Visual anthropology
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Visual anthropology is a subfield of cultural anthropology that developed out of the theory and practice of ethnographic photography, film and since the mid-1990s, new media. It also encompasses the anthropological study of representation, including areas such as performance, museums, art, and the production and reception of mass media.
Contents
History
The origins of visual anthropology are located in the invention and application of photographic technologies to the study of human culture and diversity (Ruby 1996). Some of the earliest photography and filmmaking was trained on traditional anthropological informants. Anthropologists and non-anthropologists conducted much of this work in the spirit of salvage ethnography or attempts to record for posterity the ways-of-life of societies assumed doomed to extinction (see, for instance, the Native American photography of Edward Curtis [link]).
The history of anthropological filmmaking is intertwined with that of non-fiction and documentary filmmaking. According to film historian Erik Barnouw (1993), some of the first motion pictures of the ethnographic other were made with Lumière equipment (Promenades des Éléphants à Phnom Penh, 1901). Robert Flaherty, probably best known for his films chronicling the lives of Arctic peoples (Nanook of the North, 1922), became a filmmaker in 1913 when his supervisor suggested that he take a camera and equipment with him on an expedition north. Flaherty focused on “traditional” Eskimo ways of life, omitting to that end any signs of modernity among his film subjects (even to the point of refusing to use a rifle to help kill a walrus his informants had harpooned as he filmed them, according to Barnouw; this scene made it into Nanook where it served as evidence of their "pristine" culture). This pattern would persist in many ethnographic films to follow (see as an example Robert Gardner's Dead Birds).
By the 1940s, anthropologists such as Hortense Powdermaker (Hollywood, the Dream Factory, 1950), Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead (Trance and Dance in Bali, 1952) were bringing anthropological perspectives to bear on mass media and visual representation. The work of Bateson and Mead as well as that of anthropologically-minded filmmakers such as Tim Asch, Robert Gardner [link] and John Marshall [link] led to the realization there existed a need to systematically study, understand and produce ethnographic films in a scholarly manner. Visual anthropology first found purchase in an academic setting in 1958 with the creation of the Film Study Center at Harvard's [Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography] (Ruby 2001).
At present, the [Society for Visual Anthropology] (SVA) represents the subfield in the United States as a section of the American Anthropological Association.
Ethnographic films are shown each year at the Margaret Mead Film Festival.
Ethnographic and anthropological films
A few well known anthropologically-minded films and filmmakers include:
- Robert J. Flaherty
- *Nanook of the North, 1922
- *Moana, 1926
- *Man of Aran, 1934
- Jean Rouch
- *Jaguar, 1954-1967
- *Les maîtres fous (The Mad Masters), 1954
- *Chronique d'un été (Chronicle of a Summer), 1961
- John Marshall
- *A Kalahari Family, 1951-2000
- *The Hunters, 1958
- Robert Gardner
- *Dead Birds, 1963
- *The Nuer, 1970
- *Rivers of Sand, 1975
- *Forest of Bliss, 1986
- Tim Asch
- *The Feast, 1969
- *Magical Death, 1973
- *The Ax Fight, 1975
- *numerous short films documenting everyday activities in Yanomamö life
- Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson
- *First Contact, 1983
- *Joe Leahy's Neighbors, 1988
- *Black Harvest, 1991
- Dennis O'Rourke
- *Cannibal Tours, 1988
- *The Good Woman of Bangkok, 1991
- *Cunnamulla, 2000
- *Landmines—A Love Story, 2004
This list is [Incomplete listsincomplete]; you can help by [http://encycl.opentopia.com/ expanding it].
Popular culture
Visual anthropology (and ethnographic films made by anthropologists) have also influenced films in popular culture such as:
- The Gods Must Be Crazy I and II
Visual anthropology programs
- Australian National University: The anthropology department's [ethnographic film unit]
- Goldsmiths College University of London: The [anthropology department] offers an [MA] and [MPhil and PhD] in Visual Anthropology
- Temple University: Temple has had a program in [visual anthropology] in some form since the late 1960s. At present, it offers a graduate course of studies leading to a doctorate in anthropology and an undergraduate track in the anthropology of visual communication.
- University of Southern California: Up until 2001, USC offered a masters program (M.A.V.A.) in visual anthropology through the USC Center for Visual Anthropology or CVA. Currently, doctoral students affiliated with the CVA may receive a [certificate in visual anthropology].
- University of Tromsø: The University of Tromsø offers a program in [Visual Culture Studies]
See also
References
- Barbash, Ilisa and Lucien Taylor. Cross-cultural Filmmaking: A Handbook for Making Documentary and Ethnographic Films and Videos. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
- Barnouw, Erik. Documentary: A history of the Non-Fiction Film. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
- Powdermaker, Hortense. Hollywood, the Dream Factory: An Anthropologist Studies the Movie Makers. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1950.
- Ruby, Jay. "[The Professionalization of Visual Anthropology in the United States - The 1960s and 1970s]." To be published in the selected proceedings of Origins of Visual Anthropology: Putting the Past Together Conference, June, 20 - 25 in Göttingen, Germany, 2001 .
- ---. Picturing Culture: Essays on Film and Anthropology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
- ---. "[Visual Anthropology]." In Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology, David Levinson and Melvin Ember, editors. New York: Henry Holt and Company, vol. 4:1345-1351, 1996 [link].
External links
- [VisualAnthropology.net]
- [Visual Anthropology Review]
- [European Association of Social Anthropologists Visual Anthropology Network]
- [Royal Anthropological Institute, Ethnographic Film]
- [Audio-Visual Resources] (from the website of Prof. Alessandro Duranti, anthropology department, UCLA)
- [Devin Hahn] is one of many aspiring visual anthropologists.
- [Visual Anthropology studies on Baka Pygmies]
- [Documentary Educational Resources]
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