Creative Ethnography: Documenting Everyday Life Through Notes, Sketches, Photography, and Sound

Emiko Stock is a multimodal anthropologist and creative ethnographer based between Cairo and Phnom Penh. Her work blends feminist documentary, analog photography, soundscaping, writing, and drawing to explore how art and anthropology can inspire wonder, dialogue, and new ways of connecting with everyday life.

Working across disciplines and cultures, Emiko develops playful and collaborative methods that combine observation, storytelling, and experimentation. Through layering images, sounds, sketches, and personal reflections, she invites communities into processes of shared curiosity and creative exchange.

She has taught at Cornell University, Hamilton College, and The American University in Cairo, and co-founded CoMMPCT. Her short films have screened internationally, and she regularly collaborates as a curator, juror, writer, and sound artist on projects focused on multimodal storytelling and sensory experiences.

Through her newsletter The Sketchy Anthropologist, Emiko shares her creative process at the intersection of anthropology and sketchnoting, encouraging others to embrace imperfect drawing, attentive listening, and artistic exploration as tools for research, reflection, and connection.