Film as ethnography

by Crawford, Peter; Turton, David

• ISBN13: 9780719036835
• ISBN10: 0719036836
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1992-09-10
• Publisher: Manchester University Press

Summary

This work examines the reasons why anthropologists have not used the camera as a research instrument or film as a means of communicating ethnographic knowledge. It suggests that images and words in this discipline operate on different logical levels; that they are hierarchically related; that whereas writings may encompass the images produced by film, the inverse of this cannot be true. The author argues for this position further by suggesting that the visual is to the written mode as "thin description" (giving a record of the form of behaviour) is to "thick description" (giving an account of meaning).

Table of Contents

List of illustrations
Contributors
Preface
Authority, representation and anthropological knowledge
Introduction	p. 3
Anthropological visions: some notes on visual and textual authority	p. 8
The lexical spaces of eye-spy	p. 26
Admissible evidence? Film in anthropology	p. 50
Film as discourse: the invention of anthropological realities	p. 66
Image, audience and aesthetics
Introduction	p. 85
Complicities of style	p. 90
The aesthetics of ambiguity	p. 99
Which films are the ethnographic films?	p. 116
Who constructs anthropological knowledge? Toward a theory of ethnographic film spectatorship	p. 131
Politics, ethics and indigenous imagery
Introduction	p. 165
Anthropological transparency: film, representation and politics	p. 171
Visual imperialism and the export of prejudice: an exploration of ethnographic film	p. 183
The ethics of ethnographic film-making	p. 196
Myths, racism and opportunism: film and TV representations of the San	p. 205
Picturing culture through indigenous imagery: a telling story	p. 222
Representation by the Other: Indonesian cultural documentation	p. 242
Television and new technologies
Introduction	p. 259
Anthropology in broadcasting	p. 264
Television narrative and ethnographic film	p. 274
Anthropology on television: what next?	p. 283
Hypermedia in ethnography	p. 300
The potentials of videodisc in visual anthropology: some examples	p. 312
Index	p. 317
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