] is one of the world’s foremost experts on visual methods and tourism ([…], 2010), having published on topics such as using picturing practices to interrogate social action ([…], 1997), using digital images for ethnographic and participatory work ([…][…], 2007), using visual methods to probe the limits of 'realism' ([…], 1996) and imploring researchers to go ‘beyond’ interviews when using these methods ([…], 2003). Building on this past work, Professor […]is the ideal mentor for this FRL project which aims to facilitate geography’s move into the age of digital technology. Skill development: My record as a researcher is a clear indication of not only my constant and determined development towards a permanent academic post but also a record of my ability to consistently learn from experience. Each project undertaken using media methods increases the researcher’s skill with that technology. These three projects have been designed to capitalise on, and continue to learn from, moving and still image technologies and audio recording. Additionally, my proposed training with InsightShare and the IURD at Berkeley will advance my research training skills beyond what I could do on my own. But skill development goes beyond technological proficiency on this FRL project. By offering support to other researchers through the NGNM, passing on the skills I have acquired during the FRL scheme period to other researchers at Berkeley during my residency, holding workshops to discuss practicalities and theoretical insights, and teaching course modules on digital technology research at […], every junction in this post is an opportunity for exchange, building my skills and the skills of others in constant interdisciplinary collaboration. By undertaking three socially significant international research projects on ‘hidden urbanisms’, in collaboration with […], InsightShare, […], CLUI and the UC Berkeley IURD, I will turn my training and practice into my strongest asset, making the transition into becoming a global leader in teaching practical visual methods and becoming a future research leader, with the support of the ESRC. I have already demonstrated my competence to become a 4* researcher through my previous research. […] has offered me the support and facilities to begin my academic career in pursuit of that goal of obtaining a permanent university position and continuing that work. With ESRC Future Research Leaders funding, I will achieve it.
New media geographies of photography and video - Pathways to Impact Perhaps the most promising components of this Future Research Leaders proposal are the pathways to impact. Through short, medium and long-term goals, this project has been carefully crafted to engage public, government and private entities. New media and Web 2.0 have proven themselves to be instrumental tools to bridge those connections and a major component of this project is learning how we can do that best, probing those possibilities through practical work and theoretical engagement. Digital media, including photography and video, are fast proliferating into all aspects of life. We have learned from previous research in both anthropology and sociology that these media have a capability to create important bridges between researchers, project participants and audiences. In the past, my multimedia projects, including film, photography, video productions and blog (see CV) have received hundreds of thousands of views online, a public impact unmatched by traditional publishing methods. It will be one of the primary goals of this Future Research Leaders (FRL) project to continue to develop those ‘alternative’ pathways to impact in addition to more traditional methods and to, in the end, help to meld those modes of dissemination where possible. Each of the three proposed research projects will, as a short-term impact goal, include freely and readily available online content with open access, which will be hosted on the webpage of the New Media Geography Network (NMGN) and shared via online social media networks such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to also dramatically increase reach. Used in combination with traditional forms of publishing (the long term impact goal), these projects also have the potential to change the way scholars and journal editors incorporate digital media into their work and establish the NMGN, […] (already a world leader in innovative methods) and myself as vital sources for advice on increasing research impact through the use of budding digital techniques. Impact is about depth as much as breadth and this FRL project will also work closely to network and share information on a more local, personal level with project participants and stakeholders. The most direct impact of all three projects will be with and for research participants. The use of participatory video methods in Cambodia will highlight the dispossession of people from their land and their plight living in graveyards. This cause has been already been taken up by researchers (Zoomers, 2010) and non-profit organisations such as Oxfam and GIZ, a private German company working to title land claims in Cambodia where “documented rights of land ownership and use are of existential significance [to farmers] since there are practically no alternative employment opportunities” (GIZ, 2009: np). Through film screenings, we will work to raise awareness of this issue, empower the community affected and engage with active NGOs and development agencies such as the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCOHR). Short-term goals in Cambodia will include capacity-building screenings and workshops, as well as DVD and Internet distribution of film work. Medium term goals will include ongoing discussions back in the UK with agencies, artists, researchers and practitioners about that work, including how to improve impact for the second project. Long-term goals will include publication dissemination those finding in combination with those media files produced, transforming the short-term goals into long-term goals. The second study, based in East London, will actively assess the legacy of the Olympics and hold it to account for its pre-legacy promises by tracking changes in places and feelings within the community over a 3 years span. It will focus around senses of place and heritage created or disabled through the development and redevelopment of sites connected to the games, following the widely exhibited documentary I made called London's Olympic Waterscape which was hosted by the British Library and several film festivals before being developed into a module for use at KS3, GCSE and A level in 800 UK schools. Given the politically charged legacy of Olympic stadiums such as Berlin to Athens, and the highly vocal local East London community opposing to the 2012 Olympics before the games have even begun (Sinclair 2008), this documentary, similar to my last one, is likely to spark a highly charged debate that has the potential to be picked up by various European broadcasting
organisations and web-based media distribution companies, maximizing short term impact. Medium term impacts here, again, will include policy influence as a piece of digital activism. Long-term impacts will be maximized through the publication of a follow up article in the International Journal of Heritage Studies which will serve as a powerful commentary of the ability of film to document chance over time. The third and final study, of nightlife in San Francisco, will continue a documentary tradition of revealing hidden worlds and should be of considerable public interest given a fascination with nightlife and nocturnal cities (Bianchini, 1995), building on my doctoral work with urban explorers which had enormous public engagement component. As with the other projects, the website of the new media geography network, as well as social media sites such a Flickr, Twitter and Facebook will act as convenient platforms for short-term dissemination of photographic documentation. The collaboration with the Center for Land Use Interpretation in Los Angeles, and the exhibit we will build together about the project, will open a striking public venue for medium-term impact and compliment existing datasets in the non-profit sector. For long-term impacts we will again look to traditional modes of publishing to create academic accounts of the project including its public impact, striving to incorporate multimedia into those more traditional publications. The alliances being built into this project are all important avenues to impact. The collaboration between […] and Insight Share will develop capacity building for training and economic development of new media geographies. Working at the University of California Berkeley Institute of Urban and Regional Development (IURD) will establish interdisciplinary and international links with architecture and planning faculty. The Centre for Land Use and Interpretation has offered facilities, equipment and exhibition space in Los Angles for the installation of Nocturnal Giant. Both the IURD at Berkeley and the CLUI have an excellent record of public engagement that can be built on. Finally, the three capacity building workshops I will run at […] on new media geographies, structured around the three empirical projects, will involve discussions between scholars, NGOs, businesses and publishers. The results of those talks will have wide-ranging impacts in a number of directions with potential demonstrable impacts to the effectiveness of public policy and creative output.
New media geographies of photography and video - Justification of Resources Research Staff: Directly incurred salary for PI […] to manage overall project, undertake qualitative training with InsightShare, conduct field research and engage in impact activities (3 years at 0.6 FTE starting at Grade 7 point 32 and increasing to Grade 7 point 34 over the 3 years as per […] Postdoctoral pay rate standards) £73,299.02 total Travel and subsistence (balanced for price, area, security and quality): PI (x1) return airfare to Cambodia (£800), PI accommodation (£30/night) and subsistence (£15/day) for 45 days in Cambodia (1 trip: 6 weeks qualitative design and fieldwork input); PI phone calls/faxes/emails (£30), travel insurance, hospitality fixed budget for consultative and other meetings in Cambodia (£150) £3,005 total PI (x1) return airfare to San Francisco (£600), PI accommodation in local apartment (£500/month for 1 month) and subsistence (£30/day for 30 days) for 1 month in San Francisco (1 trip: 4 weeks qualitative design and fieldwork input); PI (x1) return airfare from San Francisco to Los Angeles (£400), PI accommodation in Los Angeles (£100/day for 5 days) to install and show one week photograph installation and display for exhibition (plus £3,100 for gallery space and refreshments) £6,000 total PI (x1) return train fare to London (£100), PI accommodation (£120/night in Stratford, East London near the Olympic stadium) and subsistence (£30/day) for 30 days in London (1 trip: 1 month qualitative design and fieldwork input); PI phone calls/faxes/emails (£30), hospitality fixed budget for consultative, interview, archival research and other meetings in London (£300) £4,930 total Travel bursaries (x3) for PhD student attendance to build capacity at […] workshops (£900). Travel to the 2012 Society for Visual Anthropology conference (venue TBC) to present research findings, including fixed budget PI (x1), return airfare and conference registration (£1,400). Travel to 2013 Royal Geographical Society annual conference in London (£100), accommodation in London (£360/3 days), registration fees (£130) and per diem for each (£45/3 days) (£1,445 total) Travel to 2014 International Visual Sociology conference (venue TBC) to present research findings, including fixed budget PI (x1), return airfare and conference registration (£1,400). Totaltravelandsubsistencebudgetoverthreeyears:£19,080 Other directly incurred costs: Documentary film Masterclass training from InsightShare (£1,200). Local Cambodian research assistants (RAs x2) (£450/month each for 1.5 months) to organise and help conduct film shoots, hold informant interviews with graveyard residents and policymakers, interpretation, transcription, secretarial and logistical support (£1,350). Final film professional editing (sound levelling and colour grading) to produce synthesised output from 2 final films for engagement with Cambodian international policy-makers and development practitioners (£1,800). Final film screenings and exhibitions in Cambodia (x1) to relay policy-maker feedback, engage interested
publics for reach (£4000 for refreshments, room and equipment hire for all large-scale screenings). Organization of media geography workshops (x3) at […] with budget for room allocation and setup, travel costs for guest speakers (£3,000) University of California Berkeley Institute of Urban and Regional Development (IURD) visiting scholar fee ($300/£200). £11,550 totaldirectlyincurredcostsoverthreeyears Directly incurred equipment costs: Video kit to conduct interviews (Canon 5D Mark II still/video camera, Canon 24mm f/1.4 prime lens for shooting in low-light conditions, Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM Lens for zoom conditions, headphones, tripod, microphones, case, cables & batteries). (£7,379 total) 27” iMac desktop computer, 3.4GHz with 2TB hard drive space for PI to edit video and photographs, organise and store fieldworks data – needed for High Definition video editing and Blue-ray DVD output for film screenings (£2160); Firewire Hard drives (x2) to store and backup video (£89/each); Final Cut Studio software (x1) for video editing by PI (£690), Blue-ray DVDs (100+ copies) for distribution to project partners and public (£600) £3628 total) £11,007totaldirectlyincurredequipmentcosts
Anonymised Comments New media geographies of photography and video Introducer A The aim of this proposal is to help further introduce new media technologies (audio-visual) within geography. It offers empirical, capacity building and demonstrative contributions. It also offers the prospect of supporting the development of the applicant’s career as well as a new network in the host institution. There will be three visual documentaries on ‘hidden urbanisms’, and one will be a revisit to London to film ‘after the Olympics’. This might have value in its own right. The proposal is detailed in terms of budgets and where there are relatively high costs (equipment), these seem to be justified. The applicant has a trackrecord of good publications and the host institution is very supportive. There are a number of weaknesses however • The proposal seems to bring together ongoing work of colleagues in three very good institutions. This is fine but am not sure it really fits with the current scheme’s aims. I would have liked to see more of the proposal on the applicant and on how the proposal will develop his career. • The applicant refers continually to ‘new’ media but we never get to see what is really new about the media • The application promises the establishment of a network. This is a fantastic idea but I am not convinced this particular scheme is best placed to support this • Although I like all the three cases, I am not sure they take me much further beyond ‘participatory media methodologies’. In other words, I do not see methodological innovation • There is no attempt to engage with conceptual developments • The impact story is underdeveloped and conflated with dissemination. • Finally, the candidate has submitted his PhD but it is not clear if the viva voce examination has taken place. The applicant is clearly committed and knowledgeable but I would have liked to see more reflection on how the proposal will contribute to skills development etc. Introducer B This proposal seeks to explore strategies for engagement by geographers and other social scientists with ‘new media’, developing both new work in this field, and building capacity for this kind of work (through, for example, the establishment of the New Media Geographies Network at the […]). Neither Referee score the proposal highly, though Referee 2 is more positive than Referee 1. Referee 2 scores the proposal Good, and points to some real strengths, including: a very well thought through skills component, excellent proposed collaborations, and an excellent mentor. But they raise some very significant concerns about the project as a whole and its framing assumptions. First, they note that the applicant fails ever to really clarify what he means by ‘new media’, including very different media within this discussion at different points. Second, there is far too little reference to a quite extensive body of work – some of it reaching back to the 1970s, concerned with very similar issues; around participatory film making, for example. Third, they highlight a poorly thought through impact plan, which amounts to little more than a strategy for the distribution of the project’s outputs. Referee 1 is much less positive, grading the proposal only as Fair. They too note the failure to engage with the literature around media (new or otherwise) even within geography, making it very difficult to discern what exactly is ‘new’ about the proposed work, or what its contribution to Geography – or beyond, to other disciplines – might be. They also note that the proposal as a whole rather begs the question – in what sense are the issues the applicant wishes to uncover hidden, to whom? As both Referee’s note, this is an important issue in need to examination. I would also note that the applicant has an impressive track record in this area, with an unusually strong publication record for an early career researcher. But I am afraid I agree with the Referee’s assessment that the current proposal needs significantly more work before it might be ready for funding. Reviewer A Assessment:
Whilst I welcome the proposal to undertake capacity-building in media geographies, and media practice, I also find a strange disconnect with prior work on these issues. In regard to geography especially, there is very little engagement with extant work on the media, whether that be film, photography, video, TV, or indeed on 'new media' technologies, from fairly well known applications such as Twitter to more specialised platforms such as Ushahidi, and so on. This is unfortunate insofar as, first, it is unclear how 'new' is being used in this context. Second, it is difficult to then discern how this work proposes to make a conceptual contribution to the discipline. From the text's emphasis upon the revelation of hidden voices/images/spaces, there seems to be an underlying framing of media as both mimetic and sublime, a two-fold Kantianism that eschews a wealth of literature on such issues as reiteration, hapticality, aesthetic encounters and affect, to note just a few. The emphasis upon a 'learning to do' media is well-taken, but again there is an absence here in regard to how such an endeavour tells us more about practice-led research. Third, it is difficult to then articulate how such work, based in geography, will have an impact upon other disciplines, such as anthropology and sociology. Is there a geographic imaginary to be proffered here? In all, the proposal comes across as quite instrumental in its approach to the topic, with the associated claim that the media produced will have a progressive impact. However, in simply noting that the otherwise hidden will become visible, the question is then begged of hidden and visible to whom? There is a top-down scoping of people and place here that, whilst it may be mitigated by efforts to 'include' participants, is nevertheless undertheorized and underplayed in the ethical discussion regarding vulnerable subjects. Suggestions: 1. Rather than focus on how other disciplines can teach geography about new media, explore how geography has developed particular lines of inquiry in regard to the same, not only in cultural geography, but hazards and risk, critical GIS and so on. 2. Rather than assume the primacy of the visual (and representations as mimetic), explore new media as a multisensuous encounter. 3. Rather than proffer a very loose rubric such as 'hidden urbanisms', look to the particularity of site. 4. Proof read the proforma as well as the case for support. Reviewer B This was a very interesting proposal with some real strengths. Mr Garrett is quite correct, in my opinion, to have identified a field that is in desperate need of reflection, stimulation and leadership: the use of new media in social science research. I completely agree with his assessment of that need. I am sure that a network of the kind he proposes would be very welcomed by a wide range of researchers and serve a very valuable role in taking this area forward. I think geographical work on cities and urban spaces would indeed provide a very fertile area for exploratory case studies of the kind he describes. He has put together a very well-organised proposal for the production of a series of films and photographs; there is no doubt in my mind that he would carry out the research with a very high degree of competence. I also felt that the skills component was well thought through; he is clear where he would go for skills development, how those skills would develop and build over the course of the FRL funding, and how he would pass those skills on to other researchers. Another strength was the proposed collaborations, of different kinds, with academic colleagues: Dr […] in Cambodia, existing contacts in east London, and the IURD in California. And in Professor […] he has located an outstanding mentor. So, the proposal has some real strengths.
I am though concerned about some of its core assumptions. In particular, I do not feel that […] has thought sufficiently about what 'new media' actually are - or at least, what he thinks is a workable definition of them - and has not therefore developed a plan of work that will really push at the limits of what is currently done with film and photographs in social science research - or even simply explore their potential in a systematic and theorised kind of way. Nowhere does his proposal engage with any of the extensive literature on what new media actually are. What does he mean by new media? At times, they are described as interactive, as Web 2.0 (but what about Web 3.0, as discussed in John Naughton's recent book), and as participatory; sometimes it seems that he simply means digital; at other times, it seems to mean being distributed by YouTube; at other times it is 'sensate', whatever that means. There is a fundamental lack of clarity at the heart of this proposal about just what is 'new' about new media, and what therefore might be interesting and particular ways to explore their usefulness to social science researchers. Methodologically, then, I think there is a real problem at the heart of this proposal. Without a clear definition of new media, it is unclear how the proposed visual research projects will take our understanding of them further. Nor does the proposal address any of the existing literatures on film and photography as research methods, and this is also a real weakness in the proposal, I'm afraid. Reading the descriptions of the proposed projects, I kept on recalling other, similar projects, and wondering why […] was not citing them, relating to them, learning from them and shaping his proposal in relation to them. For example, it seems to me that the Cambodia project - very worthy as it sounds in many ways - is a very conventional piece of participatory video filmmaking, which is a methodology that has existed at least since the 1970s (which again makes me ask, what is new about the media used by this project? I have a feeling photographs have been around for a while too). Participatory filmmaking is also a practice with an extensive and increasingly critical literature, some of which has been written by geographers like Sara Kindon; Claudia Mitchell's work is key here and she has a new book out only last year which I would have expected to see discussed. The night photographs project again seems to be making a claim that has recently become widespread, that photography somehow does the sensory or the affective or the atmospheric better - but is that really the case? What about the photographs of Pierre Bourdieu, for example, interrogated extensively in a recent issue of Sociological Review, that had very little to do with any of those things and a lot more to do with habitus as a concept? What about the documentary photographs that were at the heart of early sociology, as recently discussed by Mike Savage in his history of post-war UK sociology? What about Howard Becker's discussion of John Berger's photography, cited in Rose's Visual Methodologies? Although each of the visual research projects seem worthy and interesting, I did not feel they had been designed to really explore anything very specific about the usefulness of the visual/digital/new media in relation to social research, because they have been designed without consideration of any of the discussions of existing traditions of work. Finally, I'm afraid I had the same misgivings about the 'impact' strategy, which I felt was particularly conservative. Simply distributing a few dvds, organising a few screenings, uploading something visual onto YouTube, tweeting about it and linking it to a Facebook page is not a grand experiment in new media public impact, I'm afraid. It's a distribution strategy, a decent one and an increasingly common one, and one that deserves interrogation; but interrogating its scale, its effects, its actual impact, […] does not propose to do. It's particularly disappointing because, if you read Kress's account of the intersection of social networking and visual culture among young people, or Jenkins on convergence culture, there are just so many more interesting ways to think about how new media constantly invite engagement: through downloading, commenting, liking, mash-ups... let alone the sort of online collaborations that might allow, say, the editing of a film or series of photographs to be done in quite new ways. None of this appears in this proposal though. So, this project has considerable promise, and […] has assembled a proposal with distinct strengths. However, despite all its promise, in the end I feel that this is a proposal to create three rather conventional visual research projects, and to distribute them in rather conventional ways.
