Visual Anthropology and Preservation of the Community Cultural Heritage
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Review Article Glob J Arch & Anthropol Volume 7 Issue 1 - October 2018 Copyright © All rights are reserved by Sumahan Bandyopadhyay DOI: 10.19080/GJAA.2018.07.555704 Visual Anthropology and Preservation of the Community Cultural Heritage Sumahan Bandyopadhyay* Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Vidyasagar University, India Submission: October 13, 2018; Published: October 29, 2018 *Corresponding author: Sumahan Bandyopadhyay, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Vidyasagar University, West Bengal; India. Abstract Visuals have an important place in anthropology so far as the materials and methods are concerned. Much before the formal emergence of the sub-discipline of Visual Anthropology, the anthropological engagement with visuals started. Visual Anthropology though primarily built upon the photographs - still and movies -circumscribes the entire visual system of the people. Visual aids were mainly used by the anthropologists from mere aid of documentation to a wholesome system of culture of a people. Following this transformation, the paper argues how visual anthropologyto substantiate can their be data.employed With thein the emergence preservation of visual of community anthropology, cultural the visuals heritage stood apart as objectsfrom substantiating of study. Now, and the facilitatingvisuals were the transformed analysis of culture. The paper also demonstrates this use of visual anthropology with illustrations from Micronesia and India. Individual scholars as well as agencies like Anthropological Survey of India have been shown as the case studies. It has also been attempted to show that the conventional how the use of photographic tools can be fruitfully connected to the preservation of community cultural heritage when informed through visual anthropologicaltechnique of using understanding. photography in fieldwork is reflection of the theoretical orientations of the discipline. The paper has further tried to reveal Keywords: Visual; Visual Anthropology; Preservation; Community Cultural Heritage Abbreviations: Survey to India VA: Visual Anthropology; CCH: Community Cultural Heritage; SRFTI: Satyajit Roy Film Training Institute; AnSI : Anthropological Introduction res’. For him, it was not Anthropology is characterized by visual engagement since the a commercial utility only, rather camera should be considered as very beginning of the discipline however not in the perceptible had differentiated it from that of Lumiè term that we now use for the sub-discipline of visual anthropology. in perennial form amenable to further analysis. Moreover, he It is a methodological indispensability in anthropology to a laboratory instrument that fixes the transient human activities predicted that ethnography would attain the precision of a science engage with visuals as the discipline has a strong belief in only using such instruments. Visual anthropology in traditional Kantian metaphysical tradition based on empiric-rationalistic meaning mainly deals with the still photographs and video. Sahay epistemology. However, these were mere locations or sites for observation instigated by the popular anthropological method of discipline in following words: Visual anthropology i inextricably participant observation. But much before Malinowski’s excellent [3] the doyen of visual anthropology (VA)in India defines the sub- connected with photography, whether it is still- photographs or use of photographs in his celebrated Argonauts of the Western research, feedback or other applied purposes. According to and culture of the people was well conceived by the people among films on the life and culture of peoples, that are used for teaching, Pacific [1], utility of photographs in visually documenting the life of culture, material culture, and forms of human behavior in Safizadeh [4] Visual Anthropology is visual and perceptual study whom we find both anthropologists and non-anthropologists. In true sense, the ethnographic documentation through film is visual anthropology circumscribes a broader perspective. She re - screened different communities and environments. For Wacowich [5] the as old as cinema itself [2]. In 1895, Lumiere brothers - Auguste Salon Indian du Grand Café in Paris. In the same Marie Louis Nicolas Lumière and Louis Jean Lumiè definesVisual it as Anthropology the following. is concerned with visual systems and their first film at making skill of Wolof women and published a paper based on forms and their engagement in process of anthropological year another gentleman Felix-Louis Renault filmed the pottery this record. It might have been taken as a mere coincidence if there is a duality of focus in visual anthropology. On the one hand, knowledge production. Banks & Morphy [6] have commented that not Renault had stated in clear terms the value of his work that Glob J Arch & Anthropol 7(1): GJAA.MS.ID.555704 (2018) 0014 Global Journal of Archaeology & Anthropology it is concerned with the use of visual materials for anthropological research, on the other hand, it is the study of visual systems and visual anthropology in the act of preservation of cultural heritage. In all these studies, we find virtually no reference to the use of visible culture. According to them there are two overarching But it is undeniable that the visual anthropology carries immense agenda of visual anthropology. One agenda is to analyze the potential as a tool of cultural preservation. In the present paper, I properties of visual systems, to determine the properties of visual shall try to focus on this very aspect of visual anthropology. The system and the conditions of their interpretation, and to relate data for the study has been the ethnographic documentaries made the system to the complexities of social and political processes of by anthropologists as well as non- anthropologists; the visual which they are parts. The second agenda is to analyze the visual means of disseminating anthropological knowledge itself. They productions and producers i.e. thank (Tibetan scroll-painting), have tossed with the idea whether it can be taken as a method or pata (Scroll-painting of Bengal), wall paintings, serpai (metal a theory and came to the opinion that a complete divorce between documentary; moreover, he has been anthropologically exposed craft). The present author has been associated with making of theory and method is not possible, however they admit that the dimensions have different ontological statuses. From various folk-art forms taken as examples of visual productions in this paper to the areas and topics by means of fieldwork. The studies on the discussions the features of this sub-discipline appear to be the have been done in Sikkim and West Bengal. The paper also utilizes following: can be considered as a worthy effort in the utilization of visual a. The analysis and formation or structuring of reality as a case study by anthropologist Allan Burns [9] in Micronesia that anthropology in preservation of heritage. Community Cultural Heritage reflectedb. The cross-cultural through visual study productions of this visualand artifacts. productions from social, cultural, historical, and aesthetic points of view. Heritage has been quintessentially a value - added idea clothed in material or non-material forms. It is the essence not c. The study of the relationship of cultural and visual perceptions. that material or non-material item of culture of a community the elemental reality that determines heritage [9]. Heritage is d. The study of the forms of social organization surrounding that considers it to be an essential of that community. It is a the planning, production and use of visual symbolic forms. symbolic embodiment of the culture or people concerned. The community cultural heritage is the collective cultural products of In an international seminar on visual anthropology held in that community or productions that share the elements present in collective conscience to borrow the term from Durkheim. Barbara objectives of visual anthropology. In these objectives they India in 1987, Roy & Jhala [7] put forward seven intermediate mentioned that the necessary tasks ahead include: way: Kirshenblatt Gimblett [10] characterized heritage in the following a. Heritage is a mode of cultural production in the present mainly on the issues of ‘other’, ‘text’, politics of portrayal, social Increasing dialogue between anthropologists and film makers that has recourse to the past. change. b. Heritage is a “value added’’ industry. makers mainly on the issues of ‘other’, ‘text’, politics of c. Heritage produces the local for the export. a. Increasing dialogue between anthropologists and film portrayal, social change. d. A hallmark of heritage is the problematic relationships of b. Increasing interactions between East and West. its objects to its instruments. c. Use and telecast of visual anthropology materials in the e. A key to heritage is its virtuality, whether in presence or national network by the government the absence of actualities. d. Promote follow up workshop etc. The characterization is both etic as well emic in nature because about value addition and export the etic view rules the e. Training. roost, but when it comes to cultural production the community f. Dissemination of information sphere. itself takes the pivotal role by making it a subject of emic g. Publication. predominance of etic view, but gradually the value of emic that understanding. The early history of visual anthropology reflected However, another view of visual anthropology