Paper No. : 02 Social-Cultural Anthropology Module : 31 Visual Anthropology Development Team Prof. Anup Kumar Kapoor Principal Investigator Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi, Delhi Prof. Sabita Acharya Paper Coordinator Department of Anthropology, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar Content Writer Ms. Naila Ansari and Prof. A.K.Kapoor Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi, Delhi Prof. A.K.Sinha Content Reviewer Department of Anthropology, Panjab University, Chandigarh 1 Prof. Sabita Acharya Utkal University, Bhubaneswar Social-Cultural Anthropology Anthropology Visual Anthropology Description of Module Subject Name Anthropology Paper Name 02 Social-Cultural Anthropology Module Name/Title Visual Anthropology Module Id 31 2 Social-Cultural Anthropology Anthropology Visual Anthropology Contents of this unit Introduction Definition of Visual Anthropology Emergence of Visual Anthropology Holistic Cultural context of Visual Anthropology Aims and Scope of Visual Anthropology Classification of Visual Anthropology § Documentary § Ethnographic Film § Videotape § Feature Films Studying Visual Data produced by Cultures Applied context of Visual Anthropology Summary Learning Objectives After reading this module the learner will be able: § To define Visual anthropology and classification of Visual Anthropology. § To know about Emergence of Visual Anthropology. § To describe Aims and Scope of Visual Anthropology. § To derive Holistic Cultural context of Visual Anthropology. § To improve descriptive studying of Visual data produced by Cultures. 3 Social-Cultural Anthropology Anthropology Visual Anthropology Introduction The explosion of visual media in recent years has generated a wide range of visual and digital technologies which have transformed visual research and analysis. The result is an exciting new interdisciplinary approach of great potential influence in and out of academia. Visual Anthropology is a newly developed sub-branch of cultural anthropology. It deals with the study of human behaviour through visual means incorporating the theories and technologies as developed in the anthropological traditions. Visual anthropology wide by considers various arguments about this sub-field, but also looks beyond immediate disciplinary concerns to enlarge the possibilities for a visual anthropology that's not only connected with the professional concerns of anthropologists, but also adequately presents anthropologically. It analyses the behaviour of the people, natives and their different modes of communication. Scientific research needs unbiased and reliable data. Film, sound videotapes records are today an indispensable scientific resources since they can provide reliable data on human behaviour that may later be analysed by independent investigators in the light of new theories. Expert may also be able to find data that may then give rise to new theories, or may be used to corroborate already established theories. The advantage that of film and videotape records over other tools of data collection is that they are independent of language, i.e. their communitycability is independent of language and any one can understand them, at least to some extent. Films also help us in preserving the changing ways of life in action. Definition of Visual Anthropology Visual anthropology can play a very important role in developing awareness of those aspects of culture that condition the formation of the value judgements. The development of such awareness is possible because visual communication can engrave itself directly upon the emotional elements of one’s psychic structure. Visual anthropology can also affect the rational level by virtue of its specific language – the language of images. An International Journal of Visual Anthropology defines the field of visual anthropology as the “the analysis of the structuring of reality as evidenced by visual productions and artefacts; the cross cultural study of art and artifacts from a social, cultural, historical and aesthetics points of view; the relationship of cultural and visual perceptions and the study of the forms of social organisation surrounding the planning, production and use of visual symbolic forms” (Visual Anthropology: Harwood Academic Publishers, New York, 1989). In addition, Visual Anthropology has the functions 4 Social-Cultural Anthropology Anthropology Visual Anthropology of ‘preservation’ and ‘communication’, which it fulfils through the use of films, videotapes and televisions. It is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media. More recently it has been used by historians of science and visual culture. Although sometimes wrongly conflated with ethnographic film, Visual Anthropology encompasses much more, including the anthropological study of all visual representations such as: § Dance and other kinds of performance, § Museums and archiving, § All visual arts, and § The production and reception of mass media. Histories and analyses of representations from many cultures are part of Visual Anthropology: the research topics include: § Sand paintings, § Tattoos, § Sculptures and relies, § Cave paintings, § Scrimshaw, § Jewellery, § Hieroglyphics, § Paintings and § Photographs. Also within the province of the subfield are studies of human vision, properties of media, the relationship of visual form and function, and applied, collaborative uses of visual representations. Since anthropology is a holistic endeavour, the ways in which visual representation are connected to the rest of culture and society are central topics. Emergence of Visual Anthropology Even before the emergence of anthropology as an academic discipline in the 1880s, ethnologists used photography as a tool of research. Anthropologists and non-anthropologists conducted much of this work in the spirit to salvage ethnography or attempts to record for posterity the ways-of-life of societies assumed to be doomed for extinct. The 9th International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, held at Chicago in 1973, passed a resolution on Visual Anthropology. The minutes of this resolution as reported by Hockings 5 Social-Cultural Anthropology Anthropology Visual Anthropology (1975: 483) are, “Film, sound and videotape records are today an indispensable scientific resource. They provide reliable data on human behaviour that independent investigators may analyse in the light of new theories. They may contain information for which neither theory nor analytical schemes yet exist. They convey information independently of language, and they preserve unique features of our changing ways of life for posterity. Today is a time not merely of change but of spreading uniformity and wholesale cultural loss. To help arrest this process and to correct the myopic view of human potential to which it leads, it is essential that the heritage of mankind be recorded in all its remaining diversity and richness”. In an edited volume on Visual Anthropology, Margaret Mead, says in her introductory notes, “anthropology as a conglomerate of disciplines has both implicitly and explicitly accepted the responsibility of making and preserving records of the vanishing customs and human beings of this earth”. Holistic Cultural context of Visual Anthropology While art historians are clearly interested in some of the same objects and processes, visual anthropology places these artifacts within a holistic cultural context. Archaeologists, in particular, use phases of visual development to try to understand the spread of humans and their cultures across contiguous landscapes as well as over larger areas. By 10,000 BP, a system of well-developed pictographs was in use by boating people and was likely instrumental in the development of navigation and writing, as well as a medium of story telling and artistic representation. Early visual representations often show the female form, with clothing appearing on the female body around 28,000 BP, which archaeologists know now, corresponds with the invention of weaving in Olden Europe. This is an example of the holistic nature of visual anthropology: ü A figurine depicting a woman wearing diaphanous clothing is not merely an object of art, but a window into the customs of dress at the time, ü Household organization (where they are found), ü Transfer of materials (where the clay came from) and processes (when did firing clay become common), ü When did weaving begin? ü What kind of weaving is depicted and what other evidence is there for weaving, and ü What kinds of cultural changes were occurring in other parts of human life at the time? 6 Social-Cultural Anthropology Anthropology Visual Anthropology Aims and Scope of Visual Anthropology Visual anthropology, by focusing on its own efforts to make and understand film, is able to establish many principles and build theories about human visual representation in general. The aims of visual anthropology can be briefly enumerated as follows: (i) To record data for future analysis, (ii) To improve our descriptive ethnography increasing the equality of basic observation, (iii) To provide information for related cultural studies and to verify theories, (iv) To provide an account for the Ethnographer, (v) And to put together a film that will convey to the audience a ‘feel’ of the people. The promise of visual anthropology is that it can provide an alternative way of perceiving culture- perception constructed through distinct ways: (i) Definition, scope and uses of visual anthropology,