Anthropologist photographing tourist photographing the spring equinox at Chichen Itza. March 2010.
I have this thing about taking pictures of people who are taking pictures. This goes back to the days before I ever called myself an anthropologist. It's not a really unique habit--I think I may have picked it up from looking at the work of people like Eliot Erwitt, or maybe Garry Winogrand. It could have been Lee Friedlander. I'm not sure.
What I am sure about, however, is that I find the whole process of taking pictures fascinating. Why do people take cameras with them...seemingly everywhere? What do they get from the whole process of making small reproductions of people, places, and events? These kinds of questions apply to tourists like the one pictured above, of course. That image reminds me of a passage in Don Delillo's book White Noise, in which he talks about the most photographed barn in America. Do we go to these places to actually see and experience those places? Or to make photographs of them and paste them into albums--or onto sites like Facebook and Flickr? Do we see the actual place, or do we just see the cameras in front of our faces? Have cameras (whether SLR's or iPhones) become a key medium for experiencing, documenting, and remembering people and places?
Anthropologists use cameras as well, and many of the same questions that apply to tourists apply to them as well. Remember how Vine Deloria famously painted that infamous picture of the anthropologist and all of the gear they carry around? One of the key items, of course, was the camera strapped around the anthropological neck. The relationship between anthropology and photography goes way back..and so does the relationship between anthropology and film. Despite certain practitioners who spend most of their time thinking about the importance of WORDS in the disciplinary canon, it's pretty clear that visual media has always been a fundamental element of the anthropological enterprise.
Interestingly, however, while many theory and methods books spend a lot of time talking about participant observation, writing fieldnotes, coding, interviews, and a whole slew of other methods, there isn't always a lot of talk about visual methods as a core part of doing anthropology. Well, there isn't enough, if you ask me. Thankfully, people like Jay Ruby, Sarah Pink, Fadwa El Guindi, Paul Hockings, Elizabeth Edwards and many, many others have laid tremendously important foundations that others can build upon. Because, if you ask me, anthropologists--more anthropologists--should start thinking as much about visual media as they do about writing fieldnotes. Why? Well, because communication of ideas should be a crucial element of anthropology, and if visual methods and theory and methods become a more prominent part of anthropological training this will undoubtedly be a boon to the field. For more than one reason.
Photography matters. Film matters. And this is why I have really been looking forward to this issue that seeks to talk about anthropology "Beyond Words" (to make a nice allusion to something that Margaret Mead said long ago). As it turns out, this issue is packed with contributions that cover a wide swath of visual territory. We have contributions from Colleen Morgan, Reuben Ross,David Picard, Katie Englert, Sara Perry, Kerim Friedman, Charlotte Noble, Rian Davis, and Leah McCurdy. We also have a fantastic photo essay by a photographer that I really admire: w robert angell. He is not an anthropologist, but I have found his work immensely fascinating and anthropological on many levels (his "contents" image, included in this essay, always has a kind of archaeological feel to it for me). I am also really pleased to have his work in this issue because I think that anthropologists can learn a lot from photographers, journalists, and filmmakers--and vice versa. There is something good about looking around and seeing how different people use, think about, and approach the world around us. That's what I think. Let me know what you think--and thanks for checking out this latest issue of anthropologies. Thanks also to the anthropologies editorial crew for all of their continued help, and of course to all of the contributors who took part in this collaborative effort. Thanks everyone.
Born in 1966, raised in Scotland from a Czech mom and an American dad, I was given my first camera around 1982, a 35 mm Minolta.
I received a degree in photography and visual art from San Diego City College in 1999. In 2001 I moved to LA and started a small studio in downtown. During 2002 and 2005 I was freelancing for American Apparel and spending a lot of time in the central library photo department. It was here I discovered Eugene Atget (1857-1927 Bordeaux, Paris).
The first book I read about Atget was by John Szarkowski. It had nice print quality, a nice luster but Szarkowski's words were too poetic—his writing bothered me. Reading Bernice Abbott’s account of Atget while working in Paris as Man Ray's assistant in the 20's and after Atget's passing—her story of American snobbery in the "f64 club" in the 30's only fanned the flames of my interest, more so as I looked closer I realized Eugene Atget's work changed the course of photography. You can follow the lineage simply.
Of course, before Atget were a handful of large format documentary photographers—Edouard Baldus, Charles Marville, Bisson Freres and Chevejon Freres—whose work set the bar in the mid to late 19th century France, but where they left off Atget picked up to a whole new level. Atget to Evans and the rest is history: Ruscha, Eggleston, Bechers, Shore.
As downtown LA was undergoing gentrification in the early 2000's a lot of character was being lost. An opportunity arose for me to document LA and capture something like Atget did, before the old was lost.
I found myself wandering around LA with a calumet mono-rail 4x5 in a large Rubbermade tub strapped to a luggage cart on gloomy overcast days and Atget on my mind. I was searching out the remnants of artifacts that LA life had left its mark on. Buildings, streets, alleys, vehicles, found objects, and people. I am fascinated by the buildup of humanity’s invention that occurs over time, and how this process interacts with and changes the surrounding environment.
Ultimately regarding this particular body work I think the two books that played the leading roles in my influence are David Harris’s “Unknown Paris” and “Scene of the crime: Photographs from the LAPD archive.”
Harris's observation of Atget's multiple shots to describe, and the matter of fact style of the LAPD evidence photographs defined my method. The view camera has a tradition of being used for architecture going back to the beginning of photography. Before the camera architectural renderings were made by hand and pencil. The view camera with full technical movements is the ultimate tool for rendering architecture without distorting the image. The large format camera forces you to study with your eyes at what you are photographing, as the image on the ground glass is upside down and back to front. You have to see your shot and then frame it up with the camera. This works for me as I am selective in what I photograph. As a result I find the shots are more deliberate, and undisguised.
As I continued on with the work, and read more on the development of modern large format photography, I thought if Andreas Gursky can take multiple shots and then stitch them together in Photoshop to make large scale views, then why can't I? You can see the images that have an unusual shape in this set, the "panoramics" were made in this way. A composite of two or three frames.
In summary this is an ongoing project that I can't say I will ever finish. Unless I leave LA and then I would take up the same method somewhere else. This is the kind of photography I like. Slow and with a little dignity.
I am continually pulled into anthropology's force field because it is not monolithic. Multiple, variable, dynamic, and diverse are its broad characteristics. Rather than relying on "it" to designate anthropology, I search for another placeholder. "They," perhaps? This very venue, the AnthropologIES Blog, already acknowledges and highlights the multiplicity and diversity of the discipline, subject, and discourse through which humanity can be studied. Looking into the various ìsubfieldsî or ìsubdisciplinesî as they are so earnestly divided, one finds that visual anthropology, for example, is as variable and multifaceted as its parent. Visual anthropologies range between investigations of the visuality of human life and how anthropologists visualize any facet of anthropologies (Banks and Morphy 1999; Wright 1998). Here, I discuss archaeological virtual reconstruction as one of many visual anthropologies, and one which receives less face time than other more well known and ëtraditionalí visual anthropologies. Particularly, my work focuses on virtual reconstructions of architectural remains recovered and understood archaeologically. Thus, here I focus on buildings as visual culture.
Archaeological virtual reconstruction encompasses a breadth of methodologies that contribute to, as the term implies, reconstructing a building in three-dimensional virtual, digital space (Figure 1). Most are familiar with the end-products of virtual reconstruction as featured in various documentaries and historical productions on television. This is not the venue to discuss the accuracy or faithfulness of such popular outlets for virtual reconstruction; however, suffice it to say, this topic is intensely debated within the virtual archaeology literature (see Baker 2007; London Charter 2009). Rather than becoming mired in sloppy popular media creation, I hope to convey that virtual reconstruction as a process is a means to better understand all of the following: architectural design, aesthetics, and general visuality of past peoples as well as how archaeologists interact with visually representative datasets, how visual pictures or videos are produced and manipulated for research, educational, and published applications, and how creativity plays a large role in not only this one anthropology but all anthropologies.
Figure 1: Virtual reconstruction image of Plaza A-III of Xunantunich, Belize superimposed over an archaeological site map.
Architecture is undeniably visual and anthropological. At both fundamental and grandiose levels, humans interact with the world through buildings and structures. Facilitating and impeding movement, regulating and encouraging relationships, perpetuating and challenging aesthetic styles, architecture from dwellings to monumental temples resonates with visuality and humanity. Virtual reconstruction of buildings provides opportunities to elucidate these important qualities through both visual product and process.
My first virtual reconstruction experience (McCurdy 2010a) happened to concern the architectural remains of a palace complex (Plaza A-III) at the archaeological site of Xunantunich (Yaeger 2003; 2010; see also LeCount and Yaeger 2010) (Figure 2). Archaeologists uncovered several construction and occupation phases at the palace over many excavations periods (Mackie 1985; Yaeger 2003). After collecting data using 3D survey and mapping techniques at the remains, I created a virtual reconstruction incorporating each projected construction phase using computer-aided design (CAD) software (Figure 3). Plaza A-III, while preserved well by tropical forest standards, is not in good condition. Due to the fact that buildings do not survive in their original, occupied state, virtual reconstruction entails some hypothetical reconstitution of form. This typically includes reconstructing the tops of walls, doorways, vault systems, and roofs; most of which have fallen from the real structures at Xunantunich. Much of this work is done by use of analogies to other buildings of similar type and close proximity that survive in better condition or publications of highly experienced archaeologists with expert knowledge in architectural form and aesthetics (e.g. Loten and Pendergast 1984).
Figure 2: Remains of Plaza A-III a Xunantunich, Belize, facing north and Structure A-11.
Figure 3: Geometric reconstruction in progress using AutoCAD 2010 software.
As this particular virtual reconstruction progressed, I realized that some previously published archaeological interpretations of Plaza A-III's architectural design were not supported by the physical remains. Thus, I was able to more accurately revise the architectural sequence (McCurdy 2010a). Architectural sequences bear significant import to the archaeological understanding of political upheaval at Xunantunich in the Late Classic Maya period (AD 600-800). As authority changed hands at Xunantunich, the palace was relocated (to Plaza A-III) and remodeled several times (Leventhal 2010). The modifications involved designs to restrict access to private areas of the ruler's residence to increase security and protect the ruler (Yaeger 2003; 2010).
Video 1: Animated virtual reconstruction and revised architectural sequence of Structure A-11 at Xunantunich, Belize.
Additionally, several rooms demonstrate ritual termination and abandonment (Yaeger 2003; 2010; personal communication 2011). These events of Late Classic Xunantunich, physically evidenced in architecture and reconstructed virtually, reflect human relationships at multiple levels, physicality and mentality of space and architectural design, visual culture and styles, environmental interactions, and other facets yet to be explored.
Principally, I have focused my efforts on elucidating and improving the experience of virtual reconstruction. As my master's thesis project, I developed a protocol to create and standardize records of the virtual reconstruction process (McCurdy 2010b). This work entails organizing and manipulating large amounts of data, archaeological interpretations, and hypothetical reconstruction alternatives.
The protocol I developed incorporated a visual interface to record decisions made throughout the reconstruction as a way to build transparency into the process from the start (McCurdy 2010b). Manipulating virtual architectural forms is an act impregnated with visual aesthetic preference, interpretive bias, and relative degrees of creative license. A transparency protocol, as a fancy way to term a record keeping log, makes each decision plain and open to consideration by other eyes and minds. By maintaining the log as an integral part of the process, reflexivity is built in and makes for simultaneous critical self review. Virtual reconstruction projects are better for transparency protocols because as a visual product themselves, they provide direct evidence of the path of decision making that emerged throughout the reconstruction. Thus, critical commentary and potential improvements can be made to both the virtual product and process.
Once a record has been made of the process, the possibilities to understand practice aspects of such methodologies open up. Just as one might ask questions about the decisions made by ancient designers in constructing a building, one might investigate how archaeologists make decisions to reconstruct that same structure in virtual space. Decision of presentation, for example, can yield insight into target audience and interpretative perspective. Issues of intent and agenda can be accessed through transparency data created and completed alongside the reconstruction. This reflexivity and review potential is important because it is lacking in so many popular applications of virtual reconstruction. As archaeologists and anthropologists invest in visual anthropologies, reflexivity and critical review are paramount to the validity and perpetuation of such studies.
I particularly wish to note the creativity that is brought to virtual reconstruction and all visual anthropologies. While the subject matter can be intensely creative, many of the methodologies associated, such as cinematography as a well known example, are embedded in creativity. Artistic creativity is an important facet to such work; however, Hallam and Ingold (2007) also argue that acts of decision-making make up a more accurate and inclusive understanding of creativity. Each decision is a creative enterprise composed of alternatives and choices made concrete through actualized acts of decision. Transparency protocols of virtual reconstructions record and display such creativity for critical consumption while ethnographic films, research publications, and conference presentations also provide a window into these decisions and the creativity of anthropologies. This creativity of anthropologists, be it visual or otherwise, is how we learn of anthropologies. Creativity is what makes anthropologies diverse and multiple. This is what continues to pull me in.
Leah McCurdy
leah.mccurdy@mavs.uta.edu
University of Texas at San Antonio
References
Banks, Marcus and Howard Morphy. 1999. Rethinking Visual Anthropolog. Yale University Press, New Haven.
Baker, Drew. 2007. Towards Transparency in Visualisation Based Research. Paper given at AHRC ICT Methods Network Expert Workshop: From Abstract Data Mapping to 3D Photorealism: Understanding Emerging Intersections in Visualisation Practices and Techniques. June 19, 2007.
Hallam, Elizabeth and Tim Ingold. 2007. Creativity and Cultural Improvisation. Berg, New York.
LeCount, Lisa and Jason Yaeger (eds). 2010a. Provincial Politics: The Classic Maya Center of Xunantunich and its Hinterland. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Leventhal, Richard. 2010. Changing Places: The Castillo and the Structure of Power at Xunantunich. In Classic Maya Provincial Politics: Xunantunich and its Hinterlands, edited by Lisa J LeCount and Jason Yaeger, pp. 79-96. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
London Charter Initiative. 2009. The London Charter: For the Computer-Based Visualization of Cultural Heritage Second Draft. February 2009.
Loten, Stanley and David Pendergast. 1984. A Lexicon of Maya Architecture. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum.
Mackie, Euan W. 1985. Excavations at Xunantunich and Pomona, Belize, in 1959-60. Oxford: BAR International Series 251.
McCurdy, Leah. 2010a. Virtually Reconstructing Maya Architecture: Discoveries of Virtual Artifacts. Paper presented at the 1st Annual South-Central Conference on Mesoamerica, San Antonio, Texas.
-----2010b. Visualising Architecture: The Experience of Creating Virtual Reconstructions. Unpublished M.A. Thesis. University of York. York, England.
Wright, Chris. 1998. The Third Subject: Perspectives on Visual Anthropology. Anthropology Today 14(4): 16-22.
Yaeger, Jason. 2003. Revisiting the Xunantunich Palace: The 2003 Excavations. Report Submitted to the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Research, Inc.
-----2010. Shifting Political Dynamics as Seen from the Xunantunich Palace. In Classic Maya Provincial Politics: Xunantunich and its Hinterlands, edited by Lisa J LeCount and Jason Yaeger, pp. 145-160. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
One of the major tenets of anthropology, which separates us from the rest of the social science pack, is the holistic approach we take to answering questions. Using photography and other forms of visual documentation provide an additional venue for capturing more of the whole picture. I recently worked on a project that used photography to conduct a plate waste study in two middle school cafeterias. The goal of this project was to increase student selection and consumption of fruit and vegetable side items during the lunch period. After a period of observation the research team implemented five subtle changes to the way these side items were served and presented to increase their availability and accessibility. Recognizing that just because a student puts a food item on their tray does not necessarily mean that they will eat any of it, the project included a plate waste study to document both what student put on their trays and what was leftover. Each cafeteria had three food lines and served between 160-200 students during each lunch period. In order to capture photos of every student’s tray quickly and efficiently three mobile digital camera units were stationed outside of each line then positioned by the trash cans in order to capture a second ‘after’ picture before trays were thrown away.
Before and after tray images.
Each Styrofoam tray used during the designated photography lunch period had a number sticker placed in the upper left hand corner. The numbers coded the tray with the date and school at which it was taken along with a distinct identifying number. After each photo session (there were three at each school), before and after photos were matched together using these numbers. At the end of the plate waste study we had a total of 1,414 pairs of photos to analyze. All of these photos are available for public use on the University of North Texas Digital Library. In addition to the tray photos taken the project Principal Investigator (PI) also took a number of photos of the serving lines.
ID scanner.
Analyzing the tray photos and looking over the photos of the serving lines taken by the PI brought to my attention a number of themes and details related to the school lunch experience I had not previously noticed. The surprising recognition of these additional observations and data impressed upon me the particular advantage of using photography in research to gain a more detailed and holistic view of an environment. During the period of observation a number of themes emerged from the field notes taken, yet despite the presence of multiple research assistants conducting 30-40 hours of observation the photos allowed me to make a number of additional observations. One of these previously unidentified aspects of the cafeteria environments is the fast food nature and message of disposability communicated to students through the ways that food items were displayed and served. Starting with the Styrofoam tray and the multi-purpose plastic spork, paper and plastic wrappers and containers characterized much of the foods that students came into contact with on a daily basis.
Soda display case at the cafeteria.
Chip display rack.
Further, the storing and display of items in coolers bearing name brand soda labels and on food racks typically found in convenience stores also sent the message of convenience. Seeing the combined images of the foods that students most often put on their trays, what they actually ate, and the environment in which their food and consumption choices were being made has me asking questions about how these three aspects might be interacting and influencing one another. Two main questions that need to be asked about this fast and convenient approach to school lunch service are: how this approach to food service influences the choices that students make and what are the long-term ramifications for shaping students’ future relationships with food?
In addition to helping me see things I was unable to observe just by being there, photography provided a space for unsolicited voices to emerge and be heard. Often many of the after tray images were not useable as they had been rendered unrecognizable by students. I recall observing such an act of creative destruction and self-expression. On this day I had just positioned my camera unit near the trash cans and was waiting for the lunchroom attendants to begin dismissing students to throw away their trays so that we could begin snapping the after pictures. While I was waiting, I caught sight of a group of three or four boys seated at table nearby. I observed the boys out of the corner of my eye as the earnestly tried to shove all of their leftover items, including the Styrofoam tray, into their empty milk carton. As I nonchalantly watched the boys' efforts they would every so often glance to see if I had noticed. At one point I caught the main boy's eye and he froze expecting, I assume, to be in trouble.
I smiled reassuringly at the boy and complimented him and his friends on their success at fitting all the items in the milk carton, all three boys smiled proudly. While the vast majority of trays photographed were undamaged, there were those trays that had been ripped apart, or the leftover food had been mixed together and drowned in chocolate milk. I came across a tray or two where students had written a message on the tray either in pen or even ketchup, these messages included the short but sweet “Hi!,” song lyrics, and even an obscenity or two. Perhaps the manipulation of their trays is just to be expected as deviant adolescent behavior, expressions of creativity, or merely the result of boredom. However, I wonder if these messages instead were the attempt of the voiceless to have their say. Were these students expressing what they felt about strangers entering and disrupting their world uninvited? It is possible that both explanations are correct, but once again the pictures told me a story I might otherwise have missed. The story these photographs told was one of recognition, through these few examples of individual self-expression I realized how entirely our project had excluded the input and voices of an entire population.
Through the use of photography I learned a number of important lessons about conducting research and being an anthropologist. By taking photographs researchers are able to really capture a whole picture allowing them the opportunity to revisit their field site and research long after they have left it. Through the use of photography we are able to approach our research again and again with fresh eyes and discover nuances that might otherwise have been missed. Additonally, photography can provide a space for the unsolicited voice to be heard. A common practice in visual anthropology is to give subjects a camera and allow them to capture their world as they see it. Photo voice, as this research method is often called, allows the research subject to guide and direct the research process and outcome and thereby equalizing the power dyanmic between subject and researcher. In our project we failed to provide a formal space for the student voices to be heard however some of these did come through in the photographs. Finally, I have learned the impact that images can have in the communication of research finidngs. The images associated with this project have made considerable impacts on the auidences that have received them and have done more to transmit our research than our words ever could.
By now, I’m sure you’ve all heard the story. In October 2011, Florida’s Governor Rick Scott singled out of anthropology as a useless major, igniting a flurry of heated discussions about the utility of anthropology as well as other liberal arts majors.
For those not privy to Gov. Scott’s comments, here are a few:
• Florida doesn't need "a lot more anthropologists in this state….It's a great degree if people want to get it. But we don't need them here” (Tampa Bay News, Oct. 10, “Scott: Florida doesn't need more anthropology majors”).
• "How many more jobs you think there is for anthropology in this state?" followed by "You want to use your tax dollars to educate more people that can't get jobs in anthropology? I don't." (Bender, Tampa Bay News, Oct 13, Gov. Rick Scott rolls out his job agenda)
I remember that October morning when I logged onto Facebook to find a post from a fellow graduate student, Janelle Christensen, citing Gov. Scott’s comments at a local business dinner. Within minutes of the post, Janelle and I were already formulating a plan; a faculty member (who is a “friend” on Facebook) commented about responses that had already been undertaken at the department level.
The big idea we envisioned was this: we wanted to create a slick, easily accessible campaign much like “This is Public Health” created by Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH). We solicited vignettes from our fellow graduate students at the University of South Florida, asking them to write how their work contributes to the state of Florida, written using language aimed at a general audience. Within hours, we had the document, “This is Anthropology” which initially featured the work of 19 students (and filled six single spaced pages of text). The document quickly grew to include 44 vignettes (and 12 single spaced pages). Some of these initial documents were sent to Governor Scott as part of our response or even pasted into comments sections of news reports about Scott’s comments. However, it quickly became apparent that this document, as informative as it was, was not easily accessible in its present form. As I read the exciting, important work being carried out by my fellow students, I thought to myself—who would read through all this? Was there a better way to present this information?
That very same evening, I began to transform the “This is Anthropology” document into the “This is Anthropology” Prezi. Prezi is a cloud-based zooming presentation software that can be used to combine images, text and movement to create a story. The vignettes were matched with creative commons or student provided images in a dynamic presentation, giving graphic representation to the important and wide-ranging works being carried out by anthropology students at USF.
About six or seven vignettes into the presentation, I decided to send the draft Prezi to some of my fellow students, to obtain their input. What happened next was unexpected. One of the students posted the Prezi on Facebook, which then quickly moved to Twitter. The response was overwhelmingly positive, but certainly caught me off guard—the presentation wasn’t even half finished yet! The next two days were a blur—I spent nearly every waking moment adding to and editing the Prezi, promoting it on Facebook and Twitter, and answering email questions or requests to show the presentations in classes or link to it on blogs.
The initial excitement began to give way to questions about representation, questions of voice, even questions of power. Did the presentation presume to speak for all USF students? What about those not working in Florida? (We began to include other students work.) By editing paragraph-long vignettes into 2-3 sentences, did we misrepresent or oversimplify the work being carried out by students? By creating a presentation of the way that our work contributed to the State of Florida, were we accepting a neoliberal agenda without critique? Could we include images from fieldwork? Did we or our participants anticipate that their images would “go viral”? Could we ethically make those choices? What would other universities think about the “This is Anthropology” Prezi; did we presume to speak for the entire field? Suddenly, this was more than simply speaking and showing our work to the general public. While the presentation seemed to be a hit, with over 70,000 views, we now had a growing list of questions and issues that needed to be addressed.
Ultimately, we chose to maintain the Prezi as it was initially formulated. We left more critical responses for other mediums, continue to allow edits to be made to vignettes if students wish to see changes, and decided to keep images of participants out of the presentation. Most visitors to the Prezi do not completely view the presentation; with over 120 points on the viewing path, that is not surprising. Like the “This is Anthropology” document, the Prezi is past the point of being easily accessible—now, it is a cumbersome, lengthy presentation that is somewhat of a chore to move through.
That is why we are already working on the next steps for “This is Anthropology”. I wish I could share the exciting details about the next incarnation, but we are still in the planning phases and there’s still much work to be done. We anticipate being able to include many other voices, and many other anthropologies. In my opinion, this is an exciting time to be an anthropologist. So with all of my heart--thank you, Governor Scott. By questioning my chosen discipline, you sparked a movement. Not only are we able to respond to questions about what anthropology can and does contribute to Florida and the world, but we now are exploring ways to educate the public about anthropology in dynamic and visually exciting ways.
Charlotte Noble PhD Student, University of South Florida
For the past six years my wife, Shashwati Talukdar, and I have been working on the documentary film "Please Don't Beat Me, Sir!." One of the reasons the film took so long to make was because of our commitment to a collaborative process, so we were thrilled when, this past November, we were awarded the 2011 Jean Rouch Award for Collaborative Filmmaking by the Society for Visual Anthropology. Collaboration was central to the project from the very beginning, and we employed a variety of methods (such as filming reactions to public screenings and having our subjects enact short skits) which were directly inspired by Jean Rouch, so the award means a lot to us. I'm currently revising a paper on the collaborative aspects of the film, especially focusing on how the colonial legacy of India's Denotified and Nomadic Tribes (DNTs) shaped the nature of our collaboration. Because this paper is still a work in progress I don't wish to discuss those issues here. Instead, I want to highlight one aspect of collaborative filmmaking which I think deserves more attention: ways in which to extend collaboration beyond the filmmaking process itself.
There are three areas in which we have tried to extend the collaborative process beyond the film: fundraising, distribution and advocacy. Fundraising is perhaps the hardest, and we couldn't have done it without the help of our producer Henry Schwarz who helped us file the paperwork to establish a 401( c)3 non-profit which can be used to fundraise for development and theater activities being done by the subjects of our film. This, in turn, wouldn't be of any use if we didn't have a partner organization in India: the Bhasha Research and Publication Center. This organization, Vimukta, exists so that people in the US can make tax-deductible donations online to support the theater and community development efforts of Budhan Theatre, the subjects of our film. But because Budhan Theatre is not registered to receive money in this way, we have to work together with Bhasha to funnel them the money.
This is all very complicated and in order to ensure that everything was in place before the film was released we had to start setting things up years ago. Nor does it end there. Budhan Theatre does great work in their community and in other neighboring communities, only some of which is documented in our film, but they are not used to dealing with the competitive world of non-profit fundraising in the US. We have had to work with them on capacity building efforts to ensure that they can update their blog and send quarterly statements, etc. all the things our US donors will want to see. But in terms of the actual programs we support, everything is dependent on the work Budhan Theatre is doing and the programs they suggest to us as being suitable for international fundraising. For the past three years we've been supporting their community library and informal classroom, but now we are working with them on a program to institutionalize the children's theater program by providing a stipend to three young-adult actors who would share the responsibility of coaching the children. We had to start planning months ago in order to ensure that the start of this campaign would coincide with the launch of the film. [We will officially launch fundraising for this program in February, but you can donate now if you would like to help, or "like" our Facebook Page to be notified when the campaign officially starts.]
Please Don't Beat Me, Sir! Movie Poster by kerim, on Flickr
Distribution is the second area where collaboration is important. In the case of India's DNTs, it means thinking about ways to reach a community of over sixty million people who are largely illiterate, fragmented, and dispersed all over the country. We are currently trying to raise funding to have our film dubbed in various Indian languages, especially Southern languages, so that in communities where people don't understand Hindi and can't read subtitles, they can still appreciate the film. In doing so we are again seeking to work with our partner organization, Bhasha, which already does important work publishing and translating texts in a variety of Indian languages. We also would like to have members of Budhan Theatre travel with the film to these communities in order to not just show the film, but do theater performances and workshops with the communities in conjunction with the screening. Such screenings and workshops would have an important advocacy element as the DNT community in India still lacks a strong unified identity as DNTs.
Finally, we also see having the film shown on television as an essential part of our advocacy efforts. It is true that these days anyone can upload their film to YouTube for the world to see, but it isn't the case that everyone will watch every YouTube film - especially documentary films. To really reach a wide audience it is still essential to get on television (with different versions planned for Indian Television and abroad). Which meant raising funds to pay for top-notch post production work on the film. We ended up having our sound mixed at the top audio house in Taiwan, the same place that mixed sound for filmmakers like Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao-hsien, and our master tape was made at the the top post production houses in Taiwan, since we wanted to work with the best colorist in the country.
While most academics are happy to have their films shown in film festivals and in the classroom, getting on TV requires attending film festivals, markets, and pitching sessions. It means thinking like an independent filmmaker--which is what Shashwati is. It helps to have a partner familiar with that world. For Shashwati, attending these events is part of what she does professionally. We worked hard to make a film which we felt could appeal to both academic and popular audiences. We thought about story and narrative in a way that we might not have if we had simply been thinking of the academic market. In that sense, I think a commitment to "public anthropology" resulted in a better film.
For about a decade now, whilst practicing archaeology, I have been a contributor to the visual anthropology community. This means that I have variously acted as a dues-paying journal subscriber, chair of multiple scholarly debate sessions at academic visual anthropological events, elected representative of one of the major visual anthropology associations in North America, and many-time academic conference presenter on the subject.
It is in the latter capacity that I have had some of my most interesting experiences, primarily because it is here that visual anthropological audiences have overtly betrayed their prejudices about archaeologists. On repeated occasions when I have discussed problematic ethical and conceptual aspects of archaeological visualisation, my arguments have been rebutted with dismissive comments about how archaeologists do not face the same “real” challenges of anthropologists. The logic is that because archaeologists deal with the past, they have less critical awareness of (and, apparently, less need to negotiate) “live” anthropological matters and beings (see Perry and Marion 2010).
In fact, the fallacy of such reasoning has been debunked by decades of critical analysis (e.g., Leone et al. 1987, Hodder 1985; Shanks and Tilley 1987, 1992)—to name a tiny handful of studies). Nevertheless, owing to the above-mentioned negative reactions, there have been several instances at these events where I have been reluctant to declare myself as an archaeologist for fear of devaluing my own knowledge base.
What is ironic about both my own sense of reluctance and my audiences’ common response to my presentations, is the legacy of visual anthropology itself: a not insignificant number of pivotal figures in the crafting of the discipline (e.g., Edmund Carpenter, Karl Heider, Paul Hockings, Jay Ruby) had archaeological backgrounds at the start of their careers—excavating archaeological sites; reviewing archaeological outputs (e.g. Ruby 1969); perpetuating archaeological knowledge making. Moreover, there is a plenitude of other emerging and well-established professionals, trained as archaeologists (some of whom do, indeed, simultaneously identify as visual anthropologists), for whom versatility in visual media usage and methodology is the norm (e.g., Andrew Cochrane, Adam Fish, Carl Knappett, Colleen Morgan, Stephanie Moser, Ian Russell, Michael Shanks, Christopher Tilley, Ruth Tringham, Aaron Watson, Christopher Witmore, Helen Wickstead). This includes key figures in the field of museum studies (e.g., Susan Pearce) who are arguably under-acknowledged in the visual anthropology literature because of its often curbed (and hence, I think, intellectually-limiting) focus on ethnographic film and photography.
However, on the other side, amongst audiences of archaeologists, I am often similarly loath to declare myself to be a visual anthropologist. This is because I have repeatedly been challenged by both my archaeological students and colleagues for doing research that is purportedly “not real archaeology.” My response to such a baseless statement is that archaeologists are—and always have been—skilled users and makers of multi-media, capitalising on various visual anthropological methodologies to facilitate or augment their work. There is a growing body of historical scholarship testifying to this skilfulness, wherein I would situate some of my own research (see Perry 2011). What I see as critical is that in neglecting this long history of disciplinary engagement with visual media—creating, distributing, and remixing images; using them to solicit information, and to formulate and resolve research questions—archaeologists prove themselves ignorant of the full scope of their own field and, arguably, incompetent to succeed as professionals.
However, the extent to which archaeologists agree with my point of view is debatable, as evidenced by my own recent experiences with the peer review process. Herein, my colleagues and I have been critiqued for privileging a topic “on the boundaries of the discipline”—one that is supposedly not of “equal significance” to the authentic work of excavation. Elsewhere, and at the opposite extreme, we have been criticised for belabouring a purportedly already obvious, ubiquitous, integral and widely-endorsed set of disciplinary practices. For the most part, it is the former critique that still dominates my encounters with archaeological audiences. Although, in either case, such commentary highlights an obvious gap in knowledge about the current state of visual engagement in archaeology.
The essential problem for both archaeology and visual anthropology, as I see it, is that insularity in practice breeds impoverished scholarship. If we stand inattentive to the productivities and possibilities of others’ tools, and of their indivisibility from our own disciplinary histories, we leave ourselves poorly equipped to produce rigorous, pioneering research, and hence to negotiate the future of our fields. In other words, borrowing from Wylie (2008), we risk placing ourselves at an obvious epistemic disadvantage. This is a point that Colleen Morgan has herself alluded to in an earlier contribution to anthropologies, and from my perspective, it applies as much to visual anthropologists as it does to archaeologists (not to mention other professionals).
Of course, I am not arguing here that we should know everything about everything. Rather, I am appealing to basic standards of academic integrity. Surely we have a responsibility both to familiarise ourselves with practices that are already deeply-embedded in our own disciplinary cultures, and at a minimum, avoid propagating unsubstantiated statements about the nature of our (and others’) work. Recognising the already fluid makeup of our fields and intellectual trajectories is not to sideline or delegitimise our research objectives, but to support and amplify them.
I am fortunate to be both an archaeologist and a visual anthropologist.
Sara Perry
@archaeologistsp
saraperry.wordpress.com
Lecturer in Cultural Heritage Management
University of York, UK
sara.perry@york.ac.uk
References
Hodder, I. 1985. Postprocessual Archaeology. In Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, M.B. Schiffer, ed. Pp. 1-26. Orlando: Academic Press.
Leone, M.P., Potter, P.B. Jr. and Shackel, P.A. 1987. Toward a critical archaeology. Current Anthropology 28(3):283-302.
Perry, S. 2011. The Archaeological Eye: Visualisation and the Institutionalisation of Academic Archaeology in London. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
Perry, S., and Marion, J. 2010. State of the ethics in visual anthropology. Visual Anthropology Review 26(2):96-104.
Ruby, J. 1969. Film Review of 4-Butte-I: A Lesson In Archaeology. Produced by Peter Schnitzler. American Anthropologist 71(2):380.
Shanks, M., and Tilley, C. 1987. Social Theory and Archaeology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Shanks, M., and Tilley, C. 1992. Re-Constructing Archaeology: Theory and Practice. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
Wylie, A. 2008. Legacies of collaboration: Transformative criticism in archaeology. Paper presented at the 107th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, CA, 19-23 November, 2008.
Singing and composing music is an integral part of Donica’s village, as is illustrated in SingSings, a visual/audio slideshow that focuses on a woman named Donica and her relationship to her village in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea.
I met Donica while documenting marriage ceremonies in the Eastern Highlands in 2005 with my friend and colleague, Gina Knapp, who had previously conducted phd research in the Eastern Highlands. Knapp introduced me to Donica who quickly became a great friend and the focus of my photography and audio interests.
SingSings is part of a larger visual project that I hope to continue working on as long as I know Donica and am able to document her life.
Katie Englert teaches online anthropology courses at Northern Kentucky University. She received her MA at the Australian National University in 2005 and currently lives in Portland, Oregon, documenting everyday life. You can view her work at http://katieenglert.com or contact her at katiee1@nku.edu
Linear Story
Every film has a beginning, a development and an end, one of my anthropology colleagues here in Portugal once explained me. (For the sake of the storytelling and to respect his intimacy, I will call him Franz.) A film without a beginning, a development and an end is not a film, and that applies to any type of film including ethnographic film, Franz further stressed. Franz works in the Amazon in Brazil where he does video films involving the participation of communities. Some time after our initial conversation, I saw one of his productions during a workshop at one of the Lisbon universities. There were wide shots of beaches and tourist infrastructures. The voice was given mainly to young people dressed up in American-Indian costumes who interviewed tourists about their ideas about American Indians. It was a funny, at times polemic film about the naivety of tourists and also about the transformations American Indians underwent in the eye of tourists and tourism. In these processes, these American Indians, hitherto socially marginalised in the context of Brazilian nation building, seemed to become beautiful, socially valorised and proud to be so. After the film screening, I asked whether the montage of the film, eventually done by Franz on his own, and the story it told was not reinforcing the symbolic fabrication of American-Indians as radically different. In a way, I questioned, whether through this film and other media, American-Indians became elevated as a symbolic hinterland of the Brazilian nation allowing to tell and authenticate a national story rooted in the realms of an Amazonian ancestral society, that can still be visited (and that therefore needs to be kept alive).
Community Participation
My question which aimed to generate debate was taken badly, as a critique of the movie whose dialogically framed plot the mainly-student audience seemed to like and thus defended against my comments. Participant ethnographic video and filmmaking usually claim to empower local communities to tell their own stories and thus to emancipate and valorise new forms of identity. Such filmmaking has become very fashionable in recent years, witnessed by the springing up of ethnographic film festivals, and visual anthropology and ethnographic filmmaking courses in universities worldwide. Yet, these films are rarely edited by community members and where they are, their authors, trained in universities or field film workshops usually adapt plots, narrative frameworks and characters that configure “community” in a way that conforms to outside conceptions. They all have a beginning, a development and an end. And they usually formulate local community in terms of an ontologically separate realm placed in a distinguished locale that, like the Hollywood hero, has to overcome obstacles to eventually achieve a specific aim (or to fail). This would be called the plot. And this precisely was what I was taking issue with. If we approach subjects not as humans, but as members of a specific group, which is made a specific group by the very plots associated with it – say Amazonian Indians struggle for land – we discursively reaffirm social patterns that express a certain order of the world, and that give these subjects little leverage to construe alternative realities. This still unresolved ethical issue about the specific value of being human that we implicitly defend with regard to, or through, our work has been pinpointed in earlier comments, maybe most famously by Marcus and Clifford in their Writing Culture.
Indigenous as Modern Plot
In our initial conversation, Franz had told me that he was teaching community members to film, and that his students usually adopted his storytelling and editing style. Through their productions, one could see that they were his students, he explained. In most community-participative films I have seen, community is represented as intrinsically bound through historical filiations to ancestors and land (and nature). At the same time, in the wider social contact zones of, for example, tourism, it is extrinsically idealised as a model to think about time and the human community at large. The act of telling the story of indigenous and autochthon communities and engaging them through tourism, journalism, ethnographic film, political rhetoric, world art or corporate social responsibility programmes seems to become a fundamental element of global modernity, a consensual trope allowing moderns of all sorts to reaffirm a story of universal history and humanity. From this perspective, these intimately strange communities are within modernity, and not outside; they evoke a somehow mythical reality and thus supply a means to think about forms of the human and how these evolve in time.
Aesthetic Transfigurations in the Global Modern World
Most anthropologists would agree that community is nothing authentic in itself (in the sense as to relate to an original condition or ur-humanity whatever that would be), but an outcome of historical fabrication and formation. It is a category to classify people and their identity that through the repetition of performances becomes reified, normalised and ‘naturalized’. As part of this ‘system’, the plots underlying much participative filmmaking seem transpired by a form of postcolonial sentimentalism, effectively empowering indigenous and autochthon populations to appropriate precisely those tropes and identities reserved for them within the wider order of global modernity. In a process of transfiguration (in the sense given by Nietzsche, but also, why not by classical Greek theatre: the actor is transfigured by the Gods they had invoked and the Gods shine through them), they become inhabited by initially external, imported notions of being beautiful, wise, in close contact with nature, family-oriented, spiritual and spirited, pacific. They shine as indigenous as a form of modern. Modernity is the God that provides power, pride and identity as indigenous.
Militant Filmmaking
It may well be that within the wider world system and similar to other noble savage projections before, the thus elevated Amazonian Indians are to compensate for the discontents of the modernist project, which did not fulfil its promises of progress, enlightenment, and happiness (but which led us being governed by banks and rating agencies, instead of politicians we elected). It is part of the plot of this global Ethno-Hollywood societal theatre play, that they, and their authentic way of life, must therefore be defended against the aggressions by the anthropologist’s current favourite anti-hero, global neo-liberalism. This leads me to a second reflection. I understand the dilemmas many anthropologists face when in the field. Over the past 10 years, many of us have observed forms of massive land grab, land privatisation and the political and economic disempowerment of populations we work and empathize with. Many of us observe a feeling of powerlessness and hopelessness, when our informants ask us for help. Often scientific articles in academic journals and postings to anthropology forums – so basically communication to and among ourselves – are the “best” we do. Filmmaking represents here a more powerful tool and medium able to reach a far wider audience and have more concrete impact. As we talk, the Mursi of South Ethiopia and fishing populations in South Western Madagascar are expropriated and progressively excluded from the land that represents their resource base and social centres of society. Most of us know that, but there is no movement. Could filmmaking change this? Or would we only get yet another salvage paradigm plot, the “poor being excluded from their land by the rich”, say, collectively, “how terrible”, and then move on with our lives? I watched Inside Story and Tous au Larzak, and both films had an effect, though in different arenas. Maybe because we feel more affected by the bank-credit-euro crisis, or the rural-nostalgia-crisis than with the story of people whose destiny, according to the modernist plot, is “doomed” anyway. We could push this further and say that these people eventually fulfil expectations within a narrative framework we have difficulties to liberate ourselves of.
Endnote
The people in Madagascar I work with do, for various reasons, not wish to work with a lawyer and go to court or involve public security agencies such as the police, but wish to solve the problems “peacefully”. Pragmatically this has meant so far to accept relatively small sums gained in exchange for signatures on documents they could not read, but that stipulated the large-scale sale of communal land (which is an all important category at the local scale, but not recognized in the national land law system). Most wish their kids went to school and found work in town. Of all the kids interviewed in various schools, not one wants to become a fisher. So there is change to happen here in the next 10 year that goes beyond, or against the romantic modernist plot of the poor, but happy fisher by the sea. But we already have a plot to think about this new situation prepared. The poor economize and send one of their children to town to get educated and an office job. Another adventure story. I feel a bit lost. Any suggestions on how we could effectively help the Gasy fishers or the Mursi in Ethiopia? And if there is no one asking for help, should we help anyway? Is help yet another plot we inhabit?
For me, as an ethnographer and filmmaker, there is almost
no boundary between documentary film and films of fiction.
--Jean Rouch (in Fulchignoni 1989)
The renowned French ethnographer and filmmaker Jean Rouch once observed in his groundbreaking article, The Camera and Man (2003), that there has always been an intimate connection between anthropology and film. Today, contemporary anthropologists not only engage in participant observation amongst their communities, but also increasingly incorporate photography and video as central research methods into the process of ethnographic inquiry. It seems that anthropology is, less and less, a “discipline of words” (Mead 2003). But the idea of a close relationship between anthropology and film has often been seen as problematic, for numerous reasons. Jay Ruby, for one, has recently suggested that “anthropologists tend not to be very knowledgeable about film… [while] film critics’ and theorists’ understanding of anthropology is equally limited” (2000: 3-4). So, how can we better understand the intricate connection between film and anthropology?
In 1955, Rouch screened his controversial film, Les Maîtres Fous, to a small selection of French anthropologists and African intellectuals in Paris. The film documented an elaborate possession ritual practiced by the Hauka movement in colonial West Africa, during which members assume the roles of their colonial administrators. Participants are shown in trance-like states, dancing and mimicking French military ceremonies. “What a set up!” exclaimed the New Wave filmmaker, Claude Chabrol, who was present at the screening. “How can he direct actors like that?” (quoted in Feld 2003) But Les Maîtres Fous was an ethnographic film, not a film of fiction. Rouch followed the controversial Les Maîtres Fous with several more films - Jaguar, Moi, un noir and La Pyramide humaine – that frequently blurred the boundaries between ethnography and fiction, subject and object. Critics would later term this new genre, “ethno-fiction.”
A few, short years later, Rouch found himself on the streets of his own country, shooting his most well known work, Chronique d’un été, with sociologist Edgar Morin. Through a series of short, poetic vignettes, the film follows Rouch and Morin as they inquire into the everyday lives of Parisians during the summer of 1960, combining what Steven Feld calls the techniques of “drama, fiction, provocation and reflexive critique” (Feld 2003: 16). Set against the disquieting political backdrop of the Algerian War and impending 1960s riots, Rouch and Morin directed interviews with working class urbanites, including a factory worker, a student, a holocaust survivor and an Italian immigrant. On one hand, Chronique d’un été was an important technical accomplishment, made possible only by innovations of its time: portable, handheld cameras and synchronous sound. But, on the other, the film is hailed as an important aesthetic experiment in Cinéma Vérité: a critical, conceptual exploration of the camera’s unique relationship to truth and reality. Indeed, Rouch had attempted to “create reality starting from fiction” (quoted in Bruni 2002).
Rouch’s Chronique d’un été (1961)
Of course, Rouch’s films occupy an important position in the complex, intimate and enduring relationship between cinema and anthropology (and embody many ongoing debates within these two areas). But ethnographic film has always intermingled with fiction: scripted, ethnographic films have existed since the early days of cinema itself, whilst fictional films have often included ethnographic material. The great Soviet filmmaker, Sergei Eisenstein, once commented that his Battleship Potemkin (1925) “looks like a newsreel of an event,” (quoted in Barnouw 1983: 61) and even Robert Flaherty’s celebrated documentary, Nanook of the North (1922), contained many fictional elements, while Fatimah Tobing Rony (1996) has been particularly outspoken about how, historically, cinema is inextricably linked to issues of race and, by extension, ethnographic concerns, citing D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915) as an early example. But perhaps the ethnographic filmmaker David MacDougall puts it most succinctly: “all films are cultural artifacts” (1978: 405), he writes, “dramatic films often verge, or seem to verge, on the ethnographic, either because of their subject matter or the circumstances of their production and viewing” (1969: 18).
Despite ethnographic film’s relatively marginal status in the wider culture, I would argue that anthropological insight – or, broadly, the depiction of social or political realities - exists in even the most recent Hollywood films. This premise was first offered by Siegfried Kracauer, in his seminal work From Caligari to Hitler (1947), in which he argued that films tend to reflect the political situation and social milieu in which they are made. When anthropologist Gregory Bateson analyzed the Nazi propaganda film Hitlerjunge Quex (1933) he made a similar assumption (Bateson 2000). Dominic Alessio, took this further, when he suggested that Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) “highlights ethnic concerns in 1980s America” (Alessio 2005). Even more recently, District 9 (2009), produced by Peter Jackson, forms a clever critique of the colonial history and the apartheid regime of South Africa, through a story of alien invasion. Avatar (2009), the 3D epic by James Cameron, gives us a distinct, allegorical account of the anthropological encounter itself, whilst drawing critical attention to the perils of corporate power and politics. Not only had Cameron consulted linguist Paul Frommer to create an entirely new language for the film, but anthropologist Nancy Lutkehaus was asked for choreographic advice on how Cameron’s blue humanoids should move (Lutkehaus 2009).
Meanwhile, the recent YouTube-based documentary, Life in a Day (2011), asked citizens across the world to film a few minutes of one day in their lives. Incorporating techniques of collaborative ethnography, similar to those employed by anthropologists like Malinowski or Boas over 70 years ago, the film was cut together from a total of 4,500 hours of footage submitted by users online. We are offered a glimpse into the everyday lives of a Japanese father and son, a British university student, an American sky-diver, concert-goers in Germany and Brazilian street children. By dissolving the boundaries of subject and object, Life in a Day marks an important experiment in cinematic and anthropological convergence. At times, the film even echoes scenes of Rouch’s Chronique d’un été. Above all, perhaps we have reached a point where we can, technically and conceptually, ”see the world through the eyes of the native” (Ruby 2000: 32), as Malinowski once envisaged.
Life in a Day (2011): a modern Chronique d’un Et
But still, Rouch concluded The Camera and Man by observing that, “ethnographic film has not yet passed its experimental stage” (2003: 45). In many ways, this is still true today, because the question still remains of how film can be used to its fullest potential in effectively, even authentically, inquiring into complex social realities and cultural conditions. I believe that the continual evolution of ethnographic practice, with an increased dialogue between anthropology and film studies, is one way we can help achieve this. Using ideas from films of all genres and making use of the vast diversity of multimedia tools now available, visual anthropologists can document, interpret and present their studies, both collaboratively, reflexively and publicly, in new and effective ways. Then, as Anna Grimshaw writes, we must ultimately reach “a way of seeing cinema, anthropologically, and a way of seeing anthropology, cinematically” (2001: 9).
Reuben Ross recently completed his Masters Degree in Visual Anthropology
at the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK. With an undergraduate
background in Film Studies, he is particularly interested in the
conjuncture of cinema and anthropology, exploring the many ways this can
be theorized and put into practice. Reuben can be contacted by email at
reubster@gmail.com.
References
Alessio, D. 2005. “Redemption, ‘Race,’ Religion, Reality and the Far-Right: Science Fiction Film Adaptations of Philip K. Dick” in W. Brooker (ed), The Blade Runner Experience: The Legacy of a Science Fiction Classic. London: Wallflower Press.
Barnouw, E. 1983. Documentary: a History of the Non-Fiction Film. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bateson, G. 2000. “An analysis of the Nazi Film Hitlerjunge Quex” in M. Mead & R. Metraux (eds). The Study of Culture at a Distance. New York: Berghan Books.
Bruni, B. 2002. “Jean Rouch: Cinéma-vérité, Chronicle of a Summer and The Human Pyramid” in Senses of Cinema Issue 19.
Feld, S. 2003. Ciné-Ethnography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Fulchignoni, E. 1989. “Conversation between Jean Rouch and Professor Enrico Fulchignoni” in Visual Anthropology Volume 2, Issue 3-4.
Grimshaw, A. 2001. The ethnographer’s eye: ways of seeing in anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kracauer, S. 1947. From Caligari to Hitler: a psychological history of the German film. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Lutkehaus, N. 2009. “A World All Their Own.” Accessed here on 29 December 2011.
MacDougall, D. 1969. “Prospects of the Ethnographic Film” in Film Quarterly Volume 23, Issue 2.
MacDougall, D. 1978. “Ethnographic Film: Failure and Promise” in Annual Review of Anthropology Volume 7.
Mead, M. 2003. Visual anthropology in a discipline of words. In P. Hockings (ed) Principles of visual anthropology. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Rouch, J. 2003. ‘The Camera and Man’, in S. Feld (ed), Ciné-Ethnography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Ruby, J. 2000. Picturing culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Tobing Rony, F. 1996. The third eye: race, cinema, and ethnographic spectacle. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
