Journal de la Société des Océanistes 148 | 2019 Filmer (dans) le Pacifique Visual Anthropology and Intangible Cultural Heritage preservation in American Samoa Anthropologie visuelle et préservation du patrimoine culturel immatériel dans les Samoa américaines Micah Van der Ryn Electronic version URL: https://journals.openedition.org/jso/10532 DOI: 10.4000/jso.10532 ISSN: 1760-7256 Publisher Société des océanistes Printed version Date of publication: 15 July 2019 Number of pages: 145-155 ISBN: 978-2-85430-137-3 ISSN: 0300-953x Electronic reference Micah Van der Ryn, “Visual Anthropology and Intangible Cultural Heritage preservation in American Samoa”, Journal de la Société des Océanistes [Online], 148 | 2019, Online since 01 January 2021, connection on 22 July 2021. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/jso/10532 ; DOI: https://doi.org/ 10.4000/jso.10532 Journal de la société des océanistes est mis à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International. Visual Anthropology and Intangible Cultural Heritage preservation in American Samoa par Micah Van der Ryn* ABSTRACT RÉSUMÉ This article describes a pioneering initiative in applied Cet article décrit une initiative pionnière en anthropologie visual anthropology which was undertaken in the 1990s in visuelle appliquée entreprise dans les années 1990 sur le Terri- the United States Territory of American Samoa. In response toire des Samoa américaines. En réponse à l’influence crois- to the perceived increasing Western media influence in the sante des médias occidentaux dans l’archipel, des compétences archipelago, filming skills were developed locally as an Indi- filmiques furent développées localement en tant qu’interven- genous intervention for the preservation of intangible cultu- tion autochtone pour la préservation du patrimoine cultu- ral heritage. In his role at the American Samoa Community rel immatériel. Dans le cadre de ses fonctions à l’American College, the author was responsible for training Samoan Samoa Community College, l’auteur assurait la formation des students in the theory and practice of ethnography and visual étudiants à la théorie et à la pratique de l’ethnographie et de anthropology. He collaborated with Samoan colleagues and l’anthropologie visuelle. Il collabora avec des collègues samoans students to identify and coordinate film projects and events et des étudiants pour identifier et coordonner des projets de film that would contribute to the transmission of aspects of et des événements susceptibles de contribuer à la transmission Samoan cultural heritage to the next generation. Through de certains aspects du patrimoine culturel samoan aux généra- the description of several film projects, this work is concep- tions futures. À travers la description de plusieurs tournages, ces tualized as an “indigenizing anthropology” effort towards travaux sont conceptualisés en tant qu’effort « d’indigénisation the continuity of intangible cultural heritage in American de l’anthropologie » visant à perpétuer le patrimoine culturel Samoa. immatériel des Samoa américaines. Keywords: American Samoa, applied visual anthropology, Mots-clés : Samoa américaines, anthropologie visuelle intangible cultural heritage, film appliquée, patrimoine culturel immatériel, film Introduction Samoa. This project concerned an applied program of oral history documentation and visual anthropology Over the last three decades anthropology has seen for the purpose of intangible cultural heritage educa- the development of new efforts to decolonize and tion and preservation. I was professionally involved indigenize the discipline in ways that empowers Indi- genous peoples and allows them to gain control over in this work from 1997 to 2013 while holding the their own ethnographic representations. What gets position of ethnographer, anthropology instructor represented, how it gets represented, for which au- and media producer at the American Samoa Com- diences and for whose benefit are questions that have munity College (ascc). The current paper reflects on become central to anthropological research. This pa- the sixteen years of my work at ascc, during which I per presents a study of one such pioneering effort un- have been teaching, developing field schools and pro- dertaken in the United States Territory of American ducing ethnographic media for classrooms, research * Anthropologist, Researcher, Educator, Filmmaker, [email protected] Journal de la Société des Océanistes 148, année 2019, pp. 145-155 146 JOURNAL DE LA SOCIÉTÉ DES OCÉANISTES and public broadcast. My purpose here is to share a that they are talking about Westerners as practicing few lessons that I learned with those interested in this anthropologists and a singular Western society. The effort towards the indigenization of anthropology, sentence reflects the state of anthropology at that and particularly how these could be applied to visual time, as an exclusive Western intellectual enterprise anthropology. First, I will provide a brief sketch of the invented by Westerners for Western cultural benefit. broader disciplinary movement towards indigeniza- One of those benefits, as Marcus and Fischer’s book’s tion in anthropology, then discuss the wider context title (Anthropology as Cultural Critique) suggests, in which the work was developed at ascc whose was anthropology’s role as a means and resource mission includes the local promotion of knowledge for cultural critique whereby the study of “cultural about Samoa and the Pacific. This context sets the others” had become viewed as a modus operandi to stage for the description of three film projects, which bring about positive cultural developments in a sin- were selected among more than thirty that were gular “Western society”. Ethnographic film and vi- conducted during this period. The selected projects provide case studies which highlight the different sual anthropology were viewed as one of the methods types of use-values that local communities derive for reaching and delivering this goal. Ironically, as from video media, as well as from alternative research suggested by the assumed use of the pronouns in the and production methodologies. They illustrate how quoted sentence, Anthropology as Cultural Critique American Samoans have made use of anthropologi- does not question nor critique this very paradigm of cal tools, in particular ethnographic filmmaking, as Western exclusivity of which it was a part. devices contributing to cultural heritage continuity Over the past three decades, much of the anthropo- and preservation. The three projects discussed are: logical enterprise has been critiqued, evaluated and The Oral History and Visual Anthropology Training valued in new ways, as questions arose about how Program, conducted in 1998, which established the colonial contexts shaped the enterprise, how Wes- ascc Ethnographic Media Laboratory; the making of tern theoretical frameworks and assumptions biased the Malae: Sacred Ground documentary (1999); and resulting cultural representations, and about how the finally, the documentary series Sailiiliga o Tala i Vavau intended audiences and beneficiaries of research were o Samoa (In Search of Ancient Stories of Samoa) (2004- almost never the cultural communities that formed 2008). Each project was undertaken with different the subject of study.1 Currently, in 2019, the anthro- ethnographic aims, calling for differentiated metho- pological premises reflected in Marcus and Fischer’s dologies. They point to the original ways in which comments still exist, but as non-Western people in- strategies for intangible cultural heritage education creasingly became anthropologists, they together with and preservation were devised in the early days of In- others have assisted the processes of decolonizing and digenous filming in American Samoa, a place which, indigenizing anthropological research and cultural like others in Oceania and the rest of the world faces representations, including those in film/video form. rapid sociocultural and technological change. As a result, new research paradigms and goals have emerged that are more rooted in indigenous thinking at both theoretical and methodological levels. Decolonizing and Indigenizing Anthropology Indigenizing anthropology is part and parcel of Anthropology primarily grew up as a Western disci- decolonizing anthropology. Both involve an ambi- pline that involved people of Western cultures going tion to illuminate as well as eliminate (or at least out to study, document, interpret and represent reduce) colonial and neo-colonial forces that shape “cultural others” through monographs, books and how anthropological research gets framed (Tuhiwai- also films (and more recently videos). This paradigm Smith, 1999). Reframing anthropological research was still dominant in the mid 1980s as reflected in with goals and premises more closely rooted within George Marcus and Michael M. Fischer’s Anthropo- the society under study becomes then an important logy as Cultural Critique (1986), in which they sum- element of indigenizing anthropology, which I view marize anthropology’s purpose as: as composed of three independent parts: 1) Indige- “to offer worthwhile and interesting critiques of our nous people set the agenda for anthropological work society; to enlighten us about other human possibilities, conducted in their communities; 2) Indigenous an- engendering an awareness that we are merely one pattern thropologists define