Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology SAS
Topic
Visual archives as ethnological memory: photographic and filmic perspectives on social and environmental change
PhD. program
World Cultures and Religions, Faculty of Arts, Comenius University
Year of admission
2026
Name of the supervisor
Mgr., MgA. Jaroslava Panáková, PhD.
Contact:
Receiving school
Filozofická fakulta UK
Annotation
This PhD project examines archival visual documents as sources of anthropological knowledge of social and environmental change. It proceeds from the assumption that photographs and films are not merely documentary records, but media of visual and ethnological memory that mediate historically situated ways of seeing, sensing, and conceptualising relationships between humans, landscapes, and non-human actors.
The project allows students to work with photographic archives, ethnological and anthropological film collections, or both, depending on their empirical interests and archival availability. Research may focus on landscapes, everyday labour, subsistence practices, rituals, or forms of landscape care, with particular attention to Slovakia and the Carpathian region. Central to the analysis is an epistemological approach to the archive, examining what visual materials render visible, which forms of knowledge and expertise they legitimise, and which social or environmental processes remain marginalised or invisible.
Methodologically, the research is based on systematic archival work and visual analysis, contextualised within the history of ethnological and anthropological research and documentary practice. The project contributes to debates in visual and sensory anthropology, archival studies, and environmental anthropology. It demonstrates the value of visual archives for understanding long-term social and environmental change beyond textual sources.
The project allows students to work with photographic archives, ethnological and anthropological film collections, or both, depending on their empirical interests and archival availability. Research may focus on landscapes, everyday labour, subsistence practices, rituals, or forms of landscape care, with particular attention to Slovakia and the Carpathian region. Central to the analysis is an epistemological approach to the archive, examining what visual materials render visible, which forms of knowledge and expertise they legitimise, and which social or environmental processes remain marginalised or invisible.
Methodologically, the research is based on systematic archival work and visual analysis, contextualised within the history of ethnological and anthropological research and documentary practice. The project contributes to debates in visual and sensory anthropology, archival studies, and environmental anthropology. It demonstrates the value of visual archives for understanding long-term social and environmental change beyond textual sources.