Contemporary Ethnographic Aesthetics: The TikTok Turn

Abstract

This article explores TikTok’s impact on the aesthetics of visual anthropology’s methods and highlights epistemic implications. TikTok engenders new inquiries regarding the position and role of researchers, and the spatiality and temporality of digital research. This article offers a reflection on the specific aesthetic characteristics that shape ethnographic investigations on, and with, TikTok. Further, we argue that the influence of algorithms on digital creations necessitates critical reflection on the researcher’s engagement and analysis of visual data. Finally, we suggest that the figure of the anthropologist as “curator” might inspire a creative navigation of these complex digital waters.