Visual anthropology

Winter Term 2012-2013

4 credits (8 ECTS)
Lecturer: Vlad Naumescu

Schedule: Monday 1.30 5.10pm/ Nador 11

and Media Lab, Nador 15 4th floor
Office hours: Tuesday 2-4pm and by appointment
E-mail: naumescuv@ceu.hu
CEU Ext.: 2315

Course description
This course explores the ways in which the visual conveys and broadens ethnographic investigation.
In a discipline dominated by words we came to think exclusively in terms of culture as text and
ethnography as writing culture. Challenging anthropology's iconophobia the course proposes a
different perspective focused on the role of vision and image in anthropological research. It takes
the visual as both technique of representation and mode of knowing, looking at ways of seeing in
particular cultural and historical contexts. The course maps the growing field of visual anthropology
focusing on theoretical and practical aspects related to photography and film in social research. It
exposes the different ways in which cultures can be represented visually and the cultural
interpretations of visual representations. Ultimately, the course addresses critical issues in
anthropology related to ethnographic evidence, knowledge production, reflexivity, ethics and
aesthetics in processes of cultural representation.
The course starts with a definition of the field followed by a closer look at classic portrayals of
'exotic people' and the role of visual documentation in early anthropology. It moves on to film,
looking at visual conventions in fiction and documentary, genres, narrative and editing styles, issues
of authorship and positioning in contemporary anthropological films. The last sessions explore the
theoretical and methodological potential of new media, which has developed further in new fields
like media or digital anthropology. The course combines readings with film screenings and hands-
on camera practice, aiming to balance practice and theory through substantial visual and theoretical
input and students own production of a photo-essay or film.

Learning outcomes
Upon completion of the course, students should a) demonstrate advanced knowledge of theory and
methodology in visual anthropology b) have acquired knowledge of the history of visual
documentation in social research c) improve their research skills by learning to use visual methods
in social research d) identify and apply appropriate visual methods and theories in a visual project
conducted during the course e) creatively combine visual and written forms in their final projects.

Course structure and assessment

This course requires your full interest, participation and creativity. We will have weekly meetings
consisting of a brief introduction to the respective topic and readings followed by a film screening
and discussion. Film screenings are an essential part of the class so you should be present, attentive
and taking notes. All films are accompanied by additional material (film guides) that provide
insights into the filmic process, authors choices and possible interpretations. Furthermore you can
access many of these films on the online database Alexander Press Ethnographic Film Library
available through CEU Library. Class discussions are intended to reflect on the specific topics
based on films or film excerpts and weekly readings.

For this course you are asked to keep a diary with weekly notes on films, class readings and the
progress of your visual project. Diary entries can be uploaded weekly on the e-learning site or on
your own blog created for this purpose, but at the end of the class you have to submit the whole
diary for grading. You are also required to contribute at least two entries to the class list or course
blog and encouraged to post photos, comments, suggestions and links throughout the term (and
after!). For the final grade you have to post at least one entry on the course blog describing your
research project. Your final project should be either a photo essay (including 10-15 photographs and
1500 words) or a short film (10 min.) accompanied by a one page synopsis. For the photo essay you
have to choose a sociological topic and approach it through photographs and text following the
theoretical and methodological issues discussed in class. For the film you have to explore the topic
through photography first, then write a short 'script' and shoot the film. On week 4 you are required
to submit a paragraph describing the topic of the project and your visual approach. Weeks 4-6 will
be reserved for consultations and explorations of the chosen topic. Starting with week 7 we will
have presentations of your ongoing projects. The filming should be done by week 10 to allow
enough time for editing the film.

The final grade will reflect your participation in class (10%), the course diary (40%) and the photo
essay or film (50%). The course blog offers a good overview of previous courses, resources and
students projects: http://visualanthroceu.wordpress.com/

COURSE OUTLINE AND READINGS

Week 1. Introducing the field of visual anthropology
What is visual anthropology and what should it be? What is the role of vision and image in
ethnographic investigation? In what respects images convey culture and what challenges does this
pose for conventional anthropological knowledge?
Film: Into the Field. Alyssa Grossman, UK/RO, 28 min. 2006.
Readings:
Mead, M. 2003 (1975). Visual Anthropology in a Discipline of Words. In Hockings, P. Principles
of visual anthropology, 2nd ed. pp. 3-12. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Banks, M. and H. Morphy, eds. 1997. Introduction: rethinking visual anthropology. In Banks, M.,
and H. Morphy. eds. Rethinking visual anthropology. Pp. 1-35. New Haven ; London: Yale
University Press.

Week 2. Early ethnographic films: ethnographic reconstructions of 'exotic' cultures

In spite of the parallel foundations of cinema and anthropology, cinema had a hard time entering
anthropology. How did the first ethnographic films convey their ethnographicness? What is an
ethnographically valid reconstruction? What makes it authentic?

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Film: Nanook of the North. Robert Flaherty, Canada, 1922, 55 min.
Film guide: Rothman, W. 1997. Nanook of the North. In Rothman, W. Documentary film classics.
Cambridge studies in film. Pp. 1-20. Cambridge; New York: CUP.
See also: Flaherty, Robert J. 1922 How I Filmed 'Nanook of the North', World's Work, October:
632-640. (available on the e-learning site)

Readings:
Grimshaw, A. 2001. The Innocent Eye: Flaherty, Malinowski and the Romantic Quest. In The
ethnographer's eye: ways of seeing in anthropology. Pp. 44-56. Cambridge: CUP.
Griffiths, A. 1996. Knowledge and Visuality in Turn-of-the-century Anthropology: The Early
Ethnographic Cinema of Alfred Cort Haddon and Walter Baldwin Spencer. Visual Anthropology
Review, 12(2): 18-43.

Week 3 Between exoticizing and documenting: photography as ethnography?

This class looks at what makes a visual representation ethnographic. By taking the example of the
Nuba and the way they were portrayed in films and photography we come to analyze processes of
representation and discover their limitations and biases.
Film excerpt: Worlds apart: The South East Nuba. BBC 1982, 50 min.
Photos: Riefenstahl, L. 1974. The last of the Nuba. New York: Harper & Row.
http://www.leni-riefenstahl.de/eng/nuba.html

Readings
Sontag, S. 1975. Fascinating Fascism. In New York Review of Books, vol. 22 (1).
Permanent link: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/9280

Edwards, E. 1997. Beyond the Boundary: a consideration of the expressive in photography and
anthropology. In Banks, M., and H. Morphy. eds. Rethinking visual anthropology. Pp. 53-80. New
Haven: Yale University Press.
Jacknis, I. 1988. Margared Mead and Gregory Bateson in Bali: Their Use of Photography and Film.
Cultural Anthropology 3(2): 160-177.

Week 4. Analyzing photos: conventions and methods

What can you do with an image in ethnographic research? What are the ways to read pictures?
What is the relationship between image and text in anthropological writing? How does the
materiality of the medium influence our perception and understanding of the visual? What is the
role of image in different visual cultures?
Film: Photo Wallahs. David MacDougall, 1991, 60 min.
Film guide: MacDougall, D. 2006. Photo Hierarchicus: Signs and Mirrors in Indian Photography.
In MacDougall, D. The corporeal image: film, ethnography, and the senses.. pp. 147-175.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Readings:
W.J.T. Mitchell, 1994. The Photographic Essay: Four Case Studies. In Picture theory : essays on

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verbal and visual representation.Chicago : University of Chicago Press, pp. 281-328.

Barthes, R. 1981. Camera Lucida. Reflections on photography. London : Flamingo, Read pp. 23-60.

Week 5. Ways of seeing: the fiction of reality

What separates fiction from documentary? How is the real produced on screen? What conveys the
meaning of a documentary? How does technology affect issues of representation and interpretation?
This class provides an exploration into the visual conventions of documentary filmmaking.
Film excerpts: Man with a Movie Camera. Dziga Vertov, Soviet Union, 1929, 80 min.
Close-up. Abbas Kiarostami, Iran, 1990, 93 min.
Film guides: Vertov, Dziga. 1985. Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov. University of
California Press. Read We: Variant of a Manifesto pg. 5-9.

Readings:
Vaughan, D. 1992. The aesthetics of ambiguity. In P Crawford & D. Turton (eds) Film as
Ethnography. pp. 99115. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Nichols, B. 1991. The Fact of Realism and the Fiction of Objectivity. In Representing reality :
issues and concepts in documentary Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 165-198.

Week 6. Ways of knowing: the limits of representation

Is there a specific visual language of ethnographic film? How can one draw meaning from
image/film without narration or cultural intimacy with the subject? Where lays the
ethnographicness of ethnographic films?
Film: Forest of Bliss. Robert Gardner, 1986, 90 min.
Film Guide: Gardner, R., . str, et al. (2001). Making Forest of Bliss: intention, circumstance,
and chance in nonfiction film : a conversation between Robert Gardner + kos str . Cambridge,
Mass., Harvard Film Archive.

Readings
Banks, M. 1992. Which Films are Ethnographic Films? In Crawford, P. I., D. Turton eds.
Film as ethnography. Pp. 116-129. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
the Gardner debate in SVA:
Moore et al. 1988. The Limitations of Imagist Documentary: A Review of Robert Gardner's "Forest
of Bliss." Society For Visual Anthropology Newsletter 4(2): 1-3.including reviews by J Parry
(1988), R Chopra (1989), A Ostor (1989), Ruby (1989).
Mischler, C. 1985. Narrativity and metaphor in ethnographic film; a critique of Robert Gardner's
Dead Birds. In American Anthropologist 87: 668-672.
Ostor, A. 1988. Misreading the metaphor. In American Anthropologist 90:980-982

Week 7.: Ethnographic film: between documenting and documentary

What is the relationship between ethnography and filmmaking? What is the ethnographic style,
the visual and narrative conventions of ethnographic films? How can we move from documenting
social phenomena to filmmaking? What is the relationship between film and theory in

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anthropology?
Film excerpts:
Gandhi's Children. 2008. David MacDougall, India/Australia 185 min.
Vermont Kids, 1975. John Marshall US 58min. see also Pittsburgh Police series (1973) on
Alexander Street database.

Readings
Weinberger, E. 1994. The Camera People. In Taylor, L. Visualizing theory: selected essays from
V.A.R., 1990-1994. Pp. 3-26. New York: Routledge.
MacDougal, David (1998) Visual Anthropology and the Ways of knowing. In MacDougall,
Transcultural Cinema. pp. 61-92. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Week 8. Beyond observational film

With Rouch we witness a move from documentary realism to shared anthropology and participatory
cinema. Camera becomes a catalyst of social processes and filmmaking a site for transformation.
Can Rouch reveal more about human nature by taking an experiential stance? Is participatory
cinema a better representation of the anthropological encounter?
Film: Chronique dun t (Chronicle of a Summer), Jean Rouch & Edgar Morin, France, 1961, 85'.
Film Guide: Rouch, J. 2003. Chronicle of a Summer: A Film Book by Jean Rouch and Edgar
Morin. In Rouch, J. and Steven Feld eds. Cine-Ethnography/ Jean Rouch, pp: 229-273.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Readings
Feld, S. 2003. Themes in the Cinema of Jean Rouch. In Rouch, J. and S. Feld eds. Cine-
Ethnography/ Jean Rouch , pp: 4-20. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Rothman, W. 1997. Chronicle of a Summer. In Rothman, W. Documentary film classics.
Cambridge studies in film. Pp. 69-107. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Permanent link: http://www.der.org/jean-ro uch/pdf/ChronicleofaSummer-WRothman.pdf

Week 9. Observing observers: voice and authority in ethnographic film

What types of perspective do we find in ethnographic films? What are the motivations for the
subjective voice in film? What aspects of subjective experience are attainable in film? How much
does the subjective voice actually reveal of the subject?
Film: Them and Me (Eux et mois), Stphane Breton, 2001, 63 min .
Film guide: Breton, S. 2000. Social body and icon of the person: a symbolic analysis of shell
money among the Wodani, western highlands of Irian Jaya. American ethnologist 26: 558-582.

Readings
MacDougall, D. 1998. The Subjective Voice in Ethnographic Film. In MacDougall Transcultural
Cinema. Pp. 125-139. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Week 10. Picturing culture on screen: Disappearing World series and beyond

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How can anthropology reach a wider audience? What are the ways to portray culture on screen
without losing the imponderabilia of everyday life? What is the difference between 'anthropology
on television' and 'anthropological television'? How does television and media impact on different
cultures and visual systems?
Film excerpts: Maasai women. Disappearing World Series. Melissa Llewelyn-Davies, 1974, 60'
Maasai manhood. Disappearing World Series. Chris Curling, 1975, 53'.
BBC2/ Discovery, Going Tribal - Tourist Gazes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4_wKPFSmQY
Shooting with Mursi, Olisarali Olibui and Ben Young 2009 57 min Ethiopia
http://www.shootingwithmursi.com/

Readings
Grimshaw, A. 2001. The anthropological television of Melissa Llewelyn-Davies. In Grimshaw, A.
The ethnographer's eye: ways of seeing in anthropology. Pp. 148-171. Cambridge: CUP.

Caplan, Pat 2005 In search of the exotic: A discussion of the BBC2 series Tribe Anthropology
Today 21(2): 3-7.
Ginsburg, Faye. 2003 [1999]. Shooting Back: From Ethnographic Film to Indigenous Production/
Ethnography of Media. In Toby Miller and Robert Stam eds. A Companion to Film Theory. Wiley
Blackwell, pp. 295-322.

Week 11. Participatory cultures, authorship and the global mediascapes

The field of new media articulates new-old debates about sociality, representations, producers,
objects of inquiry. What are the new forms of social construction of reality introduced by new
technologies? How do they affect our conceptual and methodological frameworks? Who is the
you in YouTube and what kind of agency can we attribute to this new group of media users-
producers? This class is only a starting point for a broader exploration of the ways in which new
media changed the documentary landscape and made us rethink our concepts and methods.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

An anthropological introduction to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU
Life in a Day, dir. by Kevin MacDonald & everyone (2011) http://www.youtube.com/lifeinaday

Readings
Boelstroff, T. 2008. The Subject and Scope of This Inquiry. In Coming of Age in Second Life: An
Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton University Press pp. 1-33.
Bird, S. Elizabeth. 2011. ARE WE ALL PRODUSERS NOW? Cultural Studies 25(4-5): 502-516

Week 12. Presentation of final projects (screening roughtcuts, photo essays).