Visual anthropology 1

Visual anthropologyVisual anthropology is a subfield of cultural anthropology that is concerned, in part, with the study and productionof ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media. While the term is sometimes usedinterchangeably with ethnographic film, visual anthropology also encompasses the anthropological study of visualrepresentation, including areas such as performance, museums, art, and the production and reception of mass media.Visual representations from all cultures, such as sandpaintings, tattoos, sculptures and reliefs, cave paintings,scrimshaw, jewelry, hieroglyphics, paintings and photographs are included in the focus of visual anthropology.Human vision, its physiology, the properties of various media, the relationship of form to function, the evolution ofvisual representations within a culture are all within the province of visual anthropology. Since anthropology is aholistic science, the ways in which visual representation are connected to the rest of culture and society are centraltopics.

HistoryEven before the emergence of anthropology as an academic discipline in the 1880s, ethnologists were usingphotography as a tool of research.[1] Anthropologists and non-anthropologists conducted much of this work in thespirit of salvage ethnography or attempts to record for posterity the ways-of-life of societies assumed doomed toextinction (see, for instance, the Native American photography [2] of Edward Curtis)[3]

The history of anthropological filmmaking is intertwined with that of non-fiction and documentary filmmaking,although ethnofiction may be considered as a genuine sub-genre of ethnographic film. Some of the first motionpictures of the ethnographic other were made with Lumière equipment (Promenades des Éléphants à Phnom Penh,1901).[4] Robert Flaherty, probably best known for his films chronicling the lives of Arctic peoples (Nanook of theNorth, 1922), became a filmmaker in 1913 when his supervisor suggested that he take a camera and equipment withhim on an expedition north. Flaherty focused on “traditional” Inuit ways of life, omitting to that end any signs ofmodernity among his film subjects (even to the point of refusing to use a rifle to help kill a walrus his informants hadharpooned as he filmed them, according to Barnouw; this scene made it into Nanook where it served as evidence oftheir "pristine" culture). This pattern would persist in many ethnographic films to follow (see as an example RobertGardner's Dead Birds).By the 1940s, anthropologists such as Hortense Powdermaker,[5] Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead (Trance andDance in Bali, 1952) and Asen Balikci (with Netsilik Inuits' movies) were bringing anthropological perspectives tobear on mass media and visual representation. Karl G. Heider notes in his revised edition of Ethnographic Film(2006) that after Bateson and Mead, the history of visual anthropology is defined by "the seminal works of four menwho were active for most of the second half of the twentieth century: Jean Rouch, John Marshall, Robert Gardner,and Tim Asch. By focusing on these four, we can see the shape of ethnographic film" (15). In 1966, filmmaker SolWorth and anthropologist John Adair taught a group of Navajo Indians in Arizona how to capture 16mm film. Thehypothesis was that artistic choices made by the Navajo would reflect the ‘perceptual structure’ of the Navajoworld.[6]

In the United States, Visual anthropology first found purchase in an academic setting in 1958 with the creation of theFilm Study Center at Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.[7] John Collier, Jr. wrote the firststandard textbook in the field in 1967, and many visual anthropologists of the seventies relied on semioticians likeRoland Barthes for essential critical perspectives. In 2011, Marcus Banks and Jay Ruby published the first history ofthe field - Made To Be Seen: Historical Perspectives on Visual Anthropology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.At present, the Society for Visual Anthropology [8] (SVA) represents the subfield in the United States as a section ofthe American Anthropological Association.In the United States, Ethnographic films are shown each year at the Margaret Mead Film Festival.

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Timeline and breadth of prehistoric visual representationWhile art historians are clearly interested in some of the same objects and processes, visual anthropology placesthese artifacts within a holistic cultural context. Archaeologists, in particular, use phases of visual development to tryto understand the spread of humans and their cultures across contiguous landscapes as well as over larger areas. By10,000 BP, a system of well-developed pictographs was in use by boating peoples[9] and was likely instrumental inthe development of navigation and writing, as well as a medium of story telling and artistic representation. Earlyvisual representations often show the female form, with clothing appearing on the female body around 28,000 BP,which archaeologists know now corresponds with the invention of weaving in Old Europe. This is an example of theholistic nature of visual anthropology: a figurine depicting a woman wearing diaphanous clothing is not merely anobject of art, but a window into the customs of dress at the time, household organization (where they are found),transfer of materials (where the clay came from) and processes (when did firing clay become common), when didweaving begin, what kind of weaving is depicted and what other evidence is there for weaving, and what kinds ofcultural changes were occurring in other parts of human life at the time.Visual anthropology, by focusing on its own efforts to make and understand film, is able to establish many principlesand build theories about human visual representation in general.

List of visual anthropology academic programs• Australian National University: The Research School of Humanities and the Arts Centre for Visual

Anthropology [10]

• California State University, Chico: Ethnographic, Visual Anthropology, and Digital Media Labs [11]

• Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales Ecuador: offers a master program in visual anthropology [12] .• Freie Universität Berlin: - M.A. in Visual and Media Anthropology [13].• Harvard University: Harvard offers a PhD in Social Anthropology with Media [14] in conjunction with its

Sensory Ethnography Lab [15]

• Heidelberg University: The chair of Visual and Media Anthropology [16] offers BA and MA courses in the fieldof visual and media anthropology.

• New York University: The Program in Culture and Media [17]

• Pontifical Catholic University of Peru: The Social Sciences Department at PUCP offers a two-year MAprogram in Visual Anthropology [18].

• San Francisco State University: Visual Anthropology program [19] and Peter Biella [20]

• Temple University: Undergraduate track in Visual Communication [21]. Graduate specialization in VisualCommunication [22].

• Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana: Laboratorio de Antropología Visual [23]

• Universitat de Barcelona: postgraduate and Master's programs in Visual Anthropology [24]

• University of British Columbia: The Ethnographic Film Unit at UBC [25]

• University College London: offers postgraduate courses [26] that can be taken as part of a masters degree forcredit or they can be audited with a certificate of completion provided.

• University of Kent: The Department of Anthropology offers a Masters in Visual Anthropology [27] that explorestraditional and experimental means of using visual images to produce/represent anthropological knowledge.

• University of Leiden: offers a Bachelor program in Ethnographic Film; Theory and Practice ( [28] & [29]) andthe possibility to perform ethnographic fieldwork with audio visual media within the broader Master-program([30]).

• University of London, Goldsmith's College: The anthropology department offers an MA [31] and PhD [32] inVisual Anthropology.

• University of Manchester: Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology offers MA, MPhil and PhD courses that combine practical film training, editing and production, photography, sound recording. The MA has two

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pathways: Ethnographic Documentary with Film; and Ethnographic Documentary with Sensory Media.Established in 1987, the Granada Centre's postgraduate programme has produced over 200 documentary films,and its students have made films for BBC, Channel 4 and many other international broadcasters. http:/ / www.socialsciences. manchester. ac. uk/ disciplines/ socialanthropology/ visualanthropology/

• University of New South Wales: offers a PhD in Visual Anthropology [33]

• University of Oxford: The Institute of Social & Cultural Anthropology offers a one-year MSc in VisualAnthropology [34].

• University of South Carolina offers a Graduate Certificate in Visual Anthropology [35] for graduate studentsenrolled in M.A. or Ph.D. programs in Media Arts and Anthropology but which also serves graduate students insuch areas as Education, the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, as well as Sociology andGeography.

• University of Southern California - USC Center for Visual Anthropology: The MAVA (Master of Arts in VisualAnthropology) was a 2-3 year terminal Masters program from 1984–2001, which produced over sixtyethnographic documentaries. In 2001, it was merged into a Certificate in Visual Anthropology given alongside thePh.D. in Anthropology. A new digitally based program was created in the Fall of 2009 as a new one year MAprogram in Visual Anthropology [36]. [37]

• University of Tromsø: The University of Tromsø offers a program in Visual Culture Studies [38]

List of Films•• List of visual anthropology films

References[1] Jay Ruby. " Visual Anthropology (http:/ / astro. temple. edu/ ~ruby/ ruby/ cultanthro. html)." In Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology,

David Levinson and Melvin Ember, editors. New York: Henry Holt and Company, vol. 4:1345-1351, 1996 .[2] http:/ / memory. loc. gov/ ammem/ award98/ ienhtml/ curthome. html[3] Harald E.L. Prins, "Visual Anthropology." Pp.506-525, In T.Biolsi. ed. A Companion to the Anthropology of American Indians. Oxford:

Blackwell Publishing].[4] Erik Barnouw. Documentary: A history of the Non-Fiction Film. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.[5] Hortense Powdermaker. Hollywood, the Dream Factory: An Anthropologist Studies the Movie Makers. Boston: Little, Brown and Company,

1950.[6] Darnell R. Through Navajo eyes: An exploration in film communication and anthropology. American Anthropologist, Vol 76, pp 890, Oct.

1974[7] Jay Ruby. " The Professionalization of Visual Anthropology in the United States - The 1960s and 1970s (http:/ / astro. temple. edu/ ~ruby/

ruby/ iwf. html)." 2005 The Last Twenty Years of Visual anthropology – A Critical Review. Visual Studies, vol. 20, no. 2, pgs. 159-170.[8] http:/ / www. societyforvisualanthropology. org/[9] Jim Bailey, Sailing to Paradise[10] http:/ / archanth. anu. edu. au/ visualanthropology/[11] http:/ / www. csuchico. edu/ anth/ ethnolab. shtml[12] http:/ / www. flacso. org. ec/ html/ especializacion. php?ID=DC_00& ID2=DC_48& id_programa=1000[13] http:/ / www. master. fu-berlin. de/ visual-anthropology/[14] http:/ / sel. fas. harvard. edu/ phd. html[15] http:/ / sel. fas. harvard. edu[16] http:/ / www. asia-europe. uni-heidelberg. de/ en/ research/ cluster-professorships/ visual-and-media-anthropology. html[17] http:/ / anthropology. as. nyu. edu/ object/ anthro. grad. program. cultmedia[18] http:/ / www. pucp. edu. pe/ EN/ content/ pagina42. php?pID=4457& pIDSeccionWeb=25& pIDContenedor=4458& pIDIdiomaLocal=1&

pIDReferencial=[19] http:/ / bss. sfsu. edu/ anthro/ Visual%20MA. html[20] http:/ / userwww. sfsu. edu/ ~biella/[21] http:/ / www. temple. edu/ anthro/ undergraduate/ visual/ index. html[22] http:/ / www. temple. edu/ anthro/ visual/ index. html[23] http:/ / uam-antropologia. info/ web/ content/ view/ 273/ 77/[24] http:/ / www. giga. ub. edu/ acad/ npost/ fitxes/ 3/ 200711115. php

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[25] http:/ / anthfilm. anth. ubc. ca[26] http:/ / www. ucl. ac. uk/ anthropology/ other-courses/ film_courses[27] http:/ / www. kent. ac. uk/ sac/ studying/ programmes/ pgt/ MA/ ma_visual_anthropology. html[28] http:/ / www. studiegids. leidenuniv. nl/ index. php3?m=143& c=17& t=3& v=& k=22940& oc=87& garb=0. 961122668995146[29] http:/ / www. studiegids. leidenuniv. nl/ index. php3?m=143& c=17& t=3& v=& k=22945& oc=87& garb=0. 8275481388141609[30] http:/ / www. studiegids. leidenuniv. nl/ index. php3?m=139& c=700& garb=0. 16968962493335587[31] http:/ / www. gold. ac. uk/ pg/ ma-visual-anthropology/[32] http:/ / www. gold. ac. uk/ pg/ mphil-phd-visual-anthropology/[33] http:/ / www. cofa. unsw. edu. au/ degrees/ postgraduate/ research/ phd-visual-anthropology/[34] http:/ / www. isca. ox. ac. uk/ prospective-students/ degrees/ visual-anthropology/[35] http:/ / www. cas. sc. edu/ Anth/ Visualcert. html[36] http:/ / college. usc. edu/ anth/ html/ mav. html[37] http:/ / college. usc. edu/ news/ stories/ 634/ legends-asch-and-myerhoff-inspire-a-new-generation-of-visual-ant/[38] http:/ / uit. no/ vcs/

Related articles• Visual Anthropology (http:/ / astro. temple. edu/ ~ruby/ ruby/ cultanthro. html) - Encyclopedia of Cultural

Anthropology, article by Jay Ruby• Watching Anthropology Films and Videos (http:/ / www. usd. edu/ anth/ handbook/ watchvid. html), article –

University of South Dakota• Visual anthropology in the digital mirror: Computer-assisted visual anthropology (http:/ / lucy. ukc. ac. uk/ dz/

layers_nggwun. html), article by Michael D. Fischer and David Zeitlyn, University of Kent at Canterbury• Legends Asch and Myerhoff Inspire A New Generation of Visual Anthropologists - article by Susan Andrews

(http:/ / college. usc. edu/ news/ stories/ 634/ legends-asch-and-myerhoff-inspire-a-new-generation-of-visual-ant/)

Bibliography• Banks, Marcus; Morphy, Howard (Hrsg.): Rethinking Visual Anthropology. New Haven: Yale University Press

1999. ISBN 978-0300078541• Barbash, Ilisa and Lucien Taylor. Cross-cultural Filmmaking: A Handbook for Making Documentary and

Ethnographic Films and Videos. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.• Collier, Malcom et al: Visual Anthropology. Photography As a Research Method. University of Mexico 1986.

ISBN 978-0826308993• Edwards, Elisabeth (Hrsg.): Anthropology and Photography 1860-1920. New Haven, London 1994, Nachdruck.

ISBN 978-0300059441• Engelbrecht, Beate (ed.). Memories of the Origins of Ethnographic Film. Frankfurt am Main et al.: Peter Lang

Verlag, 2007.• Grimshaw, Anna. The Ethnographer's Eye: Ways of Seeing in Modern Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2001.• Heider, Karl G. Ethnographic Film (Revised Edition). Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006.• Ruby, Jay. Picturing Culture: Essays on Film and Anthropology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000,

ISBN 978-0-226-73099-8.• Mead, Margaret: Anthropology and the camera. In: Morgan, Willard D. (Hg.): Encyclopedia of photography.

New York 1963.• Pink, Sarah: Doing Visual Ethnography: Images, Media and Representation in Research. London: Sage

Publications Ltd. 2006. ISBN 978-1412923484• MacDougall, David. Transcultural Cinema. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.• Pinney, Christopher: Photography and Anthropology. London: Reaktion Books 2011. ISBN 978-1861898043

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• Prins, Harald E.L.. "Visual Anthropology." pp. 506–525. In A Companion to the Anthropology of AmericanIndians. Ed. T. Biolsi. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.

• Prins, Harald E.L., and Ruby, Jay eds. "The Origins of Visual Anthropology." Visual Anthropology Review. Vol.17 (2), 2001-2002.

• Worth, Sol, Adair John. "Through Navajo Eyes". Indiana University Press; 1972.

External links• SVA Society for Visual Anthropology (http:/ / www. societyforvisualanthropology. org/ )• Visual Anthropology Films & Educational Resource Library (http:/ / www. cultureunplugged. com/

documentaries/ watch-online/ filmedia/ index. php)• VisualAnthropology.net (http:/ / www. visualanthropology. net/ )• Visual & Media Anthropology Archive (http:/ / www. antropologiavisual. net/ ) (Spanish)• OVERLAP: Laboratory of Visual Anthropology (http:/ / www. vimeo. com/ groups/ overlap)• Visual Anthropology Review (http:/ / etext. virginia. edu/ VAR/ )• European Association of Social Anthropologists Visual Anthropology Network (http:/ / www. iwf. de/ easa/ easa.

html)• Royal Anthropological Institute, Ethnographic Film (http:/ / www. therai. org. uk/ film/ film. html)• National Anthropological Archives and Human Studies Film Archives (http:/ / www. nmnh. si. edu/ naa/ ) -

collect and preserve historical and contemporary anthropological materials that document the world's cultures andthe history of anthropology.

• Audio-Visual Resources (http:/ / www. sscnet. ucla. edu/ anthro/ faculty/ duranti/ audvis/ ) (from the website ofProf. Alessandro Duranti, anthropology department, UCLA)

• Films of anthropological and other "ancestors" (http:/ / www. alanmacfarlane. com/ ancestors/ )• A kiosk of films and sounds in Ethnomusicology - Robert Garfias (http:/ / aris. ss. uci. edu/ rgarfias/ kiosk/ )• Documentary Educational Resources (http:/ / www. der. org) (Visual Anthropology Films & Filmmakers)• Documentary "El mal visto". Interpretation about the evil eye from the visual anthropology. (http:/ / video.

google. com/ videoplay?docid=-5929726044325008045& hl=es. )• Visual anthtropology (http:/ / www. visualanthropology. com. cn) (Chinese)

• Articles on Fieldwork (http:/ / www. rinasherman. com/ Writing/ publicationsarticles. html)• The Ovahimba Years Collection (http:/ / www. rinasherman. com/ indexcine. html)• Visual Anthropology of Japan (http:/ / visualanthropologyofjapan. blogspot. com/ )• Artpologist an Art project using Art and Anthropology (http:/ / artpologist. com/ )

Article Sources and Contributors 6

Article Sources and ContributorsVisual anthropology  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=499280022  Contributors: A2Kafir, Adamjzy1, Anthro2010, Bearcat, Bidum, Bigtimeoperator, Binks99,Birdmessenger, ChristineHorn, Classicfilms, Dan.omaley, Dblobaum, Dina, Docued, Douglas R. White, Dsmdgold, Dsp13, Dumpydan, Eklkrl, Emettler, Furste, Gatobeyond, Grutness,Irving2000, J.A.Hoskins, Jahsonic, Katepourshariati, Kimswerd, Levalley, Lycaon83, Makikobold, Mattincostume, Mcfly85, Media anthro, Melindahinkson, Mifflintown, Mild Bill Hiccup,Newsroom hierarchies, Nirtk, Ohconfucius, Orangemike, Oswaldo alvizar bañuelos, Paulbgarrett, Proper tea is theft, ProveIt, RJHall, Ricardogreene, Rigadoun, Rjwilmsi, Robert Leopold, Sfan00IMG, Tassedethe, Tertulius, Themfromspace, Theroadislong, Tide rolls, Turtlegoo, Visanthro, William2233, Zomno, 97 anonymous edits

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