Chapter 1
Engaging the visual
An introduction
In this book I discuss the future of visual anthropology by suggesting a series of challenges, departures and opportunities for the subdiscipline as it enters the twentyfirst century. I propose visual anthropologyâs potential lies in its engagement with a set of key interrelated contexts: the increasingly wide use of visual ethnographic methods of research and representation in âvisualâ subdisciplines across the social sciences and humanities; the theoretical demands of, and shifts in, a mainstream anthropology in which the visual has now become acceptable and popular as a methodology and object of analysis; a reassessment of the aspects of human experience that images and writing best represent, and a related analysis of the relationship between the visual and other senses through an engagement with recent developments in the anthropology of the senses; the possibilities offered by digital video and hypermedia that invite visual anthropologists to develop new practices; and increasing use of visual methods of research and representation in applied anthropology. In doing so I explore how theory and practice might be combined to produce a visual anthropology that has a strong profile in and outside the academy and communicates effectively to either audience.
First, however, what does it mean to refer to the future of an academic subdiscipline? Often our discussions of the future are constructed in relation to our definitions of the past. In Britain the history of social anthropology (see for example Kuper 1996; Mills 2002, 2003) and the historical relationship between social and visual anthropology (Grimshaw 2001) have been critically documented. In theUSAthe historical development of visual anthropology has been discussed widely in several contexts. Many aspects of its development are charted in the Web Archive in Visual Anthropology (WAVA), which contains Jay Ruby and Sol Worthâs original proposal to set up a Society for Visual Anthropology in the USA1 as well as the societyâs newsletters from 1973 to 1987,2 and in the Journal Studies in Visual Communication from 1979 to 1985. This history is also represented in diverse volumes focusing on particular visual anthropologists and filmmakers. Alison Griffiths (2002) explores the development of anthropological cinema in the context of turn-of-the-century visual culture, Jay Ruby critically reviews a series of twentieth-century projects (2000a), E.D. Lewisâ (2004) edited volume discusses Timothy Aschâs work, and the wider-ranging Origins of Visual Anthropology conference3 and volume brings the work of the âfoundersâ of visual anthropology to the fore (Prins and Ruby 2001â02). Although my main focus in this book is on what we might call mainstream contemporary visual anthropology in Britain, the USA and Australia, other histories of visual anthropology from across Europe â for example, France,4 Germany5 and Hungary6 â and more recent developments in China7 demonstrate how uneven the development of the subdiscipline has been internationally. Like the wider history of anthropology, which is embedded in political and power relationships, and the ambiguous relationship between anthropology and national culture and politics (see for example Eriksen and Nielsen 2001), visual anthropology theory and practice (and its relationship with applied anthropology) has developed differently in different locations.
Although these histories can be, and sometimes have been, challenged8 we have a fairly clear notion of how visual anthropology has arrived at its present form: our history is of the practices and performances of individuals, the formation and dissolution of institutions, associations and departments, the proceedings of conferences and seminars, developing theory, (changing) research practices, the production of anthropological texts, and the appropriation of technologies for these purposes. The future of visual anthropology is contingent on similar processes â that is, on the practices of research and representation we develop, the connections we make within the discipline, the academy and outside, the postgraduate training offered, the conferences, seminars, associations and networks we build,9 and the debates we engage in. I propose we view visual anthropologists, the creative practitioners of an academic subdiscipline, as a type of âcommunity of practiceâ â defined by Wenger et al. as âgroups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basisâ (2002: 4) â and the creativity, innovation and debate this inspires. It will be through our creative and innovative practice as individual agents, and in collaborative groups working in different ways and with different media and methods, and through debate and discussion that the future of the subdiscipline will form, even though much of our interaction will be mediated by written text, film, e-mail and more, rather than as face-to-face contact. This book suggests some points we might keep in mind as we engage in the practices that will shape the future of visual anthropology.
This book is not a critique of visual anthropology. However, a critical edge is intended as I urge visual anthropologists to enter areas that have previously not been sufficiently engaged. With contemporary theoretical and methodological developments originating from within and outside the academy, the beginning of the twenty-first century presents an inspiring context for considering and securing the future of visual anthropology. In the second part of this chapter I identify some themes of this contemporary context that are particularly pertinent for the future of visual anthropology, and which shape the book â the interdisciplinary context, the anthropology of experience and the senses, applied visual anthropology, and new visual and digital media. First, I discuss how their histories were interwoven in relation to the emergence of mainstream social and cultural anthropology in the twentieth century.
The historical context
Rather than writing a âcompleteâ history10 here I present a series of critical insights into how visual, sensory and applied anthropology and new technology have been supported and sidelined by mainstream anthropology as it was established as a distinct academic discipline during the twentieth century.11 The turn of the century is a pertinent starting point for a number of reasons. Elizabeth Edwards proposes that colonial photography (produced from 1860 to 1920) is âevidence of the early years of what has become visual anthropologyâ (Edwards 1992: 3). During this period, not only did the âparallel historical trajectoriesâ of anthropology and photography overlap (Pinney 1992; Young 1998: 4), but also the colonial project entailed an initial application of anthropological methods to an interdisciplinary project with non-academic ends, and the sensorium was implicated in the early anthropological theory that informed colonialism. Moreover, methodologically this was a period of technological innovation. Early fieldworkers used multiple media to collect ethnographic materials and combined spoken words with photographs, film and sound in their public lectures. These new photographic and cinematic techniques of research and representation were employed alongside the emergence of the âdatabaseâ academic book genre that used the multiple media of writing, photographs and diagrams (Cook 2004: 60).
The 1890s to 1950s: the rise and rejection of the senses, the visual and the applied
One of the first documented academic anthropological uses of film is Alfred Cort Haddonâs 1898 British expedition to the Torres Straits Islands, a large multidisciplinary expedition to study scientifically the Islandsâ people, âcomprehensively equipped with the very latest scientific recording instrumentsâ. This included âequipment for taking [photographic] stills, movies and even experimental colour photographsâ (Long and Laughren 1993; see also Griffiths 2002: 129â48), forming a multimedia project that Anna Grimshaw characterises as âa mixture of Victorian ideas with modern innovative practicesâ (2001: 19). Vision was central to the Torres Straits expedition as both a method of research and its scientific approach to ânative lifeâ, which by favouring direct observation over missionariesâ and travellersâ reports fused the âroles of fieldworker and theoristâ (Grimshaw 2001: 20; see also Eriksen and Nielsen 2001: 42). Vision also figured in another way in Haddonâs scientific project, which, David Howes reports, was concerned with the senses and sought to prove a hypothesis about the relative significance of vision in civilised and primitive cultures. It was believed that for civilised Europeans the âhigherâ senses of sight and hearing were most important, in contrast associating the âlowerâ senses of taste, touch and smell with animality. One task of the expedition was to test the hypothesis that ââprimitiveâ peoples would show a predilection for the âlowerâ or âanimalâ â in short âprimitiveâ sensesâ on the âprimitiveâ Torres Islanders. Howes notes that âAlthough the data itself was inconclusive, it was interpreted to support this hypothesisâ (2003: 5). Griffiths also suggests that Haddonâs filmmaking was a form of âhaptic cinemaâ (through which the viewer âfeelsâ or âtouchesâ the image), which would have produced a âsensorially richâ experience that was incompatible with the scientific quest of turn-of-the-century anthropology (2002: 142â3). This early evolutionary anthropology accommodated interdisciplinarity, engaged its eraâs new technologies and seemingly found both a sensory approach and visual method uncontroversial.
Haddon was not the only anthropologist of his time to use film and photography. Franz Boas (see below) also used both media and Howard Morphy describes how Baldwin Spencer and Frank Gillen, who did fieldwork together with Australian Aboriginals from 1894 onwards, used innovative visual methods as part of their participant observation. Taking few portraits of the type associated with the evolutionary paradigm, they produced âphotographs of ritual events as they occurredâ, developed photographs in the field and used them for elicitation, and in their film footage focused not on staged events but, for example, on a fight and women arguing (Morphy 1996: 140â1). Perhaps they were ahead of their time â Morphy notes that they âsaw photography as an essential means of conveying the atmosphere and experience of the Australian rituals they witnessedâ (1996: 142), like Haddonâs work implying some attention to sensory experience. Both Spencer and Haddon appreciated the benefits of using multiple media in not only ethnographic research, but also in public presentations of this work in the form of the âmultimedia lectureâ (Griffiths 2002: 166), which integrated film, photography and sound into spoken performance. Public film screenings also marked the early popular appeal of ethnographic film (Griffiths 2002: 283).
The work of Haddon, Spencer and others undoubtedly had a lasting influence on the development of the long-term fieldwork method as well as the use of visual methods in subsequent work (Grimshaw 2001: 51; Morphy 1996). However, it has more commonly been argued that social and cultural anthropology emerged around the time of World War I (Eriksen and Nielsen 2001: 37), usually credited to the influence of Bronislaw Malinowski, Franz Boas, A.R. Radcliffe-Brown and Marcel Mauss. Although approaches varied among these âfounding fathersâ, the approach associated with them advocated the long-term fieldwork method, rejected the evolutionary paradigm, was characterised in Britain by debates between functionalism and structural functionalism, sought methods for cultural translation, and was a comparative relativist discipline (Eriksen and Nielsen 2001: 37â53).12 It saw âanthropology as a holistic scienceâ (original italics) that did not study and compare singular aspects of societies â such as rituals â but aimed âto describe societies or cultures as integrated wholesâ (Eriksen and Nielsen 2001: 51). In his interpretation of how the senses came to be excluded from twentieth-century anthropology, Howes suggests these developments led anthropology to lose interest in the sensorium by concentrating on sight and hearing (2003: 6), allowing the development of subdisciplines such as visual anthropology (2003: 7) and ethnomusicology where ââotherâ sensory domains are customarily eliminated or evoked only indirectlyâ (2003: 8). However, actually within this context we see a decline in interest not only in the sensory but also in visual images and technologies. The notion of an observational anthropology was by no means coterminous with a visual anthropology. In fact an interrogation of the work of the observational methodâs two main proponents â Malinowski and Boas â reveals that, although both were prolific photographers, their approaches actually limited the potential of the visual.
Dating from 1883 to 1930, historically Boasâ initial photography pre-dates Haddonâs expedition. His early work with the Kwakiutl Indians, which contributed to his âmultimedia approachâ to anthropometric studies (also including measurements and plaster casts of body parts) (Jacknis 1984: 20), has some parallels with Haddonâs enthusiasm for new technologies. However, later Boasâ interests shifted and his photographs (often taken by an indigenous photographer) covered material culture, ceremonies, temporal and spatial patterning as well as portrait and physical-type photographs of people. They were presented in museum collections, at his lectures and in two monographs. His use of film, mainly to record native dance, was to combine these materials as a source of raw data for triangulation with other sources (Griffiths 2002: 306). Although some see Boas as a âfather figure in visual anthropologyâ (Ruby 1980: 7, see Jacknis 1984: 51), Jacknisâ analysis demonstrates that âphotography was caught in the inherent contradiction that defined Boasâ fieldworkâ (1984: 47). Boas believed culture could only be understood historically and he moreover mistrusted the visual because it only showed the surface. For Boas âthe study of the human mind was possible only through the medium of languageâ, thus âthe mere act of witnessing some exotic behaviour was insufficientâ (Jacknis 1984: 44). As such his approach foiled and did not promote any anthropological appreciation of the scientific value of photography. He created a legacy for his students (such as Margaret Mead), who later followed his example of using visual media, a context where the visual image was not valued.13
Malinowski was also an active fieldwork photographer (about 1,100 of his images are archived at the London School of Economics (Young 1998: 21)). He rejected the principles of the anthropometric photography of the nineteenth century to create a photographic record of âlivingâ people (Young 1998: 4), using photography extensively in his publications (1998: 21). However, while his photography was prolific (and influenced later visual practices), it was fundamentally incompatible with the fieldwork experience Malinowski advocated. In Grimshawâs interpretation Malinowskiâs fieldwork methodology was based in romanticism, it relied on âthe cultivation of human sensibility or passionâ, and repudiated âtechnology, mechanical skill and the trappings of industrial civilisationâ (Grimshaw 2001: 54). Likewise, his writing was âpainterlyâ rather than cinematic, relying on literary composition rather than montage (2001: 55â6). Grimshaw shows how Malinowskiâs observational approach employed experience and description to create a picture of a âwholeâ society or context. The mediation of technology and specificity of photography constituted a contradiction in this work, and his wider approach left little room for visual methodology. Jacknisâ and Grimshawâs respective analyses of the legacies of Boas and Malinowski suggest that although participant observation became a requirement for anthropological fieldwork, it is incorrect to assume the consolidation of observational anthropology favoured visual over sensory anthropology. It is more likely that decreasing interest in the sensorium was, like the rejection of visual methods of anthropological research and representation, fuelled by other themes that emerged as anthropology departed from the evolutionary model to a relativist one.
The process by which social and cultural anthropology established itself as a scientific discipline is key to understanding the rejection of the visual, sensory and applied. None fitted with this scientific anthropological project. First it rejected the subjectivity of photography and film to use visual metaphors such as diagrams, grids and maps to synthesise and objectify knowledge (see also Grimshaw 2001: 67). Second, and likewise, Seremetakis suggests these âhomogenising representational strategies that privileged vision-centred consumption of ethnographic experience, the reductive mapping of cultural traits, and the narrative genre of a static ethnographic presentâ also excluded sensory experience (Seremetakis 1994a: 225). Third, the ethnographic footage of Spencer and Gillen, Haddon and Boas was produced in a context where these anthropologists were already aware of the commercial and popular appeal of their films (Griffiths 2002, chapters 4 and 6). This more sensory and decontextualised form of representation, along with its popular appeal, would have been contrary to the development of the scientific identity of academic anthropology. Finally, this occurred in a wider context where the applied and âpureâ strands of anthropology came into conflict. In Britain interwar social anthropology was seeking academic recognition, status and funding in a context formed by the specific politics of the interwar years, which were characterised by economic depression and social unrest at home and colonial expansion overseas (Grimshaw 2001: 67â8). During this period social anthropology was funded and effectively established by virtue of its relationship with the Colonial Office. By the 1930s British anthropologists were funded to undertake applied studies in the colonies (Kuper 1996: 101â2).14 Indeed, the principal task of Evans- Pritchardâs Nuer research â âto discover the enduring principles underlying Nuer territorial groupingsâ â was âdetermined by the Anglo-Egyptian Administrationâ (Hutchinson 1996: 30). In his preface to Nuer Religion Evans-Pritchard thanks the Government of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan âfor a grant of money towards the cost of publicationâ (1956: ix). This period was characterised by a contest between applied and âpureâ academic anthropology (see Mills 2002) until the 1950s, when â deriving new confidence from funding from the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations and an identity as a scholarly profession with the establishment of the Association of Social Anthropologists of Britain and the Commonwealth (ASA) in 1946 â leading anthropologists were not interested in shaping their research agendas to meet the needs of industry15 or colonialism. In Britain, by the 1950s applied anthropology was rejected by the emergent academy, keen to demonstrate that anthropology was an exploratory scientific and theoretical discipline, inappropriate for the problem-solving demands of applied work. In the USA during the same period applied research also contributed to cultural anthropology. In fact, even earlier, Boasâ name again comes into the picture as in 1910 he published policy research that contradicted racist ideas about the impact of immigration in the USA (van Willigen 2002: 24).Anumber of applied research organisations, such as the âApplied Anthropology Unit in the Office of Indian Affairsâ, were established and, for example, anthropologists were employed by the US Department of Agriculture. This culminated in anthropologists working âin support of the war effort during the 1940sâ and the establishment of the Society for Applied Anthropology (which still exists at the beginning of the twenty-first century) and its related publications (van Willigen 2002: 26â8). Although applied anthropology was accepted and more strongly established in the USA than in Britain it still remained a contested practice.
By the 1950s anthropology had experimented with and rejected the senses, visual methods and technologies, and applied practice. The social and cultural mainstream was establishing itself as a scientific theoretical discipline, distinguished from others by its emphasis on long-term fieldwork, its relativism and comparative project.
From the 1940s to 1980s: a marginalised presence
Taking the development of scientific anthropology that rejected the visual, sensory and applied as context, I now focus on the advances that were made in these areas in the mid-twentieth century. After Malinowski and Boas photography and film were not entirely absent from the anthropological endeavour. For example, Evans- Pritchardâs Nuer publications (see chapter 2), the electronic archive of Paul Stirlingâs Turkish village research, including p...