Phillip Vannini is an ethnographer, filmmaker and author who has conducted research projects on topics such as off-grid living, the political ecology of wildness, ferry boats and the more-than-human geographies of underwater hotels.
Throughout his career, he has been fortunate to carry out fieldwork in places such as the Galapagos Islands, Patagonian glaciers, Belizean atolls, the Italian Alps and the high Arctic.
Over the years, he has had the opportunity to learn from Thai military elephant patrols, Ogasawara Island surfers, Salish Sea artisans, Tasmanian wilderness guides, Icelandic heritage managers, Aotearoa’s tohu whenua, underwater hotel architects and engineers and many others who have trusted him with their stories.
Phillip believes that his duty as an ethnographer is to honour the knowledge gifted by those he meets and share it responsibly with audiences both within and outside academia.
Experience
Phillip joined Royal Roads University in 2005 and became professor in 2011.
From 2010 to 2021 he was Canada Research Chair in Public Ethnography and Innovative Learning. He primarily teaches courses on research methodology and video production.
Phillip particularly enjoys supervising theses that make use of visual media and push the boundaries of ethnographic creativity with the goal of reaching wide audiences and troubling conventional representational styles and methods.
Education
2004
PhD in Sociology
Washington State University
1999
Master of Arts in Communication
Washington State University
1998
Bachelor of Arts
City University of Seattle
Awards
2010
Kelly Outstanding Teaching Award nominee
Royal Roads University
2007
Kelly Outstanding Teaching Award nominee
Royal Roads University
Research
Research interest
Documentary film
Ethnography
Space and place
Publications
Vannini, Phillip (Ed.). 2023. The Handbook of Sensory Ethnography. London: Routledge.
Vannini, Phillip (Ed.). 2023. Mobilities in Remote Places. London: Routledge.
Vannini, Phillip and April Vannini. 2022. In the Name of Wild. Vancouver: On Point Press/UBC Press.
Vannini, Phillip and April Vannini. 2021. Inhabited: Wildness and Vitality of the Land. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Vannini, Phillip (Ed.). 2020. The Routledge International Handbook of Ethnographic Film and Video. London: Routledge.
Vannini, Phillip. 2019. Doing Public Ethnography: How to create and Disseminate Ethnographic and Qualitative Research to Wide Audiences. London: Routledge.
Vannini, Phillip. (Ed.) 2015. Non-Representational Methodologies: Re-envisioning Research. New York: Routledge.
Vannini, Phillip and Jonathan Taggart. 2014. Off the Grid: Re-assembling Domestic Life. New York: Routledge.
Vannini, Phillip. 2012. Ferry Tales: Mobility, Place, and Time on Canada’s West Coast. New York: Routledge.
Vannini, Phillip, Dennis Waskul, and Simon Gottschalk. 2011. The Senses in Self, Society, and Culture: A Sociology of the Senses. New York: Routledge.
Vannini, Phillip, Beau Wagner, and April Vannini. 2023. Our teacher. 59 minutes. Distributed by Fighting Chance Films.
Vannini, Phillip and April Vannini. 2022. In the name of wild. 82 minutes. Distributed by Fighting Chance Films.
Vannini, Phillip and April Vannini. 2021. Inhabited. 85 Minutes. Distributed by Fighting Chance Films.
Vannini, Phillip and April Vannini. 2018. A Time for Making. 58 Minutes. Distributed by Fighting Chance Films.
Vannini, Phillip. 2016. Low and slow. Documentary video. 26 minutes.
Taggart, Jonathan and Phillip Vannini 2015. Life off-grid. Video documentary. Distributed by Fighting Chance Films.
