Undertstanding a culture with visual etnography: A photo-etnographic study on Nusayris

The 19th century Industrial Revolution brought with it many innovations. Photography took its place as an important invention that emerged at this time and developed at the same time as social science, which coincided with the same period. Today, photography is used as an auxiliary or main element in many artistic disciplines and scientific research, as well as one of the most effective communication tools of visual culture. Photo ethnography proposes a new way of using photography in ethnographic research. In addition to many scientific researches, photography is used to witness social and historical events and to understand the events more easily, and its use in photo ethnography studies coincides with the times when social events are dominant. Especially after the 1970's, photography started to be used as a more visible concept. In this study, focusing on the Nusayri community living in Adana, it is aimed to reveal the possibilities and opportunities that photography can offer to understand a culture in ethnographic research. Visual ethnography was used in the qualitative research design and the photographs obtained were evaluated in the field study as a cultural material tool. In addition to interviews and observation, which are the tools used in ethnographic research, the data were obtained through photography, and the deliberate sampling method was preferred in order to capture the depth of meaning. The ambiguities inherent in photographic images have been eliminated through photographic additions, descriptions and analysis. Some distinctive characteristics of the Alawite community were recorded to analyze the culture and to understand the cultural changes, if any. In the findings section, original conclusions were reached through the analysis of the participants' daily life practices, definitions of culture, comments and opinions. It has been seen that photo ethnography is a very effective tool that keeps the social memory alive with the possibilities provided by photography and provides culture, the lives that build culture, forms of relationships and cultural transmission.