Teaching (with) Postcards: Approaches in the classroom, the field, and the community

This article showcases the pedagogical possibilities of working with postcards for teaching anthropology and related disciplinary fields by introducing a set of multifaceted tools and examples. It provides a framework for tangible reflexive teaching practices and a research methodology that supports, both intellectually and emotionally, a vibrant and mobile community of scholars. We commence with discussing the (widely undervalued) role of postcards as a research subject in the social sciences, and subsequently provide an overview of the emergence of the postcard. Examples from the arts, literature, teaching and research then offer inspiration for engaged and creative teaching formats. These cases support our claim that as a seemingly ‘anachronistic’ object of communication, postcards are useful for teaching in the classroom, for teaching ethnography, and for community-based work. In fact, as a traveling communication device, the repurposed postcard lends itself to connect the oft-physically and conceptually divided spaces of the classroom and the ethnographic ‘field.’ Concurrently, the opening of postcards, both in a conceptual and material sense, allows for a critique of the medium’s historical use in exoticizing the ‘other.’ We thus extend the pedagogical potentials to use postcards for innovative approaches in ethnographic research, public anthropology, and applied community work.     «

This article showcases the pedagogical possibilities of working with postcards for teaching anthropology and related disciplinary fields by introducing a set of multifaceted tools and examples. It provides a framework for tangible reflexive teaching practices and a research methodology that supports, both intellectually and emotionally, a vibrant and mobile community of scholars. We commence with discussing the (widely undervalued) role of postcards as a research subject in the social sciences,...     »