Seeing Beyond: Visual Approaches in Global Learning
Visual methods and theories are no longer only relevant to filmmakers, media critics, photographers, communication researchers, and self-identified visual anthropologists. Increasing numbers of people acknowledge the broader role that visual approaches play within fieldwork, research, social critique, and cultural representation (Pink 2006). Fewer, however, consider the significance of the visual in teaching and learning, and how visual approaches allow us to teach what culture and global awareness really is. Whether in a classroom on a US campus or during an international service-learning program in Jamaica, visual frameworks guide students to trace linkages and challenge constructs and, thus, provide the competencies necessary for cultural and global understanding.