In this 18-minute film two researchers who work with ethnographic approaches talk about how they have by different routes both come to explore the potential of visual methods and the comic book form as a way of presenting social science analyses of social life. Shari Sabeti and Eric Laurier’s conversation is honest about the challenges of visual representations of material. But it shows that comics have the potential to do much more than a conventional article’s focus on the text of what people say. The ability to capture the context, space and time of ethnographic material extends what can be done by way of engaging with readers who also become viewers through this medium, without compromising on the researcher’s obligation to present participants in a way that allows them to be taken seriously.

Academics in conversation: Dr Eric Laurier, University of Edinburgh (http://www.ericlaurier.co.uk) and Dr Shari Sabeti, University of Edinburgh (http://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/shari-sabeti).