Viewpoints : Visual Anthropologists at Work / Mary Strong, text editor ; Laena Wilder, visual editor.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Wilder, Laena.

Strong, Mary.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Visual anthropology.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (432 pages) : color illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Austin, Texas : University of Texas Press, [2009]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Early in its history, anthropology was a visual as well as verbal discipline. But as time passed, visually oriented professionals became a minority among their colleagues, and most anthropologists used written words rather than audiovisual modes as their professional means of communication. Today, however, contemporary electronic and interactive media once more place visual anthropologists and anthropologically oriented artists within the mainstream. Digital media, small-sized and easy-to-use equipment, and the Internet, with its interactive and public forum websites, democratize roles once relegated to highly trained professionals alone. However, having access to a good set of tools does not guarantee accurate and reliable work. Visual anthropology involves much more than media alone. This book presents visual anthropology as a work-in-progress, open to the myriad innovations that the new audiovisual communications technologies bring to the field. It is intended to aid in contextualizing, explaining, and humanizing the storehouse of visual knowledge that university students and general readers now encounter, and to help inform them about how these new media tools can be used for intellectually and socially beneficial purposes. Concentrating on documentary photography and ethnographic film, as well as lesser-known areas of study and presentation including dance, painting, architecture, archaeology, and primate research, the book's fifteen contributors feature populations living on all of the world's continents as well as within the United States. The final chapter gives readers practical advice about how to use the most current digital and interactive technologies to present research findings.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Historical Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Section I PHOTOGRAPHY NOW

CHAPTER 1 Photographic Exploration of Social and Cultural Experience

CHAPTER 2 Documentary Photography in the Field

CHAPTER 3 Photography and Ethnography

Section II IMAGES FROM THE PAST

CHAPTER 4 Historical Photographs of North American Indians: Primary Documents, BUT View with Care

CHAPTER 5 Blasting a Boulder and Building Memories

Section III MOVING PICTURES: FILM, VIDEO, AND COMPUTERGENERATED MEDIA

CHAPTER 6 Reading the Mind of the Ethnographic Filmmaker: Mining a Flawed Genre for Anthropological Content

CHAPTER 7 Visual Anthropology in a Time of War: Intimacy and Interactivity in Ethnographic Media

CHAPTER 8 Guestworkers: Farmworkers, Filmmakers, and Their Obligations in the Field

Section IV ROADS LESS TRAVELED: UNUSUAL SUBFIELDS

Part I UNCOMMON SUBJECT AREAS

CHAPTER 9 Envisioning Primates

CHAPTER 10 Steps to an Ethnography of Dance

CHAPTER 11 Looking for the Past in the Present Ethnoarchaeology at al-Hiba

Part II Media BEYOND CAMERA WORK

CHAPTER 12 In Search of Live Relics in Cold Lake

CHAPTER 13 Art and Mind Working on Murals

CHAPTER 14 Art History and Anthropology: LOULY PEACOCK KONZ and JAMES PEACOCK

SECTION V Epilogue

CHAPTER 15 Elementary Forms of the Digital Media Tools for Applied Action Collaboration and Research in Visual Anthropology

Glossary

Author Biographies

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-292-79367-7

OCLC:

429548974