Photography, Anthropology and History PDF Download

Author: Elizabeth Edwards
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317081102
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
Photography, Anthropology and History examines the complex historical relationship between photography and anthropology, and in particular the strong emergence of the contemporary relevance of historical images. Thematically organized, and focusing on the visual practices developed within anthropology as a discipline, this book brings together a range of contemporary and methodologically innovative approaches to the historical image within anthropology. Importantly, it also demonstrates the ongoing relevance of both the historical image and the notion of the archive to recent anthropological thought. As current research rethinks the relationship between photography and anthropology, this volume will serve as a stimulus to this new phase of research as an essential text and methodological reference point in any course that addresses the relationship between anthropology and visuality.

Author: Christopher Pinney
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780230117
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Photography and anthropology share strikingly parallel histories. Christopher Pinney's provocative and eminently readable account provides a polemical narrative of anthropologists' use of photography from the 1840s to the present. Walter Benjamin suggested that photography 'make[s] the difference between technology and magic visible as a thoroughly historical variable, ' and Pinney here explores photography as a divinatory practice. Though viewed as modern and rational, this quality of photography in fact propelled anthropologists towards the 'primitive' lives of those they studied. Early anthropology celebrated photography as a physical record, whose authority and permanence promised an escape from the lack of certainty in speech. For later anthropologists, this same quality became grounds to critique an imaging practice that failed to capture movement and process. But throughout these twists and turns, anthropology as a practice of 'being there' has found itself entwined in an intimate engagement with photography as metaphor for the collection of evidence. Photography and Anthropology reveals how anthropology provides the tools to re-imagine the power and magic of all photographic practices. It presents both a history of anthropology's seduction by photography and the anthropological theory of photography. This thoroughly researched book draws upon an intimate knowledge of the history of anthropology, photography and the world's major anthropological practitioners.

Author: Elizabeth Edwards
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000181294
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
Photographs have had an integral and complex role in many anthropological contexts, from fieldwork to museum exhibitions. This book explores how approaching anthropological photographs as 'history' can offer both theoretical and empirical insights into these roles. Photographs are thought to make problematic history because of their ambiguity and 'rawness'. In short, they have too many meanings. The author refutes this prejudice by exploring, through a series of case studies, precisely the potential of this raw quality to open up new perspectives. Taking the nature of photography as her starting point, the author argues that photographs are not merely pictures of things but are part of a dynamic and fluid historical dialogue, which is active not only in the creation of the photograph but in its subsequent social biography in archive and museum spaces, past and present. In this context, the book challenges any uniform view of anthropological photography and its resulting archives. Drawing on a variety of examples, largely from the Pacific, the book demonstrates how close readings of photographs reveal not only western agendas, but also many layers of differing historical and cross-cultural experiences. That is, photographs can 'spring leaks' to show an alternative viewpoint. These themes are developed further by examining the dynamics of photographs and issues around them as used by contemporary artists and curators and presented to an increasingly varied public. This book convincingly demonstrates photographs' potential to articulate histories other than those of their immediate appearances, a potential that can no longer be neglected by scholars and institutions.

Author: Marcus Banks
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226036634
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description
Made to be Seen brings together leading scholars of visual anthropology to examine the historical development of this multifaceted and growing field. Expanding the definition of visual anthropology beyond more limited notions, the contributors to Made to be Seen reflect on the role of the visual in all areas of life. Different essays critically examine a range of topics: art, dress and body adornment, photography, the built environment, digital forms of visual anthropology, indigenous media, the body as a cultural phenomenon, the relationship between experimental and ethnographic film, and more. The first attempt to present a comprehensive overview of the many aspects of an anthropological approach to the study of visual and pictorial culture, Made to be Seen will be the standard reference on the subject for years to come. Students and scholars in anthropology, sociology, visual studies, and cultural studies will greatly benefit from this pioneering look at the way the visual is inextricably threaded through most, if not all, areas of human activity.

Author: Christopher A. Morton
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing Company
ISBN: 9780754679097
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
As current research rethinks the relationship between photography and anthropology, this volume will serve as a stimulus to this new phase of research as an essential text and methodological reference point in any course that addresses the relationship between anthropology and visuality.

Author: Elizabeth Edwards
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780300059441
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Traces the use of photography in British anthropological expeditions, and discusses the photograph as document

Author: Melissa Banta
Publisher: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University Publications Department
ISBN: 9780873658676
Category : Anthropology
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
From Site to Sight is a foundational text for scholars and students of visual anthropology, illustrating the history, uses--and misuses--of photographic imagery in anthropology and archaeology. Long out of print, this classic publication is now available in an enhanced thirtieth anniversary edition with a new introductory essay by Ira Jacknis.

Author: Elizabeth Edwards
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350120669
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
What is it to practice history in an age in which photographs exist? What is the impact of photographs on the core historiographical practices which define the discipline and shape its enquiry and methods? In Photographs and the Practice of History, Elizabeth Edwards proposes a new approach to historical thinking which explores these questions and redefines the practices at the heart of this discipline. Structured around key concepts in historical methodology which are recognisable to all undergraduates, the book shows that from the mid-19th century onward, photographs have influenced historical enquiry. Exposure to these mass-distributed cultural artefacts is enough to change our historical frameworks even when research is textually-based. Conceptualised as a series of 'sensibilities' rather than a methodology as such, it is intended as a companion to 'how to' approaches to visual research and visual sources. Photographs and the Practice of History not only builds on existing literature by leading scholars: it also offers a highly original approach to historiographical thinking that gives readers a foundation on which to build their own historical practices.

Author: Elizabeth Edwards
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134523572
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
This innovative volume explores the idea that while photographs are images, they are also objects, and this materiality is integral to their meaning and use. The case studies presented focus on photographs active in different institutional, political, religious and domestic spheres, where physical properties, the nature of their use and the cultural formations in which they function make their 'objectness' central to how we should understand them. The book's contributions are drawn from disciplines including the history of photography, visual anthropology and art history, with case studies from a range of countries such as the Netherlands, North America, Australia, Japan, Romania and Tibet. Each shows the methodological strategies they have developed in order to fully exploit the idea of the materiality of photographic images.

Author: Ilisa Barbash
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0873654099
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Where the Roads All End tells the remarkable story of an American family’s expeditions to the Kalahari Desert in the 1950s. Raytheon founder Laurence Marshall and his family recorded the lives of the last remaining hunter-gatherers, the so-called Bushmen, in what is now recognized as one of the most important anthropology ventures in Africa.