Meeting with Malcom Collier

Had a nice session with Malcom Collier today at my place. Malcom, who is my former teacher at San Francisco State, is a pioneer, along with his father John Collier Jr., in Visual Anthropology. Their book, Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method, is a classic in the field. Malcom has also been an important figure in the Asian American studies program at State University.

I first met him exactly 10 years ago when I was a beginning graduate counseling student at San Francisco State University. I decided to venture outside of my department by taking a course in the Asian American studies department called "Photographic Explorations of Asian Americans" taught by Malcom. That class eventually let me onto a path that I am now where I am using the photographic/video medium to explore marginal communities that I encounter at the clinic.

He was very generous with his time today spending almost three hours talking to me about our video and giving me some thoughtful feedback about ways in which we can improve upon our project. Here are some nuggets that came out of our conversation:

(a) the process of working with our client-participants should be looked at more closely rather than just focusing on the product.

(b) the need to explore more deeply some of the ethical concerns involved in working with our population. In other words, why are we doing this and who is benefitting?

 (c) the difference between eliciting a narrative structure from the participants vs imposing a narrative structure onto the participants (he coined the term "photo elicitation")

 (d) some reminders about different ways in which people view a film/photographs based on their own interpretive lens and cultural context.

(e) and...Have Fun!!!