İletişim Fakültesi

Browse

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1

Citation Count: 0
Ethnographic Cinema, Anthropology and Issues of Representational Authority in Visual Documentation of Culture
(İmge Kitabevi Yayınları, 2015) Koçer Çamurdan, Suncem
Ethnographic film has offered unique tools for cultural documentation since the emergence of motion pictures. However, visual representations of culture have had a problematic relationship with the larger discipline of anthropology for decades in part due to the threat of the camera to replace the scientific yet imperfect eye of the anthropologist with a technological tool. This article argues that the rocky relationship between anthropology and the moving image has deeper roots in the epistemological constructions of Self and Other, Home and Field, as well as Modern and Primitive. In conjunction with the dissolution of anthropological authority, a number of ethnographic films dealt with theoretical and ethical questions in relation to the issues of representational authority. The article illustrates three different ethnographic and filmic approaches to the issue: Reassemblage by Trinh T. Min-ha, The Wedding Camels by Judith and David MacDougal and Jaguar by Jean Rouch.