Animating the Future: Amplifying Youth Voices Through Ethnographic Animation

This article contributes to a visual anthropology of the future by introducing an innovative methodology based on coproduction of ethnographic animation, animated films that blend people’s lived experiences with imaginary scenarios informed by their desired futures. I developed this methodology collaboratively with animation practitioners and Indigenous artists, and I apply it ethnographically to explore how young people in Amazonia imagine the future amidst critical challenges they face in the present. In this article, I examine ethnographic animation both as a research method that uncovers young people’s under-represented needs and voices; and as an impact strategy that enables the participants to envisage alternative lifestyles and, in the process, to identify tangible pathways towards them. I demonstrate that by producing films on their ideal futures and then animating them—literally, "bringing them to life"— young people can begin to make these futures a reality, insofar as they are encouraged to think critically about the livelihoods they desire and how to build them. I thereby propose a shift towards an applied anthropology, one where coproduction of ethnographic knowledge can actively shape new ways of seeing the world and forge sustainable pathways towards inclusive futures.