@inbook{dd8bd740c64d4890b9eddd084627116c,
title = "Witnessing Craft: employing video ethnography to attend to the more-than-human craft practices of taxidermy",
abstract = "A video-ethnographic study of a practicing taxidermist opens up new spaces of enquiry into the more-than-human geographies of craft and craftwork. In an attempt to witness the non-representational and more-than-human aspects of taxidermy craftwork I undertook a video ethnography of taxidermist Peter Summers based at the National Museum Scotland (NMS). Using a discreet HD video camera I filmed Peter performing various aspects of the craft during a number of workshop visits that took place over a three-year period. The resulting archive of video footage offers a {\textquoteleft}portfolio of ethnographic exposures{\textquoteright} (Dewsbury 2009: 326), enabling enquiry into the craft techniques it takes to separate a skin from a body and rearrange it in life-like form again. In this chapter I aim to elaborate on, and present aspects of, this video-ethnography in order to emphasise its potential for witnessing and exposing the sensory, affective and more-than-human registers of taxidermy practice. Overall the chapter aims to highlight video-ethnography as an effective and affective tool for studying craft practices, emphasising the serious empirical involvements required of researchers when engaging with the practices, embodiments and materialities of craftwork.",
keywords = "Craft, Embodiment, Video ethnography, Taxidermy, Skill, more-than-human geographies",
author = "Patchett, {Merle M}",
year = "2015",
language = "English",
isbn = "978-0-415-73401-1",
series = "Routledge Advances in Methods Series",
publisher = "Routledge",
pages = "71--94",
booktitle = "Video Methods",
address = "United Kingdom",
}