Viewpoints: Visual Anthropologists at Work

Viewpoints

Viewpoints Visual Anthropologists at Work

Mary Strong, Laena

Text Editor W i l d e r , Visual Editor

Unive r sity of T exas Pre ss Aust in

To our readers. To the authors, artists, and others who made this book, with special thanks to Peter Biella and Rafael Domingo.

Copyright © 2009 by the University of Texas Press All rights reserved Printed in China First edition, 2009 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to: Permissions University of Texas Press P.O. Box 7819 Austin, TX 78713-7819 www.utexas.edu/utpress/about/bpermission.html ∞  The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Viewpoints : visual anthropologists at work / Mary Strong, text editor ; Laena Wilder, visual editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-292-70671-2 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Visual anthropology. I. Strong, Mary. II. Wilder, Laena. GN347.V565 2009 301—dc22 2008035334

Conte nts

H i s t o r i c a l F o r e w o r d . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Chapter 8.



P r e f a c e .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii



Guestworkers: Farmworkers, Filmmakers, and Their Obligations in the Field Charles Thompson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv I n t r o d uc t i o n .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

S e c t i o n I . Photography Now.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 1.

Chapter 2.

Chapter 3.

10

S e c t i o n I V. Roads Less Traveled: Unusual Subfields

pa r t i .

Uncommon Subject Areas.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Photographic Exploration of Social and Cultural Experience Malcolm Collier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Chapter 9.

Documentary Photography in the Field Laena Wilder.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33



Photography and Ethnography Richard Freeman.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53





C h a p t e r 1 0 .  Steps

Chapter 11.



pa r t i i . S e c t i o n II . Images from the Past. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter 4.

Chapter 5.



78

Chapter 13.

Blasting a Boulder and Building Memories Julie M. Flowerday.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Chapter 14.

Chapter 6.

C h a p t e r 7.



118

to an Ethnography of Dance Najwa Adra.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Looking for the Past in the Present: Ethnoarchaeology at al-Hiba Edward Ochsenschlager. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Media: Beyond Camera Work.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Chapter 12.

Historical Photographs of North American Indians: Primary Documents, BUT View with Care Joanna Cohan Scherer.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

S e c t i o n III . Moving Pictures: Film, Video, and Computer-Generated Media.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Envisioning Primates Anne Zeller.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

In Search of Live Relics in Cold Lake Kimowan McLain.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287 Art and Mind: Working on Murals Mary Strong. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 Art History and Anthropology Louly Peacock Konz and James Peacock. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

S e c t i o n V. Epilogue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Reading the Mind of the Ethnographic Filmmaker: Mining a Flawed Genre for Anthropological Content Carol Hermer.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Chapter 15.

Visual Anthropology in a Time of War: Intimacy and Interactivity in Ethnographic Media Peter Biella.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141





361

Elementary Forms of the Digital Media: Tools for Applied Action Collaboration and Research in Visual Anthropology Peter Biella.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

G l o ss a r y .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388 Au t h o r B i o g r a p h i e s .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406 i n d e x .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408

Viewpoints

Co n t e n ts

H isto r ical F o rewo r d

V

isual anthropologists are anthropologists, as surely as cinematographers are photographers. The fundamental task of the former is no different from that of all sociocultural anthropologists, including most primatologists: namely, to document, describe, and understand how social relations are structured in the context of particular cultural traditions. Do these people use machines to help in the documenting? Commonly. And

if those machines make a visual record, they are likely being handled by visual anthropologists. So far, so good. But different machines achieve different results. The still camera makes a chemical or electronic image on a flat plane of lit three-dimensional scenes that were at one time, and only one time, in front of the lens. The cassette or tape recorder adds another dimension altogether to this, but at the expense of a total loss of the visual record:

it records only the sounds. The digital or film movie camera does something else again: it can record visible motion in real time, provided this too is well enough lit and is occurring in front of the lens; further, each recording of motion will be completed in minutes rather than in hours—or in an extreme case, hours rather than days. Normally this sort of recording is now achieved together with any synchronous sound. Clearly these three types of recording machine have different functions and bring us distinct kinds of results. There is no doubt at all that they can be productively used in a complementary fashion and that they can vastly extend the powers of observation that a research worker can bring to bear on a topic. For let us not think of those results as an end in themselves: they are a form of data that the anthropologist will use in order to understand social relations in a cultural context and to present them to her “public.” In this regard, we can note a certain “division of labor” that is rudimentary, if not much dwelt upon: the still camera is best at recording visible cultural phenomena; the cassette recorder is best at recording nonmaterial, aural cultural phenomena, such as music and speech; and the cine-camera, no matter of what vintage, is best at recording social interactions, either between members of a particular community or between one or two of its members and the cameraman/ anthropologist. So, just as the craftsman will choose which kind of chisel will best create a volute he is to carve on a cabinet, the anthropologist must choose carefully which equipment will best suit the needs of his research project. Much of what ethnographers record “in the field” concerns relationships. These may be recorded in a present tense by means of a mobile cine-camera, or ix

in a past tense by means of getting recalled experiences spoken into a microphone, perhaps on camera too. One is not necessarily more valid than the other, but they may well have different uses in the enterprise of producing a written or filmed ethnography of a people. Or they may just get spliced together to make an educational documentary film. Time is of the essence: both our “past tense” and “present tense” recording machines collect their data (normally) in real time, seconds and minutes that correspond to what we could see on our watches. But our still cameras do something quite different, for they abstract cultural material from the context of time altogether. A potlatch of the nineteenth century can be juxtaposed to the destruction of Iraq in the twenty-first century, and the time interval is suppressed while a telling point may be gained. Doubtless we have technical means of analysis at our disposal, which will tell us that the absence or presence of color, of graininess, of motor vehicles, or of other features, allows us to place one of the photos prior to the other. But the point here is that temporality is implied, not something that is built into the two-dimensional record. We are confronted with two still images, in this example, neither of which has depth, movement, or sound, and never will. Over the past century or more we have seen different styles of presentation of visual data in anthropological publications:

•

In the 1860s and 1870s photographs sometimes illustrated books, the prints being stuck onto the page by hand at the printers’.

•

In the 1890s German printing technology allowed photographs to be printed directly onto the text page.

•

In 1895 Félix Regnault, the pioneer visual anthropologist, shot the very first anthropological films, but had to present the results as film strips that were printed down the edge of the page of some of his many articles in the Bulletin de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris. It was to be a few months yet before film projectors were invented!

•

For exactly a third of a century, 1895–1928, “expeditions” and individual field researchers sometimes shot moving film footage according to the standards of the day, mostly on heavy 35mm nitrate film stock. If sound was recorded at all, as Regnault recommended during all those years, its recording was a separate project, done at a separate time and place, and using rather ineffectual equipment.

•

Color film and 16mm safety film became available in the 1930s.

•

Some handheld shooting, eschewing a tripod, began in the 1940s.

•

Portable camera and tape recorders made field recording a more realistic enterprise for many anthropologists in the 1950s.

•

Synchronous sound recording in field situations was perfected in the 1960s.

•

For many, “observational”-style documentaries, which avoided the written

•

Video cameras, at first using tape in the 1970s, reduced equipment costs and became widely used in the field in the 1980s and 1990s.

•

The digital camera, in both its still and moving incarnations, became an affordable reality for hundreds of anthropologists by the turn of the millennium. Synchronous sound and instant playback were important features of this new generation of cine-cameras.

•

Archiving of material now took on new dimensions with advances in electronic technology. The Basel Mission archives, for example, were made available on the Internet (www.bmpix.org), presenting old photographs from China, India, West Africa, and elsewhere. The ease with which scholars could burn their own discs on computer equipment meant that relatively permanent, space-saving facilities became available to thousands who needed to store moving or still images.

What this list implies is that progress in visual anthropology has been keyed to technological developments. Yet this is by no means altogether true. The analysis of visual phenomena—of rituals, carnivals, theater, festivals, and interpersonal relations—has improved qualitatively over the past century or more because of increasingly refined methods of field investigation, and the use of equipment is only a part of that development. Speaking very broadly, I would suggest that participants in such visible events have been given much more of a say in what it means and what they are doing there than was the case in the early days of anthropology. A century and more ago field data were being coursed into molds that could only project an image of cultural evolution, the dominant paradigm of the day. In part, the assumed insignificance of the informants’ words was a reflection and consequence of the need to gather visible, material objects to put in museum cases. But when the twentieth century began, when W. H. R. Rivers and Bronislaw Malinowski and A. R. Radcliffe-Brown went into the field, they showed little inclination to collect museum specimens (as Franz Boas and Alfred Kroeber did) because they were trying something new: they were attempting to understand what the structure of society meant to those people who lived in it. Specific non-Western cultures were no longer viewed as merely living examples of particular stages in some evolutionary schema: they took on a significance of their own and were now studied on their own terms. Still photography became from the start a part of that new field technique, whether the photos were taken by the anthropologist himself (as Malinowski did) or by a commercial photographer (Theodor Klein in Rivers’s case). It was fortunate—perhaps fortuitous too—that this paradigmatic shift within the discipline occurred just as the cine-camera was being developed. We don’t have many very early ethnographic films, but there are some: a testament to a completely new fusion of technology with scientific observation. That fusion is now axiomatic in visual anthropology, but it is still a feature that stimulates reflection, experimentation, and new approaches. — Paul Hockings

and spoken commentary, became acceptable productions in the 1970s.

•

Faster and more sensitive film became available over the half-century, 1950–2000, from a variety of manufacturers and for a variety of uses.

x

Viewpoints

H i sto r i ca l Fo r e wo r d

xi

P re fac e

Visual anthropologists at one time were a minority among their colleagues. Most anthropologists use words to talk about their understandings of human cultures. They translate the sensory and perceptual aspects of life such as art, speech, music, and dance into text. Recent history puts visual anthropology in the mainstream. Mass participation in and use of the new media and the Internet now make all anthropological endeavors, as well as some work done by journalists and travelers, look more and more like visual anthropology. Digital media, small-sized and easy-to-use equipment, and the Internet, with its interactive and public forum Web sites, democratize roles once relegated to highly trained professionals alone. Human expressions appear as we perceive them on cell phone and computer screens without the mediation of text or official expertise. Formerly isolated peoples once hampered by illiteracy and lack of access to electricity now employ wireless audiovisual systems to speak for themselves and in their own image. However, having access to a good set of tools does not as a matter of course guarantee accurate and reliable work. Visual anthropology involves much more than media alone. There is no difference in general anthropological training for visual and nonvisual anthropologists. Professionals in our field prepare themselves in a profound way about cultural, geographic, and other areas in which they specialize, learn one or more spoken languages proficiently, and carry on research in the field for long periods of time before they present their findings. In addition, most of us study one or more types of human communicative modes in detail and learn how to represent and analyze these forms well using nonverbal media and the arts as well as written text. Visual anthropology, then, combines an academic discipline with preparation in the fine and applied arts. When professionals with this background collaborate in a respectful way over a long term with their clients and friends in the field, they produce useful work of high quality. The historical foreword by Paul Hockings emphasizes the making and analysis of photography and film. Visual anthropologists also study and employ other expressive forms in their work that range from pottery to dance to computer-generated imagery.

xiii

Ac k nowle d g m e nt s

This volume came about because of the combined and long-term efforts of many hard-working people. The chapter contributors labored with patience and humor in a true collaborative spirit. Paul Hockings honored us with a historical foreword. Cynthia Close gave us access to DER’s (Documentary Educational Resources) extensive visual archive. Peter Biella provided his own chapter plus a final section about new media. Theresa J. May of the University of Texas Press never flagged in her support of the project. Her enthusiasm and practical help kept the book moving forward toward completion. We also wish to thank Megan Giller, Victoria Davis, Sally Furgeson, Kaila Wyllys, Kay Banning, and other members of the University of Texas Press staff. Their help in preparing the text and images for publication was invaluable. Karl Heider readily understood what sort of generally accessible volume we hoped to produce, and he gave us valuable guidance and criticism that brought us closer to our goal. Thomas Blakely’s very close reading of the text and detailed scholarly recommendations in terms of the history and present state of visual anthropology as a field helped enormously to improve our work. Laena Wilder’s considerable skills as a photographer and designer make this volume beautiful as well as informative. Rafael Domingo contributed his computer knowledge to preparing the complicated text according to specifications. It is a privilege for me to work with professionals such as these.

xv

I nt ro d uc t ion

W Purpose of the Book

e, the contributors, put this book together to give you an idea of what it is really like to work in the multidisciplinary field of visual anthropology. We do not attempt to talk about everything visual anthropologists do and have done. We hope to present an impression of the nature and breadth of our discipline at the time of this writ-

ing by describing some of the things we have done. The chapter writers represent a range of generations. Some of us began to work as professionals in the mid-twentieth century, and others just recently in the first decade of the second millennium. We talk about using old media—like painting, carving, and emulsion photography—as well as new developments, such as computer-generated and digital means of communication. We present research involving a variety of cultural traditions in the United States as well as in many other parts of the world. You will find the past, the present, and the future here because some of us focus on prehistory, folk traditions, and written history, while others concentrate on contemporary developments and possible future patterns. We look at communicative forms that range from cooking pots and facial expressions to dance steps to interactive software, and human as well as primate behaviors. We try to tell you as clearly as possible about what we do, attempting to be as honest as we can about our problems as well as our successes.

Visual anthropology is a multidisciplinary field that joins the arts and the humanities with the social and biological sciences. We learn how to communicate our findings through words, photography and film, art, music, and other expressive forms. However, knowing what is meaningful and worth communicating requires a firm grounding in standard anthropology, with its subfields and requirements for specialization in culture areas, verbal language fluency, and technical skill. A good number of visual anthropologists concentrate on communicative, expressive, and symbolic aspects of the cultures they study, perhaps because these traits lend themselves to representation in, for example, audiovisual recording. However, many of us seek to understand such nonmaterial aspects of culture as religion or philosophy. We are more than reporters or journalists, or perhaps we are like the best of them in that our work usually requires years rather than days or weeks to produce. Some visual anthropologists overcome these daunting professional demands by forming teams made 1

up of one person specializing in communications arts and another in anthropology. You can also find both skills embodied in one individual. This book presents visual anthropology as a kind of work in progress. We hope that people from many walks of life will feel welcome at our often contentious and boisterous worktable. What follows is a very brief summary of background information about the field of anthropology and its relation to visual anthropology, a description of new developments in the arts and media and their implications, a review of collaborative research and presentations, and a final few words about professional training and organizations. Visual Anthropology Is More than Media Study of Cultures in General and their Communicative/ Expressive Aspects in Particular

Anthropology studies human belief and behavior. Through comparison, it attempts to establish what is universal about all human cultures on the one hand, and what may be unique to a culture or cultures on the other. Visual anthropologists are not distinguishable from other anthropologists in these ways. Visual anthropologists do place more emphasis on how human beings express and communicate their cultural traditions. These comprise outwardly observable forms such as language, music, art, dance, use of space, physical attitudes, and expressions. These perceivable manifestations give some measure of concrete reality to the inner mental abstraction we call culture. Visual anthropologists deduct and intuit the references to the natural world, symbolic and metaphoric meanings observable in such communicative conventions. Audiovisual recording devices both archive and facilitate analysis of such aspects of culture. By the same token, anthropology in general has been a visual discipline since its inception. Handmade illustrations, still photographs, and moving pictures have accompanied written texts, lectures, and other verbal materials from the very beginning. Different Theoretical Traditions

Within anthropology are a number of different schools of thought or philosophical traditions. Many of these philosophies have their roots in particular geographic areas, such as the United States, Great Britain, or France, for example (Grimshaw and Ravetz 2005:1–17). There are also ideological movements that originated in Latin America, Asia, and Africa that have great relevance, particularly in terms of today’s realities. The contributors to this book have been influenced by one or more of these sets of ideas. Although some of our chapter writers express this consciously, others make assumptions without acknowledgment of their origins. Discerning readers will want to delve into these philosophical underpinnings. You can do so by consulting general texts about anthropological theory and philosophy. In like manner, there are schools of thought and practice that inform ideological and practical strategies used by photographers, filmmakers, and experts in the other arts. Major theoreticians in this area include mediamakers and artists, as well as philosophers. It is recommended that readers learn about these with respect to the medium or art form in which they have a special interest. 2

Viewpoints

W o r d s a n d P i c t u r e s , Sc i e n c e a n d A r t

Do words and pictures complement and inform one another, or do they accomplish very similar or very different ends? Are pictures mere frivolous distractions from the seriousness of words? Questions like these occupy the minds of visual anthropologists because, traditionally, anthropology has been a wordoriented discipline. Marcus Banks and Howard Morphy (1997), John and Malcolm Collier (1986), Karl Heider (2006), Paul Hockings (1975, 1995), and David MacDougall (2006) are among a number of visual anthropologists who have given thought to these problems. Readers will see that some chapters in this book emphasize words and others promote pictures as a major communicational mode. The first group of professionals believe that audiovisual materials illustrate and enhance ideas best expressed in words. The second group, like the iconoclast filmmaker Jean Rouch, feel that pictures portray a completely different world from words, one that is full of fantasy and imagination and of objects rather than verbal concepts. According to Rouch (2007), it is essential to make a film with the heart rather than the brain. Still other contributors promote the idea that the two systems support and enhance each other when they work in tandem. The filmmaker Robert Gardner (1957:348) proposed that we find out what pictures do well and recognize that it is different from what written texts do well (not better or worse, probably complementary). Digital storage and the Internet will probably increase the interface between words and pictures because they provide a vast amount of information for both types to users. Some pundits predict that the digital era will increase the primacy of images over words, thus perhaps reversing past tendencies. Is visual anthropology a science or an art? Is it a combination of the two? If so, what kind of combination? Does the distinction matter? If so, in what way does it matter? These are also questions visual anthropologists constantly ask. The art historian W. J. T. Mitchell has interesting ideas, as do other thinkers, about these subjects. Mitchell believes that pictures want to be loved and to be real (Mitchell 2005:309). Viewers’ attraction to images (love) and acceptance of them as representations of truth (real) give them enormous power for good or ill. Natural scientists employ photographic imagery as supporting evidence when presenting their research work to their colleagues. The scientific community accepts these images as truth. An immoral advertising firm might use the power of pictures to sell products dangerous to buyers’ health. An ethical artist can employ the symbolic and metaphoric potential of creatively manipulated images to tell the truth in a way impossible to do in another medium. Mitchell calls this “exposing codes,” using a term familiar to users of word processing software. Viewers of art see truths about their own reality that other modes of expression are incapable of portraying. It is the artists’ and viewers’ imagination and creative potential that come into play in the realm of art. Art allows us to see the truth by means of a circuitous route. Gregory Bateson (1972), paraphrasing the philosopher Blaise Pascal (1660), called this process the knowledge of the heart about which the mind knows nothing. Bateson quotes the dancer Isadora Duncan, who summed it up well when she said, “If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it.”1 (Bateson 1972:134, 137). I n t r o d u c ti o n

1. Jean Rouch (2007), Gregory Bateson (1972), and Isadora Duncan are paraphrasing a thought expressed by the philosopher Blaise Pascal in his work, Pensées, written in 1660: “Le couer a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point” (“The heart has its reasons about which reason knows nothing”).

3

Archeologists and biological anthropologists specialize in the more scientific subfields of anthropology and so are more likely to appreciate the truth-telling qualities of imagery. Members of more social scientific and humanistic subfields, like linguistics and cultural anthropology, would be more apt to caution us against seeing objective truth in images. Many members of this last group of professionals point out that no matter how “objective” we might think our visual productions to be, they are subjective creations and therefore like works of art to differing degrees. These productions express the makers’ concerns as much or even more than what seems to be portrayed. Viewers of all sorts of audiovisual and three-dimensional materials and objects compound the complexity of the communication process. Viewers edit what they see depending on their own predispositions, training, perceptive acuity, and other factors. Visual anthropologists in humanities/social science caution us to look with a critical eye that perceives the imagemaker’s assumptions and opinions and to distinguish these from “facts.” We must also examine as much as possible our own biases as viewers. N e w D e v e l o pm e n t s a n d T h e i r Imp l i c a t i o n s Accessible, Easy-to-Use, and Portable Media

The recent explosion of innovation in digital technology puts palm-sized audiovisual communication, storage, and recording devices of various kinds into the hands of masses of people. Powerful notepad-sized computers sit on desks and fit neatly into satchels and backpacks for easy transport. Both kinds of hardware employ wireless capability, allowing person-to-person and multiple site contact potentially anywhere on the globe. These tools give users access to the growing mine of information in written, visual, and sound forms on the Internet. Cell phones and computers become increasingly easier to use. At the same time, the advanced skill level once needed for photography, filmmaking, and other media arts now gives way to small-sized digital point-andshoot and handheld cameras, and recorders, often with the addition of built-in editing software. These new technologies require a short and shallow learning curve to use and produce images and sound of high quality. Media productions once dependent upon major funding and substantial amounts of human hours now cost relatively little in time and money. The Internet provides highly detailed information and possibilities for interactive communication with respect to an endless number of subjects. It also contains public forums where users can post photographs, films, biographies of themselves, and information in various communication modes about themes of interest to them and like-minded people. The Internet thus democratizes presentation of, and access to, knowledge. It allows many people to express their views to millions of others without need for degrees in journalism, photography, or anthropology. The new technologies provide very good tools, in these ways and others, to people in the industrialized and privileged part of the world. The Politics of Representation

Meantime, people in the economically poor areas of the globe and marginal groups within wealthy countries have not been letting the new technologies pass them by. Formerly isolated Indigenous, minority, and other groups were 4

Viewpoints

once hampered by lack of access to electricity and the chance to learn to read and write. Not so today. These peoples now jump over telephone wire and literacy barriers by using wireless technology, images, and sound in countless Internet cafés and innumerable cell phones throughout the world (Jhala 2007). Visual anthropologists beware: the “informants” (as they were once called), for whom professionals once mediated with exclusivity, now speak with their own voices and produce their own images. These issues bring the discussion to the important topic of the “politics of representation.” Who has the right to represent a way of life to others? What are the overt and covert agendas of those who produce such representations? Are untrained insiders or professionally educated outsiders to have this privilege? Do the new technologies make this question moot? Up until recently, professionally trained outsiders constituted the only voice. These mediators often carried the taint of economic self-interest; assumptions of professional, cultural, and moral superiority; greed for political power; and other unsavory objectives. These nefarious intentions, rather than the desire to present the truth, all too easily could inform journalistic, documentary, or visual anthropological research and productions of the past. One possible way to combine the best of both worlds and avoid ethical pitfalls is by means of collaborative and advocacy research and production. Va l u e o f C o l l a b o r a t i v e and Advocacy Research

There was a time when trained visual anthropologists could go into the field to carry on research and return as the sole authorities to present their findings to audiences at home. New technologies today allow people without any training and even people who were once isolated by geography and sociocultural minority status to do the same thing. However, much of what appears on Internet forums, for example, lacks the breadth and perspective that formal training can give. Studies done exclusively by trained outsiders, by the same token, suffer from lack of the cultural depth that only an insider perspective provides. One way to prevent the superficialities and inaccuracies that so easily result from the tunnel vision of both cultural insiders and outsiders is collaborative research that involves both groups. Collaboration means that visual anthropologists work together with the subjects of their studies as equals rather than in the old “authority” versus “informant” relationship. Marcus Banks (1999), John and Malcolm Collier (1986), David MacDougall (2006), and Sol Worth, John Adair, and Richard Chalfen (1997) are examples of professionals who have worked in this way for many years. Recently, professionals and their field collaborators have coauthored a number of books and audiovisual pieces. Another aspect of collaborative research has great importance: advocacy. A small story may suffice to illustrate its significance. In search of a prize-winning photograph, one journalist recounted floating in a boat down a New Orleans street shortly after the city had been flooded by Hurricane Katrina. He saw a wonderfully tragic image of a distraught man floating on flood debris in the water. After making what he was sure might be a magazine cover shot, it occurred to the photographer that he had better help the stranded man. Thereafter he became a tireless rescuer of many stranded people who survived because of his efforts. I n t r o d u c ti o n

5

You will find that many of this book’s contributors feel ethically obligated to help and advocate for the people who appear in their research. Working collaboratively with people tends to erase the distance required by scientific or artistic “objectivity.” Many of us contend that such humanizing of visual anthropology is a positive trend that will produce better work in our field. O r g a n i z at i o n s a n d T r a i n i n g

A number of organizations at present nurture and promote visual anthropology. One of these, based in the United States, is the Society for Visual Anthropology (SVA), which is a section of the American Anthropological Association (AAA). SVA sponsors a yearly Film, Video and Interactive Media Festival and Visual Research Conference that forms part of the AAA annual meetings. The research conference is a small-group format during which visual anthropologists present ongoing research projects. The SVA publishes a journal entitled Visual Anthropology Review and hosts a Web site (www.societyforvisualanthropology.org; see also Blakely and Blakely 1989). The Commission on Visual Anthropology is an organization based in Europe, but whose membership is worldwide. Its official publication is the journal Visual Anthropology. The Commission has a Web site (www.visualanthropology.net). The International Visual Sociology Association (IVSA) is also international in scope. IVSA publishes the journal Visual Studies. It has a Web site (www. visu alsociology.org). There are, in addition, many other organizations dedicated to visual anthropology located in countries on all continents of the globe. Students can seek training in visual anthropology in a number of ways. There are a few comprehensive programs at the university level worldwide that grant degrees in anthropology with a visual anthropology specialization. Courses of training in ethnographic film, documentary photography, and other art forms based in fine arts or media institutes and universities often collaborate with anthropology programs. Many visual anthropologists have one or more standard degrees as well as experience in anthropology and the media or fine arts. Professionals in this last group build their own careers either through the kind of work they do or by apprenticing with established visual anthropologists. The likelihood of a future filled with more and more visual imagery bodes well for the creation of additional training programs specifically oriented toward the kinds of combined skills visual anthropologists find useful in their work.

References Banks, Marcus. 1999 “Visual Research Methods.” In Social Research Update, Winter:1–6. Internet version. Banks, Marcus and Howard Morphy, eds. 1997 Rethinking Visual Anthropology. New Haven: Yale University Press. Bateson, Gregory. 1972 Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine Books. Blakely, Thomas D. and Pamela Blakely. 1989 Directory of Visual Anthropology. A publication of the Society for Visual Anthropology, a unit of the American Anthropological Association. Collier, John and Malcolm Collier. 1986 Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Commission on Visual Anthropology. 2007 Web site: www.visualanthropology.net. Gardner, Robert. 1957 “Anthropology and Film.” In Daedalus, 86:344–352. Grimshaw, Anna and Amanda Ravetz. 2005 Visualizing Anthropology. Bristol, UK: Intellect Books. Heider, Karl G. 2006 Ethnographic Film. Austin: University of Texas Press. Hockings, Paul, ed. 1975, 1995 Principles of Visual Anthropology. The Hague: Mouton. International Visual Sociology Association. 2007 Web site: www.visualsociology.org. Jhala, Jayasinjhi. 2007 E-mail documents and conversations regarding the Internet, Indigenous video online, YouTube, and their implications. MacDougall, David. 2006 The Corporeal Image: Film, Ethnography, and the Senses. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Mitchell, W. J. T. 2005 What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pascal, Blaise. 1660 Pensées (English translation by W. F. Trotter). Rouch, Jean. 2007 Web site: www.der.org/jean-rouch/content/index.php. Society for Visual Anthropology. 2007 Web site: www.societyforvisualanthropology.org. Worth, Sol, John Adair, and Richard Chalfen. 1997 Through Navajo Eyes: An Exploration in Film Communication and Anthropology. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

How to Use this Book

We put this collection of chapters together for you, our readers and viewers. We hope you will share both our respect for the people (and animals!) with whom we have worked and our desire to produce not only good science and good art, but also works of conscience. We do not try to fully answer the enormous questions regarding issues arising from what we do. Instead, we continue to ask the questions by presenting problems and conflicts that we ourselves face, as well as tools and methods that have worked well for us. We hope to inspire you to go beyond what we have done here, and we look forward to seeing a small part of the direction in which you will take this field in the future. 6

Viewpoints

I n t r o d u c ti o n

7

section I

Photography Now

Se ction I p h oto g r a p h y n ow

I n t r o d u cti o n

P

hotographs are everywhere: on the Internet; in newspapers; on television, cell phones, and posters for political campaigns; and on LED screens lighting up city streets with advertising and current events— the list is endless. The photograph forms part of most visual communications media at some stage of production. Photographs are the basic units of films, and they can be isolated from videos and digital media. The still photograph allows viewers to unhurriedly contem-

plate an unmoving image and perhaps begin to understand a small part of the beauty and meaning therein. Life, always in motion, rarely allows such a privileged view. C h a p t e r 1 . Malcolm Collier “Photographic Exploration of Social and Cultural Experience”

Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method, the best-selling book by John and Malcolm Collier, perhaps reaches a wider professional and nonprofessional audience than any other work about uses of photography in research. In this chapter, Malcolm Collier gives readers an overview of the potential uses of photographs, as well as of video and other media, for an understanding of the social and cultural world. The chapter covers: 1 The use of visual materials as sources of information and as vehicles for understanding data beyond their immediate content. 2 Photo elicitation, which, Collier points out, is one of the most ignored of valuable research techniques. 3 The use of views from within, which involves giving cameras to “informants” so they can make their own images. 4 The combining of images with words in an effective and integral way.

Could you take a camera and/or disposable cameras into an environment you think you know well and learn new things you might not have imagined using Collier’s suggestions? 10

Malcolm Collier grew up with documentary photography since his father, John Collier, was also a famous documentarian of many cultures. He is a visual artist, but also has an advanced degree in anthropology. His chapter distills long experience as a practitioner of several complex crafts: documentary photography, applied (“applied” means research oriented toward helping improve the lives of the peoples being studied) research in anthropology, and community education.

Laena Wilder “Documentary Photography in the Field”

Chapter 2.

Laena Wilder holds an MFA in photography. Unlike many with similar Think about how you can take training, she leaves the gallery behind to use the emotional power of pictures that elicit the kind of images to call attention to and help solve social problems and to pro- emotional esthetic response in mote ethnic and cultural pride. Putting cameras in the hands of her viewers that Wilder discusses. portrait subjects allows them to collaborate with her as cultural inves- Do you think emotional and tigators and curators of presentations about their own lives. Wilder intellectual responses occur separately or together for viewers? discusses respectful behavior, such as culturally acceptable dress and demeanor, and the importance of sharing prints with the people portrayed in her work. The chapter contains useful how-to suggestions for handling cameras, making informative and aesthetically pleasing images, and using appropriate organizing and storing techniques for photographs in different formats. Laena Wilder, visual editor of this volume, is a fine artist with an advanced degree in her field. Her approach is esthetic and perceptive. She speaks of creativity, but also gives readers practical advice in techniques both for making and preserving images and for building rapport with photographic subjects. Wilder very much wants readers to be advocates of people they photograph in the tradition of Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine.

Richard Freeman “Photography and Ethnography” Chapter 3.

Richard Freeman shows ways in which photography becomes more than merely anecdotal or adjunct to anthropological writing. Using his fieldwork in Argentina, he demonstrates how the montage technique in a photographic gallery display allows the photographs to narrate. He describes three galleries: the first, without text, about Buenos Aires; the second, with images and text, about the political situation; and the third about the Juventud Partido Try taking a series of your own images about a similar theme Socialista Democrática (JPSD) and Argentine youth party at work. and mounting them on a wall These galleries communicate the dialectical relationship among gallerin such a way that viewers can ies themselves and between images and text. The montage technique “read” a story. Do you think picshows varied imagery and perspectives with regard to the same sub- tures alone can do this or do you ject. This gives viewers a feeling of actually being there and inspires in need to add words as well? them a sense of activism parallel to that of the young people depicted. Richard Freeman has an advanced degree in anthropology, but also considerable experience and skill in film and documentary photography. He finds an interesting way of making photographs and words work together to communicate important issues by using the story-telling power of positioning and placement.

11

Chapter 1

Photographic Exploration of Social and Cultural Experience Malcolm Collier

D

espite considerable promise, photography remains underused as a formal tool for social and cultural research. This chapter introduces basic methods for using cameras and photographs, including their potential as direct sources of information, procedures for making and using photographs as records, the use of preexisting and historical images, the value of photographs as vehicles to further information via photo elicitation, and

their potential as aids in obtaining the “inside” view of people’s lives through their own photography.1 The focus is on still photography, but much also applies to film and video.2

Practice assignments for learning these processes are provided at the end of the chapter.

P h o t o g r a p h s a s S o u r c e s o f I n f o r m at i o n

What are the possibilities of photographs as records and how can that potential be nurtured and the limitations accommodated? Photography is useful for visual note taking and far more effective than written notes with regard to visual phenomena, although in both cases observers respond selectively to what they may see, recording that which they consider may be significant. Written notes, however, are significantly abstracted and translated records that contain only what observers see and actually note at that time. Most situations are so visually complex that our eyes and our minds, not to mention our pencils, can only see, comprehend, and retain a portion of the visual detail. The camera, used well, is somewhat less selective and can record varied, complex spatial and material elements that may be held for later viewing. This fixing of detail and relationships for additional and repeated examination is the foundation of the potential of photographs (and video) as direct sources of information as well as for other uses. Often, indeed usually, the most valuable information obtained from photographs is not seen or appreciated at the actual time of observation and recording. Naturally, some subjects are more readily open to photographic recording than others. Spatial and material aspects of place, culture, and society are easy to record and examine in photographs, although their significance is always much more elusive. The scope of the material/spatial world open to photography is large. Cultural artifacts, technology, crafts, visual arts, the content and spatial character of homes, crops and fields, commercial activities, towns and cities, goods in markets, styles of

1. There are other important applications of photography in social and cultural studies, most notably representational studies— which examine images as reflections or representations of their creators and the societies and cultures in which they operate—and semiotic investigations that explore issues of meaning. These studies may represent the most common use of photographs in contemporary scholarly research, for which a wide body of literature is available, including the journals listed under Further Reading. 2. No attempt is made to address technical issues, including those related to the rapidly changing arena of digital photography. The technical differences between digital and silver-based photography do not have much impact on the processes presented here, except that digital technology can facilitate some of the approaches suggested.

13

Figure 1.1 . Señor Picón, principal of the Vicos school, teaching numbers to a beginning student, Vicos, Peru. Photograph by John Collier Jr., 1955. Photographs offer both precision and ambiguity. One can readily note the student’s concentration, his ragged clothing, rough-shorn hair, the makeshift but effective use of spools as a teaching device, the teacher’s formal clothing. But what do these aspects of the image mean? What is their significance? These do not reside in the image but largely in what we bring to the viewing. Without supporting contextual information—either in the memory of the viewer or in the form of annotation—background data, and, ideally, additional photographs, this image is somewhat enigmatic, whatever its esthetic appeal. Indeed, photographs that make good illustrations or are effective as single, strong images are often unreliable sources of knowledge and information because their visual strength may derive from the exclusion of complexity and larger context. Conversely, information-rich photographs are frequently unsatisfactory as single images or as illustrations because the very density of their content frustrates an easy reading. This photograph, made fifty years ago as part of a systematic photographic ethnography of a community in the Peruvian Andes, does have a rich body of annotation and accompanying images that could enable responsible use in research. Additionally, even single images may be significant starting points for information if shown to someone with memories of its time and place, such as the student seen here, other Vicosinos—or even myself, once also a student in this school and of this teacher.

14

Figure 1.2. Kitchen in Anglo home, Talpa, New Mexico. Photograph by John Collier Jr., 1939. Cameras are superb tools for recording the material world. This photograph, although not intended as a research image when made and completely lacking annotation, still contains considerable information. Details are seen that reflect life in a period before electricity and running water, complete with water heating on the stove top, the types of dishes, dependence on an old wood stove, and many other elements. The mix of dishware and the esthetic style indicate that this is an Anglo home, a fact further confirmed by other images of the home, which taken as a whole provide insight into a lifestyle and a time. Many elements might have been noted in writing in 1939, but it would have taken considerable verbal skill and time to delineate not only

the contents in full detail but also the esthetic style and “feel” of the space. Moreover, written notes cannot be revisited to find additional information not noted by an observer in 1939. The photograph, in contrast, recorded the information quickly, with considerable specificity, and holds it for examination today, long after the kitchen and its contents are gone. Given that photographic records of every room in a home may be made relatively rapidly, from which a home could be “recreated” to significant degree, the potential for recording material detail with the camera is obvious. Additionally, the home might be photographed today and a comparison made with the older images. (For an example of what is involved in a careful written record of domestic spaces, see Mark Twain’s description of a home in Chapter 38 of Life on the Mississippi.)

Man with back-strap loom, Otavalo, Ecuador. Photograph by John Collier Jr., 1946. Technology and craft are readily recorded with the camera, with more precision and depth than written notes. In a large print of this image, it is possible to obtain precise information on position of heddles, the passing of the weft thread, the design of the warp, and more. Making written notes of craft details and technical processes can be very difficult, especially if one is not also a practitioner of the craft. With a little care, systematic records of such subjects can readily be made

with the camera, often with direction from the craftsperson (as was the case here) and the details held for closer examination later. This image was part of a larger, published exploration of economic and social change in the region, which includes detailed documentation of the textile productions that were the economic base of the community. (Collier and Buitrón, 1949) These images could be easily revisited today and new records made in the present to assist in a study of changes and continuity since 1946.

Figure 1.3.

M a lco l m Co l l i e r

Ph oto g r a p h i c e x p lo r ati o n o f s o c i a l a n d c u lt u r a l e x p e r i e n c e

15

Market scene, Cholula, Mexico. Photograph by John Collier Jr., 1982. Photography of social process and interactions presents rich and frustrating possibilities as reflected in this photograph. From it, we get a sense of the lively social character of a marketplace and, together with additional photographs made at the time, can explore interactions, social class, styles of display, range of goods, and character of the vendors in the market. In this one image we can derive information on people’s spatial relationships, postures, expressions, facial expressions, and other aspects of their nonverbal behavior, all of which are very

Figure 1.4.

suggestive regarding the nature of the interactions. Nevertheless, we must be very cautious in reaching conclusions about what is transpiring. This is just one frozen instant of a complex social circumstance to which we are strangers. In part, this reflects the problem with reading single images: a sequence of photographs of this set of interactions would very much expand our ability to understand what might be happening, but we would still not know what was being said or the actual relationships of the people. Nor would we have any real sense of the movement of interactions.

decor, clothing, graffiti on walls, personal adornment—anything in the full range of material life in all its chaos and patterns is readily recorded by the camera. It is also possible to explore sociocultural process and relationships with a camera. We can record participants and activities at public events, the everyday life of a grandmother, the operations of a business, the people and transactions at a farmers market, the progression of a day in a preschool, lunchtime crowds in a park, the flow of people at a transit station, or the social processes of a family meal, but with more difficulty and caution with regard to understanding than might be the case with the strictly material world. Although most aspects of human activity are potentially the basis of informative and often powerful photographs, still photographs of nonverbal communication and social process are ultimately frozen images of split seconds in time and space that, however reflective of the nature of the process recorded, cannot adequately capture the way actions and interactions transpire. They require more projection from our own experience for comprehension, which invites error, doubly so in culturally unfamiliar circumstances. Carefully made, still photographs’ value as records of social and cultural process are considerable, but their limitations cannot be evaded. For this reason, recording of behavior and communication is usually more effectively done with video, which can more completely record the movement of social process through time and space. Indeed, modern studies of interpersonal communication have become almost dependent on such records due to their ability to hold the complicated interconnected elements of space, movement, expression, sound, and context for careful and repeated examination. With video (and previously film), researchers have decoded the subtle dynamics of interactions and their variations in different social and cultural contexts. Subjects include the subtlety of nonverbal communication among close friends, the conflicts of communication between teachers and children from different cultural backgrounds, the character of dance and performance, the multiple levels of communications among flirting teens, the emotional connections of Teacher and students, Kwethluk, Alaska. Stills from film by John Collier Jr., 1969. The close relationship of teacher and children is readily apparent in these three discontinuous frames from a motion picture record of a classroom, part of a larger visual investigation of schooling for Alaskan Native children. But these still images cannot convey the full character and fluid flow of the interactions, which were dramatically different from those found in Anglo-taught classrooms. Film was chosen for this study with

Figure 1.5.

16

the hope that it could provide more meaningful information on the communications nuances of schooling than could still photography. Today such a study would be made with video. A detailed analysis examined the character classrooms, the nature of communications among the children and with teachers, as well as social and cultural activities in the surrounding communities, providing descriptive detail and provocative insight into the success and failure of communications in the schools. (Collier, 1973 and M. Collier, 1979) M a lco l m Co l l i e r

parents and children, and the variations in nonverbal communication across different cultures. Video, in particular, has extended research possibilities to include examination of the interrelationship of nonverbal and verbal aspects of communication and behavior.³ Key Elements of Making Photographs as Records

There are basic processes or steps for using cameras that serve to enhance the research potential of the resulting photographs; these should become almost a matter of habit for any researcher with a camera. 1 Make a mix of wide, medium, and detail photographs of subjects. Wideangle photographs record more of the context and the interrelationships of a situation. The wider the view, generally, the greater volume of potential information within it and the more likely we are to later discover aspects we had previously missed. Conversely, narrower, more selective photographs provide more detail and are important in working through an understanding of specifics, as in the steps of an artistic or technical process, but their value is limited without a wider context in which to place them. 2 Make photographs from a variety of angles and distances. This is an extension of the same principle. Just as a mix of wide and more detailed images enhances the range of potential information, so too does a mix of angles of view. Make photographs from a variety of heights, not just at eye level; a variety of distances, not simply at the same distance each time; and a variety of angles to capture different views, not simply from “in front.” Realistically, not all situations permit the photographer to obtain a mix of angles, but they should be obtained if at all possible. 3 Compose photos in terms of the edges of the frame, so as to maximize the informational content. Do not automatically place the “main” subject in the center, but rather compose the photograph to maximize the use of the whole frame. This means thinking about where the edges fall rather than about what is in the center. We want to use the camera to extend our vision, not merely to reaffirm it. By composing from the edges, we start to break away from a subject-oriented view to one of discovery, using the image as a net within which to obtain more of the elusive and shimmering catch of information and insight. 4 Make photographs in sets and sequences, not simply single shots. This means tracking actions, people, processes, and places through time and space. Only in this manner can we begin to discover and appreciate how social process occurs or how material elements relate. Single photographs are frustrating to work with because by themselves they usually leave us with more questions than answers, lacking both spatial and temporal context within which to make them comprehensible.

Ph oto g r a p h i c e x p lo r ati o n o f s o c i a l a n d c u lt u r a l e x p e r i e n c e

3. The full potential of video in research is beyond the scope of this chapter, as is the character of the relationship of the verbal to the nonverbal. Sources listed at the end of the chapter provide beginning points for further exploration of these matters.

17

5 Be sure to photograph what comes before and after focal activity as well as moments of transition. We want to know how things came to be and what their aftermath may be, capturing the chain of actions and consequences that make up both the mundane and the spectacular. Transitions are often crucial for understanding both social and technical process as they define new beginnings and endings, shaping what follows while signaling the end of what came before. 6 Make photographs at regular intervals, even when “nothing” seems to be

the midsection of this circular journey. This approach provides opportunities to respond to larger patterns within whole events that may reveal the new and the unforeseen and that provide significant meaning to otherwise chaotic details. Because more structured analysis inevitably involves focus on predefined details or points of interest, early descent into focused examinations is likely to limit true discovery and foster the imposition of prior bias in our analysis. The following list presents a basic plan for direct analysis of photographs. 1 Inventory your images. The images should be logged or inventoried—

happening. We cannot assume that we know when something significant is

ideally, this should be an ongoing process while the images are being

present and should make visual notes consistently through time and space,

made or obtained. The inventory should be designed around categories of

within which we may discover previously unappreciated phenomena. Just

information or subjects that reflect and assist your goals, but it should also

because we don’t see anything “happening” or anything “important” does

include basic identifying information that will allow you to locate images

not mean that it is not there to be discovered later in the photographs, either

when you need them and that establishes the spatial, temporal, and other

by ourselves or by others more knowledgeable.

contextual relationships among the photographs.

7 Make photographs of the mundane as well as the dramatic. We are

2 Start formal analysis with open immersion and discovery. Observe the

habituated to recording perceived “peaks” of cultural process, forgetting

data as a whole, look at and “listen” to their overtones and subtleties,

that life is often not dramatic, that people do not live only at the peaks. It is

discover connecting and contrasting patterns. Do this before engaging

often the mundane, undramatic steps along the way that are most essential

in any substantial structured or detailed analysis. Trust your feelings and

to cultural process, and it is in everyday events that the foundations of our

impressions and make careful note of them, identifying images with which

lives are truly found.

they are associated. Write down all questions that are triggered—these may provide important direction for further analysis. See and respond to the

8 Keep good notes (annotation) that can provide background and

photographs (or film, video, etc.) as statements of cultural drama, and let

identification for your photographs. Do not depend on memory.

these characterizations form a structure within which to place the remainder

Photographs, beyond a certain point, do not “speak for themselves,” and

of your research.

their meaning and significance are defined by context. Anything that extends the contextual information associated with an image extends

3 Then engage in structured or more detailed analysis. Go through the

its value. Ideally, in addition to written records, identifying information of

images with specific questions that draw your attention to details in the

some type should appear on the back of every print—written with soft

photographs and the circumstances they attempt to record. Measure, count,

pencil—or in association with each digital record. Video or film should

and compare items, spatial relationships, and behaviors as appropriate. The

be clearly identified, both within the tape or film and on the containers.

primary goal of structured analysis is to obtain the details that may flesh

Negatives should be stored in sleeves and should also have identifying

out broader findings and provide a check on those insights. Inconsistencies,

information. Digital cameras can be set to record basic temporal information

including statistical ones, should be seen as suggesting a return to the

automatically, and with computers, images and associated annotation may

broader analysis for further exploration. Statistical information can be

be combined into visual databases, easily organized and searched, providing

plotted on graphs, listed in tables, or entered into a computer for statistical

the basic annotation was made to begin with.

analysis, keeping in mind that any such statistics are descriptive, not probative—the sampling process in photographic recording and analysis never meets the standards of statistical proof.

Dire ct Analys is of Photographs as Information

4 Use photographs in interviews. We are not dependent only on our own

4. This discussion assumes a reasonably well-made visual research collection, but most of the techniques may be modified to work with less ideal records.

18

The use of photographs as sources of information requires an organized process for obtaining knowledge from the images that builds on their strengths and addresses their limitations. Such analysis may take various forms. When we examine the content of images for information, we engage in direct analysis. Analysis should be seen as an exploration that seeks both detail and pattern.4 Aside from basic inventory of images, major analysis should begin and end with open-ended processes, with the more structured procedures applied during M a lco l m Co l l i e r

eyes and minds; we can show photographs to others with knowledge and insight, including—perhaps most especially—people who are participants in the activities and circumstances seen in the photographs. When trying to “read” photographic images, this procedure expands the range of information obtained and represents a unique characteristic of photographs as compared to written forms of recording. It also provides important background and contextual material that enriches other types Ph oto g r a p h i c e x p lo r ati o n o f s o c i a l a n d c u lt u r a l e x p e r i e n c e

19

of analysis. This process, known as “photo elicitation,” is described in more

W o r ki n g wi t h P r e e x i s t i n g I m a g e s

detail later in this chapter. 5 Be aware of the limits of “facts.” The true challenge is not the search for information, which photographs contain in abundance, but rather it is the discovery of significance and meaning. It is easy to become seduced by the specificity, the details of photographic images, forgetting that although these may be descriptively important, they do not in themselves provide us with insight or real knowledge. Remember also that, although the details present in photographs are many, photographs are always only partial records of the circumstances they may reflect. 6 Search for meaning and significance by returning to the complete visual record. Go through and respond again to the data in an open manner so that details from structured analysis are placed in a wider setting that defines their significance. Reestablish context, lay out the photographs, view images in entirety, then write your conclusions as influenced by this final exposure to the whole, drawing details both from the structured analysis and from direct reference to the images as you write.

Bridal party in the San Geronimo Fiesta Parade, Taos, New Mexico. Photograph by John Collier Jr., 1939. Unannotated photographs, lacking background and contextual information, can be enigmatic until such information is obtained. As I began the research project of which this image is part, I knew only that the photographs (there was a second photograph of the bride and groom) were made during the fall of 1939 at a fiesta parade, which made no sense! What was a bridal party doing in the parade? The photographer did not know who the people were. A chance comment at a memorial service in 1992 provided a name for the wedding couple, and the later use of the photograph in an oral history interview provided a connection to the daughter of the couple, who invited me to meet her father (the groom, not visible in this photograph). He in turn provided the story behind the photographs and the names of the other people in the picture, who were subsequently interviewed as well. This process, complicated as it was, would have been more difficult had I not been a member of the same larger community with personal connections to people related to the bridal party.

Using photographs as sources of information is best done with images made specifically for that purpose, but it is frequently necessary or useful to work with preexisting images—photographs made for purposes other than our research. The most common situation involves the use of historical photographs but may also include use of a variety of contemporary images from which we hope to obtain information. Using preexisting images may be both productive and risky as their potential is quite variable and dependent on the quantity and origins of the images, the manner in which they were made, and the amount of supporting annotation available. If there is considerable annotation, we can process with more confidence, as is also true if there are many associated photographs from which supporting detail and contextual information may be drawn. If there are many images, many of the analytic procedures for the use of images as direct sources of information are appropriate. More commonly, preexisting photographs lack significant annotation, in which case considerable effort may have to go into obtaining identifying and contextual information through archival research, interviews, or other processes—including careful “mining” of images themselves—before the images may be used as direct information. Consequently, although preexisting images may be valuable sources of information, their use should be approached with caution and care. Their greatest value is often in conjunction with processes of photo elicitation, as described below, in which the contextual gaps and lack of annotation may be less significant or even irrelevant.

Figure 1.7.

Figure 1.6. Aide and students, Tuluksak, Alaska. Photograph by John Collier Jr., 1969. The specificity and quantity of information derived from visual analysis can frustrate the development of broader descriptions and conclusions if there is no return to a larger view. Our film research in Alaska clearly illustrates the importance of the return to the whole overview. A team of four people provided the principal investigator with detailed, specific information derived from analysis of the twenty-plus hours of film. The initial report written from this mass of research details was certainly specific, but it was also fragmented, and the scope of the details overwhelmed the manuscript. In frustration, the team returned to the raw film record itself, which was viewed

20

as a flowing whole over a period of days. This process returned the details to their place in the larger scope of the research, and it was possible to write a report that combined a clear statement of the broader patterns supported by the details from analysis. (Collier and Collier, 1986, pp. 203)

M a lco l m Co l l i e r

P h o t o E l ici t a t i o n

Photographs, as well as other types of images, can evoke responses from people via processes of photo elicitation (or photo interviews) in which people are shown photographs as part of formal and informal interview sessions. The responses so obtained may be directly tied to the content of images or may Ph oto g r a p h i c e x p lo r ati o n o f s o c i a l a n d c u lt u r a l e x p e r i e n c e

Figure 1.8. Overview of Talpa, New Mexico. Photograph by Malcolm Collier, 2004. Photographs can be the basis for deriving extensive detailed information from knowledgeable informants. This detail from a larger panorama is part of a project using photographs of this community made over a seventy-year period by members of my family. A stranger looking at the image might derive considerable information (the amount depending on what background knowledge they might hold) on housing, apparent land use, and tenure, but all with some degree of uncertainty. Used in interviews with residents, a photograph like this one produces a whole galaxy of information, including details of land ownership, household compositions, kinship structure, economic trends, changing patterns of land use, and tenure, not to mention meditations on changing values, politics, history, and all the interpersonal knowledge common in tight-knit communities with long histories. I can use this relatively mundane image as a starting point for my own memories of events, people, childhood traumas and joys, and adult accomplishments and frustrations, and explore these together with others whose memories cross mine in this community.

21

relate to other subjects and circumstances for which the images are only starting points. Photo elicitation may also allow use of images for which we lack sufficient annotation, contextual information, or associated additional photographs to use directly as sources of information. This is possible both because the people we show them to may have the contextual knowledge in their own memories and because we may be more interested in what the images evoke than in their specific content. Put another way, during photo elicitation, images may be used both as direct sources of information through the application of knowledge and expertise of the viewers and/or as indirect sources of information and understanding through the responses they may trigger. The process allows people to identify items, places, people, and activities about which we may not be as knowledgeable. They can provide their own readings and comment on ours, facilitating more rapid and accurate gathering of information and enlarging our analysis and understanding. Photographs also often allow people to be more precise in their information, not simply with reference to what is seen in the images but also with regard to other matters and memories. People seen in photographs can look at and

Figure 1.9. ESL class. Drawing from film by Malcolm Collier, 1975. Photographs, as well as video and film, can be shown to participants. This line drawing was derived from a frame of research film on Cantonese bilingual classrooms in San Francisco. As part of the analysis, teachers were shown film of their own classrooms, generating detailed information on the classes, the students, and, more significantly, their own commentary on the interactions seen in the film. This provided both additional perspectives on the meaning of what was seen and considerable background on the students and their individual programs, all of which much enriched the larger analysis. A line drawing is used because agreements associated with the research restrict the use of the actual camera images. The line drawing contains information on spatial relationships, directions of attention, and postures but is far more abstract than either the film record or a photograph. Unlike photographic images, it cannot be mined for new and further information.

22

discuss themselves, providing inside views and knowledge. This can greatly enhance the gathering of information on a wide variety of social, cultural, technical, and craft processes and events. In many respects, the most valuable return from photo elicitation lies not in the refinement of the information in the photographs but rather in the widerrange knowledge, memories, attitudes, and feelings that the photographs frequently evoke or trigger. This is the primary basis of their utility in oral history investigations in which even very mundane images may bring forth valuable information on matters about which the researcher does not even know enough to have prepared questions. This evocative or triggering potential is useful for exploration of feelings and attitudes. Some of this potential is seen in the experience of Suzanne Levine while a graduate student at San Francisco State University. Using a collection of largely unremarkable “found images,” including magazine pictures, postcards, and family album images, she set out to explore the feelings and emotions of disaffiliated Jews through interviews in which the informants were presented with these images in an open-ended manner. Her expectations were low but, to her delight, she found herself inundated with a flood of memories, comments, and intense emotional statements about identity, family, tradition, and more. Indeed, her delight turned to dismay when she discovered that she had too much data! (Personal communication) She later used photo elicitation as part of a project in Mexico in which wheelchair-bound people produced strong statements regarding positive options for others in their circumstances. (Levine, 1996) A special attribute of using photographs in this manner is that they elicit stories, themselves a rich source of understanding and information. The potential of photographs, even artwork, in oral history efforts should be self-evident but is, remarkably, rarely pursued in a systematic manner. We are not limited to using well-made, annotated images for photo elicitation. Even orphan images may have potential. Nor are we limited to using documentary images, as already described in regard to Suzanne Levine’s work. I have had students use advertising images to explore the feelings of Asian Americans about identity and stereotypes, and there is no reason why one could not also use drawings, cartoons, paintings, and other visual art productions in the same manner. So we are not even limited to camera records. Family albums also provide a rich research of images for use in photo elicitation and oral history. It may well be that the use of photographs and other images as part of organized interviews may be the most overlooked research potential of both photographs and other forms of images. Views From Within

Figure 1.10. Husking corn, Talpa, New Mexico. Photograph by John Collier Jr., 1934. Photographs can generate commentary, memories, and stories. When used in interviews in the 1990s, this blurred image of three men husking corn in Talpa, New Mexico, produced a host of commentary regarding changing community relationships. Eloy Maestas (seen in the center) made the following comment

after identifying the other people: “Everyone helped each other in those days, they helped each other, you see, and it didn’t cost anything, just as long as you helped each other. Today no! Today, even if you want to take a few steps you have to pay. Today no! Money always comes first, whether it’s good or not you still have to pay” (translated from Spanish). M a lco l m Co l l i e r

We always gain in our understanding when we can more completely appreciate people’s experience in their own terms, but this is difficult to achieve. One of the primary promises of cameras, especially modern cameras, is that almost anyone can use them. This presents an opportunity for obtaining some sense of others’ worlds through their own eyes. One can have people photograph their daily lives, their views of their communities, the elements and people that may Ph oto g r a p h i c e x p lo r ati o n o f s o c i a l a n d c u lt u r a l e x p e r i e n c e

23

Selection from JJ’s Identity Journey. Photographs by Jessica Megumi Champion, 2004. When people photograph and document their own lives, the resulting statements provide knowledge, understanding that cannot be duplicated by other means. These images and text are from one page of a larger photographic and textual selfexploration of being a person of both Japanese and American parentage. Documents like this have a rich intimacy of feelings, detail, knowledge, and experience that provides a glimpse into people’s lives on their own terms.

Figure 1.11.

5. The larger project extended over fifteen years of work with Southeast Asian teens in the San Francisco Bay area and produced many video shorts and a number of longer, more formal productions. A complete overview of the project was produced in DVD format in 2005. (A. Collier and Edinburgh, 2005)

24

be important to them, and the activities they know well and may participate in—perhaps even have them construct photo essays with images and words that begin to provide alternate views on the world. Some of the best-known and available examples of this use of cameras have involved film and video. John Adair’s and Sol Worth’s Pine Springs project— in which Navajo adults made a series of 16 mm films—provided insight into Navajo perceptions and communication patterns while also stimulating considerable debate about this use of cameras. (Worth, Adair, and Chalfen, 1997) Subsequent video projects—some actually inspired by their work, although not research-based—have followed over the years. Spencer Nakasako’s videos AKA: Don Bonus and Kelly Loves Tony, for example, were produced from hundreds of hours of video “diaries” that resulted from providing young Southeast Asian refugees with small camcorders with which to record their daily lives and thoughts. (Nakasako 1995, 1998) Part of a much larger and extended effort, these videos offer gripping, even wrenching, windows into the life of Southeast Asian communities.5 More in a research mode, the Ciulistet Group, an organization of Yup’ik teachers in Alaska, have videotaped and analyzed their own teaching activities in order to provide a Native perspective on successful teaching methods for Yup’ik communities. (Lipka, Mohatt, and the Ciulistet Group, 1998) In Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University, hundreds of Asian American students in workshops taught by the author over the past twenty-five years have produced still photographic and textual explorations of their own communities, families, and lives, many of which provide both moving and data-rich records of the Asian American experience in a manner that could only be produced from within. Likewise, family albums and home movies and videos can provide windows into lives and cultures. Richard Chalfen, building on earlier work on American family albums, used this approach to examine Japanese American experience M a lco l m Co l l i e r

in a study of families in New Mexico and Los Angeles. He has since extended this research to Japan, finding home mode photographs a rich source of information on values, social relationships, and expression. (Chalfen, 1987, 1991, and personal communication) Many of the projects cited here have not involved research components, but they provide ready examples of the potential of such processes for research. Perhaps more important than the research potential is the possibility of using self-produced records of people’s lives as vehicles for expression of a wider range of the human experience in greater complexity and immediacy. Fi n a l W o r d s

The potential of photography has been subject to debate since its arrival as a medium more than 150 years ago, and its use in the social sciences has fueled controversy for many years.6 We may “intuitively” see photographs, film, video, and even paintings and drawings as “records” of their subjects, but in the case of a painting or drawing, we readily recognize that the record is mediated by the eye, hand, and skills of the artist. Is the same true of the photograph? The initial promise of camera images was that they appear to be more direct records of “reality” than is the case of more traditional artistic products. From this apparent promise came the view that photographs were “objective” records of “reality.” However, many images produced by cameras, indeed the majority of those that we typically encounter on a daily basis, are almost totally fabricated, including all advertising and most film and television content. Our awareness of their falseness serves to cast doubt on the validity of all photographs as records. The arrival of digital imaging, with its ease of manipulation, highlights the issue further, buttressing an opposing view that all photographs are “constructed” images, which inform us reliably only about Ph oto g r a p h i c e x p lo r ati o n o f s o c i a l a n d c u lt u r a l e x p e r i e n c e

Figure 1.12. Page from Everything You Were, Are, and Will Be. Photograph by Dillon Delvo, 1993. Album images and new photographs can be combined, as in this project, which explored the relationship between Dillon at the age of twenty-one and his eighty-four-year-old father, seen here looking at a photograph of himself as a young man. The father is a member of the “Manong” generation of Filipino American men who arrived in America in the 1920s. Using photographs from the early days, together with new photographs of his father, his father’s contemporaries, and portraits of other children of Manong fathers, Dillon created a moving statement, both descriptive and personal, about two generations in Filipino American society. (Delvo, 1993 and 2003)

6. This subject is as much philosophical as practical and has been the focus of considerable intellectual argument that is beyond the scope of this chapter, which is ultimately based on a perspective that the world has tangible aspects that we can identify.

25

their creators. A thoughtful approach to an issue this complex suggests that both extremes are unproductive absolutes. Photographs are affected by decisions, both conscious and unconscious, of the photographer regarding subject, framing, focus, exposure, and especially the choice of moment. Even “documentary” and “research” images are the product of a complex set of relationships involving photographer, subject, and viewer, each of which has a role in shaping the content and meaning of the images. All photographs involve selection and exclusion, both in time and in space, and photographers may have considerable impact on subjects, both intended and unintended. Subjects themselves not infrequently manipulate and otherwise change circumstance in front of the camera, often without awareness on the part of the photographer. Subsequent viewers see the photographs through their own lenses of experience and knowledge, further modifying the meaning of the photographic content. With film and video, the potential for selection, distortion, and exclusion is further extended to include what is or is not on the sound track. Most visual records are seen not in their unedited form but as finished products or communications; there are additional levels of selection, exclusion, and manipulation associated with the editorial process that produces the finished products. Figure 1.13. Carolina Romo, Talpa, New Mexico. Photograph by Malcolm Collier, 1994. Photographs are vehicles of discovery, of memory, of creation, and both sorrow and joy. Here, Carolina Romo looks over old photographs of relatives and neighbors with delight as she recalls life in the community sixty years earlier.

At the same time, photographic processes have special characteristics that provide potential for genuine discovery and research. Leaving aside deliberately fabricated or modified images, the value of camera images lies in their ability to record more of the scene than we usually can take in ourselves and to then hold that content for later examination, either by ourselves or by others. The visual world typically includes a considerable volume of information, only a fraction of which we can take in and retain directly, particularly if it includes phenomena with which we are unfamiliar. We are conditioned to sift through this complexity, focusing on only that which is “important” and ignoring that which “is not.” Ordinarily, this screening is a functional, even necessary means of bringing order to our everyday life, but it obstructs our ability to discover new and unknown phenomena. The camera need not be as selective and can assist discovery of that which we did not see due to the complexity of the moment or failed to appreciate due to our filters or lack of knowledge. As suggested in this chapter, we can take steps to moderate (although not eliminate) the effect of that filtering or lack of knowledge through application of processes of observation, recording, and analysis that serve to extend our eyes and perceptions to encompass new elements, new awareness. Whatever the debate over photographs, we arrive at a pragmatic understanding of what works and what does not work only through making and using photographs. See the suggestions made here as starting points on a journey of discovery and creation, rich in both complexity and promise. L e a r n i n g E x e r ci s e s

The following visual exercises are offered for those interested in exploring the use of cameras and photographs more directly.

Basic Assignment Use the camera to explore how people are reflected in the material/spatial character of their homes. It is suggested you use your own home or that of someone you know well.

1st Exercise

The Recording and Analysis of Home Spaces

P a r t I . Observation and Recording Make a photographic record of your home, recording how it visibly reflects who its inhabitants may be. 1 Spend time looking at the home before making any photographs. What are the material contents of the home? How is it organized and used spatially? How are the social, ethnic, and personal characteristics of the residents visible, expressed, reflected? These might include age, gender, occupations, social class, cultural identity, and individual personalities. 2 Plan your photographs carefully to include a mix of wide and detailed shots, taking your time with each one to be sure you use the whole frame. Be sure that detailed shots are tied to wider shots that record the larger context of the details. 26

M a lco l m Co l l i e r

Ph oto g r a p h i c e x p lo r ati o n o f s o c i a l a n d c u lt u r a l e x p e r i e n c e

27

3 Be sure to make a coverage of the entire home, not just a room or two! The photographs should, collectively, provide a visual model of the home. 4 Keep good notes regarding which photographs were made where.

P a r t I I . Analysis and Production

social classes, occupational groupings, etc? How do businesses present themselves to their clientele and what is the character of who comes, goes, for what, where, when? Make photographs that address these topics.

P a r t I I . Analysis and Production

Study the images carefully regarding what they may show about the character of the home with particular attention to how space is organized, what the con-

2nd Exercise

Make a Photographic Map or Survey of a Neighborhood

1 Carefully organize the photographs geographically. Using a series of panels

tent of the home may be, and how the collective and individual characteristics

(11 x 17 card stock is excellent for this use) or a roll of paper, construct a

of its people are reflected in the photographs. In particular, look for aspects you

photographic map of the area. Assemble the wide shots so that they are

may not have noticed when you made the photographs.

connected to form a continuous image of the locale, then mount the medium

When you have a clear understanding of what the photographs show, then

and detail shots above locations in the wide coverage in which they were made.

produce a photo book, set of exhibit panels, or other product that presents to

2 Study the resulting model or map. Address the questions listed under Part I,

viewers a photographic reconstruction of the physical character of the home

most especially those associated with the spatial and functional organization

and your understanding of how the home reflects its people. This product

of the locale. Write a descriptive summary of your findings that is referenced

should be comprised of both images and text.

to the contents of the visual record.

Basic Assignment Make a coordinated photographic record of a neighborhood and use these photographs to construct a photographic map or model of the locale. P a r t I . Observation and Recording

Basic Assignment Use family photographs, either in album form or loose, to explore the history of your family. If no family images are available, then modify the following instructions for use with the neighborhood survey photographs made for the second exercise.

1 Choose a location—it may be urban, rural, or suburban, but it should have a

P a r t I . The Interview

3rd Exercise

Photo Elicitation

mix of functions and characteristics. 2 Make a photographic survey of the locale comprised of wide shots that collectively form a complete, unbroken record of the area and medium and close-up shots of selected subjects found within the areas recorded in the wide shots. Be sure to keep good notes of where each shot is made. Consider the following topics and questions as you observe and record; make photographs that address these issues.

1 Collect your images and plan the interview. It is useful to have at least two lines of inquiry: one that looks for elaboration of information you may already have or think you have and another that seeks for the unknown. 2 Outline what you think you may already know about the family history and define subjects of inquiry intended to extend that knowledge. Put this outline aside and go to Step 3.

Location: Where is it? What are the boundaries, landmarks, geographical features, signs, anything that defines location?

3 Sit down with your “informants”—members of your family—and go through the images without any specific questions or topics. Simply note what they may have to say about each photograph as they see it and note what

Appearance: What does it look like in a general sense? Photograph the visual character of locale, range of building types, character of streets, visible subsections. Hilly? Flat? Both? Are streets straight, winding, a

photographs generate which responses. As they bring up new or interesting topics, follow up with questions immediately. 4   Only after completing Step 3 should you start to make use of the topics

mix? Are buildings short, tall, wide, narrow, new, old? In repair or run-

and questions devised in Step 2. Now go through the photographs with

down? Make photographs of these aspects.

the specific questions and topics. Make careful notes of responses and the

Organization: What are the components of the neighborhood? How is it arranged? Where are, for example, businesses, public places, religious institutions, residences? Make photographs that show these organizational aspects or that may help you discover them.

images to which they are related.

P a r t I I . Analysis and Production After the interview is complete take the images and your notes from the interview and study them.

Functions: How is the neighborhood used? Observe the range of activities, services, functions, businesses, residences, restaurants, schools, recre-

28

1   Organize and summarize your findings regarding the family history, keeping

ation facilities, etc. Who do they serve? The local population, the city, the

information referenced to images, even when they may contain nothing

region? Particular ethnic groups, age ranges, subcultures, men, women,

directly on the information they provoked.

M a lco l m Co l l i e r

Ph oto g r a p h i c e x p lo r ati o n o f s o c i a l a n d c u lt u r a l e x p e r i e n c e

29

2   Analyze what type of information each approach—opened viewing and more structured questioning—produced. Was there any difference? What was the difference? Which approach provided new and unforeseen information? Which provided the most detail? Which one did they enjoy the most? Which one did you enjoy the most? 3 Use the results of the interviews, together with copies (photocopies are fine) of images to make a small family history, with both direct quotes from interviews and your own summaries of findings as the text.

4th Exercise

Photography and Analysis of Social Interactions

Basic Assignment Photograph an activity, social process, or social interaction and then make a simple analysis based on the images. P a r t I . Observation and Recording 1 Choose a situation to record. It must involve at least two people and have activity and interactions that extend over a period of time—at least fifteen minutes. 2  Record the process or interactions. a. Be sure to record the physical setting and context of the interactions. b. “Track” the process or interactions from some identifiable “beginning” to an “end.” c. Make photographs that include information on proxemics, facial expressions, eye behavior and gaze, gestures, postures, and other visible aspects of the subjects’ communicative behavior. d. Make your photographs from a variety of angles and distances and shoot for sequences rather than only single images. e. Plan to make at least 36 to 48 photographs.

P a r t I I . Analysis and Production 1  Have the images printed; don’t attempt to carry out the exercise simply with digital images on screen. Write information on the back of each print that firmly establishes its chronological position—when it was taken relative to other images in the series. Then spread the photos out in chronological

Further Reading Collier, John Jr. and Malcolm Collier. 1986. Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method. Albuquerque, N.Mex.: University of New Mexico Press. Visual Anthropology Review, a journal published by the Society for Visual Anthropology and distributed by the American Anthropological Association, 2200 Wilson Blvd., Suite 600, Arlington, VA 22201. Visual Anthropology, a journal published by Taylor & Francis, Inc., 325 Chestnut Street, Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Visual Sociology Review, recently renamed Visual Studies, a journal published by the International Visual Sociology Association and distributed by Taylor & Francis, Inc., 325 Chestnut Street, Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Visual Communication, a journal published and distributed by Sage Publications, London, England.

References Chalfen, Richard. 1987. Snapshot Versions of Life: Explorations of Home Mode Photography. Bowling Green, Ohio: The Popular Press. ———. 1991. Turning Leaves: The Photographic Collections of Two Japanese American Families. Albuquerque, N.Mex.: University of New Mexico Press. Champion, Jessica Megumi. 2004. JJ’s Identity Journey. San Francisco: Unpublished photographic essay. Collier, Aram Siu Wai and Emunah Yuka Edinburgh, producers. 2005. Spencer Nakasako’s Trilogy and Tenderloin Stories: Youth Produced Videos 1989–2004. San Francisco: Vietnamese Youth Development Center. (Two volume DVD set, approximately eight hours.) Collier, John Jr. 1973. Alaskan Eskimo Education: A Film Analysis of Cultural Confrontation in the Schools. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Collier, John Jr. and Aníbal Buitrón. 1949. The Awakening Valley. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Collier, John Jr. and Malcolm Collier. 1986. Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method. Albuquerque, N.Mex.: University of New Mexico Press. Collier, Malcolm. 1979. A Film Study of Classrooms in Western Alaska. Fairbanks: Center for Cross Cultural Studies, University of Alaska. Delvo, Dillon. 2003. Everything You Were, Are, and Will Be. San Francisco, Calif.: Limited edition CD publication by Malcolm Collier and Dillon Delvo, Asian American Studies, San Francisco State University. Levine, Suzanne. 1996. Volver a Vivir: Return to Life. Berkeley, Calif.: Chardon Press. Lipka, Jerry, Gerald V. Mohatt, and the Ciulistet Group. 1998. Transforming the Culture of Schools: Yup’ik Eskimo Examples. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Nakasako, Spencer. 1995. AKA: Don Bonus. San Francisco, Calif.: NAATA (Video/Film). ———. 1998. Kelly Loves Tony. San Francisco, Calif.: NAATA (Video/film). Twain, Mark. 1917. Life on the Mississippi. New York: Harper and Brothers. Worth, Sol, John Adair, and Richard Chalfen, 1997. Through Navajo Eyes: An Exploration of Film Communication and Anthropology. Albuquerque, N.Mex.: University of New Mexico Press.

order and study them to see what they may be able to tell you about the process/activity and the character and relationships of each participant. Be sure to make notes regarding what you see and prepare a one-page written analysis of the interactions. 2 Show the images to one or more of the participants, see what they may have to say, then show them your analysis. Do their perceptions match yours? How and why may they differ? 3 Make a small photo essay with a selection of the images that provides a visual narrative of what occurred. Use your analysis and the feedback from the participants to generate text and captions to go with the images. 30

M a lco l m Co l l i e r

Ph oto g r a p h i c e x p lo r ati o n o f s o c i a l a n d c u lt u r a l e x p e r i e n c e

31

Chapter 2

Documentary Photography in the Field L ae na W i l de r

O

ver the years, photographs become precious records, both private and public, and with the passage of time, they gain historical significance. Family photos will sit on mantels for years, carrying into the future a sense of a world that is past, and photos of such universal importance as those of the moon landing, for example, become part of our collective memory.

The history of documentary photography has its roots

in social activism. In 1877, Jacob Riis, a recent immigrant from Denmark, became a police reporter in New York’s Lower East Side, a neighborhood packed with one million new im-

migrants living in thirty-seven thousand dilapidated tenement buildings. The sanitary conditions were appalling, and homeless children scavenged for food on the streets.

Riis discovered that simply writing about these conditions was not enough to inspire the reform he hoped would dramatically improve these people’s lives, so he turned to the camera to make his point more vividly. Oftentimes in the dark, dingy dwellings, he was forced to use magnesium powder—a hazardous substance, but the only flash technology available at that time—to illuminate his subjects. The images Riis produced horrified his audiences, giving them a glimpse into an underworld unknown to the American middle and upper classes of his day. In his presentations, Riis evoked strong emotional reactions from his audiences. He used all possible avenues of communication at his disposal—magazines, newspapers, and lantern-slide lectures with music and storytelling—to describe the lives of this underclass. In 1890, Riis published How the Other Half Lives, using seventeen halftone photographic illustrations, nineteen line drawings taken from his photographs, and text that called for urgent action. His efforts paid off when Theodore Roosevelt became governor of New York and began to work with him to initiate sweeping social reforms. Following in Riis’ footsteps, another photographer who used his work in the service of social change was Lewis Hine. Working for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLA), Hine used his graphic photographs of conditions in the most congested quarters of New York as a potent weapon in his campaign for child labor laws. To avoid detection by the factory owners, he sometimes posed as a fire inspector, a Bible salesman, or an industrial photographer, employing the excuse that he needed to photograph the young laborers next to the machines in their workplaces in order to show their scale. Measuring their height against the buttons on his overcoat, he could estimate the ages of the children he was documenting, collecting 32

Laena Wilder

“Bandits’ Roost,” ca. 1888. Museum of the City of New York, Jacob A. Riis Collection.

Figure 2.1.

33

vital information that the NCLA needed to promote legislation regulating child labor. Used as visual propaganda on flyers that were handed out to the public, Hine’s images were also persuasive in cultivating sentiment against child labor. Exploiting the horror of the conditions they depicted, both Riis and Hine used their work as an instrument for change. Hine’s later photographs of immigrants as they arrived at Ellis Island and of workers building the Empire State Building continue to serve as a visual testament of a formative period in American history.

“Young Cotton Mill Operators (Some so Small They Have to Climb onto the Machine to Make it Work),” ca. 1900. Lewis Hine’s portraits of young workers eventually led to the important implementation of child labor laws. Museum of the City of New York, Lewis Hine Collection.

Figure 2.2.

34

Making Connections: Photographer a s C o l l a b o r at o r

Riis and Hine’s photographs had the power to shock: no one had seen such images before. Today, we have two hundred–plus channels on cable television, in addition to radio, magazines, movies, and the Internet. A never-ending stream of information is available to us at any given moment, and as viewers, we are exposed to images of death and despair on a daily basis. With horrific scenes of hostages being tortured in Iraq instantaneously available online, there is very little that viewers have not seen graphically displayed. The sensationalism that gave Riis’ and Hine’s work its force has been trivialized and made almost routine within our modern media. With this numbing of the senses, it is a challenge to spark outrage and, more importantly, action. Laena Wilder

The more accessible these images are, the more demand there is for them. But an emotional connection with viewers is more difficult to elicit, as they sit idly watching the world from their living room, waiting to be titillated by the next human drama or disaster. Even in the current climate, I believe it continues to be possible for still images to have an emotional impact on the viewer. Photographs and stories can build bridges between individuals and cultures, and between nations. If viewers can connect with their feelings of compassion, they will be more willing to see the commonality of the human experience. And once a viewer gains some insight into the mind and heart of the person in the photograph, prejudices can be broken down. Collaboration with the people whose lives I am recording is the key to my work. Over the years, I have learned to forge partnerships with my subjects. The act of taking a photograph is an opening for communication; the camera becomes a channel for the exchange, an excuse for two people to enter a dialogue. Sometimes in the field, I even go to the extent of setting up my old 1940s Crown Graphic 4 x 5 camera, with a tripod and dark cloth, transforming any location into an old photographic studio and turning the photo shoot into an occasion. Slowing down the pace, making some ceremony out of the moment, and showing that I am available to listen to what my subject has to say is a sign of respect. Once I give someone my undivided attention, I am acknowledging the validity of their point of view and what they have to offer. After the session, both parties can walk away from the interaction feeling good about it. Today, the old power differential between the photographer and the photographed is no longer a given. Where once I took still images on my own, I now, in addition to making my pictures, am often able to provide my subjects with their own cameras and/or tape recorders. In these instances, they become vital to the process in an expansive new way. My subjects engage as cultural investigators, as researchers in their own right, and as curators, with a share in the representation of their own lives. And as control over the image has shifted, so has the impact of the work. Stories told in the first person tend to bring a subject closer to the viewer because they can hold a more authentic truth. I am not alone in these efforts: Shooting Back, for example, is an organization founded by Jim Hubbard, a professional photographer. In the course of his work about the homeless, he decided to empower children at risk by teaching them photography. In a similar way, Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski gave cameras to the children of Calcutta prostitutes for the shooting of Born in Brothels. The filmmakers hoped that by learning photography, the young people could improve their lives. Both the organization and the film project are excellent examples of the power of collaboration to facilitate communication across cultural, economic, and age lines. Over the years, my personal experience has informed my methods. In 1993 when I arrived on the small island of Zanzibar, six degrees south of the equator and forty-five miles off the coast of Tanzania in East Africa, I had no idea that I would be staying there for the next two months waiting for my visa to India to be processed. Nor did I expect that when I eventually left, a large group of new friends would come to see me off at the airport. As I waited for my paperwork from the Indian embassy, I rented an apartment, started D o c u m e n ta ry Ph oto g r a p h y i n th e Fi e l d

35

Shoes at mosque entrance. Zanzibar, Tanzania. Photograph by Laena Wilder, 1994.

Figure 2.3.

36

to learn Kiswahili, and discovered how to navigate the mazelike streets of Stone Town in this commercial hub. To make sure that I would not get lost, I took the same route every day, on foot, passing the same stores, mosques, homes, and people. After two weeks, an old man stopped me and said, “Sit down, and talk to me. I have seen you walk by me every day and I want to know: What you are doing here?” This was the perfect opening into a friendship that evolved over the next few months. And as I walked through Stone Town, similar encounters become a daily routine. The people I met were as curious about me as I was about them. When I finally started asking them if I could take their photographs, it came as no surprise because I had been carrying my camera on my shoulder everywhere I went, presenting myself as a photographer, from the very beginning. Important to remember, however, is to first assess the cultural impact and risk factor of any location before going into public with your camera. One of the reasons I think I was so well received by the community is because I was respectful of their culture. I absorbed all I could about the accepted social boundaries, watching the surrounding customs and asking my new friends what was considered appropriate and what was not. When I travel, I especially observe the interaction between the men and women around me and use the prevailing feminine dress codes as my guide. Once I go into the field, particularly in a Muslim community, I do not bare my shoulders or legs, and I try to play down anything that could be interpreted as sexually provocative. I wear my hair tied back in a bun and err on the side of modesty. If local custom dictates that women do not go out unaccompanied after a certain hour in the evening, neither do I. It is easy enough to find a guide or friend to walk with me to my destination. Much as I would have liked to, I did not photograph the religious ceremonies during the Friday noontime call to prayer, when the mosques would overflow and the streets were filled with people praying. I had learned through conversations with my local friends that it was a very special time and it would be inappropriate to get the people praying on film. Instead, I contented myself with taking pictures of the masses of shoes lining the thresholds of the mosques as the worshipers prayed inside. It is a different visual depiction to communicate a similar idea. Such actions might seem insignificant, but they made all the difference in building trust with individuals and the community. In taking people’s portraits, I am equally mindful of demonstrating respect, approaching each person to ask his or her permission before taking a photograph. This often means that I lose the picture I first saw and have to invest time to capture it again. It is not too difficult, but it does take patience and a genuine interest in connecting with my subject. Keep in mind that as soon as you draw someone’s attention to the camera, he or she may become self-conscious, but that you are also engaging the person in the process. Laena Wilder

Successfully photographing people always requires making more than one image. I like to think of picture making as a dialogue. I will settle into the interaction, asking the person to relax and/or resume her activity. I start out taking a few shots, stop for a little break, talk to her, then check the light, adjust my camera, and take a few more photos, getting comfortable with the interaction and stretching it out. Sometimes my subjects lose interest in my presence, a sure way of finding the moment when they are at their most natural as they go about their routine. Getting past the first, awkward moments and taking time to genuinely connect with my subjects is a key to success. A similar approach can be used when working with a crowd. One simple technique for photographing in a setting that involves a lot of people—a market scene, for example—is to hold the camera in front of your face, as if you were about to take a picture, but rather than looking through the lens, look over the top of the camera to see who is reacting positively or negatively to your presence. Be attentive to the subtle signs of their body language and nonverbally acknowledge their reactions. If they put up their hands up to indicate they do not want their picture taken, I will usually make a small bow and/or say thank you and put my camera down. If they smile at me or nod their head, I take that cue as permission to go ahead. In many cases, once I have acknowledged a refusal, I am given the go-ahead to take the picture after all. Another way of approaching a busy scene is to start with a single person and gradually work your way around the group. I ask permission and photograph each person, one by one. With this approach, the surrounding people witness my interactions and the fact that other people are giving me permission. This helps foster a sense of trust. All along, as I was photographing people in Zanzibar, I was setting up contacts in each neighborhood to distribute the photographs I would eventually send back to them. For example, as I photographed people in the Shangani neighborhood of Stone Town, I told them that in a few months they would be able to get copies of their photographs from Abdul at the corner store. Once I returned to the United States, I sent twenty-seven envelopes of photographs that reached several hundred people in Zanzibar. Sending people copies of the photographs you have made of them allows them to own their own image and a piece of the time that you spent together and to share it with their friends and family. It is also a perfect way to acknowledge their participation and to express your gratitude to them. When I originally sent the photographs back to Zanzibar, I had no idea I would one day go back. When I returned two years later in 1995, I was surprised to be welcomed everywhere I walked by friends and even by people I had not formally met. I was thrilled to find I had gained carte blanche to D o c u m e n ta ry Ph oto g r a p h y i n th e Fi e l d

Figure 2.4. This image is a perfect example of the results of asking permission and then continuing to photograph for several frames. I came upon the young girls dancing and asked if I could take their picture. They got very excited and started posing for the camera. Several minutes later, they fully reengaged with each other, and it was as if I was not even there. Jaisalmir, India. Photograph by Laena Wilder, 1994.

37

Figure 2.5. Two portraits of Agnes. Zanzibar, Tanzania. Photograph by Laena Wilder, 1998.

38

photograph freely in the community. When I approached someone to ask if I might take his or her picture, people would say to those who did not recognize me, “It is OK to let her photograph you. She is a nice woman.” Giving back and following through is always worthwhile. On my third visit to Zanzibar in 1998, I took my old Crown Graphic 4 x 5 camera and a type of Polaroid film that produces a positive and negative image within two minutes of taking the picture. I was able to show these images to my subjects immediately and work with them as collaborators on the portrait making, setting up the shots together. I took their cues on how they wanted to appear in the portraits, positioning the camera’s angle and distance according to their preferences. Two contrasting examples of sittings I conducted, both within a block of each other, serve to illustrate the different outcomes this collaborative method can produce. One involved a Zanzibari businessman Hamad, an influential member of this mercantile community. From an established family, descendants of the Omani ruling class that centuries ago originally came from the Gulf as merchants in the ivory, spice, and slave trades, he owned several businesses and had a healthy sense of his political standing. He showed me how he would like me to take his photograph in three-quarters profile—“My best side,” he said—and instructed me closely on where outside his house he would like to be pictured, where the tripod should be, and what camera angle I should use. The final portrait, appropriately enough, ended up looking like a campaign poster for a local politician, affable and outgoing but acutely conscious of the public face he was presenting to the world. (See Figure 2.11, left)

Laena Wilder

A second sitting, at the other end of the social scale, involved a portrait of Agnes, a woman in her mid-twenties and one of the small minority of Christians in this 95 percent Muslim community. She had grown up in Tanzania, on the mainland, and had come to Zanzibar to do domestic work. My first picture caught her in a subservient pose, her eyes cast down to the floor, her body language closed, and her attitude submissive. After I showed her this portrait, Agnes made it clear to me that she wished to be seen in a less passive light. “I want you to bring the camera closer,” she told me, fixing the lens squarely with her frank and honest gaze, confident and assured in her convictions. Knowing that she had an opportunity to influence the process, Agnes took the initiative and informed me about how she wanted to be portrayed. I took her direction and we made the second photograph. It is as if with each sitting, I enter into a dance with my subject. We take turns leading and following as we formulate our steps, creating a photograph together, partners in the creative process. With this project, in Zanzibar, each of my subjects lived or worked within a single block of each other; the culmination of these individual encounters was a larger portrait of the community. The finished body of work gives a collective view of the community, a view in microcosm of the larger society. Negotiating the terrain when you start work in a new setting is always an adventure. In some situations, it is best—and sometimes you have virtually no choice in this!—to engage a guide to help you as you go about your work. I particularly remember one instance soon after arriving in India when my companion and I were mobbed at a train station by a swarm of would-be assistants, all anxious that we engage their services. We were at first reticent to deliver ourselves into someone else’s care, reluctant to give up our independence, and uncertain how we should fairly compensate them. But we quickly realized that by settling on a candidate, we would be gaining not only a translator and a facilitator, who would help us with logistics, but also someone who would provide our opening with the local people. Our short-term guardian became our introduction, translator, and a bridge to the world he knew so well. You don’t have to be in a foreign country to work with guides. In 1991, the Canadian anthropologist Dr. Grant McCracken, the founder of the Institute of Contemporary Culture in Toronto, hired me as the photographer for his project, “Toronto Teens: Making Choices in the 1990s.” Retracing Dr. McCracken’s steps, I photographed the teenagers he had interviewed and the locations that were integral to his research. Part of his work involved looking at the teens in terms of subgroups: hippies, rockers, B-Boys and B-Girls (a category that included minorities and kids who listened to rap music), preppies, and punks. To get me started on the project, Dr. McCracken gave me the contact information of one teen from each of the five subgroups as an initial connection point. I then set up times to meet each teenager, usually at lunchtime in the schoolyard or after school in the mall, and each became a valuable guide and introduction into their social circle. Jerome was my guide into the world of the B-Boys. After our initial meeting, I visited his apartment complex and met his mother and sister. A single parent, his mother had done a fine job of finding positive role models for her children, with posters of Martin Luther King Jr. on the wall, as well as a picture of Jesus D o c u m e n ta ry Ph oto g r a p h y i n th e Fi e l d

39

Figure 2.6. A group of B-girls in the schoolyard, from Toronto Teens: Making Choices in the 1990s exhibit. Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. Photograph by Laena Wilder, 1991.

40

portrayed as a dark-skinned man. We went to the mall to see Jerome’s friends and ended up all going to the movies together to see the rapper comedy House Party (a handy primer on B-Boy clothing and ideas of that time). On my own, it would have been difficult to get to know and photograph these large, somewhat intimidating young men if I hadn’t had Jerome’s guidance and willing introduction. With the punks, there were no parents. Eighteen-year-old Laura, my connection to the punk world, had her own place with a few roommates. Rather than meeting at the schoolyard, we met on a Tuesday, around noon, at her apartment above a baby supply store. She and her friend were recovering from the night before, drinking their first cup of coffee of the day. She spent several hours with me, explaining her philosophy of life and allowing me to photograph her and her best friend. She also advised me about the best locations to find the other punks in town and oriented me about the issues that most concerned them. The photographs I made were shown in a large-scale exhibition held in the Royal Ontario Museum, with Dr. McCracken’s video interviews of the teenagers and artifacts of clothing representative of each of the five subgroups of teens. The entire collection now resides in the archives of that museum. The success of the whole project hinged on the teenagers’ participation. If they hadn’t willingly opened up to us, as participants and guides, the project would never have had the depth and authenticity that it did. At the opening of the exhibition, I was prepared for the occasion, wearing a dress and high heels, and one of the B-Girls commented with amazement, “Whoa, you’re an adult.” I was surprised by the comment because I hadn’t intended to pass myself off as a teenager while in the field, but my slight build and everyday street clothes might have suggested to her that I was younger than I was. Obviously, in this project, my physical stature, gender, and openminded attitude made it easier for me to connect with the teenagers, but no matter what one’s age or ethnicity, it is always possible to find some common ground that can help you in your work. For me, it is easier to connect with women and young people. However, in India, where we first met, I often benefited from traveling with my friend and fellow photographer Matthew Wakem. We each connected to different types of people, expanding the experience for both of us. Although his family is from New Zealand and he grew up in the United States, Matthew has dark hair and olive skin. In India and Pakistan, as well as in Egypt and Greece, he could pass for a member of the local population and was more easily accepted. But each person, in whatever setting, has individual qualities that can help him or her relate to those around them. Laena Wilder

A trip to the brilliantly illuminated monasteries of northern Romania offered an exercise in the possibility of starting a lively dialogue despite an impenetrable language barrier. Although the friend traveling with me had learned a little German for the trip, which came in handy, I found that I was able to use my camera as a catalyst and tool for communication. Mime and gesture served me very well throughout, and I have a fine series of photos. I made black-andwhite portraits of the people I met and color images showing the surrounding environment, from nineteenth-century cities to the almost feudal existence in quiet villages, some of the most unspoiled and removed from the modern world in Eastern Europe. We were also fortunate on the train to find a twelveyear-old girl who spoke English, and she ultimately turned out to be a wonderful friend and guide through the ancient monasteries near her town. In 2002, I was able to hone the collaborative aspect of my fieldwork with a community in North Carolina. My challenge in this context was how to come in as a photographer and play an active part in dispelling a backlog of resentment and prejudice encountered by the newly arrived Hispanic population in the small town of Siler City. Between 1990 and 1999, the Latino population in North Carolina had increased threefold, and Siler City had experienced a large and rapid influx of Hispanic agricultural and chicken factory workers. This attracted the attention of Ku Klux Klansman David Duke, who rallied the local population against the “aliens” they felt were encroaching upon their territory. Duke’s sentiments were well expressed in two articles in the Chapel Hill Herald. The first article, “David Duke to Speak on ‘Immigrant Takeover,’” appeared in the February 17, 2000, edition, and the second, “Duke Lashes Out at INS, Ex-Klansman Takes Aim at Illegal Aliens in Siler City,” ran on February 20, 2000. I received a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation as part of a three-year resident fellowship program, Reimaging Civil Society in an Era of Globalization: The American South in Applied Humanistic Perspectives, developed at the University Center for International Studies at the University of North Carolina. I created my project, Seeing Eye to Eye, to facilitate a cultural exchange between a group of local teens and Hispanic immigrant teens at the Siler City high school. I was sure that if the teenagers were given the chance to create a visual articulation of their experiences, it would help them learn from each other and gain clarity about their circumstances and the people in their lives. In this project, I was able to take the collaborative process one step further by giving my subjects the freedom to tell their own stories. Students who elected to take part in the project were given 35mm cameras and small tape recorders to document their own lives. I taught the students photographic and interviewing techniques for collecting oral histories, exploring personal identity and family histories, recognizing role models, and recording experiences important to them. Throughout the process, students synthesized their results by creating journal entries, using their photographs combined with written text, collage, drawing, and painting. These techniques gave them the power to be their own cultural investigators, storytellers, and researchers. Ultimately, it gave the teenagers control over the way they were represented. Three times a week, for classes of one and a half hours during the school day throughout the semester, the group met for creative work sessions, D o c u m e n ta ry Ph oto g r a p h y i n th e Fi e l d

41

Aron’s shoe collage, Seeing Eye to Eye project. Siler City, North Carolina. Photograph by Laena Wilder, 2003.

Figure 2.7.

42

discussions, and sharing circles. Bridges of understanding were built as the students opened up to each other, shared their personal stories, and learned about each other’s lives and backgrounds. We tackled the question of what our choice of clothing reveals about our culture and personal identities, starting with celebrity high fashion and bringing the inquiry right down to the students’ own wardrobes. Aron, a young African American, did a photographic study of his considerable shoe collection, including his Reeboks. “They’re coming back in style,” he explained in his written text, and then went on to write about his high-top sneakers with red, white, and blue flag motifs that he had bought specifically to show his patriotism soon after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Another assignment the students and I created prompted them to do research within their own community about the subject of prejudice. The students asked a series of questions of several people—family members, friends, teachers—they came across in their everyday lives. Each tape-recorded the answers to such thought-provoking questions as: a. What does prejudice mean to you? b. Give an example of an instance of prejudice that you have experienced or witnessed in your own life. c. What steps do you think can be taken to try to end prejudice? The students were shocked to realize how all those interviewed felt that they themselves had experienced some form of prejudice, no matter what their ethnicity. Seeing Eye to Eye culminated in a traveling exhibition in which each student was given a 7 x 4-foot wall space in which to represent his or her story. As we put the show together, each teen chose what to include and what to leave out, how much of her personal life she wanted to make public, and which images would tell her story most accurately. They learned to digitally scan all of their chosen journal pages and we reproduced the imagery in varying sizes. Each participant created a wall-size collage, which included a portrait of him or her that we had taken together with the old Crown Graphic 4 x 5 camera. We digitally scanned pages from their journals for this exhibit, but the journals remained in the teens’ possession throughout. They chose which pages they wanted to put up on the wall, and which ones they would keep to themselves. The teenagers were the curators of their own stories, keeping the most valuable residual artifact from the process, their journals, with them to this day. The show presented a revealing picture of the lives of the different students. One of the young Caucasian women, Marie, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, chose to blow up the journal page with Laena Wilder

her prom picture taken with her boyfriend to 24 x 36 inches. Surrounding the picture, which showed them holding hands, in suit and gown, she rewrote a love letter she received from him where he says, among other things, “Every time that someone causes you to have a bad day or hurts you in any way shape or form. I just wish I could take away every drop of your pain away and just beat the living s— out of the one who caused it.” A Hispanic student, Luis, who had grown up in his native El Salvador, vividly told the story of how he would walk to school as a child. Over the bridge that crossed the river, he wrote, he would look down and see dead bodies of local residents killed by paramilitary forces in El Salvador’s civil war. The story was a graphic representation of the political climate that had led to his family’s seeking asylum in the United States, and it helped to explain to his classmates and all those who saw the exhibit why he had landed in Siler City. A young Caucasian man, Zach, raised by a single mother from a family that had lived for several generations in a small town nearby of five thousand or so people, revealed how, before the class started, he had never really spoken to any of his Latino classmates. “The walls are coming down, Miss Wilder,” was one of his comments on the class. “The walls are coming down. Now, when I meet someone from a different culture, I am interested, curious, and actually talk to them.” Several of the students still e-mail me from college to tell me what a formative experience the class was and how they continue to journal and record their lives. Most recently, I received an e-mail from Zach, telling me he had decided to take an extended trip to Nairobi, Kenya. When walls come down, new frontiers open. Seeing Eye to Eye lives on as a traveling exhibition that has visited several locations in the South and on the West Coast. Working in the field requires technical expertise, both in using the camera and in working with people. The following includes some of the essential elements I feel are most important for successful fieldwork with a camera. L o o k at Yo u r W o r k

One of the best ways to grow as a photographer is to closely examine your work on several different levels. First, make sure that your equipment is functioning perfectly. Carefully consider the technical issues you will be confronting. Are your exposures correct? If you are using a flash, is it working correctly? If not, shoot a test roll. Write down your aperture and shutter speed for each frame; take time to think through the process and be sure you are thoroughly comfortable with the equipment before you go into the field to start work with your subjects. Second, consider the information you want to communicate. It can help to get an outsider’s feedback at this stage. Is there anything missing from the story? A person, a part of the location, or activity that you registered with your eyes, but forgot to get on film? Write down a “shot list” of scenes you think will be pertinent to your research and use it as a guide for the different aspects you will be covering. For example, what do people eat, and how do families interact? Do extended families live together? Consider the architecture, exterior and interior; the agricultural practices of the location; the transportation, gender roles, and religious practices. Where do people work, D o c u m e n ta ry Ph oto g r a p h y i n th e Fi e l d

43

and in what settings: in separate stores, in buildings on the street, in stalls by the side of the road? Always try to create an opening by asking to go back and photograph your subjects on more than one occasion and at different times of the day. Do not be hesitant to photograph the same scene several times to maximize your visual information. When you return, giving copies of the photographs you have made can be a vital way to build trust with your subjects. You may not always have the luxury of a second visit, but depending on the length of your project, participants will probably become invested in the process and outcome. With each meeting, your interactions will become more fluid, as you and your subjects relax and become more comfortable with each other. Third, look at your work from a formal standpoint. Think in terms of composition, angle of view, depth of field, framing, texture, use of color, lighting, mood, facial expression, body language, lens choice, and your distance from your subject. Let your images teach you. Set aside those that did not work and ask yourself how you could have improved them. Take time to identify the images that worked well and take note of what factors made them successful. As your project takes form, put your images up in your environment, in your workspace, home, or office. Reflect on them often to analyze what worked and to stimulate additional ideas about the visual aspect of your research. Ta k i n g t h e P i c t u r e This portrait of Aja shows how dramatic and beautiful natural side lighting can be. Zanzibar, Tanzania. Photograph by Laena Wilder, 1996.

Figure 2.8.

44

Lighting

Whenever possible use natural light, the best way to convey an authentic sense of the scene you are portraying. The moment a flash or extra light sources are introduced, the process of taking pictures becomes more complicated, often making your subjects feel self-conscious and less comfortable. Harsh, artificial light can take away from the truth of the scene. In order to successfully use natural light, it is important to become “light sensitive,” that is, to become aware of the subtleties of the light as it strikes your subjects. Start noticing the way different lighting can change a person’s face. Experiment by photographing a friend or colleague in a variety of settings—for example, in the pitiless glare of direct high noon sunlight, in the diffused light of an open shaded area, or on a foggy day. Pay attention to the shadows and highlights that hit your subject and how those affect the visual information and the mood of the image. When working in an interior space, use the natural side lighting, as Vermeer did in his paintings, of daylight pouring through a window. It is a gentle, evocative light, ideal for showing the texture of your subject’s face and clothing. Even in nighttime scenes, limited sources of light can be used to great effect. People camped out around a fire can be illuminated by the play of the flames, or the inhabitants of a village gathered around the local television can be seen in the glow of the flickering cathode ray tube. In extremely low light, the use of a tripod is necessary so that the images are in focus. Laena Wilder

Tripod vs. Hand-holding the Camera

If the light is low, consider using a tripod with a cable release for the benefit of a longer exposure. In these cases, ask your subject to hold still and gently release the shutter without shaking the camera. A tripod can also offer an interesting way of conveying contrasting motion—for example, a spinning wheel can add movement to a picture as the weaver sits steady at her work. Alternatively, when hand-holding the camera at a slow shutter speed, you can gain a tremendous amount of stability by holding your breath and leaning against a wall or something sturdy for support. Whenever you take a photograph, always bring your elbows in against your ribs to support your arms and camera. Holding my camera at 1/15 th of a second, I took a picture of a New Delhi rickshaw driver standing next to his bicycle. In the photograph, he is a still point in a sea of chaos, as the people around him scurry about their business. Bracketing

A rickshaw driver. New Delhi, India. Photograph by Laena Wilder, 1994.

Figure 2.9.

This technique ensures you are getting a proper exposure when you are first getting started as a photographer and/or under difficult lighting conditions. Start by putting your camera in the manual mode. Adjust your aperture and shutter speed so that you are making an accurate exposure. (In most cases, a small needle or light inside the viewfinder will line up correctly once you have the proper exposure.) Take your first picture at that exposure. Now move your aperture ½ stop to the right of the original exposure, take another exposure, and repeat these steps with ½ stop to the left. Of the two additional photographs, one will be slightly overexposed and one slightly underexposed. This method, useful with film or digital, ensures a proper exposure because, of the three frames, one will be correct. Bracketing is best used when your subject is relatively still and catching the “decisive moment” is not your top priority. Angle of View

Are you above your subject, below it, or on the same level? Remember that the viewer’s relationship with the subject will be the same as yours when you take the picture. If you are looking down at your subject when you click the shutter, your subject will forever be below, looking up at the viewer. Alternatively, if you are looking up at the subject, the subject is cast in a more dominant light. The angle of view is useful to give environmental orientation, but remember it can convey much more, often D o c u m e n ta ry Ph oto g r a p h y i n th e Fi e l d

45

subtly suggesting a power differential between the person in the photograph and those who subsequently view the picture.

A Photographer’s Equipment Film vs. Digital

Framing/Composition/Lens Options

Figure 2.10. Having checked the lighting and adjusted my camera ahead of time, I was ready to take a picture at a moment’s notice. The action of the cartwheel in the foreground makes this photograph of the landscape much more intriguing. Voronet, Romania. Photograph by Laena Wilder, 1996.

How much visual information is in the image? Adjust your distance from the subject, photographing at each interval. Take the portrait of the woman at the spinning wheel, but also put another two feet between you and her and show the child next to her, then back up some more and show the entire room. Remember also to take several detail photos showing close-ups of, for example, hands working, tools, textures, and special objects. Maximize the amount of visual information you are collecting. This will pay off later when you are editing by giving you several options for creating a complete visual story. It is helpful to have more than one lens, or a zoom lens (for example, 28–110mm), so that you can use the wide-angle (28mm or 35mm) feature to get the whole room on film and the longer lens (80–100mm) to create a portrait without distortion. Also, remember to evaluate the whole frame before you click the shutter. Be sure no poles, trees, or cracks in the wall appear to be emerging from your subject’s head. Is the person’s face dead center, and is that the best place for it to be? Perhaps the spinning wheel, instead, needs to be in the center and the woman weaving to the side of the image. As you scan the frame, be sure your composition includes all the pertinent information. Decisive Moment

This refers to the moment you click the shutter and your decision to capture the energy, motion, expression, and/or body language at its peak. It takes patience and practice to master this. If my subject is engaged in a repetitive activity, I usually spend some time watching, taking a frame or two, checking my light reading, and adjusting my lens before I jump in and start making pictures. During that preparation time, I am following the motion and becoming aware of when to click the shutter. Sometimes there is no warning that an important moment is going to happen, and for this reason, I always have my camera on my shoulder, turned on, lens cap off, and ready to go. In addition, I take a meter reading the moment I arrive somewhere and set my exposure to the prevailing light conditions, so that I can take pictures at a moment’s notice. Remember, film/digital files are cheap compared to the richness of what you are experiencing. It is always better to make too many pictures than too few. 46

Laena Wilder

This is a subject open to endless debate, so I will briefly touch on the pros and cons of each and suggest that if you want more information, you can easily find it in books, magazines, or Web sites. With digital technology, you have the benefit of seeing immediate results. You can build trust with your subjects by showing them their images, and you can also monitor from the outset the quality of the images and the proper functioning of your equipment. One drawback is that you will need a laptop computer in the field, an additional external hard drive for back-up, a power supply, a surge protector, and, if you are overseas, an electrical adapter if there is not 110-volt current. I have also found that heat and humidity can be a big problem when trying to use my laptop in the field. In some cases, my computer completely malfunctioned unless I was in an air-conditioned environment. Remember to pack all of your electrical cords and adapters in your carry-on bag along with your computer and camera equipment while en route. If you store the cords in your checked bag and lose that on the way, your computer would not be able to serve you at all. Another disadvantage is that digital image quality is still not equal to that of film, and much information can be lost in the shadows and highlights. With film, you have the valuable long-term benefit of negatives over digital files. Film cameras are more durable than digital cameras and will hold up better in the field. However, you must make all of your choices about the type and quantity of your film before you leave on your trip. I recommend bringing a range of ASA/film speeds and, above all, always bring more film than you anticipate you will need. Another issue with film is not being able to see immediate results that would reassure you that your equipment is working properly. To remedy this problem, if I have access to a local photo lab, I will buy a roll of cheap color film and develop a test roll every few weeks. I make sure the images on these rolls are never crucial to my research because there is too great a risk they might come back improperly processed or with scratches on the negatives that could be further damaged in transit on the return journey. These test rolls, on the other hand, are perfect for taking pictures you can give back immediately to the community. This way, your subjects have some pictures until you have a chance to send copies of the other images you have made. Care of Equipment in the Field

It is very important that your equipment does not fail when you are in the field. When transporting equipment, I put each item into its own sealable plastic bag, including film, filters, lens tissue, and cable release. These bags protect the gear from sand, dust, humidity, and the other elements. It is also important to protect against impact. A standard camera bag is one solution, but I feel safer having my equipment “in camouflage” when crossing borders and simply use a sturdy shoulder bag that I have lined with foam padding. This functions better than a backpack because it is safer and more easily accessible on my shoulder, and by simply unzipping it, I can quickly retrieve my camera D o c u m e n ta ry Ph oto g r a p h y i n th e Fi e l d

47

in a single gesture. Make a checklist of equipment necessities before you go, including all film/memory cards, lenses, two camera bodies (if you have the means), filters, extra batteries for flash, cable release, model releases, and pen and notebook to keep track of names and locations. C a t a l o g i n g Im a g e s

Keeping track of your negatives and/or digital files is essential. Setting up a reliable cataloging system ahead of time saves headaches later. I usually number each roll, starting with the year, the month it was taken, and the roll number. (For example, roll #040503 stands for May 2004, the third roll of film shot in that month.) After the number, I write out the names and locations of the subjects I have photographed. With this system, I can easily track my previous work chronologically. With digital files, I use a similar system. I group the images taken on the same day or during the same period, putting them in a file folder marked with a number system similar to the one mentioned above. I use Adobe PhotoShop (File-Automate—Contact sheet) to create a contact sheet of all the images stored, with their identifying numbers, and store this contact sheet with the corresponding CD of digital files. This is extremely helpful for finding particular images over time. L o n g - T e r m A r c h i va l I s s u e s a n d S t o r a g e

With time, the historical value of your photographs will unfold, and it is crucial to store all your work with a view to its long-term preservation. Archival polypropylene slide sleeves and three-ring binders that snap closed like a box keep negatives as dust-free as possible. Print black-and-white photographs on fiber-based paper, run through two trays of fixer, and wash them for at least twenty minutes. If you must use a lab, indicate that you want your negatives printed on archival, and definitely not on RC (resin-based), paper. Your color negatives/slides and photographic prints will never be entirely archival because they are always printed on a resin-based paper and color chemistry is still not stable over long periods of time. (Have you noticed how your family photos from twenty years ago have color-shifted over time, most often toward red or turquoise?) The best solution I have found for using color negatives or slides is to digitally scan them and make prints with my Epson printer, which uses acid-free ink and paper. This gives me the best of both worlds, ensuring that I have the original negatives/slides and acid-free color prints. For storing color, black-and-white, or digital prints, the best solution is acid-free boxes. They come in a variety of sizes and make it very easy to keep projects organized. I recommend Light Impressions (www.lightimpressions.com), a company that specializes in products intended for archival storage. If you are shooting with a digital camera, always burn two CDs with the images on them. Keep one copy at your office/home and store the second copy at another location, possibly with a trusted friend or in a safe deposit box. The most important issue to remember with digital files is that you must update your storage media as computer technology evolves. A prime example is the 48

Laena Wilder

floppy disk, once used with almost all computers, which is now rarely used for storing information. In a few years, it will have become obsolete as a medium, and any information stored on a floppy disc will no longer be retrievable. The same will undoubtedly be true of CDs and DVDs, and for this reason, you must remember to convert your digital images to the most up-to-date media storage. I am deeply concerned that with the widespread use of digital cameras, whole family histories are likely to be lost over time. Ethical Choices

Every time a photographer receives permission to take someone’s picture, a gift is given. It is important to think about how you will give back in return. Riis and Hine gave back by helping to change the lives of the people they chronicled. I have sent hundreds of photographs over thousands of miles so that the people in my pictures have a visual record of the exchange. And as your work is seen more widely, in different contexts, it can offer insight to new groups of people. I feel that telling the stories and exhibiting your work in new places—offering new ways of seeing to fresh eyes—is one of the many ways you can give back. There is no formal code of ethics when it comes to working with a camera in the field. How you use your camera is a personal choice each of you must make. For me, it is important that I feel I am doing everything in my power to honor and to treat fairly the individuals with whom I am working. Being sensitive to your subject’s concerns creates deeper levels of collaboration and exchange. I remind myself, no photograph is more important than the wishes of its subject, and I use this mantra as a guide to make decisions about when it is acceptable to take pictures, and when I should put the camera down. Despite the challenges of reaching people today, our modern-day media offer many opportunities for creative communication. Give your photographs the fullest life possible. Traces of another time and place, they can transport your viewers across the world and give them a glimpse of other human realities, showing details that words cannot convey. Pictures can be used as teaching tools and avenues for understanding between cultures. They can raise political awareness and create social change. And ultimately, the historical value of your photographs will unfold with time, offering new perspectives within a changing world. Postscript

I returned to Zanzibar in the spring of 2007. After nine years away from the island, I was able to reconnect with many of my friends. They were amazed that I had returned and brought my big seventy-year-old camera back with me, and they were excited by the idea of sitting for another portrait. It was a fantastic time of rediscovery to walk through Stone Town again, greeted by familiar faces and warm embraces. My dear friend Mecci kept saying on the first day I arrived, “You came back. Everyone says they will come back, but you did.” I was touched on the second evening I was there when an old friend recognized my silhouette in the low light of the outside food market at night, so many years later, and called out to me by name. D o c u m e n ta ry Ph oto g r a p h y i n th e Fi e l d

49

Hamad. Zanzibar, Tanzania. Photographs by Laena Wilder, 1998 and 2007. Figure 2.11.

50

When I initially made the portrait series in 1998, I felt the work was complete. I had not thought about creating a second series to look at the issue of time passing. When the opportunity to get back to Zanzibar came up, I knew immediately I wanted to bring the 4 x 5 camera back with me. Today, each piece of 4 x 5-inch film costs approximately four dollars, and the good news is that Polaroid still makes this film, which will undoubtedly become obsolete in the near future. My photography with this large-format camera has evolved in the intervening years, and I often prefer now to photograph my subjects from a closer perspective, in motion, and sometimes even moving out of the frame. But in Stone Town, it was as if we had gone back in time. People seemed to prefer the formality of the old-fashioned poses, and we all wanted to make the pictures as similar as possible to those we had done before. This time I was visiting during the hot season, and temperatures ranged in the mid-nineties and above every day. I had to work fast, and it took intense patience and concentration to finish in three weeks a project that had previously taken me three months. I brought back additional copies of the first pictures, and we worked together at making a series of new portraits that matched the original photos in terms of location, composition, and body language but also revealed in many subtle ways how lives had changed. Makame, who worked at the guesthouse on my first visit, has since become the manager. In his new portrait, on the steps in front of the heavy, studded guesthouse door, his original leather sandals were now replaced by Tevas, and as a devout Muslim, he now wears a prayer hat that bears witness to his increased sense of faith and daily spiritual practice. The experience photographing his boss, Hamad, revealed other changes that had taken place in nine years. At the first sitting, Hamad had reveled in the attention of the lengthy portrait session and eloquently directed me about the camera placement and angle of view, but this time around, he barely had the patience to sit still for me. As I battled with the heat, adjusting my large camera and tripod to reproduce the exact composition of the earlier image, he barked at me that the people in Zanzibar do not have a lot of time, like they did before. When I was finally ready to push the shutter, his cell phone rang, and the resulting shot of Hamad smiling as he answers his phone says it all. (See Figure 2.11, right) Two sisters who were a central part of the neighborhood no longer live there, having emigrated to Canada. To show this loss, I re-photographed the location where we had originally made our portrait, but this time without my subjects. Taking a picture of the lonely scene where the young women once sat together laughing seemed the perfect way to represent that change. In another similar situation, a pair of shoes in an empty doorway had to stand in for a teenage boy who had grown up and left home to seek work in Europe. In the cases where people in the community were gone but had been replaced by new people filling the same job, Laena Wilder

we chose to make a portrait of the new person using the previous portrait as our guide. We would then make a second portrait integrating the new participant’s ideas of how he or she wanted to be represented. In all cases, after reproducing the original portrait, I would ask my subjects if there was anyone else they would like to introduce to me and include in another picture with them, so that we could visually expand the story of their lives. The scope of the project organically grew to embrace the new members of the community as the days passed. One afternoon, as I finished photographing Raziki, Agnes’ replacement as a domestic worker, I was surprised when I turned around to find a whole soccer team of youngsters lined up in two perfect rows in their matching uniforms, waiting for me to take their picture. While I had been working with Raziki, they had all run home and put on their soccer jerseys for the occasion. The team leader graciously said, “We are ready for you now,” and I happily obliged. What a joy it is to imagine getting back to Zanzibar in three, five, or ten years to photograph these children again as they grow up and become young men. Real lives, evolving over a period of time, hold a special fascination for the participant and the viewer. The filmmaker Michael Apted has shown this in his 7 Up series, which has brought together the same group of British schoolchildren once every seven years through to middle age. In my case, it is against the backdrop of the stone-embedded walls and the handsome carved doors of Zanzibar that these portraits have recorded the passing of time.

1 In today’s current media climate, how can still images have an impact?

Figure 2.12. Soccer team. Zanzibar, Tanzania. Photograph by Laena Wilder, 2007.

Questions

How can photographs create social change? Political change? Challenge prejudice? Educate? 2 Write about an experience when a photograph changed your way of thinking about a person, an issue, and/or a culture. 3 Have you ever felt and/or witnessed a power differential when a camera was involved? Write about that experience. 4 Choose a partner from your class and experiment with photographing him in his life. Each of you take a turn at being the subject and then being the photographer. This works well with a “day in a life” theme: choose a theme or two for your shoot (for example, work, homelife, relationships, school). Make a shot list and start making photos. I recommend being in each role for several days to understand the complexity of the relationship.

D o c u m e n ta ry Ph oto g r a p h y i n th e Fi e l d

51

Chapter 3

Photography and Ethnography Ri c h ar d F r e e man [T]he final goal, of which an ethnographer should never lose sight . . . is, briefly, to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realise his vision of his world. . . . [W]e must study what concerns him most intimately, that is, the hold which life has on him. In each culture, the values are slightly different; people . . . yearn after a different form of happiness. In each culture we find different institutions . . . different customs . . . different codes of law and morality. . . . To study the institutions, customs, and codes or to study the behavior and mentality without the subjective desire of feeling by what these people live, of realising the substance of their happiness is, in my opinion, to miss the greatest reward which we can hope to obtain from the study of man.

Bronislaw Malinowski f ro m Arg o n au ts o f t h e W est ern Pacific, 1 92 2

Every phase of our time and our surroundings has vital significance.  .  .  . The job is to know enough about the subject matter, find its significance in itself and in relation to its surroundings, its time, its function.



Roy E. Stryker

f ro m fo r e wo r d to D o r ot h e a L a n g e Lo o ks at th e A m e r i c a n Co unt ry Wo man, 1 935

Anthropological Knowledge and t h e A r t o f R e p r e s e n tat i o n

B

ack in 1922, Malinowski stated that the goal of an ethnographer (another term for the anthropologist) is to try to understand not only another culture, but also how people from that culture understand their culture, and how they see the world. Before Malinowski and his landmark work, ethnographers were more “scientific.” That is, they did not try to obtain a subjective view of a culture from the perspective of an insider (an emic view). They were only concerned

with a more “objective” understanding from the point of view of the trained scientist’s observations (an etic view). Subjectivity had no place in science. It was just bad science.1

Today, Malinowski’s goals are still held up by many (though not all) contemporary anthropologists as a model of, and a purpose for, anthropological fieldwork.2 Now, you may say that studying the “subjective desire of feeling” of another person or “the hold life has on him” sounds a lot like psychology. It is. Partly. What anthropology adds to our understanding of the workings of the human mind is, however, an acknowledgment that a part of our psychology is influenced by outside factors. The key topic we study, the purpose for anthropological inquiry, is “culture.” Our behavior, why we do what we do, is much more complex than the internal makeup of any single mind; it is influenced by the circumstances and society one is born into, one’s culture.

1. I use the term “objectivity” with a grain of salt. It has been well demonstrated that pure objectivity is a near impossibility, whether in the social or the natural sciences (cf. Gould 1981, Hammersley 1998). 2. Although we are, perhaps, not as naive in our beliefs as to how readily this can be done or toward what purposes the information may be used.

53

3. The other volume published in 1986 was Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences, edited by George E. Marcus and Michael M. J. Fischer.

54

In order to “discover” the hold life has on an individual, and individuals, in a specific culture, Malinowski advocated a new kind of research. He believed one had to live among the members of the culture being studied and participate in their daily activities. He also believed that one should be in the field for a full year, witnessing and participating in activities throughout a full cycle of seasons. He called this “participant-observation.” Participant-observation is still the backbone of anthropological field research today. Recently, however, another ingredient has been added to the mix: intersubjectivity. We admittedly collect subjective information from our informants in the field, but the nature of information we collect often depends on our relationships with those in the field, making the data we use a combination of two different subjectivities (ours and our informants’). This is intersubjectivity, which is, in my opinion, the heart of anthropological knowledge. Growing from this admission that our analysis is based on a dialogue with our informants, who are often as analytical about their lives as the researcher, there has been an increase in the amount of space given to the voices of our informants. This dialogic turn allows the reader to hear views and thoughts directly from those living in the culture alongside the description and analysis of the researcher. This builds a dialogue among the researcher, the informant, and the reader. Malinowski believed that anthropologists should find the significance that a culture has to those within it. This purpose is similar to that portrayed in the above quote by Stryker: to find the significance of our subjects as human beings (“in itself”) and in “relation to its surroundings, its time, its function.” But, how does one “know” what another is thinking? How do we know what behavior is cultural and what is caused by an individual’s psyche? As Robert Sobieszek notes, “Interpretation must always be a combination of knowledge and intuition” (1974:viii). Here, in Sobieszek’s words, is another way of acknowledging this give-and-take positioning of anthropological researchers in the field: both a neutral, objective observer and a subjective participant in the activities of the cultural community. Although a majority of anthropologists agree with the purpose and research methods of anthropology, there are many, many points of contention among these same anthropologists as to how to best represent one’s field research findings. The written ethnography is not in dispute, but how to write it, what to include (and exclude), is by no means fully agreed upon. For our purpose here, it is important to emphasize that most discussions of ethnography are about different forms of writing. In 1986 two volumes were published that sparked the controversy and brought the issues into the full light of academic discussion. One of these volumes, as clearly indicated by the title, is about the written word. Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, edited by James Clifford and George E. Marcus, advocates the use of more creative means to convey the subjective reality of others (as opposed to denying subjectivity). Those siding with Clifford and Marcus have been labeled “postmodernists.”3 Sadly, for us visual anthropologists anyway, these debates on poetics and experimentation with new forms of text and representation have been limited to, well, text. Outside the small community that identifies itself as visual anthropologists (many of whom are authors in this volume), one is hard-pressed to find much discussion on the use of visual “texts” at all in mainstream RICHARD FREEMAN

anthropological discussions. I find this quite alarming. I came to anthropology through documentary photography and film. I have always seen a close relationship in the goals of both endeavors. In fact, quotes from two scholars in this paper, Stryker and Sobieszek, are from introductions to photographic books, not anthropological works! In her chapter in Rethinking Visual Anthropology, museum curator and scholar Elizabeth Edwards discusses possibilities for photographs to contribute to anthropological knowledge (1997). Edwards recognizes the potential for photographs to articulate their own “particular culturally grounded voice within the discipline, one which anthropologists should recognise as capable of different but perhaps equally revealing ways of seeing over their traditional domain” (Edwards in Banks and Morphy 1997:54). In the chapter, all Edwards can do is explore and argue her case, for there are few concrete examples from which to draw. Such discussions are encouraging. However, most discourse today consists merely of critiques of the way photographs are used in ethnography. These critical discussions address important weaknesses in the way photographs are used in anthropological texts. For example, the anthropologist Ira Jacknis states that photographs in ethnography are typically used as window dressing (Jacknis 1984:2). Or, as sociologist Howard Becker acknowledges, “The role of visual materials in the presentation of social science research is another underdeveloped area of thinking” (Becker in Harper 1982:171–172). In most ethnographies, the images are sporadically placed, isolated, and thematically unrelated to each other and to the text. These discussions are important, but there is not enough action. That is, there are few attempts to actually use photographs in a more profound manner within ethnographic texts. This is a shortcoming I try to redress in my work. Most anthropologists are not trained photographers and the images they take are often visual notes for their own use. The images that appear in the text are often nothing more than a snapshot of a person, or house, or other objects in the field.4 As visual sociologist Douglas Harper notes, “[M]ore often, unfortunately, the photographs which illustrate ethnographic texts do not really develop the analytic insights of the authors; rather they appear as visual redundancies to the written text” (Harper 1989:37, cf. Brandes 1997, Collier and Collier 1986). There is no sense of narrative to the images because there is often little thought behind the analytical possibilities of what they can add to a written text, let alone what they may be able to communicate as the primary source of data. The power of a photographic image, or group of images, depends on the ability of the photographer, as both an artist and a scholar, to communicate her message visually. Anthropologists spend inordinate amounts of time writing. In graduate school much time and training is spent on developing one’s written skills. Few anthropologists (or graduate students) give more than an afterthought to adding photographs once the ethnography (written text) is complete. What if anthropology programs also offered training in photography? A researcher could then plan the use of visual images taken in the field along with her other field activities. Would it be possible to incorporate the images with the text in an equal or, dare I say, leading partnership? If the discussions of the past have taught us anything, it is that anthropological Ph oto graph y A N D E T H N O G R A PH Y

4. I refer you to one of the assignments (“Photographs in Ethnographies”) I suggest at the end of this chapter.

55

knowledge, an understanding of a person’s and his or her culture’s worldview, can be expressed in different ways. Why then has the visual communicative power of photography been so neglected? Photography and Ethnography Pa s t a n d P r e s e n t

Franz Boas, credited with creating a methodology for the enterprise of ethnographic fieldwork and considered by many to be the father of U.S. cultural anthropology, always had a camera with him in the field. This was as early as the 1890s. Although he was the first to have images published in his ethnographic publications, he was not interested in putting them to any serious use. Ira Jacknis (1984) in his article on Boas and photography notes that Boas’ true interests were native texts. He was searching for the laws governing the human mind (1984:44). Boas believed that the physical appearances of material culture mattered little. Objects receive their cultural importance through the thoughts and significance their creators and users give them. This view should be understood in the context of rapid cultural and economic change among the Kwakiutal community in northern Vancouver, among whom Boas did his research. Over the years he noted the outward changes of their appearance and physical structures, but remarked, “It is marvelous how the old life continues under the surface of the life of a poor fishing people” (Boas in Jacknis 1984:45). Photographic images only record the surface; they cannot capture, or show, historical change (as can collecting oral myths and histories). The images he did take were used as illustrations of physical types or to record details of objects, such as totem poles or architecture, that were too big to collect and send back (1984:5). Malinowski, with his new views and methods on ethnographic research, gave more thought to the images he was taking and how they might add depth to his ethnography. These views raised new questions as to how one can represent the way another person, from a completely different culture no less, is thinking. Is this science? Can visual images help? How? Wright (1991) discusses the change in the use of photographs by Malinowski as compared with Diamond Jenness, an anthropologist who did a study in the same region of the Trobriand Islands just three years before Malinowski. Although one may not see a few years as significant, the approaches of these two researchers can be seen as a disciplinary shift, representing two very different approaches to, and purposes for, doing field research (cf. Edwards 1992, Wright 1991). Stanley Brandes (1997) makes an interesting point that photographs, if nothing more (and often inadvertently), do reflect that ever-important nature of the intersubjective relationship between the ethnographer and her subjects. They set a kind of tone for the written work. This can be clearly seen in ethnographies where the subjects are not given individual names, but are referenced, for example, as “a chief” as opposed to humanizing the subject with his/her name as well as social position. This sets a tone of a very distant relationship between ethnographer and subject. One can certainly see Brandes’ point on how this is a reflection of that intersubjective relationship mentioned above. It does, indeed, force the reader to acknowledge that the understanding of the 56

RICHARD FREEMAN

specific people under study is that of the researcher alone—an etic voice. Thus, an understanding of the ethnographer’s relationship with the people under study is crucial in our accepting, or not, her analysis. The information given in the images, although perhaps not consciously set up by the ethnographer, does clue the reader as to the nature of the interrelationships in the field. During my studies I have come across relatively few attempts to incorporate photographs in ethnographic research and representation since Malinowski. I will be looking at two of these studies in-depth. The first, and the earliest study I encountered, is a 1942 study on Balinese character by Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. The second, from 1982, is a study on tramp life and riding the rails by Douglas Harper. Both studies use images in very different ways, exploring different possibilities for the uses of still images. I agree with Harper that most ethnographers use visuals as “redundant illustrations.”5 In my own work, which I will discuss below, I have drawn on different uses by these ethnographers as well as those by visual scholars from other disciplines. I also suggest how to use photographs in different ways within the same ethnography, as I experiment and expand the use of still images in an otherwise “traditional” ethnographic text. I am convinced, and I hope that you will be too, that my use of images along with the written text enriches one’s understanding of the culture at hand in a way not possible through text alone. But first, let us explore what has already been done. Balinese Character

“The form of presentation used in this monograph is an experimental innovation.” So begins Bateson and Mead’s photographic ethnography on Balinese character (1942:xi). They set out to represent intangible aspects of culture, the ethos of the Balinese. They critique the standard methods as seriously limited and far too dependent on literary skill. Due to untranslatable vocabulary, having no equivalents in English, Bateson and Mead acknowledged that, in some cases, the communication “although often caught by the artist” is not sufficient for scientific inquiry. With a lack of concise, “objective” language available to discuss the practices of other cultures, Mead and Bateson found the method of relying on language to have serious problems: “This method had many serious limitations: it transgressed the canons of precise operational scientific exposition proper to science; it was far too dependent upon idiosyncratic factors of style and literary skill; it was difficult to duplicate; and it was difficult to evaluate” (1942:xi).6 In the book, Mead and Bateson attempt to show “the intangible relationships among different types of culturally standardized behavior by placing side by side mutually relevant photographs” (1942:xii). For the project, Gregory Bateson shot 25,000 frames. They edited these down to 4,000 with 759 finally used in the book. The book opens with a description of Balinese character written by Margaret Mead. This helps orient the reader so that she can make sense of the photographs. The images are then presented as plates. There are one hundred plates, each consisting of several related images, all conveying the same type of spatial relationship or behavior. Opposite each plate is a title, such as “Hand Postures in Daily Life” (Plate 21), followed by a general paragraph describing what the images depict and then a detailed account of each image. Ph oto graph y A N D E T H N O G R A PH Y

5. Two notable exceptions are Harper’s own publications, Working Knowledge: Skill and Community in a Small Shop (1987) and Changing Works: Visions of a Lost Agriculture (2001). 6. Commenting on their work today, I would add that there is a lack of acknowledgment on their own intersubjective relationships with the Balinese. As mentioned, this relationship is important in understanding the quality and depth of the data. I am not criticizing them for not addressing intersubjectivity, for this was not something discussed or acknowledged back in 1942. I am simply pointing out the importance of it, to show why it is discussed today.

57

7. It may interest you to know that Margaret Mead was a student of Franz Boas, which perhaps explains why her methods of data collecting (even using photographs) still attempt to maintain a quality of objectivity (despite Malinowski’s earlier writings).

58

Bateson and Mead’s major thesis has to do with the lack of emotions they found in the Balinese character. Through looking at the photographs, they spotted what they considered inadequate responses by mothers to their children. Mead then formed her thesis that Balinese character came out in posture and spatial relations: “In these various contexts of life the Balinese character is revealed. It is a character based on fear which, because it is learned in the mother’s arms, is a value as well as a threat” (1942:47). It is a fear that keeps a distance in their interpersonal relationships. It is a fear instilled as a child and prevents one from straying off the “untrodden path” (1942:48). Sullivan, in his book on Mead and Bateson’s photographs, critiques the images for only reflecting the surfaces of things: “[M]uch that is important to Balinese, being invisible, cannot be recorded on film” (1999:37). This critique is similar to Jacknis’ account of why Boas paid so little attention to photographic images.7 Without denying the validity of Sullivan’s comment, there is still plenty that these images do offer the reader about Balinese character. Mead could write in detail on spatial relationships between the Balinese, and she does discuss this in the text in her analysis of the images. But why limit ethnographic representation to written text, especially when certain aspects of culture and character are visual? After all, Mead came up with her hypothesis upon viewing the images already taken by her and Bateson. The images may be illustrations, but they are not the redundant illustrations Harper and others lament. They are the main text. They do not replace the written text, but work with it to strengthen Mead and Bateson’s thesis and analysis. It is not an either-or choice. Sullivan’s comment is like criticizing a poem about the colors of a rainbow for not being able to show colors. It is a truth, but it is also beside the point. In his visual project, The Edge of the Forest: Land, Childhood and Change in a New Guinea Protoagricultural Society (1976), Richard Sorenson takes a very similar approach to that of Balinese Character. He uses photographs and film in his layout, and his focus is also on child care and personality development. The study begins with a foreword by Margaret Mead. Another visual ethnography, Gardens of War: Life and Death in the New Guinea Stone Age (1968) by Robert Gardner and Karl Heider, uses several series of photographs to depict disparate aspects of the culture being studied. Each cultural aspect has its own chapter, such as “play” or “ghosts.” The chapter begins with a short ethnographic essay, followed by a series of illustrative photographs. Here again, there is an introduction to the book by Margaret Mead. In 1951, a few years after the publication of Balinese Character, Mead worked with photographer and scholar Francis Cooke MacGregor, culling images from Bateson’s original twenty-five thousand photographs. Their theme in Growth and Culture: A Photographic Study of Balinese Childhood was to explore “cultural patterning of the growth experience . . .” (1951:35). The layout and function of the images are similar to the study on Balinese character. Although Mead and Bateson, and those examples cited above, limited their use of images to a form of objective data, Mead did acknowledge that the artist can often communicate the intangible aspects of a culture better than the anthropologist. Edwards (1997) also considered the possibility of using more expressive, artistic forms of photography to explore and communicate culture. These are two different potentialities for photographs in ethnography. Mead’s RICHARD FREEMAN

lack of concern for the “expressive” (as are the works by her and MacGregor, Gardner and Heider, and Sorenson) can be seen by the poor technical and aesthetic quality of the photographic images and reproductions in these volumes. The technical quality of the reproductions on all of them is mediocre at best. Also, there does not seem to be much aesthetic concern for composition (Gardner and Heider’s work does have a little more aesthetic concern with composition than the others). Generally, the subjects are centered in the frame, with little regard for anything that might be happening in the background. Clearly, these scholars did not attach much importance to the “expressive” messages the images may have. The images are clear enough to see what the subject is doing, but they are not concerned with capturing more information about the environmental setting. I believe the environment can add a greater sense of the context and the space in which the activities depicted are taking place. This is important information for an outsider to have: it aids in putting oneself in that space, to help cultivate a deeper emic understanding of the actions depicted. Bateson and Mead’s work was a groundbreaking moment for the not-yetborn subdiscipline of “visual anthropology,” even though they and many who followed did not seem to inspire explorations on the more expressive possibilities photographs can have in ethnographic texts.8 To find photographic scholarship in this vein, I turn to the work of visual sociologist Douglas Harper. Harper, as we will see, takes a more Edwardian approach. His photographs draw on the tradition of documentary street photography and work both as a document (objective) and as art (effecting an emotional response).9 Good Company

Differing from Bateson and Mead’s use of images as data and illustrations, chosen more for their value of conveying spatial relationships than for their aesthetic qualities, Harper’s ethnography on tramp life, Good Company (1982), embraces photography’s strength of conveying emotion. Harper’s text and images also place him within the tradition of what is termed a “reflexive” turn in ethnographic representation, something not commonly done in 1942. Harper’s ethnography can be seen as anticipating many of the debates formalized by Clifford and Marcus and Marcus and Fischer (both 1986) on the nature of the truth of texts and the power relations that are often ignored in the authoritative voice of the anthropologist/author. Harper builds the credibility of his analysis on the intersubjective relationship between researcher and subject. In his discussion on methods at the end of his ethnography, he quotes a fellow scholar: “The relationships we form with the subjects of our work . . . control the kind of knowledge that the material we gain will yield” (Robert Jay in Harper 1982:139). This relationship is what I earlier defined as intersubjectivity. One of the more liberating consequences of the postmodern debate, for me anyway, is the acceptance of not only owning up to the realities of field research, and the nature of human interrelationships, but also embracing those very qualities that were once denied or ignored. Harper’s book opens with “I was drinking beer with some tramps one night in the fall of 1973” (1982:1). Hardly a detached “scientific” position to take with one’s subjects. Harper’s text continues in the first-person narrative, re­creating conversations he had over the year he was riding the rails with these Ph oto graph y A N D E T H N O G R A PH Y

8. Mead was also one of the first major anthropologists to use film as an ethnographic tool in both analysis and representation. 9. Edwards discusses a more abstract form of photography. Yet I consider both the documentary mode that Harper uses and abstract photography to be “expressive” or artistic, if they are done well (although I have a painter friend who disagrees with me on this point).

59

men. Inserted in the narrative are three sections of photographs (fifty-two in all). Unlike those in Bateson and Mead’s work, each image in these sections is given its own page, and the quality of the reproduction is as high as any photographic monograph. Simple descriptive captions are given to each image, like that of an image of a shadow of a bridge and a train on a canyon wall over a river canyon: “Northern Montana on the old Great Northern tracks” (1982). Knowing the bridge is in Montana is not really important. What is important is that the viewer can feel the sense of danger and excitement of such a close, first-person view of this beautiful canyon from a very precarious perch: inside an open boxcar of the speeding train on that bridge. Aesthetically beautiful, Harper’s images successfully capture different aspects of tramp life: the isolation, the immense power (and danger) of the trains, the camaraderie, and an overall sense of living in the shadows of mainstream society. The text gives a side to tramp life not conveyable in photographs—a taste of what the tramps themselves are thinking. They reinforce each other without redundancy. Together we get a powerful and engaging portrait of tramp life. To quote sociologist Howard Becker in his afterword to Harper’s book, “Good Company is an enormously successful experiment in gathering and presenting material that gives us a sound and exciting understanding of an otherwise almost inaccessible world” (1982:171). Another Place

Although published before Harper’s first work, Another Place: Photographs of a Maya Community (1974) by Frank Cancian, a respected economic anthropologist who is also a photographer, is even more of a photographic statement than is Harper’s. Like those in Harper’s work, the images themselves are the center of the study. They were chosen as much for their expressive qualities as for their straight documentary qualities. They are beautiful images. Cancian’s work differs from Harper’s in that there is practically no text. The opening page has a one-paragraph introduction to the Zinacanteco Maya community, the subject of the book. The book of roughly eighty images, all very beautifully reproduced and printed one per page, contains only six additional one-paragraph textual comments. These comments roughly set up the photographic sections. There are no official titles or other chapter markers. For example, one paragraph comments on Mayan education and the next set of images are centered on this very broad theme. Another Place truly is a photographic ethnography. Without denying the value of objectivity and rigorous measurement, Becker, echoing Malinowski, states that we must not “lose sight of the complementary virtues of subjective involvement .  .  . and rigorous observation” (Becker in Harper 1982:169). If the goal of ethnography is to get the native’s point of view, Becker continues, “We cannot develop ideas about how and why people do what they do without imagining ourselves in their place and imagining what they might be thinking and experiencing” (1982:169). This is precisely what prompted Malinowski, back in 1914, to codify field research methods and advocate participant-observation. My critique of Bateson and Mead, perhaps more of an observation, is not on the success of their stated intentions for the photographic images, but on their failure to get a more subjective understanding of the Balinese. 60

RICHARD FREEMAN

However, it must be remembered that despite Malinowski’s stated aims, embracing subjectivity was not acceptable science at the time of Bateson and Mead’s project. The expressive photographs of Harper and Cancian are both welcome and long overdue as a step toward integrating photographic images with ethnographic text.10 Y o u n g P o l i t i c a l Ac t i v i s t s in Buenos Aires, Argentina

I spent close to three years conducting research in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This included a twenty-month period in 1996–1997 when I lived there and worked every day with the youth group of the Democratic-Socialist Party (the JPSD, Juventud Partido Socialista Democrática). I had no thesis to prove or disprove. My interests were in examining what influences the formation of their, and our own, political beliefs. As an anthropologist, I was interested in looking at how culture, history, class, politics, and economics, among other factors, are understood and internalized by individuals and how this then becomes the basis of how they come to understand their social world and their own place within it. In the tradition of participant-observation, just as Harper rode the rails with the tramps, I was an activist with the members of the JPSD. Out of these activities came my dissertation: Learning to Rebel: Socialist Youth Activism in Contemporary Buenos Aires (2001). As discussed, a goal of ethnography is to help one’s readers understand the emic views of one’s subjects. In my case, the youths are my subjects. To aid me in this ethnographic endeavor, I believe in using whatever means/tools are at one’s disposal. As a trained photographer, I embrace the qualities possessed by photographic images discussed so far, adding some new thoughts, and using images in my ethnography in several different ways. All uses, however, are meant to strengthen the overall goal of placing the reader in Buenos Aires and “in the heads” of these youths so that we can better understand their behavior and use this knowledge to reflect on, and better understand, our own. In the ethnography are two photo galleries of about twenty-five images each and an appendix with portraits of many of the youths whose voices we hear throughout the ethnography. Additionally, in Chapter 4, the data for my theoretical discussion are presented in photographic images. Photographs are ambiguous. They may be worth a thousand words, but it can be any thousand words. Art critic, artist, and screenwriter John Berger, in his book with photographer Jean Mohr, Another Way of Telling (1982), comments, “Every photograph presents us with two messages: a message concerning the event photographed and another concerning a shock of discontinuity” (1982:89). The discontinuity is the “abyss between the moment recorded and the moment of looking” (1982:89). A photograph’s ambiguity lies in this second message, the abyss, which Berger goes on to discuss: [R]emembered images are the residue of continuous experience, a photograph isolates the appearances of a disconnected instant. And in life, meaning is not instantaneous. Meaning is discovered in what connects, and cannot exist without development. Without a story, without an unfolding, there is not meaning. Facts, information, do not in Ph oto graph y A N D E T H N O G R A PH Y

10. I do want to stress that there is space for all the different uses of photographs. I am just pleased that expressive images, however slowly, are being accepted as legitimate forms of ethnographic representation.

61

themselves constitute meaning . . . when we give meaning to an event, that meaning is a response, not only to the known, but also to the unknown: meaning and mystery are inseparable, and neither can exist without the passing of time. . . . When we find a photograph meaningful, we are lending it a past and a future (1982:89).

11. This montage of three images was invented in film editing by the great Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. Eisenstein would set up a tension in two opposing shots and resolve the tension in the third (see Becker 1998). This montage style of editing is very manipulative and we see it every day in television commercials. The montage style discussed by Becker, Berger, and Mohr looks at a full series of images on a theme. This too can be a very selective vision. A question we must ask ourselves, and this also applies to a written text, is: do we trust the author? Neither images nor texts have a monopoly on truth.

62

Meaning is gained through context. Context (thus meaning) needs a story, an unfolding. To find meaning in a photograph, the viewer must lend it a narrative. Depending on the information we are given, or lack thereof, it can be a very ambiguous narrative. John Berger then asks, what if we embrace this ambiguity? Do we have another way of telling? (1982:92). That is, can we use the very properties that make a photograph ambiguous to tell us things about the subject in new ways, ways that are exclusive to the communicative properties of photography? And, I would add, can these properties be used in ethnographic works? Berger and Mohr’s proposal is to present a montage of images on a subject or topic. This is nothing radically new; there have been photographic monographs, books with images on the same subject, for decades. Most notably are those from the 1920s and 1930s by photographers such as Walker Evans or Dorothea Lange—among those hired by Stryker for the documentary photography project of the Farm Security Administration—and those from the 1950s by photographers such as Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Gary Winnogrand. Today we have a new generation of social documentarians such as Susan Meiselas and Sebatião Salgado. Berger and Mohr’s example is a series of images about a peasant woman. They create a montage of images of the woman and the environment around her, including her village in the Alps, her neighbors, her house. Their goal is to give an emic view of her world. Although they do not discuss ethnography, trying to portray an emic view of another is an important aspect of ethnography. Yet, they are attempting to do it strictly with images, taking advantage of the unique communicative properties of still photographs. The works by Harper and Cancian discussed above share many properties with this idea of montage. To understand how the more traditional photographic book or exhibition communicates, we can, again, turn to sociologist Howard Becker (1998) and his discussion on the importance of arranging photographs. With just one image, the viewer can interpret or attribute any possible number of “meanings” intended by the photographer. As Berger and Mohr noted, we can lend the image virtually any past and future we like. RICHARD FREEMAN

Add a second image, and one can start limiting the number of possible themes common to both images. Add a third image, and one can start identifying patterns and begin to understand the vision and the message of the photographer. It is this collage of images (a la Berger and Mohr) that gives meaning to strictly photographic essays.11 Because the images in most ethnographies are single, isolated images, they fail to present to us the necessary information we need to really read them in any meaningful manner. They are window dressing. Berger and Mohr’s montage is a much more nuanced idea than the traditional photographic monograph discussed by Becker, who used Walker Evans’ famous monograph from the 1930s American Photographs as his example. Evans never tried to portray an emic view of rural America. Neither does Becker discuss

Ph oto graph y A N D E T H N O G R A PH Y

Figure 3.1

63

this possibility. This is what makes Berger and Mohr’s idea both so fresh and so relevant to ethnography. In their montage, “the story narrates on behalf of this subject, appeals to it and speaks in its voice” (1982:285, emphasis added). So, they ask, how does one narrate with photography? The traditional film or theater narrative does not work, for then those portrayed in the photographic essay would be merely actors in their own stories. They suggest arranging photographs so that the “arrangement speaks of experience. Experience as contained within life or lives. If this works, it may suggest a narrative form specific to photography” (1982:286). The protagonist is omnipresent, and therefore invisible. If a photographic story does narrate, it does so through montage, not like that of a linear story. The images coexist, “like the field of memory” (1982:288). This narration can be seen in Harper’s photographs on tramp life. It is also the model I use to represent the world of the young activists in Buenos Aires. The galleries both stand alone, presenting a montage of images of a certain aspect of their life/environment, as well as working together, constructing a fuller representation of different aspects of their life and physical environment. These aspects are those that I find important in the development of their political ideologies, the main focus of my research.12 In the first gallery, I try to give the viewer an emic sense of Buenos Aires. That is, I try to place the viewer on the streets of the city. I discussed why I felt Harper’s captions were incidental to the messages in the images themselves. In this gallery, I use neither captions nor titles. The specifics are not important. What I wish the reader to do is immerse herself in the images, letting her discover the

Above: Figure 3.2 Right: Figure 3.3

64

RICHARD FREEMAN

Ph oto graph y A N D E T H N O G R A PH Y

Figure 3.4

12. As mentioned, neither the written text nor the photograph is completely neutral. Although I discussed much of what went into my ethnography with the youths themselves, in the end, I had the power to represent them as I thought would be the most accurate. This is why it is important for the reader to have an understanding of the (intersubjective) relationship the researcher has with her subjects. The type of information cultivated and the manner in which it is presented can never be fully known to the reader, but a sense of trust shown to exist between the researcher and subjects goes a long way toward building a trust among the reader, the researcher, and her text.

65

Figure 3.5. Preparing to march: protesters congregating in the Plaza del Congreso for the protest to remember the military dictatorship that began on this day twenty years ago and lasted for seven years. March 24, 1996.

66

ambience of the city as if she were there. My hope is that when we begin to hear from the youths themselves, and they discuss their views and activities, the reader can have a fuller understanding of those events, placing them in the tangible physical space of Buenos Aires and not in some imagined city. The next use of photographs is in a chapter on the political mise-en-scène of Buenos Aires. Mise-en-scène is a term used in theater and film. It literally means “staging an action.” In the theater and cinema, it refers to the director’s control over what appears on stage or in the film’s frame. It includes the setting, lighting, and movement of the actors. Used effectively, it can be another actor in the production (André Bazin in Bordwell and Thompson 1993:148). After reviewing my photographic contact sheets over many months (while I was still living in Buenos Aires), I noticed a multitude of images of political propaganda plastered RICHARD FREEMAN

all over the city. In addition to these visual messages, I began to recognize that the near-daily street protests—and all of the activities by the youths, whether in the cultural centers they ran or in their protests—were carried out in public on the city streets of Buenos Aires. In the context of my quest to better understand how we form our political beliefs, drawing from my film background, and given this new data, I came to see the city of Buenos Aires as more than just a setting. The way it is given a life by its inhabitants makes it an actor in its own right; it is the mise-enscène of the ethnography. This is also a factor in the montage of images of the city in the first photo gallery. In this chapter, however, I focus specifically on the political messages conveyed on the city streets. Even if one consciously chooses to disregard these messages and the activities one faces every day on the streets, their mere existence cannot be ignored. One must deal with the fact that to many of his/her fellow citizens, politics matter. I thus came to believe that, in this context anyway, the city itself has a role in the formation of an Argentine citizen’s political consciousness. The data and proof in this discussion are the images I had taken of these visual political messages and activities. The most obvious way of sharing visual entities with my readers was not through textual description, but visually. In this way, they have a common thread with Mead and Bateson’s Balinese project. The images are not meant to stand alone, unlike the images of Buenos Aires in Gallery One, but are the center of my discussion and analysis of the role of social-geography and “place” in the development of one’s political identity.13 In the final section of images within the body of the ethnography, I present the members of the JPSD at work. This section combines a little Harper and a Ph oto graph y A N D E T H N O G R A PH Y

National Strike (Paro Nacional), August 2, 1996.

Figure 3.6.

13. This chapter of my dissertation has been reworked and published as an article entitled, “The City as Mise-en-Scène: A Visual Exploration of the Culture of Politics in Buenos Aires” (Freeman 2001).

67

Left: Figure 3.10. Mariana, María-José, Mariela (Mari), and Alicia, 1997. Below: Figure 3.11. Alejandro (Ale), 1997.

Top: Figure 3.7. JPSD preparing to march, March 24, 1996. Above: Figure 3.8. Melina and Lucho, 1996. Right: Figure 3.9. Carolina in action, 1996.

68

little Berger and Mohr. These images are tied in closer to the text than are the images in Gallery One. However, unlike the works on visual political messages, these images work to support and supplement the text of the chapters that discuss the ideology, the political philosophy, and the militant activities of the JPSD members. The images are captioned, identifying by name the members in the photographs and explaining the activities depicted in the image.14 We also hear directly from the members of the youth group about their beliefs in their own words. My words, then, describe, analyze, and interpret. It is the triple combination of their voices, my description and analysis, and the images, I believe, that gives the reader/viewer a rich understanding of the activities, of the fieldsite, and of the youths themselves. Although both the text and the images make sense by themselves, both are more powerful with the support given them by the other medium. Finally, in an appendix, I include a portrait gallery of JPSD members. This brings us back to the initial discussion on the purpose of both ethnography and photography—to gain a deeper understanding of one’s subjects, regardless of whether they are the rural poor in the United States, peasants in the Swiss Alps, or young RICHARD FREEMAN

activists in Argentina. These portraits give the reader another kind of look at the “souls” of these youths. To return to Sobieszek again, he speaks of portraiture as a type of document where the image becomes a form of visual biography used for immediate recognition and historical recollection. For centuries there has been a belief (accepted assumption) that the human face “is a vehicle for the individual’s character” (Sobieszek 1974:vii). In 1851, French critic Francis Wey commented that the photographic portrait “resemblance is not a mechanical reproduction but an interpretation that translates for the eyes the image of an object so that the spirit imagines it with the aid of the memory” (Wey in Sobieszek 1974:vii). Arnold Newman, the portrait photographer whose work Sobieszek introduces in his essay, believes that part of his success in bringing about the spirit of the sitter is his ability to be sympathetic with his subjects. One must have the “ability to have sympathy for each man and to understand the man he is photographing . . .” (Newman in Sobieszek 1974:viii). The portraits I took of the young activists, while not formally set up, were taken as we were meeting to join a march. I had been working with them for more than a year, and we had already built a friendship based on mutual respect and trust, and I hope I did indeed capture a little bit of their spirit, their soul. It is this spirit, presented along with their own words, my analysis, and the other images of them and their city that I hope all work together, in a montage, to convey something about their world, their points of view of this world, and the hold life has on them. Images and Text

All the photographic sections and galleries have been very deliberately placed within the written text. I try to construct the world of these young activists for outsiders to get an inside, or emic, feel for their world. Ethnography can be a very powerful text. By adding visual images, I try to add to this power. Howard Becker discusses how we read multiple images through a kind of juxtaposition of themes, adding meaning to one image by comparing it with, and building on, others. I have tried to arrange the images so that they are in juxtaposition not only with the images in the same gallery, but also with the other galleries and Ph oto graph y A N D E T H N O G R A PH Y

14. As Brandes (1997) discussed, this also gives the reader a sense of the friendship between myself (the researcher) and my “subjects” (members of the JPSD).

69

the text. It is a dialectical relationship. Berger and Mohr suggest that due to the unique characteristics of a photographic image, a montage may be able to give an emic view of another’s world in a way that the written text cannot. This builds on Becker’s discussion, but pushes it conceptually much further. I have tried to take their analyses, and that of other scholars, and apply it to ethnography. In my ethnography, the reader is presented with a history of Argentina followed by the gallery of images of Buenos Aires. This gives concreteness to the location where much of the history discussed gets played out. I then present a focused look at an aspect of the city relevant to the study of political identity formation. The written analysis in this chapter is woven around the images of the topic of discussion, visual street political messages. Again, both the text and the images have more gravitas or weight because they are placed within the larger montage of images and text before it and will add to the gravitas of the images and text that follow it. With this background laid out, we then hear directly from the youths. We hear about their personal histories, we hear from family members, and we hear about their political views and why they participate in the youth group of the Democratic-Socialist Party. Woven within their voices and narratives are my own observations on and analysis of what they say and do. This written text is strengthened by the images of them on the streets, a visual record of the activities being discussed and analyzed. Likewise, the images have more meaning thanks to the accompanying written text. It is this dialectical relationship of text and images that I hope gives a greater profundity and clarity to my representation of these others’ world than would be possible if either the text or the images were absent. Montage allows me to show varied images of and views on one subject. Much like the dialogical practice of opening one’s ethnographic text to the voices of one’s subjects, montage allows for a more “open” viewing/reading. The successful montage, in my opinion, creates a space in which the viewer can get a sense of being there. Through a montage of images, voices, and analysis from various perspectives, I am attempting to construct a dialogue among myself, the youths, and the reader. This forces the reader to be more active, more engaged, more critical with the text than merely reading and digesting what is there. What I try to do is give my informed analysis of what I experienced and superimpose this over a dialogical, multivocal montage of images and texts. This, I believe, is the most honest way I can represent these youths and make a contribution to our knowledge and understanding of the social process of political identity formation. Both photographic and textual ethnography can convey aspects of how others live and view the world. Both can raise the reader/viewer’s awareness, and consciousness. And, both can prompt the reader/viewer to reflect on how these situations are handled in our own society. One works through words, one through visual images. Given that they are both different languages, using different aspects of our cognitive powers, it is not difficult to conclude that each has its own unique characteristics, its own unique strengths and weaknesses. I can only hope that other anthropologists with photographic skills will also begin to better use the great communicative potential this medium has to offer anthropology. To those reading this who 70

RICHARD FREEMAN

do not possess these skills, I hope you will recognize the potential power of images to help some of us communicate our shared anthropological goals. I hope this essay, and my images, are a small step toward developing this other way of representation and understanding. Closing Thoughts

Today, with the bloody ethnic conflicts arising throughout the globe, the crosscultural understanding that anthropology can bring is vital. Anthropology can kindle a reexamination of our ways—an extremely important and timely capability, given the U.S. role in many of these conflicts, and our economic and political hegemony. One explanation for the purpose of culture is that it allows a society to reproduce, to carry on generation after generation. Clearly, most of the world’s cultures have proved themselves to be very successful, without our “help,” for most have existed centuries longer than our nation. Anthropology can force us to acknowledge the ethnocentricity of many of our international policies and attitudes. As a researcher and an activist concerned with issues of social justice, I am well aware of the stereotypes and biases that exist and are legitimized by our popular media. The way political activists in other nations are portrayed (as well as local activists) usually depends on whether they are protesting a government we are friendly with or one that we consider “bad.” By inviting U.S. students and scholars into the world of these youths in Buenos Aires, with their aid and consent, I hope to dispel some of these myths. They are students and workers like we are here in the United States, only living under less free circumstances, regardless of how well their president gets along with ours (and with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank). It is in the name of many of the freedoms we enjoy that they are taking the actions they do, and being repressed for it. We in the United States live in a society that dominates most others (whether we personally like to admit it or not), and I hope that by humanizing the plight of others it will be more difficult for us to shrug our shoulders and look the other way. Ignorance may be bliss, but it is not a morally defensible position. If I can use photographs in my ethnography to help get this message across, I will. Whatever it takes. Suggested Assignments

Note: all assignments can be completed with a traditional 35mm camera, a digital camera, or a disposable camera.

Assignment in a nutshell pick a public event to attend, observe, and photograph. If possible, go to an event about which you know little or nothing. Regardless, attend the event as though you know little about it. This first part, the field research, will be followed with two short writing assignments.

Ph oto graph y A N D E T H N O G R A PH Y

Exercise

Visual Ethnography of an Event

71

P a r t I . The Event

like to understand better and feel can best be represented visually (text is also

Attend an event. Observe the interactions and behavior of the crowd, whether

allowed in the display). Then, present them to your subject and agree on one

they are spectators, participants, or both. If appropriate, participate in the activ-

to focus on for the study. (Hint: if there is something that greatly contrasts with

ities. Throughout the event imagine what aspects you wish to convey to your

your own life, it may be an interesting topic, one that will have you question-

viewers and search for ways to communicate this visually. Feel free to start pho-

ing how things are perceived within different segments of our broader soci-

tographing whenever you feel it appropriate. Try to hypothesize (while you are

ety.) Next, make plans to hang out/follow (bother) your subject for a day and

there) what is going on and why. Why, do you suppose, people are there? What

another time or two to spend with him/her specifically in reference to your

are they getting from the experience? What role does this play in their larger

theme. Finally, and overlapping with your write-up (Part II), schedule another

society? Find someone there to interview. Basically ask them the above ques-

interview to clarify and/or explore issues that came up during your fieldwork.

tions. Make sure you have the images you feel are necessary.

P a r t II . The Ethnography P a r t II . The Write-up

The visual poster board: purchase a standard poster board from any art supply store (or your school bookstore). On this board you will be displaying the

Assignment 1 Put together a visual essay or display with as much text as you

aspects of your subject’s life that you chose to represent visually. You can use

feel necessary to accompany the photographic images portraying an aspect

any combination of images and text—whatever you feel will best communicate

of the event (or the event as a whole, if you feel it is appropriate). Think

your message. In class, everyone should present their display, give a few words

about what it is about the event you want to represent and how to best

on it, take questions, and then allow their subjects to say a few words. If your

communicate this to others through a combination of images and text.

professor can arrange it, have an opening in a lounge or gallery on campus, displaying these ethnographies.

Assignment 2 In a written essay, discuss the following three issues: a. Tell a little of how and why you chose the specific event you did, and your relationship to or knowledge (if you have any) of the event. (Yes, I prefer you attend something new and strange, but I realize this is not going to happen for everyone, so be honest and reflexive about it. In other words, try to be aware of your experiences in light of your own biases.) b. Compare and contrast what you witnessed and your interpretations with those of your informant. If they differ, why do you suppose this is? If they are the same, what were the major clues you spotted that helped you see it? c. Reflecting on the whole project, what surprised you? What have you

The written assignment (six pages): this paper is really two short papers. In the first section, report on the experience of being an ethnographer. Include in your report (but do not limit it to) how you chose the topic, as well as what went into the production and the planning. Elaborate on, for example, the meaning of the final poster (whether it communicated the message you wanted or took its own direction), on your relationship with your subject (ethnographical relationship), on how you selected and arranged the photographs and on why you used (or did not use) text, and on what surprises emerged along the way. The second section of the paper addresses being an anthropological subject. What did it feel like? What was most difficult for you? Which role was easier, being a subject or doing a study on another person? Why?

learned about our society? About conducting fieldwork? And, do you feel you were successful in representing a cultural event visually? (Explain why or why not.)

Go to your library and choose between six and ten ethnographies (make sure

Exercise

that each one includes photographs). For each one, note where the photographs

Photographs in Ethnographies

are placed, how they are titled, what their subjects are, and so forth. Also, read Exercise

Ethnography – Photo Poster Board

General Overview This project will consist of students doing short visual ethnographic research projects on each other. The finished project will be one visual poster board and one six-page paper. Divide into groups of three. Each member of the group will do a visual ethnographic project on another member and will be the subject for a project by the third student (this way no two people will be reciprocating).

enough of the text to see if the images are mentioned, and what is said about them. Then discuss, for each ethnography, what you feel the images contribute to the ethnography and support your answer. Finally, compare the use of the images in all of the ethnographies. What general conclusions can you come to about the use of photographs in these ethnographies? There are several different ways for you to choose the ethnographies. The following suggestions do not exhaust the possibilities: you can choose one ethnography from each decade since the 1940s up to the present. You can choose ethnographies published within a close time period. You can choose ethnogra-

P a r t I . Fieldwork

phies that deal with the same part of the world or are about similar topics. Or,

Schedule an interview with your subject. This interview is to get to know who

you can choose ethnographies at random.

your subject is, what his/her interests and passions are. With this information, come up with two or three ideas of what aspect of your subject’s life you would 72

RICHARD FREEMAN

Ph oto graph y A N D E T H N O G R A PH Y

73

References Cited Exercise

Choose a place you wish to document. This could be a small location, such as

Visual Ethnography of a Place

your own dorm room, your dorm floor, an apartment (yours or a friend’s), or larger places, such as an area on campus or a city neighborhood, or anything in between. Choose something that interests you, someplace you would like to know more about. Photograph it for one week. This is not an exercise in tourist photography, nor is it fine arts photography (well, not exactly); it is for social scientific/documentation research. It is a kind of visual journal of sociological issues (or possible issues), that you come across during the week. If you see a nice garden, do not take a snapshot, unless you think there is a sociological issue there (for example, compare the gardens in the wealthy neighborhoods to those in the poorer ones). There is, however, an “art” to this. A successful photograph should portray an emotional response to the viewer, or be a good enough representation of what you saw so that others can discuss the scenario with you. Trust your instincts! Listen to your emotions! Click now, analyze later. The object is to record things now and look back at the images later, share them with the class, and see if there is something there worth investigating further, or not. The final product of this assignment will be a shot log, a visual ethnographic poster board to be presented and discussed in class, and a three- to four-page paper.

P a r t I . Shooting and Logging Image Log. Keep a shot-by-shot log in the field. Write down what it is you shot. Note your emotional/intellectual state and your reasoning behind taking the image. What is it that you hope it will communicate to others (or to yourself)? You can hand in your original notes (so write legibly).

P a r t II . Visual Poster Board and Written Report Choose your most “successful” twelve images (you define “successful”), and arrange them on a poster board. Feel free to add any text you feel is necessary to allow the presentation to fully convey your message(s). These will be displayed and each presentation will be discussed. Along with the poster, hand in a three- to four-page reflection paper on the assignment. In the paper, answer the following questions: 1 What criteria did you use to take an image? Why? 2 Do the images convey the message to others that you intended? Why or why not? That is, which photos worked, which did not, and why? 3 After looking at the final prints, have you noticed anything of interest (e.g., a number of images on a specific theme, lack of people in them). Any compelling issues? Any real misses? 4 What have you learned about your own powers of observation? Your own interests? 5 What about this assignment did you like/dislike? What problems did you encounter or wrestle with along the way? 6 Finally what, if anything, did you learn?

74

RICHARD FREEMAN

Bateson, Gregory, and Margaret Mead. 1942. Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis. New York: New York Academy of Sciences. Becker, Howard S. 1982. Afterword. In Good Company, Douglas Harper. Pp. 169–172. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1998. Categories and Comparisons: How We Find Meanings in Photographs. Visual Anthropology Review 14(2) Fall–Winter:3–10. Berger, John, and Jean Mohr. 1982. Another Way of Telling. New York: Pantheon Books. Bordwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. 1993. Film Art: An Introduction, 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc. Brandes, Stanley. 1997. Photographic Imagery in the Ethnography of Spain. Visual Anthropology Review 13(1) Spring–Summer:1–13. Cancian, Frank. 1974. Another Place: Photographs of a Maya Community. San Francisco: Scrimshaw Press. Clifford, James, and George E. Marcus (editors). 1986. Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Collier, John Jr., and Malcolm Collier. 1986. Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Edwards, Elizabeth (editor). 1992. Anthropology and Photography 1860–1920. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1997. Beyond the Boundary: A Consideration of the Expressive in Photography and Anthropology. In Rethinking Visual Anthropology, M. Banks and H. Morphy, eds. Pp. 53–80. New Haven: Yale University Press. Freeman, Richard. 2001. The City as Mise-en-Scène: A Visual Exploration of the Culture of Politics in Buenos Aires. Visual Anthropology Review 17(1) Spring–Summer:36–59. 2001. Learning to Rebel: Socialist Youth Activism in Contemporary Buenos Aires. Ann Arbor: UMI Dissertation Services. Garbarino, Merwyn S. 1977. Sociocultural Theory in Anthropology: A Short History. Prospect Heights: Waveland Press, Inc. Gardner, Robert, and Karl Heider. 1968. Gardens of War: Life and Death in the New Guinea Stone Age. New York: Random House. Gould, Stephen Jay. 1981. The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Hammersley, Martyn. 1998. Reading Ethnographic Research, 2nd ed. London: Addison Wesley Longman Ltd. Harper, Douglas A. 1982. Good Company. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1987. Working Knowledge: Skill and Community in a Small Shop. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Interpretive Ethnography: From “Authentic” Voice to “Interpretive Eye.” In Eyes Across the Water, R. M. Flaes Boonzajer, ed. Pp. 33–42. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. 2001. Changing Works: Visions of a Lost Agriculture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jacknis, Ira. 1984. Franz Boas and Photography. Studies in Visual Communication 10(1) Winter:2–60. Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1952. Argonauts of the Western Pacific. Prospect Heights: Waveland Press, Inc. (first published in 1922). Marcus, George E., and Michael M. J. Fischer. 1986. Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mead, Margaret, and Francis Cooke MacGregor. 1951. Growth and Culture: A Photographic Study of Balinese Childhood. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Newhall, Beaumont. 1967. Foreword. In Dorothea Lange Looks at the American Country Woman, D. Lange, ed. Pp. 5–9. Fort Worth: Amon Carter Museum. Sobieszek, Robert. 1974. Introduction. In One Mind’s Eye: The Portraits and Other Photographs of Arnold Newman. Pp. vi–xix. Boston: David R. Godine, Publisher. Sorenson, Richard E.. 1976. The Edge of the Forest: Land, Childhood, and Change in a New Guinea Protoagricultural Society. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. Sullivan, Gerald. 1999. Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, and Highland Bali: Fieldwork Photographs of Bayung Gedé, 1936–1939. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wright, Terence. 1991. The Fieldwork Photographs of Jenness and Malinowski and the Beginnings of Modern Anthropology. Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford 22(1):41–58.

Ph oto graph y A N D E T H N O G R A PH Y

75

s e c t i o n II

Images from the Past

Se ction II I m a g e s F r o m t h e Pa s t

Introduction

W

hile cell phone owners flash pictures to one another, and computer monitors flicker, old sepia prints, antique postcards, and double images for viewing with a stereoscope sit in trunks in upstairs attics. Stacks of glass plates and sheets of tin gather dust in museum back rooms. Photographs have been documenting the world for

a long period in history. They are a window on how the past looked, and as such, a treasure for historians and family members. Pictures from times before ours are as valuable as written documents and provide the story of how things were in a way that is doubly rich.

Joanna Cohan Scherer “Historical Photographs of North American Indians: Primary Documents, BUT View with Care”

Chapter 4.

Is there a picture, or series of pictures, in your attic or in a historical archive that you could study in this way to turn up unexpected clues about realities from the past?

78

Joanna Scherer is an anthropologist and illustrations researcher for the encyclopedic twenty-volume Handbook of North American Indians, published by the Smithsonian Institution. Her chapter shows how some nineteenth-century photographs of Native Americans can be very misleading indeed. The chapter concentrates on a stereograph depicting a manikin dressed in Plains Indian clothing made in the image of the Oglala Teton Sioux Chief Red Cloud, whose 1872 visit to Washington provided the impetus for making the figure. The same manikin was used again to reflect a more warlike image. The author shows how the same shirt appears worn by representatives of widely different tribal origins, how household feather dusters were used as “Indian” hair ornaments, and the like. She explains how using such images as primary documents must be tempered by awareness of social biases, stereotypes, politics, economic interests, and serendipity that formed the space-time context when the pictures were made. Scherer has worked for many years on projects involving images of North American Indigenous peoples. Her background is in anthropology, and she studies historical photographs as documents that contain valuable information about Native peoples. She knows how pictures can deceive, and her detective work about less-than-honest images reveals the embarrassing history of discriminatory attitudes we inherit today.

Julie M. Flowerday “Blasting a Boulder and Building Memories”

Chapter 5.

Julie Flowerday’s fascination with the high mountain valley of Hunza in Pakistan began in a London library. There, she viewed photographs made by David Lorimer in the 1930s. Among the images was one of a huge boulder inhabited by small imps known as “Phuts” in the local religious tradition. By Can you think of a “before” the 1990s, when she visited Hunza, the boulder had been blasted away and “after” situation recorded in images that would proalong with religious and other sociocultural traditions that went with it. vide interesting information Among field techniques, Flowerday used photo elicitation (see Chapter about changes over time using 1) in an attempt to discover how the world of Hunza in the 1930s had photo elicitation and folklore transformed to the one she saw in the 1990s. She also compares folk sto- studies techniques? ries told by members of different generations about the boulder. Julie Flowerday is a photographer and anthropologist who is also a researcher. Here, she wishes to understand the relation between past and present belief systems among the people she comes to know in this Himalayan town.

79

Chapter 4

Historical Photographs of North American Indians Primary Documents, BUT View with Care J oanna Coh an Sch e re r

S

till pictures, especially photographs, have been either ignored or misused by many researchers. Reproduced for the purposes of breaking up text or as fillers for lack of text, they are often found without captions, sources, or any documentation, or have been cropped beyond recognition. Pictures of North American Indians can be important primary documents for anthropology, but must be critically analyzed and evaluated.

Pictures are no more objective than written material. The artist or photographer has a point of view, a bias. The camera may pick up more than the photographer originally aimed at, but still the photographer aimed at just one point of one event in the continuum of action. Thus, though a photograph is an actual record of an event and not an after-the-fact record, such as a painting made from memory, its objectivity is limited by the data accompanying it. These data include: who took the photograph, when, where, why (the purpose for which it was made), how (the type of equipment used), who is depicted in the photograph, and what was their reaction to being photographed. Unfortunately, too many photographs remain undocumented and thus almost totally useless as primary material. Among the factors that are vital to a study of historical photographs are knowledge of the limitations of early photographic equipment, understanding of the photographer’s biases and goals, and awareness of the inclinations of the subject being photographed. Today’s pocket-size, instant developing cameras and digital images make it difficult for us to understand the conditions under which nineteenth-century photographs were made.1 For example, the well-known photographer of North American Indians, William Henry Jackson, who accompanied the Hayden Expedition in 1870,2 carried along a gigantic camera, as well as a wagonload of chemicals, a dark tent, and hundreds of glass-plate negatives. Negatives made of thick glass were used until 1884, when George Eastman introduced the first paper-roll film. The glass plates were frequently 8 x10 or 11 x 14 inches in size and about 1/4 inch thick; each negative weighed almost a pound. In the photographic process, the glass was covered with an iodized collodion and bathed in a silver nitrate solution. The picture was then exposed for several minutes to fix the image and developed immediately. The plate could be used only when it was wet, and thus this type of photography became known as the wet-plate process. After the plate was

80

J oa n n a Co h a n S c h e r e r

1. Banta and Hinsley 1986:29–36. 2. Scherer 1975:68.

81

3. Fleming and Luskey 1986:192–213.

Figure 4.1. Sky Striking the Earth, Chippewa, from White Earth, Minnesota, wearing a feather duster headdress. Photograph by William Dinwiddie, Washington, D.C., 1896. National Anthropological Archives (NAA), Smithsonian: 590-a.

82

dry, it was varnished and packed in a wooden grooved box to await making prints. Individuals being photographed were sometimes backed into a metal vise to keep them still during the exposure. This limitation of the equipment should be taken into consideration when one views posed, stoic portraits of nineteenth-century Indians. Not until later did faster-speed equipment allow the capturing of spontaneity of life. The goals and biases of particular photographers are important to understand when viewing photos. Many people were taking photographs as early as 1860, despite the difficulties of using the equipment. There were professional photographers who specialized in recording Indians at official events. Included in this group were cameramen who took photographs of treaty councils and delegates visiting Washington, D.C. There were also itinerant photographers— some with short-lived studios in the frontier towns3 and some with traveling galleries—who took pictures primarily as a commercial enterprise. These men and women often attempted to make their subjects look exotic, savage, or romantic in order to create more interest in their product, the Indian prints they sold. One should not underestimate the popularity of this type of product in the nineteenth century. In an age without movies, television, or the automobile, the family parlor was the amusement center, and stereograph viewing was a vital part of family entertainment. Indian stereos were especially appealing and thus profitable to photographers. Unless the subject was camera-shy, perhaps because of a lack of understanding of the process, the inclinations of the subject also need to be considered. For example, unusual costumes appearing in a picture are usually the result of the subject’s preference. Borrowing an item that struck his fancy—such as a feather duster used by Sky Striking the Earth, a Chippewa photographed at the Smithsonian in 1896—was no doubt the man’s own idea and used as a substitute for a traditional feather headdress (Figure 4.1). Another challenge in the evaluation of a picture is the primping of the subjects that often took place before a picture was taken. Thus dressing up in ceremonial costume to perform mundane activities or being surrounded by unrelated artifacts is commonly seen in photos. The limitations of photographic equipment, cameramen’s biases, and subjects’ J oa n n a Co h a n S c h e r e r

inclinations thus all contribute to discrepancies in the ethnographic picture record and must be considered in viewing historical Indian photographs as primary documents. The following are some examples of specific inaccuracies. John K. Hillers was the chief photographer of John Wesley Powell’s second Colorado River expedition of 1871–1873. He began the trip as a boatman but replaced the two professional photographers when they left the expedition. Hillers learned photography quickly and his pictures from this trip are always remarkable, if not always ethnographically accurate. He later became the chief photographer for the U.S. Geological Survey. Because Major Powell was head of both the Survey and the Bureau of American Ethnology at the Smithsonian, Hiller’s Indian pictures became a sizable part of Smithsonian records. He actively took Indian photographs until he retired in 1900. Figure 4.2 is a stereograph of a southern Paiute mother and her children from northern Arizona. It was taken by Hillers in 1873. It is artfully posed and shows the subject dressed in new Plains-style buckskin garments. A close-up (Figure 4.2a) shows her wearing a beaded buckskin dress. According to Powell’s letter of transmittal with the specimen, dated April 12, 1871, the dress was collected from the Utes, probably on his first Colorado River expedition in 1869. It was cataloged as Ute, accession number 2106, catalog number 10800. It was then carried back by Powell into the area of the southern Paiute for this photograph two years later. The museum number and “Colorado River” written across the bodice underscore the ethnographic unreliability of this whole series of photographs.

Figure 4.2. “The (Paiute) Mother.” Photograph and caption by John K. Hillers, Kaibab Plateau, northern Arizona, 1872–1873. NAA, Smithsonian: 1599. Figure 4.2a: Close-up of same.

H i sto r i c a l Ph oto g r a p h s o f N o rt h A m e r i c a n I n d i a n s

83

Figure 4.3. Left, Jacob Tall Bull, Northern Cheyenne, from Lame Deer, Montana; right, Thadeas Redwater (also called Mayom), Northern Cheyenne, from Lame Deer, Montana. Photographs by De Lancey Gill, Washington, D.C., 1914. Left, NAA, Smithsonian: 220-a; right, NAA, Smithsonian: 226-a.

84

What can be seen here, then, is a premeditated distortion of the historical record by a man whose work is so well regarded that it is tempting to accept these images at face value. Major Powell left a stunning record of accomplishments, and his energy created one of the foremost organizations dedicated to recording American Indian traditions, the Bureau of American Ethnology at the Smithsonian. The reason he had these pictures taken seems to be one simply of monetary gain. He, as others, sought a share of the lucrative market photography created. Powell received 40 percent of the proceeds of the sale of Hillers’ stereographs; Almon Harris Thompson, the chief cartographer of the Powell expedition, received 30 percent; and Hillers received 30 percent. There is no record of how much Powell made in this enterprise, but by July 1872, he had a photographer print up 4,288 prints. During the first six months of 1874, it is recorded that the sales of Hillers’ photographs made a total of $4,100, a very large sum in those days. A standing joke around the U.S. Geological Survey in the 1880s was that Major Powell had paid off the mortgage on his Washington, D.C., house through the sale of these views. Like Hillers, De Lancey Gill was a photographer for the Bureau of American Ethnology. Gill was employed by the Bureau from 1888 to 1932. During that time, he accompanied expeditions to the field and photographed Indian delegates who came to Washington, D.C. These delegates were often brought to the Smithsonian by Andrew John, a Seneca Indian who was paid one dollar per head for each Indian he brought to be photographed. The photographic record made by Gill during this time shows the tendency even of Smithsonian photographers, who were more concerned with the historical record than commercial photographers, to try to capture the more exotic side of the Indian. Two Cheyenne men, Jacob Tall Bull (Figure 4.3, left) and Thadeas Redwater (Figure 4.3, right), were photographed wearing the same shirt with beaded flag design and headdress. Both pictures were taken in 1914. The clothing shown in Figure 4.3 is not found in the Smithsonian ethnological collections, so it is not possible to determine if the photographer had a hand in their costuming or if the individuals simply borrowed one another’s garments. Regardless, the anthropological record has been confused by this duplication of clothing. In some cases, knowing whether a man had exchanged his shirt or headdress with another would be vital—for example, in trying to identify the man’s status or feats by his clothes. Studio props, especially Plains clothing, were owned by many commercial and frontier photographers. There is picture evidence to hypothesize that Christian Barthelmess, who photographed Plains Indians in the 1880s and 1890s in Montana, must have had studio clothes in which he dressed his subjects.4 Some studio props were overt cultural symbols, or “Indian” signs like tomahawks, J oa n n a Co h a n S c h e r e r

blankets, and tipis as seen in William Henry Jackson’s images taken in 1868,5 or in photographs made by Benedicte Wrensted of Northern Shoshone and Bannock Indians 1895–1912.6 Besides dressing up their subjects, some photographers attempted to create exotic airs through the use of body paint. If the Indian posing did not wear paint, some photographers touched up the negative to provide it. Figure 4.4 shows a Plains Indian woman from the Kansa tribe and is an extreme example of this doctoring. Lines applied to the negatives run over her eyes and mouth. It was touched up sometime in the late nineteenth century. Although some of the works of Christian Barthelmess, De Lancey Gill, and John K. Hillers have been cited here to show inaccuracies, these photographers did not always distort the historical record. On the contrary, most of the photographs they took are very valuable and frequently among the few picture sources of nineteenth-century Indians. I have emphasized the exceptions to demonstrate that even the most documentary-minded photographers had moments when historical accuracy became secondary to other goals. The value of revealing these inaccuracies is to caution students about the challenges of picture research and to make them aware that pictures cannot be taken at face value but must be analyzed critically. Some examples using historical photographs of American Indians as primary documents illustrate the variety of information that can be learned from such studies. The photographs of Red Cloud (1821–1909), a Sioux warriorstatesman, were analyzed by Frank Goodyear.7 Tracing Red Cloud’s career through the photographs (1872–1909), many of which were studio images, he was able to interpret how Red Cloud used photography as an alternative means of communication with Anglo policy makers. Photography helped bridge the divide that separated the two cultures, and Goodyear’s publication shows how Red Cloud appropriated a non-Native technology (the photograph) in his interactions with Anglo-Americans.8 An analysis of the studio photographs of Sarah Winnemucca (1844–1891),9 a Northern Paiute activist, provides another example. I examined her self-promoted imagery as an American Indian princess and the way in which this gave her acceptance by the Anglo power structure. Later she developed another image as a political activist striving for reform and Indian self-determination. In the late 1880s, this created a contradiction and irresoluble dilemma for the U.S. government. Yet another example is a study identifying a previously unidentified daguerreotype as the 1852 Omaha delegation.10 Through content analysis of the original daguerreotype, using material culture details in the images to narrow down the tribal identity, and through comparison with other photographs and period newspaper accounts, it was possible to determine the historical context and identify the image. H i sto r i c a l Ph oto g r a p h s o f N o rt h A m e r i c a n I n d i a n s

Figure 4.4. Studio portrait of a young Kansa woman wearing trade silver brooch and earrings. Photographer and date not recorded. NAA, Smithsonian: 56,834.

4. Scherer 1975:75. 5. Hales 1988:33–34. See also Dippie 1992:132–136 for discussion of imagery of the “noble savage” in photographs. 6. Scherer 1997, 2006. 7. Goodyear 2003. 8. Goodyear 2003:186–189. 9. Scherer 2004. 10. Scherer 1997, 1998.

85

Following is a detailed example illustrating my dissection of historical photos. It is an analysis of a stereograph that preserves the earliest representation of a Native American in the Smithsonian Institution.11 This example demonstrates the types of information retrievable from historical pictures when one uses them as primary documents. T h e P h o t o g r a p h a s A r t i fac t

The project began with an artifact—a photograph (Figure 4.5), one-half of an unidentified stereograph of a manikin dressed in Indian clothing. I had selected the image for use in the Plains volume of the Handbook of North American Indians12 because it seemed to be a very early museum representation of a Plains Indian. It appeared to be half of a stereograph, because of the rounded top of the image. Having begun my career in 1966 at the Smithsonian working in the building known as the “Castle,” I also believed that the stone wall background in the photograph was the inside of that building. Comparative photo research brought to light other related prints. Figure 4.5. Half of an unidentified, unattributed stereograph of the manikin that initiated this research project. NAA, Smithsonian: 82-11677.

11. Scherer 2003, 2005. 12. DeMallie 2001.

86

J oa n n a Co h a n S c h e r e r

A photo of a full stereograph of the original image turned out to be a red herring. Published by J.  F. Jarvis, and credited to him as the photographer, it was part of a series of stereographic views that he produced of Washington, D.C. However, further research on the Jarvis stereograph showed that he was not the actual photographer. Figure 4.6 bears a copyright date of 1873 printed on the mount, with identification of the photographer as C. Seaver Jr. The essay on the back of the stereograph, titled “The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.,” provided verification of the locale and the manikin’s location on the ground floor of the Smithsonian Castle. The next-to-last paragraph states: “Among the articles of interest in this collection may be found wax figures representing Dr. Kane among the Esquimaux; a Japanese Warrior in the costume of his country; and an Indian Chief [the manikin under discussion].” The photographer credited was Seaver. Charles (or Chandler) Seaver Jr. had studios in Boston and other Massachusetts towns from about 1856–1879 and traveled throughout the United States taking photographs. This image was taken by Seaver in the Smithsonian’s first photo lab, probably before the manikins were put on display in the museum’s gallery. The Seaver stereograph of the manikin was identified only as “Indian Chief,” while the Jarvis stereograph of the manikin was labeled “Red Cloud.” That this figure can be positively identified as Red Cloud, the famous Oglala Teton Sioux warrior-statesman, is demonstrated here through ethnohistorical research. As shown in yet another stereograph (Figure 4.7), a manikin identified as Red Cloud was displayed at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, which opened in May 1876. The manikin at the Centennial was one of dozens of life-size figures created by Smithsonian staff to display Native American clothing, ornaments, and weapons. By 1876, stereographs of this figure were being sold by the Centennial Photographic Company clearly identified as “Indian Chief, Red Cloud.” Upon comparing photographs of the two manikins (Figure 4.8), the one exhibited in 1873 at the Smithsonian (right) and the one exhibited in 1876 in Philadelphia (left), I at first did not believe they were the same figure or modeled head. However, computer scanning recreations show convincingly that the two are the same and were modeled after a photo of Red Cloud taken in May 1872. H i sto r i c a l Ph oto g r a p h s o f N o rt h A m e r i c a n I n d i a n s

At Top: Figure 4.6. Stereograph identified as “Indian chief.” Credited to the photographer C. Seaver Jr. of Mass., who turned out in fact to be the photographer. In May 1873 this and six other stereographs by Seaver were deposited in the Library of Congress and copyrighted by Charles Pollock of Boston, who owned a major stereograph publishing house. Note the feather trailer over the left shoulder of the manikin. Private collection.

Above: Figure 4.7. Stereograph of the manikin identified as “2613. Indian Chief. Red Cloud.” This image was not credited to a photographer but was published in 1876 as part of the Centennial Photographic Company’s series on the centennial exhibits. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Computer comparison of the 1876 manikin photo (left) and the 1873 manikin photo (right). Scherer private collection.

Figure 4.8.

87

A n a ly s i s o f t h e P h o t o g r a p h : M a n i k i n ’ s P h y s i c a l F e at u r e s

Apparent subtle differences between the physical features of the 1873 and 1876 manikins in the photos result from the fact that one was photographed in daylight outside the Centennial Building while the other was photographed inside the Smithsonian Castle. The angle of the camera was also different. Notice that the position of the hand and the stance of the right leg are the same. The areas of closest parallel are the chin, neck, and nose. The wig also appears to be the same. The face of the 1876 figure looks much darker, which was one of the reasons I initially believed it to be a different manikin head. An article in a Washington, D.C., paper cast light on this: “The gentleman who arranged the [manikins for the Centennial] did the best he could by painting the faces differently, which gave them some variety.”13 Red Cloud’s face may be darker and shiny on the 1876 figure because it, too, had been painted. Comparing the clothing on the manikins (Figure 4.8), both wear the same shirt, leggings, moccasins, and bear claw necklace. There are also differences: the 1873 manikin wears a buffalo-horned headdress and holds a drum and drum beater, while the 1876 figure wears a warrior’s feather bonnet and holds a pipe tomahawk and what looks like a wooden club. H i s t o r i c a l a n d C u lt u r a l C o n t e x t a n d t h e P o l i t i c s o f R e p r e s e n tat i o n Studio portrait of Red Cloud wearing cloth jacket, European necktie, and gloves. He also has a blanket over his lap with a beaded strip sewn onto it. Photograph by Alexander Gardner, Washington, D.C., 1872. NAA, Smithsonian: 3235.

Figure 4.9.

13. The Evening Star, September 18, 1886, “Geronimo in Effigy: A figure which is to adorn the National Museum.” For full article, see Scherer 2005:98 (endnote 10).

88

In the early 1870s, Red Cloud was well known in Anglo-Indian politics and featured frequently in the news media. He came to Washington, D.C., for the first time as part of a delegation in June 1870, but was not successfully photographed at that time, although Mathew B. Brady, the well-known Washington portrait photographer, made an attempt. When Red Cloud returned to Washington for a second visit in May 1872, he was photographed by Alexander Gardner (Figure 4.9). In comparing Figure 4.9 with the 1873 and 1876 manikin photos (Figures 4.6–4.8), it is clear that the features in both closely resemble the well-known chief. It is quite likely that a sculptor commissioned to make the manikin head would have sought out photographs of an actual Indian to copy. It would not have been surprising for the artist to select or be directed to create a head of a well-known personality. A review of The Evening Star for 1872 shows that Red Cloud was the most frequently mentioned individual Indian in this D.C. newspaper for that year. Research in the Smithsonian archives uncovered an entry for a sculptor named Sidney Moulthrop who had been paid $50 for modeling a cast head of Red Cloud, July 11, 1872, only five weeks after Red Cloud left Washington. J oa n n a Co h a n S c h e r e r

According to some reporters who visited the Centennial exhibits, the manikin of Red Cloud was a “repulsive looking image with raised tomahawk and a belt of human scalps.” The belt of human scalps almost certainly refers to the fringe of horse and human hair on the shirt. The changes in Red Cloud’s paraphernalia, especially the substitution of a tomahawk for a drum, were most likely an effort to make the 1876 figure look more warlike. The manikin presented a hostile Indian despite the fact that Red Cloud had been at peace with the government since 1868. This media representation was doubtless magnified after July 4, 1876, when word of General George A. Custer’s defeat at the Battle of the Little Big Horn reached Philadelphia. In general, nineteenth-century Anglo-Americans feared North American Indians, an attitude fostered by the media. C o n t e n t A n a ly s i s o f t h e P h o t o g r a p h — C lo t h i n g a n d Pa r a p h e r n a l i a Buffalo split-horned headdress worn by the manikin. Collected by Lt. Gouverneur Kemble Warren, U.S.A., from the Sioux of the Upper Missouri River in 1855 and donated to the Smithsonian in 1856. The manikin (in Figures 4.5, 4.6, and 4.8) shows that this headdress had a feather trailer (Hanson, 1996:50–51) when it was displayed in 1873 that was subsequently separated from the headdress. This research project reunited the headdress and trailer. Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian: cat. no. E001941; neg. no. 81-11347.

Figure 4.10.

Because the drum held by the figure in the 1873 photograph (Figure 4.5) had a museum catalog number on it, my research led to the Smithsonian collections. The purpose of searching for the clothing and other artifacts was to help narrow down the date when the manikin was made and first put on display. This research was necessary because we had not yet found the information on the sculptor’s payment for making the manikin head. The Yankton Sioux drum, collected in 1868, was part of the Army Medical Museum collection transferred to the Smithsonian in 1869, as were the Sioux earrings and the Arapahoe moccasins. Finding the dates of the drum, earrings, and moccasins allowed us to narrow the date the manikin was made to after 1869 but before May 1873, when the photograph was copyrighted. The Sioux headdress (Figure 4.10) was collected much earlier in 1855, so was not helpful in narrowing down the date. However, the buffalo split-horn headdress no longer had a feather trailer associated with it. We were able to identify the feather trailer by the red stroud (cloth) and sinew on both the trailers and headdress. The stereograph again became primary documentation to show that this headdress originally had a feather trailer. The leggings worn by the figure were also part of the collection made in 1855 and were until fall 2004 displayed on another Sioux manikin in the American Indian Hall in the National Museum of Natural History. Neither the bear claw necklace nor the drum beater were found in the Smithsonian’s collection. H i sto r i c a l Ph oto g r a p h s o f N o rt h A m e r i c a n I n d i a n s

89

Figure 4.11. Chief Smoke’s (Oglala Teton Sioux; uncle of Red Cloud) shirt (back). A gift to William O. Collins prior to Smoke’s death in 1864, the shirt was the one worn by the manikin in 1873 and 1876 and also by another manikin in 1892. It was never identified as Smoke’s shirt in any source this author has seen and sometime in the twentieth century the shirt lost its documentation altogether. This research project reunited the shirt and its provenance. Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian: cat. no. 1851; neg. no. 99-20262.

C h i e f Sm o k e ’ s S h i r t a s I n d i a n Ic o n

One of the most interesting discoveries was the beautifully quilled and beaded skin shirt (Figure 4.11). Using the summary of ethnological objects prepared by the Repatriation Office, we found that there were thirty Plains Indians shirts accessioned in the anthropology collections for the dates we were checking. After previewing the cataloged information, we actually looked at only five shirts. We easily identified the one on the manikin. It had been labeled “T-1120 War shirt, Sioux??” with no other provenance. A T-number stands for an unidentified object in the collections. A review of the catalog cards for all the Plains Indians shirts revealed that number 1851 could not be found in the collections, but the card gave detailed information about it from an accession letter. The card noted that the shirt was a gift to William O. Collins from Smoke, a Teton Sioux chief, prior to Smoke’s death in the autumn of 1864. In 1866, Collins donated it to the Smithsonian. The original accession letter gave a detailed description of the shirt: I send you the state robe of Smoke, long the Head Chief of the Ogallallah band of Sioux. It is made of 2 skins of the Rocky Mt. sheep or goat and the hair ornamenting the border is from the scalps taken by him in war, and the tails of horses obtained in the same manner—each cluster of black indicates a single scalp, and the yellow and blue, a horse. . . . He was a very large and fine looking Indian, weighing at least 250 lbs. The information fit the extra large shirt that had no provenance and that our manikin had worn. The shirt has a V-shaped neck flap and is decorated with large circular beaded discs attached to the center of the front and back in well-executed seed beads. These are surrounded by small circular quilled discs. It was clearly the shirt of an important chief. 90

J oa n n a Co h a n S c h e r e r

Through the years, Chief Smoke’s shirt became something of a studio prop used by nineteenth-century Smithsonian staff for dressing up their Indian subjects or consultants. One such individual was Squint Eye (Figure 4.12), a Northern Cheyenne who worked for the Smithsonian between 1879–1881. A series of twentynine photographs taken at the Smithsonian shows him demonstrating sign language gestures, wearing Smoke’s shirt. Although it is not known whose idea it was to dress Squint Eye in Chief Smoke’s shirt, a long-haired wig, and a bear claw necklace, the purpose was obviously to make him look genuinely “Indian.” Native American visitors may have been dressed up in the shirt to appear more traditionally Indian or, when photographed at the Smithsonian, they may have asked to borrow the shirt to promote their own self-image. The last photograph found of a visiting Indian wearing Chief Smoke’s shirt is one of John Grass, a Blackfoot Sioux chief from Standing Rock Reservation (Figure 4.13). Taken by De Lancey Gill in 1912, it appeared as an illustration in Frances Densmore’s 1918 study of Teton Sioux music. Grass is wearing an Euro-American cotton shirt under the skin shirt, as can be seen by the collar, so without a doubt he donned Smoke’s shirt for the photography session. Whether he requested to wear this item or was induced to wear it by either Gill or Densmore is lost to history. All photographs are representations created to record, entertain, and educate. They are always made with a purpose, a bias. This means they must be looked at critically. If used carefully, these photos can bring back cultural information about the period in which they were made. One must consider the subject of the photograph, the photographer, and the viewer. In my Red Cloud manikin stereograph research project, the subject—a manikin—obviously had no input; neither did Red Cloud, who may not have even known that there was a representation of him in the museum. The manikin was made by Anglos for a non-Indian audience. The commercial photographer of the image was interested in producing his stereographs (like postcards today) to sell to a new tourist industry. As to the viewer, we can understand how the manikin was perceived when it was H i sto r i c a l Ph oto g r a p h s o f N o rt h A m e r i c a n I n d i a n s

Above: Figure 4.12. Squint Eye, or Tichkematse, Cheyenne, wearing Chief Smoke’s shirt. Photograph by Thomas W. Smillie, Washington, D.C., 1879. NAA, Smithsonian: Sign Language #45. Left: Figure 4.13. John Grass, also known as Charging Bear, Blackfoot Teton Sioux. Photograph by De Lancey Gill, Washington, D.C., 1912. NAA, Smithsonian: 3115-A.

91

first put on display in 1873: an idealized image of an Indian warrior that gives insight into how Sioux men were stereotyped. The desire to create a recognizable figure for the 1873 exhibit responded to public awareness of Red Cloud as a famous Sioux warrior-statesman popularized by the news media. Without the news media, such public recognition would not have been possible. Changes in the manikin’s items of clothing and paraphernalia from the 1873 Smithsonian exhibit to the 1876 Centennial exhibit reveal manipulation of meanings that transformed Red Cloud from a representative of peace to one of war. The rewards of careful study of historical photographs go far beyond their use as mere illustrations and demonstrate that images are in and of themselves primary documents capable of providing valuable information that may lead scholars in various unsuspected directions, with surprising results. Research Methodology

14. Alison Brown and Laura Peers in “Pictures Bring us Messages” Sinaakssiiksi aohtsimaahpihkookiyaawa: Photographs and Histories from the Kainai Nation take historical photographs back to the Blackfoot in Canada with outstanding results.

92

Using historical photographs as primary documents in anthropological research necessitates systematic study of ethnohistorical materials. Although photographs are often used uncritically as illustrations to divide text, they are in fact primary documents that respond to analysis using the methods of anthropology and history. Through comparative study, images have the potential to provide a wealth of information. Picture research starts with the artifact: the photograph. Nineteenthcentury images, first made on glass negatives and later film, include cartes de visite, cabinet card photographs (see Glossary), stereographic prints, and daguerreotypes, to name a few types. Knowing the type of image narrows down the time period of production and popular usage. Once the time period of the photograph is identified, a content analysis of the image is necessary. Comparison with other identified photographs reveals similarities and differences. For American Indian photo research, this means locating photographs of the same individual or tribe. For this, access to archives, historical societies, and special collections libraries is critical. Discovering the location of relevant materials requires networking and culminative research experience. With the development of the Internet, such networking and access are becoming easier. The subject of the photograph must be identified by name, family, group, or tribe, as well as by location where the photograph was taken. The subject is usually a primary controller of the image. In identifying the subject, ethnological knowledge of the people or tribe, the family, and even the individual must be sought out, as well as data on the historical time period.14 The photographer must then be identified, for he or she is another controller of the image. Blackman (1986) also describes how to locate historical photographs of American Indians, document images, interpret them, and recover culture history despite the biases and inaccuracies in the photographic record. As to ethical decisions involved in picture research and publication, the most pressing issue is the right of ownership, access, and use of historical (and contemporary) images. To some, these images are cultural property, not open to J oa n n a Co h a n S c h e r e r

“others.” I have addressed this topic in an article on the use of the photographs made by W. H. Boorne in 1887 of the Medicine Lodge ceremony among the Blackfoot/Blood Indians in southern Alberta, Canada.15 In the United States, copyright laws grant photographers ownership of their works. Seventy-five years after a photograph is made, the image becomes available to anyone for any use. All nineteenth-century historical photographs are now, therefore, in the public domain. There is a right to privacy, but photographs taken in public places are deemed open to all.16 From the point of view of some contemporary Native people, ownership of photographs, especially those that show ceremonial activities, should remain with the group and are today being characterized as privileged intellectual property.17 Access today can be restricted at the discretion of archivists, librarians, and private collectors, and some are doing so. For many of these guardians of collections, however, their prime responsibility is to prevent censorship of their material.18 From American Indian viewpoints, access should be denied or restricted because knowledge found in historical images is often seen as carrying ritual power, and even danger, if not treated properly by the proper personnel.19 The fear and fact is that this knowledge is being used by such groups as “New Agers,” who are appropriating indigenous rituals and knowledge and using it without guidance. The issue of use and whether academics should publish historical photographs (or other information) that the present-day descendants of these subjects do not wish to make public is even more contentious. Western legal privacy and publication rules restrict commercial use, but in general grant the use of such materials for educational purposes.20 Many American Indians want to restrict access to initiated members of their group. One of the basic principles in conflict is the nature of knowledge in different cultures. In Western culture, knowledge is for everyone. Scholarly inquiry is acceptable on any and all sociocultural activities. Western scholarly responsibility for scientific inquiry demands that the results of research be made available to all, but with the obligation to respect the wishes and desires of the people who are represented in the research. The fact is that access to certain classes of photographs—especially of ceremonies—are increasingly restricted and today’s attitudes are being used to rethink or judge events from the past. It is, I believe, disrespectful to second-guess the reasoning of those individuals who created the photographic record (or who participated in being photographed) and to consider the act of photography solely on the basis of present-day sensibilities of what is deemed ethical or appropriate.21 I do not believe one should sanitize or alter historical facts to fit today’s political correctness. The fundamental conflict, then, is between scholars, who have had it in their power to determine the topics studied and the view presented, and Native peoples seeking to gain decision-making power over their past. A power struggle continues, even though the post-modern literature rejects the authoritative voice of the scholar to speak for or about the “other.”22 In my opinion, the issues of cultural authority can only be resolved by the acceptance of diverse voices. Although we must respect contemporary American Indian sensibilities, at the same time we must not let presentist bias rewrite history. H i sto r i c a l Ph oto g r a p h s o f N o rt h A m e r i c a n I n d i a n s

15. Scherer 1999. 16. A counter to that generalization is presented by Holman (1996:115; based on Edward Hall’s work), who makes the observation that even in public places private activities occur. 17. Sullivan 1997. 18. Powers 1996. 19. Jacknis 1996. 20. Thomas 1998. 21. Today researchers routinely obtain “informed consent” from their consultants. Although consent and compensation were an issue in the periods of early photography, it is open to question whether full understanding of the photographer’s objectives was possible. 22. Haas 1996.

93

Suggested Topics for Researching Historical Photographs 1 Prepare a biographical sketch of one photographer using his or her collection of photographs and such ethnohistorical materials as the photographer’s journals or diaries, correspondence, business directories, local newspapers, or business records. See Scherer 2006:14–15 for a listing of women photographers of American Indians, many of whom could benefit from further research. 2 Create a picture essay of one person, collecting images from the earliest to latest to see what you can tell about the individual from photographic representations. 3 Look at photos of a particular tribe or ethnic group (by different photographers) and see what can be discerned about changes in material culture, such as clothing, houses, economic activities, and transportation. (See Blackman 1981 for such a study of the architecture of the Haida Indians on the Northwest coast). 4 Analyze the work of a non-Western or indigenous photographer. This is a relatively untouched field (see Scherer 1990, endnote 11, which lists a number of Native American photographers whose images might be studied). An example of such research is Jacknis (1992) on the photographs of George Hunt, a Kwakiutl photographer, which discusses the Native approach to ethnographic photography. Lippard (1992) also contains essays, mostly by Native American artists and writers, on historical and contemporary photographs of Indians. Such studies are needed. 5 Study a group of unidentified photos from a particular place. If possible, take the photographs back to the community where they were made and ask the elders to look at them and provide family identifications and other comments when possible. Comparison with census or allotment records can often provide positive identifications.

References Banta, Melissa and Curtis Hinsley. 1986. From Site to Sight: Anthropology, Photography and the Power of Imagery. Cambridge, Mass.: Peabody Museum Press. Blackman, Margaret. 1981. Window on the Past: The Photographic Ethnohistory of the Northern and Kaigani Haida. Ottawa, On.: National Museum of Man. Mercury Series. Ethnology Service Papers 74. 1986. Visual Ethnohistory: Photographs in the Study of Culture History. Pp. 137–166 in Studies in Third World Societies Publication 35. Dennis Weidman, Gerry Williams, and Mario Zamora, eds. Williamsburg, Va.: William and Mary College. Brown, Alison and Laura Peers. 2006. “Pictures Bring Us Messages” Sinaakssiiksi aohtsimaahpihkookiyaawa: Photographs and Histories from the Kainai Nation. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. DeMallie, Raymond, ed. 2001. Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 13, Plains. Washington: Government Printing Office.

94

J oa n n a Co h a n S c h e r e r

Densmore, Frances. 1918. Teton Sioux Music. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 61. Washington: Government Printing Office. Dippie, Brian W. 1992. Representing the Other: The North American Indian. Pp. 132–136 in Anthropology and Photography: 1860–1920. Elizabeth Edwards, ed. New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with The Royal Anthropological Institute, London. Fleming, Paula Richardson and Judith Luskey. 1986. The North American Indians in Early Photographs. New York: Harper and Row. Goodyear, Frank H. 2003. Red Cloud: Photographs of a Lakota Chief. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Haas, Jonathan. 1996. Power, Objects, and a Voice for Anthropology. Current Anthropology 37(special issue):1–22. Hales, Peter B. 1988. William Henry Jackson and the Transformation of the American Landscape. Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press. Hanson, James A. 1996. Little Chief’s Gatherings: The Smithsonian Institution’s G. K. Warren 1855–1856 Plains Indian Collection and the New York State Library’s 1855–1857 Warren Expedition Journals. Crawford, Nebraska: The Fur Press. Holman, Nigel. 1996. Photography as Social and Economic Exchange: Understanding the Challenges Posed by Photography of Zuni Religious Ceremonies. American Indian Culture and Research Journal 20(3):93–110. Jacknis, Ira. 1996. Preface. American Indian Culture and Research Journal 20(3):1–14. 1992. George Hunt, Kwakiutl Photographer. Pp. 143–151 in Anthropology and Photography: 1860–1920. Elizabeth Edwards, ed. New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with The Royal Anthropological Institute, London. Lippard, Lucy, ed. 1992. Partial Recall with Essays on Photographs of Native North Americans. New York: The New Press. Powers, Willow Roberts. 1996. Images Across Boundaries: History, Use, and Ethics of Photographs of American Indians. American Indian Culture and Research Journal 20(3):129–136. Scherer, Joanna Cohan with Vicki Simon. 2005. “Red Cloud’s Manikin and His Uncle’s Shirt: Historical Representation in the Museum.” Pp. 88–103 in The People of the Buffalo, Vol. 2, The Silent Memorials: Artefacts as Cultural and Historical Documents, Studies in Honour of John C. Ewers. Colin F. Taylor, and Hugh A. Dempsey, eds. Germany: Verlag fuer Amerikanistik/Tatanka Press. Scherer, Joanna Cohan. 2006. A Danish Photographer of Idaho Indians: Benedicte Wrensted. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 2004. The Public Faces of Sarah Winnemucca. In The Challenges of Native American Studies: Essays in Celebration of the TwentyFifth American Indian Workshop. Barbara Saunders and Lea Zuyderhoudt, eds. Belgium: Leuven University Press. Reprinted from Cultural Anthropology 3(2):178–204 (1988). 2003. Red Cloud’s Manikin and His Uncle’s Shirt: Historical Representation in the Museum as Seen through Photo Analysis. http://anthropology.si.edu/redcloud/. 1999. W. H. Boorne’s Photos of the Medicine Lodge Ceremony: The Construction of An Icon. European Review of Native American Studies 13(2):37–46. 1998. A Preponderance of Evidence: The 1852 Omaha Indian Delegation Daguerreotypes Recovered. Pp. 146–158 (revised) in The Daguerreian Annual for 1997. See also Nebraska History 78(3):116–121(1997). 1997. Benedicte Wrensted: An Idaho Photographer in Focus. http://anthropology.si.edu/wrensted/. 1975. You Can’t Believe Your Eyes: Inaccuracies in Photographs of North American Indians. Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication 2(2):67–79. Scherer, Joanna Cohan, ed. 1990. Picturing Cultures: Historical Photographs in Anthropological Inquiry. Visual Anthropology 3(2,3) (special double issue). Sullivan, Martin. 1997. Cultural Property Issues: The Unknowns and the Unknowables. Anthropology Newsletter 38(1):1,4–5. Thomas, David Hurst. 1998. Scholarship, Censorship and Sensitivity. Anthropology Newsletter 39 (1):9.

H i sto r i c a l Ph oto g r a p h s o f N o rt h A m e r i c a n I n d i a n s

95

Chapter 5

Blasting a Boulder and Building Memories J u l i e M. F low e rday

B The Quest

lasting a boulder did not produce memories; rather, new edifices and rising generations of children did. The story behind this paradox began on opening a locked drawer labeled “Hunza” at the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London, England. Inside the drawer were more than two hundred glass lanternslides made in the 1930s from photographs taken in a small community situated in the former State of Jammu and

Kashmir, British Colonial India. How had life there changed since that time?

Opening the drawer was the beginning of a quest. After joining a social anthropology doctoral program at the University of North Carolina, I developed a dissertation project to explore the difference of life in Hunza in the 1930s and the 1990s. In the process of investigating differences over time, however, I came across an image of a boulder called Kharum Bat that made me consider more closely the meaning of narratives, history, and social memory, the “historical” distinction of colonialism and the nation-state, and the value of photography as methodology. In the end, the more I learned about Kharum Bat, the more I realized the importance of age-related disparities of visual awareness to changing social power. My account is complex because it is as much a personal journey of discovery as it is an insight into the impermanency of the human condition. The journey led me to a small community in the Hunza Valley of the high Karakoram Mountains of present-day Pakistan, and it was in Hunza that my understanding of the relationship of culture and social power grew. The exploration started with photographs in a drawer. Hunza

The steel filing cabinet drawer was labeled “Hunza.” I knew about this place from old National Geographic magazines and travel books. At the close of the nineteenth century, colonials described Hunza as a remote mountain valley. It is close to where the three great watersheds—the Oxus, Indus, and Tarim Rivers—of Central Asia diverge and where the imperial and later nation-state interests of Russia, Britain, and China converged. The valley is located in the Karakoram Range, relatively young mountains, surrounded by yet more ranges—the Western Himalayas to the south and the Hindu Kush, the Pamirs, and the Mustagh Ata ranges to the west, north, and northeast, respectively. In 97

Figure 5.1. Map of British Colonial India, Lorimer. (Source unknown, no date. Courtesy of SOAS, University of London.)

98

that regulated colonial view, a mountain matrix isolated Hunza and its people from the rest of humankind, an account that I found difficult to believe in the 1990s. Who were the “rest of humankind” anyway? My thoughts moved quickly over what I knew about Hunza. In 1891, British-led troops broke the resistance of people known as Burusho in order to build a road through the valley to protect themselves against the advance of Russians. The actual battle was brief, lasting only a matter of a couple of weeks, but the preparation for it involved the construction of the Gilgit Transport Road (GTR) from Srinagar, the summer capital of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, to Gilgit. The GTR, built in just two years (1890– 1891), covered 240 miles of rugged, mountainous terrain. In addition, the British trained and transported Special Forces from Nepal and northern India to fight in this treacherous area. The British regarded their victory in the conflict as an outstanding feat, awarding themselves an unprecedented number of Victoria Crosses. Even after British-led troops captured the valley and built a road through it, they isolated it. The colonial government classified Hunza as a “frontier post,” thereby singling it out as an insecure region to which they restricted access. A politically penned ambiguity resulted. On paper, Hunza was made responsible to the State of Jammu and Kashmir, headed by the Maharaja. In practice, this was not the case. British Indian strategists incorporated the Hunza frontier post as a petty state in the Gilgit Agency, a district of the northern areas, which they managed exclusively. (In the 1990s, Hunza was a subdistrict of the Gilgit district.) That is, the Maharaja claimed Hunza, but British India exercised control there. Indeed, the State of Jammu and Kashmir had no judicial system, no tax collection, and no military representation in Hunza. The remoteness of this place stuck in my mind as I waited for a librarian to unlock the filing cabinet. Isolating Hunza as a frontier post was a political practice, but European linguists also made Hunza an oddity. They considered Burushaski, the first language of the Burusho, to be a language isolate because it could not be classified with any of the great language families of Central Asia. It was not derived from Sanskrit, Persian, Chinese, Turkic, or Balti-Tibetan. Linguists of the twentieth century supposed that languages were like lineages, having roots or foundations from which they evolved over generations. From this point of view, Burushaski was an enigma. It J u l i e M . F l o w e r d ay

had no roots because it had no known parent language. In addition, because Burushaski was unwritten, devoid of chronicles and records, it lacked generation. Seen from this misleading, if not absurd, position, Burushaski had no history and, thus, no evolution. The eccentricity of Burushaski marked the Burusho, the principal speakers of the language. Along with their geographic isolation and linguistic perplexity, the Burusho were further labeled as strange by colonial scholars. Typically, neighboring people, speaking different languages but living in the same valley, were disregarded. Travel books and the popular press exoticized the Burusho by hypothesizing that they were a pre-Aryan race speaking a pre-Aryan language.1 Many readers of James Hilton’s Lost Horizon (1934) and later audiences of the film version believed that Hunza was Shangri-la, the paradise portrayed in the book, and that its archetypal heroes were none other than the Burusho. Some writers characterized the very long-lived Burusho as gentle people who knew the deep secrets of life.2 Others, like health writers, attributed a hypothesized hardiness to the Burusho running up and down mountains a mile and a half above sea level and to their eating a staple diet of apricots and glacial water.3 It was as if the Burusho existed on a planet by themselves and had no neighbors. This popular sketch was scintillating. I was rapt to discover what lay locked in the steel cabinet. O p e n i n g t h e D r aw e r

When the librarian unlocked the drawer for me, I peered over two hundred wracked glass lanternslides (glass plate positives).4 Under the slides were loose handwritten sheaves initialed “DL.” Who was DL? In addition, how was I to make sense of the slides of landscape, people, buildings, and activities? Reading the slides visually was not a natural task, and the loose sheaves of handwritten captions made understanding more difficult. The captions were a mixture of English and phonetic renditions of Burushaski. Using The Burushaski Language, a three-volume work (1935, 1935, 1938) produced by David Lorimer, I could understand most of the captions, and I realized that the initials DL from the loose sheaves in the drawer identified him as the author. Although both the published text and the catalog of slides were his work, he produced them at different times. The Burushaski Language was taken from linguistic materials he collected in the 1920s while serving as Political Agent (PA), commanding officer over the Gilgit Agency. Quite separately, the slides belonged to the 1930s, following Lorimer’s retirement from the British Indian Army (1926). As a civilian, Lorimer won a Leverhulme Fellowship (1933–1935) in the social sciences to expand his linguistic study of Burushaski to cultural practices. The photographs he used for the slides were those he made to document his fifteen months of research in 1934–1935. Lorimer, however, never finalized the results of this research. When he returned to England, the events of World War II (1939–1945) channeled his talents to wartime efforts. The loss of his beloved wife, Emily, in 1949 and finally the burdens of aging brought his efforts to a halt. On his death in 1962 at age 85, the better part of his collection of research material—which included B last i n g A B o u ld e r a n d B u i ld i n g M e m o r i e s

1. Morgenstierne in Lorimer 1935, I: vii. 2. See Janjua 2001; Mons 1958; Shahid 1979; Taylor and Nobbs 1962; Taylor 1974; Tobe 1960. 3. See Banik and Taylor 1960; Wrench 1972. 4. Glass lanternslides predated photography and were attributed to the French inventor Niepce de St. Victor, who discovered a way to adhere a lightsensitive solution onto glass for the creation of a negative. The Langenheim brothers of Philadelphia used that negative to print onto another sheet of glass and were able to create a transparent positive image suitable for projection. The process used albumencoated and later wetcollodion plates for printing images. The image was transferred by contact or by camera. In the first procedure, the nega­ tive was placed directly on the light-sensitive surface. In the second, both negative and glass were placed in the camera with a long bed and bellows and printed by exposing the glass to daylight or artificial light. In both cases, the latent image was developed with chemicals. After the plate was dried, the image could be handcolored using special tints. The slide was finished with a mat and a glass cover taped to seal the enclosure. Lanternslides played a vital role in the devel­ opment of disciplines, such as art and architectural history, making possible the detailed study of objects and sites from around the world. See: http:// inventors.about.com/ od/mstartinventions/a/ magic_lantern.htm and http://memory.loc.gov/ ammem/award97/mh sdhtml/lanternhistory. html.

99

his slides, photographs, cinefilms (early 8mm film), wooden cigar boxes packed with linguistic notations, handwritten manuscripts, typed translations of folktales, some material cultural items, and a wealth of field notes—was bequeathed to SOAS. Excepting one periodical publication (1937), he published no writings from this research.5 Making sense of Lorimer’s slides and catalog became a personal venture that I carried out in my free time. Events, however, took me to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where I joined a graduate program in social anthropology. There I wrote a proposal about the rarity and uniqueness of Lorimer’s slides, for which I received a predissertation travel grant to Hunza. How curious this all seemed; opening the drawer opened an alternative path of discovery for me. Under the tutelage of Mr. Barry Bloomfield, SOAS librarian, I used photographs from the negatives of the slides for the next part of my quest. Hunza Visit in 1992

Figure 5.2. Earth Pari West of Nilt, Lorimer 1934–1935. (Courtesy of SOAS, University of London.)

5. Professor Dr. Irmtraud Müller-Stellrecht published much of Lorimer’s fieldwork posthumously. See Materialien zur ethnographie von dardistan 1979.

100

May 1992, I flew to Islamabad, capital of Pakistan, and, with the permission of the government of Pakistan, I took an internal flight to Gilgit, a major market town about three hours south of the main Burusho community in Hunza. Flights were intermittent because changing weather patterns determined the service of a small propeller plane needed to negotiate through—not over—the Himalayas and Karakoram mountain ranges. The flight took only an hour and a half; otherwise, the five hundred plus–mile journey was about twenty-four hours by bus. This was very different from Lorimer’s experience some sixty years earlier. He needed permission from the governments of British India and the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir to use the GTR and its facilities. Lorimer also needed consent from the ruler, called Tham and Mir, to reside in Hunza. His journey began from Srinagar, Kashmir, and it took him, his wife, and his staff, carrying more than a year’s worth of supplies, not twenty-four hours, but almost two weeks to cover some 240 miles to Hunza with pack animals. The contrast was poignant. After sixty years, there was no Maharaja, and there was no State of Jammu and Kashmir. Partition (1947) ended the colonial period and established Pakistan and India as independent nations. PostJ u l i e M . F l o w e r d ay

Partition movements divided the princely State of Jammu and Kashmir into three parts. One part, the area formerly occupied by the British Gilgit Agency, seceded from the Maharaja under the leadership of former Gilgit Scouts, many of whom were from Hunza; in 1949, the United Nations placed it under the protectorship of Pakistan and it is, presently, known as the Northern Areas. A second part, recognized as Azad Kashmir, resisted both Pakistani and Indian control and continues to struggle tenuously for self-rule. Finally, a third part, called Kashmir, belongs to India. With Srinagar at its center, it represents the greater area of the former State of Jammu and Kashmir. Owing to the breakup of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, the official colonial route to Hunza, the GTR, is defunct, and political connections between Srinagar and the Northern Areas are severed. Accordingly, I used the international Karakoram Highway (KKH), which was a joint venture of Pakistan and China to connect their respective capitals of Islamabad and Beijing. From the inception of the KKH (1960) to its completion and official opening at the Chinese border in Hunza (1980), the KKH contributed to economic development and trade. The Pak-Chinese accord also safeguarded the Northern Areas from Indian claims, an issue not yet resolved as shown in this map. Besides political geography, the 1930s and 1990s also differed in commerce and guest accommodations. Unlike the Lorimer group and their year’s worth of provisions, I carried only a few personal items because I could find most of my needs in local shops. I also had the option of using hotels. In Lorimer’s time angrez, foreign guests, stayed in the stately quarters of the ruler’s residence or, like Lorimer and his wife, used the Rest House, a British structure reserved for colonial personnel. Rather than a hotel, I chose to stay with a family recommended by a friend. This option placed me inside the community and made it easier to begin my work. Dazzled by the initial disparities between Lorimer’s time and mine, I wanted to know if the general landscape also had changed. I set out daily with my camera, a tape recorder, and a photo album that I made from the slides. Every day was a treasure hunt as I searched for locations and places recorded in the photographs. This method brought me to a boulder called Kharum Bat that, in turn, shifted my understanding of history and memory.

Figure 5.3. Map of subcontinent 1990s. Approximate scale: 1:23,650,000. (South Asia 1987. United States Central Intelligence Information.)

K h a r u m B at

It was after lunch. The sun was hot. I walked on a tarred road wide enough for two vehicles to narrowly edge past each other. There was no traffic. I walked alone, exchanging greetings with occasional passersby. I left a few speechless, taken aback on seeing an angrez dressed in Pakistani fashion in shawar kamez (i.e., loose pants and a long, loose shirt that covered my arms and fell below my B last i n g A B o u ld e r a n d B u i ld i n g M e m o r i e s

101

Kharum Bat, Lorimer 1934–1935. (Courtesy ����������������������� of SOAS, University of London.) Figure 5.4.

102

knees). As local custom dictated for women, I also wore a dopatta (long scarf) draped loosely over my head and chest. Children popped up with smiling faces, prompting me to expand my simple Burushaski phrases, limited for the most part to terms I memorized from Lorimer’s materials and taglines that identified me with the household where I was staying—in case I got lost. After two miles or so, I reached a crossroad and needed directions. Two men, dressed in shawar kamez and speaking (as far as I could gather) in Burushaski stood nearby. I approached them and struggled to ask directions to Kharum Bat. One man turned and answered in English, saying that the boulder was on his land and that he would take me there. As we walked together, he told me he was a founding member of the Culture Preservation Society in Hunza. This was a truly remarkable fellow, I thought! The road turned into a path. We climbed a little farther and followed an open water channel. Then we stopped. What lay before us was not the Kharum Bat photographed by Lorimer. Shards, splintered stones, and ragged rockbed littered the ground. I put my hand on my tape recorder. He asked me not to record our conversation. I touched my camera and he asked that I not photograph him. I turned my camera lens to the boulder and listened to his account. His father began dynamiting the boulder under the ruler, Mir, Tham Mohammad Nazim Khan (reign: 1892–1938). The Mir wanted this granite rock for constructing his new summerhouse and palace, which was close by. Besides, this man explained, he could also use the boulder materials to build a house, hotel, or shop, or he could use it for a road through his land. On balance, such efforts offered alternative prospects for his local success. According to my notes, granite outcroppings, like Kharum Bat, were rare and highly valued, though not necessarily as building materials. Some boulders attracted impish creatures called Pfuts that could live inside them. Sometimes (I knew from my notes) boulders even contained iron pegs that held malign spirits. Kharum Bat was one such boulder. It also had a history, which went as follows. Lorimer recorded a battle of wits between the Mir, Tham (ruler) and his wazir (chief minister). The upshot was the successful extension of a large water channel beyond Kharum Bat. It was a battle of wits because the immediate accolade to be won was heightened social prestige publicly played out in relief to emotions of pride and cleverness. Practically, the deed of extending the channel past Kharum Bat was straightforward, but, owing to the supernatural character of the J u l i e M . F l o w e r d ay

boulder, such a feat was not easily undertaken. The Tham, it was said, unsuccessfully tried to bypass the boulder by force. The wazir, by contrast, succeeded through ingenuity. He came in the night and, while special musicians played vigorous tunes, selected men dug around its base. I asked my companion what history he knew about Kharum Bat. He replied that he did not know any history. When I asked if there were any pegs of iron plugged into it, he showed some agitation. Was he thinking that such a local practice captured a primitive or backward likeness of him that clashed with his forward-looking status and ambitions of success? I thanked him for his help and went on my way. That experience belonged to my first visit to Hunza in the summer of 1992. It lasted only four weeks, but I managed to check all 175 of Lorimer’s Hunza photographs and estimated that roughly 85 percent of them were yet observable. There was, however, an issue of ambiguity in my interpretation. It was one thing to calculate what was visible, but quite another to estimate the impact of newness on the landscape and in people’s lives. Lorimer photographed a nonindustrial, agricultural economy organized around a local hereditary ruler. Sixty years later, I observed an area experiencing rapid economic development that was overseen by a nation-state. In this later period, things like roads, tractors, jeeps, cars, combustion and electric machinery, public schools, telephones, satellite dishes, and videos were becoming commonplace. In the absence of a hereditary ruler, leaders were publicly elected. I was perplexed by the bizarre occurrence of old and new things on the landscape and wondered how such changes affected the people living there. In September 1993, I was back, collecting materials for a dissertation topic driven by the question, If landscape is changing, does that mean the way people understand themselves is also changing? I know this sounds far from where I began in London. At SOAS, I was hovering over slides produced during the British Indian colonial period. Scholarship from that colonial perspective isolated Hunza, produced an enigma in Burushaski, and made the Burusho, its speakers, a curiosity. Yet, these concerns alone did not hold my attention. Rather, what struck me as astonishing was that the founding member of a cultural preservation society had blown up the formerly sacred boulder known as Kharum Bat. Why would someone invested in cultural preservation knowingly destroy an object of cultural and historical significance? Why did not local residents object to blasting this boulder? Some of the reasons became clear to me while B last i n g A B o u ld e r a n d B u i ld i n g M e m o r i e s

Figure 5.5.

(Flowerday).

Kharum Bat, 1992

103

6. Lorimer noted that when the texts he collected were read aloud to Burushaski speakers, the texts were readily intelligible: “They [the people] will often complete a sentence and continue the narrative, where it is stopped, in much the same words as the original, for though there are no professional story-tellers in Hunza, many of the local stories or accounts of customs appear to be told habitually in a customary, if not stereotyped, form” (Lorimer 1935, I:lvii). The folktale of Kharum Bat is among the shorter tales Lorimer collected.

104

listening to stories associated with Kharum Bat during interview sessions. Sitting with a member of the community who was looking through the album of pictures made from the Lorimer slides, I would simply ask him/her to speak of the difference between the landscape of the earlier and present time. When the photograph of Kharum Bat came up, I would prod the viewer by softly repeating the name Kharum Bat. Three issues emerged. First, though I interviewed only Burushaski speakers in the now mixed language population, there was neither a common history nor memory of Kharum Bat. Some people could recite a longer or shorter narrative about a boulder,6 some claimed they knew no narrative, while others said they knew nothing about Kharum Bat. Interestingly, no one volunteered any history of the irrigation channel at its base. Second, people’s age and lifetime experience mediated their “reading” of the album. Those I interviewed who were more than fifty years old had knowledge of a boulder, but those in their thirties and younger were increasingly inconsistent about it. Elders, for example, saw reflections of themselves, mirror-fashion, in the album. They spoke with authority about their lives. Younger people typically merged the photos together and distanced themselves from the album by saying that the images belonged before their time. Some said, “Go speak to grandfather/mother” (or auntie, uncle, or some elder of the family). Once a man in his thirties quickly and silently looked through the album and then closed it. After a moment, he spoke of his experience at primary school when he and his classmates carried stones to help build a road that did not exist in the 1930s. Others showed me their personal albums featuring themselves, friends, and family members foregrounded in schools, family celebrations, and travel. In this overview, perception mirrored their cultural experience. Whereas elders could see themselves in the album, younger people generally could not. Conversely, they updated the landscape so that it reflected their respective lifetimes. The younger the person, I realized, the less likely he/ she was to know anything about Kharum Bat. The third issue was more complex. It reached beyond the boulder and the photo album to people’s perception of changing social power. It was not simply that the community was complex in a different way or that younger people were updating their lives to current conditions; rather, it was that the changing perception of Kharum Bat reflected the demise of local power and the rise of the nation-state. The change was a kind of quiet social revolution that held prospects for people’s changing fortunes, or so it seemed in the case of the man blowing up Kharum Bat. On a more mundane level, the social shift was evident in a narrative about the boulder. One Boulder, Three Tales

his home without having seen it and as he came along there was a light in the Buri Bun [a boulder like Kharum Bat] and there were Pfuts [creatures with the puckish nature of men, Lorimer 1935, III: 295–296] dancing. He also went in, they say, and mixed with them, and danced, and then sat down among them. After dancing, the Pfuts brought food for a wedding party and at the end when they had eaten they brought a skin. Then they demanded from all the bones of their shares of the meat, and collected them. There was one rib short. That rib the man to whom they had given it as his share had hidden from them. Then they (the Pfuts) made a rib of wood and threw the bones into the skin, and on shaking it up the goat came to life. When the man looked he saw that it was his own goat. The Pfuts drove it out and then they went off as a wedding party to the house of the Sughuralo Pfut. When the man, having departed thence, came to his home that goat of his was there at the door. On the morrow, when he slaughtered it, one rib was missing and in its place was a wooden rib. Besides this, the man, had brought a dance tune from the Pfuts’ house. They still call that the “Pfut’s Tune” and they play it even at the present day (Lorimer 1935, II: 234–235). There was intimacy and currency in this tale that paralleled the lives of Pfuts and people. Men married and so did Pfuts. Men had individual names and so did Pfuts. Music, dancing, and eating were part of their corresponding existences and so too occasional interactions, as in the case of the Pfuts wedding and wooden rib. Version two was recorded during an interview in December 1993. A colleague and I sat in the home of a man in his thirties. He was looking through the album of Lorimer’s photographs. When he reached the photograph of Kharum Bat and paused, I prompted him by asking if he knew any stories about it. I figured he was a good candidate. He lived among the communities that abutted the boulder, enjoyed the water that flowed in the channel beside it, and used the road that now skirted what was left of its base. At first, he denied knowing any such stories. Silence swallowed him. Then he began by prefacing his thoughts, saying that he heard one story recently from a tailor who had come to his house on his sisters’ marriages. This is a tale of Kharum Bat, told by Mr. Udeen as he heard it from a tailor: I had some goats and sheep many years ago. And one time some sheep did not come back home. And I went to look for my sheep before nighttime. And when I came near the Kharum Bat, my senses were normal but I felt dreamlike.

The following three versions of a tale about a boulder capture this transition in terms of history and memory. The first version, recorded by Lorimer in 1935, was about a boulder like Kharum Bat. I say “like Kharum Bat” because the boulder was called Buri Bun and located in another place.

Mr. Udeen stopped his narrative and interjected that the tailor had learned this story from his grandfather:

One day a goat belonging to a man got lost. [He went on] looking and looking for it when night came down on him. He was returning to

He said [that is, the tailor said his grandfather said] it was at the time of the wedding of a Pfut. He saw the other Pfuts. They were slaughtering

J u l i e M . F l o w e r d ay

B last i n g A B o u ld e r a n d B u i ld i n g M e m o r i e s

105

his sheep for the wedding ceremony. He saw one sheep with two broken ribs. When the ribs broke, the Pfuts said, “Oh, two ribs are broken.” At that time, one Pfuts made these ribs from the juniper tree for the sheep. While one of the Pfuts was making the ribs from the juniper tree, the man who was in a dream-like state decided he had to leave that place because he would get into trouble with the Pfuts [if the Pfuts discovered a man in their midst]. He backed away slowly, slowly [and escaped]. In the morning, the people shouted a lot. “Oh that man’s sheep has been killed by an urk” [a wild variety of cat smaller than a snow leopard]. The people went there and looked at the two sheep. They were already dead. In the one sheep, the ribs included two wooden ones. He saw the excitement, went to look at the sheep, and asked, “What happened to the sheep?” The people said, “The sheep were killed by the urk.” [According to the tailor’s grandfather, as Mr. Udeen spoke on his behalf,] He responded, “No. I saw yesterday that the Pfuts slaughtered the sheep.” That man then looked at the ribs and saw the two ribs of wood. He knew that this was the work of the Pfuts. And then the people said, “Human and Pfut nature are the same.” People know that Pfuts give us losses. This was the Kharum Bat story [Mr. Udeen, Hunza, 1993]. Differences existed between versions one and two, but the tales were close enough to single out some gross changes. These included the narrator’s position in the tale, the conditions that determined experience and evidence, and the shift of grammatical tense. In the version recorded by Lorimer, the narrator was in the tale. He corroborated it by evidence of the wooden rib and the “Pfut’s Tune” that “they play even at the present day.” He also referenced unnamed people, saying “they said” with the assumption that their authority was understood. In the second version, no one else verified Mr. Udeen’s account. Indeed, the tale was attributed to someone who was two generations distant and not even present. That is, Mr. Udeen learned it from the tailor who learned it from his grandfather. Distancing was purposeful. Soon after Mr. Udeen began the tale in the firstperson mode, he halted and consciously shifted to the third-person mode. This shift drew attention to his detachment. He was repeating a story and, simultaneously, positioning himself outside it. Next, the teller in the first version assigned the tale to conditions that were no longer evidential. When was the last time someone found a wooden rib in a slaughtered sheep? In the 1990s, who would have courage to offer a dance tune as evidence of an incontestable event? In the 1990s, how normal would it be for someone to claim he attended the wedding of Pfuts in a boulder? In short, the narrator of such a tale no longer spoke with authority, or depended on Pfuts for credibility. Conditions had changed and so had the meaning of evidence and acceptable experiences. Finally, Mr. Udeen closed his tale with these words: “This was the Kharum Bat story.” The grammatical shift was obvious. The version recorded by 106

J u l i e M . F l o w e r d ay

Lorimer belonged to an indefinite past and an indeterminate present. By contrast, Mr. Udeen’s version was definitively outdated. A transition of history and memory became evident when I related these changes of social power to the larger society. In the 1930s, sociopolitical power was vested in local hereditary rule and dependent on a mixed economy of agriculture. The first tale about a man herding contained elements of an agriculturally based economy. Similarly, the conflict Lorimer noted, surrounding the extension of a water channel beyond Kharum Bat, tied the Tham and his chief minister to a conflict that was integral to terraced agriculture, the foundation of that economy. In the 1990s, there was no hereditary ruler. The Islamic Republic of Pakistan oversaw the governing of Hunza. Further, agriculture was no longer the mainstay of the economy. Young people were branching into professions in government, tourism, development, and the service industries. Mr. Udeen, for example, was a skilled laborer in “R & C” (construction work in reinforced concrete) and masonry. The second version, which was both diffused and lacking verifiability, reflected the altered conditions of which Mr. Udeen was part, all of which detached him from Pfuts activity. He lived a ten minute walk from the boulder and was little troubled by it being blasted away because the activity was of no consequence to him.7 It was the third version, however, that clinched the fate of the blasted boulder. I learned it from a twelve-year-old boy, one of my students at an English Medium School where I taught as a volunteer two hours a day. The school was about four miles from Kharum Bat and its two hundred–plus students ranged from four to twelve years of age. Their entire school curriculum was in English and Urdu. Even though staff and students commonly spoke Burushaski, it was unwritten and limited to bridging students with a better grasp of book languages. At the end of term (1994), I asked my advanced students to put a Burushaski tale they knew into English. Among the tales I received was one about a boulder that could have been Kharum Bat or another such boulder. The student wrote: After the Pfuts discovered the man at the Pfuts’ wedding, a khalifa [religious leader] of the Pfuts was called. This Pfut then made a paper effigy of the man and cut the paper-man’s ear with a knife—so to warn the man not to interfere with the Pfuts. The man’s ear bled. The man escaped. The student explained that his father told him this true tale. In response to my question of where the boulder was located, he said, “There is a rock from ancient times where the Pfuts live. We don’t know where the Pfuts put their name.” The boy did not know the name of the “boulder/rock.” Rather, Pfuts lived somewhere in an unidentified matrix. Here the indefinite past produced a void, an act lost to obscurity that destined Pfuts to anonymity. Brevity stripped the tale of particulars and reduced it to statements of action. More to the point, details of the boulder were dispensable to this youngster, but a khalifa conferring Islamic sacredness to marriage was requisite. The young boy’s version captured the rising authority of Islam that was concurrent with the disappearance of boulders. In the 1990s, Islamic leaders disavowed B last i n g A B o u ld e r a n d B u i ld i n g M e m o r i e s

7. In the 1990s, men blasting special boulders like Kharum Bat offered brum hanik, auspicious food, before undertaking the task.

107

boulders like Kharum Bat along with extraneous supernatural forces. Sacred structures, venerated by clerics and devotees alike, were Ismaili Jamat Khanas (houses of worship) and Sunni and Shiah masjids (mosques). These constructions occupy people’s attention, echoing the politics of the day and rivalries between sects. Ismailis represent the prevailing form of Islam in Hunza. They are Shiah practitioners who recognize the Aga Khan as their living head and as a direct descendent of Muhammad’s son-in-law, Ali. Next are Shiahs, also known as Twelvers. They similarly trace the Imamate (religious leadership) through Ali, but follow a different succession from the one followed by Ismailis. The more orthodox convictions of Twelvers include waiting for the return of the twelfth Imam Mahdi, prophesized to appear on the Day of Judgment. Lastly, there are Sunnis who, although in the local minority, represent the dominant Islamic sect of Pakistan. For them, Ali is just one of a succession of imams for which genealogy has no special part. All the sects represented here depend on the Quran (the principal holy text of Islam).

Opposite Top: Figure 5.6. Jamat Khana, 1999 (Flowerday). Opposite Bottom: Figure 5.7. Sunni Mosque, 1999 (Flowerday). Above: Figure 5.8. Shiah Mosque, 1999 (Flowerday).

Concurrent Changes

In relative terms, why was age an issue in the 1990s research? First, the cultural composition of the community appeared more divergent. In the 1930s, there was a degree of conformity in the population through the Burushaski language, terraced agriculture, and centralized local rule. In the 1990s, such patterns were breaking down. This was hardly surprising. New professions and skills certified by the nation-state were common in the later period. Employable industries like tourism, civil service, teaching, business, military, and skilled and unskilled labor outpaced farming. Likewise, the elaborate open irrigation scheme on which people formerly depended was increasingly bypassed by domestic water pipes that cut through fields, symbolically 108

J u l i e M . F l o w e r d ay

B last i n g A B o u ld e r a n d B u i ld i n g M e m o r i e s

109

Bottom: Figure 5.9. Mr. Noori Hyatt, 1999 (Flowerday). Top: Figure 5.10. Afzal, 1999 (Flowerday).

110

undercutting the preeminence of agriculture. Also, elected officials, government servants, and specialists supplanted inherited rule. Under these shifting economic and political conditions, the history and memory associated with the narratives of Kharum Bat became extraneous. Indeed, the school-directed subject of history featured Pakistan and forefronted topics of archaeological importance on the Indian subcontinent. Local Hunza history was absent in schoolbooks. Without textual learning or the experience of living under a Mir (or Tham), Kharum Bat had no prominence on the landscape and no influence over their lives now or in the future . . . the place they intended to spend the rest of their lives. Second, besides changes in political and economic spheres, there were also age conversions in the population. Age mattered. It demonstrated how age-related experience marked social identity. Generally, those who knew the longer narrative of a boulder were those such as Mr. Noori Hyatt, a man in his late seventies, retired from teaching, farming, and community leadership when I interviewed him. Mr. Hyatt is of the generation of people whose lives had been governed by a Tham and terraced agriculture. In this fashion, memory of Kharum Bat was an age indicator, reflecting those specific conditions that acted on their experiences to shape their social identity. Younger people increasingly lacked experience of a Tham or even the prospect of farming, and so their social identities were different. When my young pupil Afzal was born, Kharum Bat was to many no longer distinguishable from other nameless rock matrices. As the boulder was blasted out of existence, its remains were not contested artifacts to the young, but simply nonevidential shards and blocks. Thus, the processional effect of the life-death cycle contributed to the fate of Kharum Bat. As elders passed away, those with different experiences and knowledge rose to fill the void. They became the witnesses, narrators, and leaders of alternative conditions that described a different time. Finally, the deeper shift was not about a rock/boulder. It was an allegory for social power. Kharum Bat, like the Tham, no longer embodied a force of reckoning. The boulder held nothing, no promise, and no credibility; yet, it was here that the effects of changing social conditions and population factors converged. This convergence produced a view that was discretely fleeting but also manifestly identifiable in the shift of social power. On the one hand, the breakdown of local power was hardly remarkable, as in the case of the destruction of Kharum Bat. Over the sixty years that had passed, landscape was not more or less accessible to any single generation. Rather, at the onset of every generation, landscape was intuitively whole and a standard of normalcy against which people observed and measured change. The shift in social power, accordingly, had not occurred in the boulder but in people’s minds over time . . . and in an abrasively incongruent fashion. Changes in landscape and in people’s lives were not evidentially synchronized to birthing cycles. Rather, because people were out of step with one another, J u l i e M . F l o w e r d ay

circumstances contributed to lateral change—change made ordinary in their daily lives—leaving a maze of blurred evanescence. On the other hand, the shift in social power to the nation-state was palpable. It disassembled inherited local rule, conferred power on elected officials, and endowed reverence and respect of powers inherent in the State. Thus, the most prominent difference between the narratives was time— time that was barely perceptible, as in aging and in living through changing conditions separable by different periods of rule. A social revolution occurred. People were “knowing, forgetting, and never knowing” Kharum Bat, but their sights were fixed on contemporaneous sites of social power. Young and old alike recognized, for example, the religious symbols and architecture of localized Islamic sects and experienced sectarianism in contexts that networked with nation-state and global matters. History was presently ordered by the nation-state, which at some level mediated their feelings and expectations. Conclusion

History is impermanent. Scholarship, represented by the colonial period and the present study, is conditional. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, British relations with the changing imperial powers of Russia and China contributed to a colonial ruse that isolated Hunza and made it an eccentric frontier post. Reevaluations that challenge the earlier scholarship are presently under way. In the twenty-first century, however, a different history has followed Partition (1947), one that incorporates Hunza within Pakistan and opens it to China by an international thoroughfare. Based on this perspective, history is impermanent because sociopolitical conditions are changing in perpetuity. By supposition, other histories will displace those addressed here. Likewise, social memory is impermanent but with a punctuated twist. It is not limited to past-ness. In this study, I drew attention to memory as a political and future-driven vision. People created memories through a currency of social power to negotiate transitions of the past with their present expectations and future prospects. On the one hand, old and young alike are now remembering the architectural symbols and events of different Islamic sects. On the other, Kharum Bat metamorphosed into building blocks that symbolically paved a way to the nation-state. Consequently, prospects bear great weight on social memory, as in the case of the man who was a member of a cultural preservation society and was blowing up Kharum Bat. If the future had offered different opportunities for success, then Kharum Bat might have had a very different tale. In my treatment of history and memory over time, I observed how markers of self altered with shifts in broader social contexts. It was people’s altering perception of difference that was made apparent, not the event of blowing up a boulder. A leading deliberation I offer, then, is the transitory nature of a population in which newborns act in perpetuity as conduits of change in relation to altering prospects. The complexity of this phenomenon offers visual anthropologists another way of investigating social change. Thus, as I stated in the beginning, blasting a boulder did not produce memories—new edifices and rising generations of children did. The path that led me to understand this circumstance was both complex and personal . . . and it all started with photographs. B last i n g A B o u ld e r a n d B u i ld i n g M e m o r i e s

111

Afterthoughts: Reflections on Visual Anthropology

Top: Figure 5.11. and Above: Figure 5.12. Community members, 1999 (Flowerday).

112

This chapter contributes to three relevant concerns of visual anthropologists: a false dichotomy between visual and written work; the discreteness of evidence; and, on a very practical scale, the maintenance of images. First, prejudicing the singular importance of visual or written work leads to a false dichotomy. Written ideas have a shelf life just as images do. Whereas images can be “read” more easily (not more clearly, not more rightly or wrongly) across diverse language groups and over time, images lose the embedded-ness of context without written accounts that give them consequence (Flowerday 2005). Second, evidence is contingent on social conditions and inseparable from social understanding as demonstrated in the narrative of the wooden rib. How do photographs measure up as evidence? Are they not also dependent on social conditions and understanding? I think this concern allows us to reenter an epistemological debate over whether reading a photograph can ever be fixed because time is fluid and people are irresolute (Barthes 1981) or whether the irresolution of reading is due to the photograph’s immutable representation of form and content that gets separated from a context that otherwise continues to develop (Edwards 1992). In both cases, the use and value of the photograph is diminished. According to Barthes, a photograph is like an indeterminate vessel, reflecting the ceaseless inconstancy of people interpreting it. In Edwards’ view, the reading is like an anchor, weighted by inbuilt form and content immobilized in the photograph, which has a decidedly anthropomorphic twist. By linking real people to time and space, as I have tried to do in this chapter, people are made consequential to sites of knowledge, and their perspectives are grounded in dynamic shifting relationships. This approach is a departure from the Durkheimian social collective that assumes wholeness of a population. By placing emphasis on the complexity of a population, sites of knowledge become visible through human bearers carrying altering constructions of social power. The third concern is a practical matter. Digital camera work has many advantages over single-lens reflex (SLR) work and is gaining a great deal of institutional support. Something to be considered, however, is the long-term maintenance of digital images. An unsurpassed advantage of SLR work is its negatives, which can also be produced from digital images. The technology behind negatives is stable, hypothetically accessible, and affordable. Under J u l i e M . F l o w e r d ay

good conditions, negatives can last one hundred years. By contrast, subsequent generations of electronic devices may produce dysfunctional technological gaps in reading earlier images. This means that there must be constant updating and managing of prized digital materials, which is labor- and timeintensive work and implies foreknowledge of what is valuable. Until digital technology stabilizes, it is best to back up favored images with negatives.

1 If your educational institution, public library, or county government archive has files containing old photographs of landscape features from the locale,

Student Visual Projects

select a feature or place(s) from an earlier period, request permission to use photos/drawings/paintings of it, and develop a strategy for investigating it. For example, you can: a. collect material on the historical background of the feature b. establish the socioeconomic conditions of which it was earlier a part c. determine the relevance of the feature in the earlier context d. account for the absence or altered meaning of the feature in a contemporary setting e. summarize and explain the relationship of the feature you chose to the altered context in which it “now” exists. 2 I used stories to capture shifts in people’s perceptions alongside changes in their sociopolitical conditions. Are there other materials that could be used? Consider a topic, such as food or music, that can be narrowed down to a key element (a staple product or a particular genre of music), then: a. locate the element to a period when its production and use were

different from its production and use in the contemporary period

b. describe the key element(s) for each of the two periods, noting the

conditions of which each was/is a part

c. give an account that addresses political, economic, or other social

differences between the two times

d. write up your conclusions. 3 In the following project, the challenge is to explore how you determine “evidence.” Begin by developing a strong contrast between time periods in an exploration of an issue that can be visualized. An example would be “gender” in marketing body fashion in the United States. Then: a. settle on a construct such as clothes, fashions, cosmetics, toys like

Barbie dolls/GI Joe dolls, or race/ethnicity

b. choose your medium (magazines, novels, media advertising, artifacts) c. work up the strongest contrasts possible between the two time periods d. determine what qualifies as evidence for each period in the selected

issue and analyze how/why/which images are made appropriately



consequential as evidence

e. write up your conclusion(s).

B last i n g A B o u ld e r a n d B u i ld i n g M e m o r i e s

113

Further Readings

References Banik, Allen E. and Renée Taylor. 1960. Hunza land: the fabulous health and youth wonderland of the world. Long Beach, Calif.: Whitehorn. Barthes, Roland. 1981. Camera Lucida: reflections on photography. Richard Howard, trans. New York: Hill and Wang. Edwards, Elizabeth, editor. 1992. Anthropology and photography 1860–1920. New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with the Royal Anthropological Institute. Flowerday, Julie. 2005. Hunza now and then and then again. In Karakoram: Hidden treasures in the Northern Areas of Pakistan. Stefano Bianca, ed. Turin, Italy: Umberto Allemandi. Hamid, Shahid S. 1979. Karakuram Hunza: The land of just enough. Karachi: Ma’aref. Hilton, James. 1934. Lost horizon. New York: William Morrow. Janjua, Mohammad Aslam. 2005. Mystery of longevity in Hunza: no disease, no heart problem, no cancer. Islamabad: Munadi Publications. Lorimer, D.  L.  R. 1937. Nugae Burushaski. In Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, 8(1935–1937): 627–636. Lorimer, D. L. R. 1935, 1935, 1938. The Burushaski language. Institute for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning Ser. B XXIX, 1–3: Vol. I: Introduction and Grammar. Oslo: Norwegian University Press. Vol. II: Texts and Translations. Oslo: Norwegian University Press; Vol. III: Vocabularies and Index. Oslo: Norwegian University Press. Lorimer, Emily. 1939. Language hunting in the Karakoram. London: G. Allen & Unwin, Ltd. Mons, Barbara. 1958. High road to Hunza. London: Faber and Faber. Morgenstierne, Georg. 1935. In The Burushaski language by David Lorimer. Institute for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning Ser. B XXIX, Vol. I: Introduction and Grammar. Oslo: Norwegian University Press. Müller-Stellrecht, Irmtraud. 1979. Materialien zur ethnographie von dardistan (Pakistan): aus den nachgelassenen Aufzeichnungen v. D. L. R. Lorimer. Graz: Akademische Druck u. Verlagsanst. Taylor, Renée and Mulford J. Nobbs. 1962. Hunza: the Himalayan Shangri-La. Photography by Zygmunt Sulistrowski and Wayne Mitchell. El Monte, Calif: Whitehorn. Taylor, Renée. 1974. Come along to Hunza: The history of Shangri-La by Renée Taylor as told by his Highness Mir Mohd Jamal Khan. Minneapolis: T. S. Denison. Tobe, John H. 1960. Hunza: Adventures in a land of paradise. Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale Books, Inc. Wrench, Guy Theodore. 1972. The wheel of health. New York: Schocken Books.

Basso, Keith. 1984. Stalking with stories: Names, places and moral narratives among the Western Apache. In Text play and story: The construction and reconstruction of self and society. E. Bruner, ed. Washington, D.C.: American Ethnological Society. ———. 1996. Senses of place. Distributed by the University of Washington Press: School of American Research Press. Flowerday, Julie. 1998. A construction of cultural history from visual records for the Burusho of Hunza, Pakistan. Dissertation. University of North Carolina. ———. 2005. Framing change: Hunza (Pakistan) in treble vision–1930s and 1990s. In Visual communication 4(3): 296–303. London and Washington, D.C.: Sage Publications. ———. 2006. Change over time: Hunza in treble vision: 1930s and 1990s. In Karakoram in transition: culture, development, and ecology in the Hunza Valley. Professor Dr. Hermann Kreutzmann, ed. Pakistan: Oxford University Press. Lowenthal, David. 1990. The past is a foreign country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Relph, Edward. 1976. Place and placelessness. London: Pion Ltd. Rosaldo, Renato. 1980. Ilongot headhunting 1883–1980: A study in society and history. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Willson, Stephen R. 1999. A look at Hunza culture. Islamabad: National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-I-Azam University; United Kingdom: Summer Institute of Linguistics.

I n t e r n e t So u r c e s Flowerday, Julie. 2005. Hunza in treble vision: 1930s and 1990s. www.hunza.talkspot.com Ismailism: www.atheism.about.com/od/islamicsects/a/ismailis.htm Shiahism: www.atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/islam/blfaq_islam_twelver.htm Sunnism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunni_Islam Glass lanternslides: www.inventors.about.com/od/mstartinventions/a/magic_lantern.htm; and www.memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/mhsdhtml/lanternhistory.html

Ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s

I am grateful to the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) for their permission to reproduce Lt. Col. David Lorimer’s photographs. I express thanks to the Fulbright Foundation and the American Institute of Pakistan Studies (AIPS) for supporting my initial dissertation research (1993– 1995). Hunza in treble vision: 1930s and 1990s was supported by a postdoctoral grant from the American Institute of Pakistan Studies (1999–2000), the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation (2001), and the Aga Khan Culture Service-Pakistan (2001). I acknowledge the United States Embassy Cultural Section Islamabad and Lok Virsa, the Cultural Division of the Government of Pakistan, which joined the American Institute of Pakistan Studies in producing the unabridged exhibit at Lok Virsa, Islamabad, Pakistan (January 2000). This exhibit was later presented in the host community of Hunza, Pakistan (September 14–16, 2001). Abridged versions have been displayed at the School of Oriental and African Studies (2001), the University of North Carolina (2002), and Georgetown University (2003). Finally, and most especially, I thank the people of Hunza who allowed their lives to be put on view.

114

J u l i e M . F l o w e r d ay

B last i n g A B o u ld e r a n d B u i ld i n g M e m o r i e s

115

section Iii

Moving Pictures: Film, Video, and Computer-Generated Media

Se ction III

Peter Biella “Visual Anthropology in a Time of War: Intimacy and Interactivity in Ethnographic Media”

C h a p t e r 7.

M ov i n g P i c t u r e s : F i l m , V i d e o , a n d C o mp u t e r g e n e r at e d M e d i a

Introduction

S

atellite dishes beam hundreds of channels into home televisions almost everywhere. Videocassettes and DVDs play recent films on computer screens and TV sets. Digital cameras and cell phones show owner-generated film shorts. Moving pictures dance across the Internet and theater screens. Wall-sized animated displays light up in market squares, and palm-sized images fill tiny devices fitting into the hand.

It may have started with candlelit animation machines. Eadweard Muybridge’s works and other motion studies using photographs in series trained the eye for what a film would be one day. Inaccurate still images no longer satisfied the viewing public because the moving picture camera showed audiences how nature really behaves. It remained for the invention of film to connect the dots. We can now never get enough of moving pictures. We constantly demand more and better ones. All three of our chapter writers in this section have a double set of credentials in both film and anthropology.

C h a p t e r 6 . Carol Hermer “Reading the Mind of the Ethnographic Filmmaker: Mining a Flawed Genre for Anthropological Content”

How do you think students in school and the general public could be trained to “read” films as critically as they are trained to read newspapers and books?

118

Carol Hermer tells students how to view film in a fully conscious and critical manner. She says that because film is an affective medium that captures viewers’ emotions, it often hides the motivations and agenda behind its production, thus skewing its reception. Over years of teaching undergraduate classes, Hermer has found ways of showing students how to see beyond their immediate reaction to a film and expose its ideological underpinnings. The chapter covers the following subjects: 1. overview of film reception; 2. signs and their meanings; 3. ideology of the filmmaker; 4. film structure; 5. changing genres of ethnographic documentary; and 6. illustrative case studies. Hermer started out working in film and broadcast media. She came to visual anthropology later in life. Her chapter distills an approach that she has used successfully in her experience of teaching students how to both make their own films as well as understand films made by others. Her methods reflect the fact that she is a practitioner, but she also shows how important it is to be cognizant of a film’s underlying ideology. Film is so “real” that many otherwise sophisticated viewers too often take it at face value.

Warfare is perhaps the most violent of activities that human beings perpetrate upon one another. Prerequisite to an act of war is the idea that the “enemy” is less than human, wrong, and evil. Biella points out that these concepts of the enemy are the extreme opposite of what anthropologists try to promote: respect, justice, and a sense of equality among all human beings however distinct their ways of thinking and behaving may be. The writer is a filmmaker, and he looks at film as having the potential to foster a feeling of intimacy, an emotion that can promote peace and understanding. However, he points out ways in which film has not and does not produce intimacy, as well as ways in which it does accomplish this objective. The chapter contains a great deal of information about film and film history, anthropological film, film techniques, and, last but not least, film and computers. The interactive potential of computer-generated media allows both original “makers” and “users” to share in the analytic and creative process. Biella started out as a filmmaker. He then moved on to an advanced degree in anthropology. He believes that visual anthropologists have a moral imperative to speak out about injustice and that war is the ultimate social injustice. For many readers, going to war is a patriotic act of courage, and their views are to be honored and respected. This author simply hopes that visual anthropologists will use their potential to look for solutions other than violence or discrimination for our human problems.

How do you think film and computer-generated media can sensitize viewers and lead them to action?

Charles Thompson “Guestworkers: Farmworkers, Filmmakers, Obligations in the Field”

Chapter 8.

Charles Thompson, a farmer-turned-anthropological filmmaker, follows the life of a 66-year-old Mexican farm laborer who has come to work temporarily on a North Carolina tobacco farm. During the process of filming, Thompson becomes embroiled in legal disputes and complicated interpersonal relations with farm owners and their associations, farmworker advocacy groups, and a number of Mexican temporary laborers. Ironically, he finds himself to be another kind of guestworker on the tobacco farm. Producing the film makes Thompson beholden for their cooperation to the landowner and the Mexican workers at the same time, though in ways that often conflict. The chapter, organized around Marcel Mauss’ classic work The Gift, looks clear-eyed at the ethical morass in which fieldwork so often involves researchers, especially those who make films. Charles Thompson has credentials in both film and anthropology. As a filmmaker in the field, he feels keenly that the migrant workers who provide the narrative for his documentary are doing him a great favor. He wants to do favors for them in return; in fact, he feels obligated to do so. That is why he uses Mauss’ study The Gift as a major theoretical frame for this chapter. Mauss talks about how gifts create a sense of debt in the receiver and how this benefits the giver. Thompson’s dilemma is that the farm owners also place him in debt for the research favors they provide. This kind of honesty about what really happens while making films in the field is rare. Thompson does not tell us how this difficult situation resolved itself, or whether it ever does resolve itself. He simply shows us what can transpire midway into an ethnographic film project.

What would you do if you were in Thompson’s situation?

119

Chapter 6

Reading the Mind of the Ethnographic Filmmaker Mining a Flawed Genre for Anthropological Content C arol H e rm e r

M

ost undergraduates welcome a film shown in anthropology class. It lets you sit back, relax, and fall into another world. But most also view that film as an embodiment of “truth.” (If it weren’t, why would the professor have selected it?) You have grown up in a culture that describes a set-up, scripted situation with nonprofessional actors as “reality television,” and that offers the Discovery Channel—with its

didactic voice­overs telling you what to think about the people shown on the screen—as a primary source of information about other cultures.

Some visual anthropologists have responded to this inability to distinguish representation from reality by castigating any film that they deem insufficiently anthropological. There have been wars of words over what constitutes “ethnographic film.” Karl Heider, in his book Ethnographic Film (1976), lists various criteria that he believes measure the “ethnographicness” of film. Jay Ruby (2000) prefers the term “anthropological cinema” to “ethnographic film” and would restrict that designation to only those films produced by and for anthropologists with the specific purpose of furthering anthropological knowledge and without any expectation of financial gain. Then there is Bill Nichols (1994:74), whose condemnation of the voyeurism he sees as implicit in the filming of other cultures leads him into the position of equating academic interest with pornography. It seems to me that this standoff, although producing an interesting and important academic dialogue, does not help the teacher wishing to use a film in the classroom in order to convey some anthropological context, or the students watching it. Few teachers of anthropology limit films shown in the classroom to those fulfilling Ruby’s definition. They use film primarily for content and far too frequently lack the critical skills needed to separate that content from the forces inherent in the film’s production, thus reinforcing Ruby’s and Nichols’ objections to using the film in the first place. My purpose in this chapter is not to define ethnographic film or to limit what can be correctly called by that term, but rather to offer a way for students, and their nonvisually trained teachers, to gain some ethnographic knowledge from a 121

film in spite of the limitations of its production. Students are well served by learning a method that develops critical skills that they can use when viewing films that purport to depict reality in a living culture other than their own. While accepting Ruby’s caveat that most films labeled “ethnographic” are produced under conditions of materialistic hope rather than of academic enquiry, it is still possible to mine these films for content. However, it is first necessary to analyze the context of each film’s production before one can assess the validity of what it shows. There is much excellent theoretical writing on all aspects of ethnographic film and its communication. In this chapter, I merely touch on some of the writing that is essential to the understanding of the method of film analysis that I am describing. I suggest that readers consult the bibliography at the end of the chapter if my description seems, as it certainly will, incomplete. The discussion starts with the ideology inherent in a film, followed by a brief overview of how ideology influences film reception. I then detail how to assess ideology by analyzing film structure—both technical and narrative—and follow this with a discussion of the changing genre of ethnographic documentary. Finally, I describe some illustrative case studies and conclude with a checklist for the student engaged in writing a critical report of a film. The Ideology Behind Filmmaking And Its Reception

For several years I taught a large (one hundred–plus students) introductory cultural anthropology class that introduced students to critical viewing skills. Over that time, I learned that the way to get students to understand the nuances of what they were viewing was to try to train them to enter the mind of the filmmaker. Film viewing activity can be seen as a tripartite process, consisting of the filmmaker, the film, and the audience. One human constructs a sequence of signs—i.e., the film—and another looks at it and infers something. This may be the same thing as the first human intended, or it may not. It is important to realize that film as it is primarily used today is an economic product and is usually created for the purpose of earning its maker capital, be it in the form of money or academic or cultural kudos. There are many ways in which the filmmaker can influence the reality in front of the camera. As a result, what is going on in the mind of the filmmaker is certainly as important as what is going on on-screen. The filmmaker is rarely present at the screening to answer questions on the production of the film. As Jeanne Allen (1991) and Jay Ruby (1980) have written, and which is discussed in some depth later, it would be nice if the filmmaker made his or her purpose clear and gave the potential audience clues as to method of production. But even in current productions, true self-reflexivity is rare, and in any film made more than fifteen years ago, it is almost nonexistent. So it is up to the audience to make an educated guess as to what has taken place during production and what the filmmaker’s viewpoint is. Also, what is going on inside the viewer’s head influences how he or she receives the film. Consequently, when we view a film, we must attempt to modify what we perceive using what we think was happening inside the filmmaker’s head, and our own built-in prejudices. We understand the world in which we live as a complex society where there always is competition between ideas acquired from our parents, schooling, 122

carol hermer

friends, and what we’ve read and learned. It is very easy to absorb the ideas that flow around us. Think of how we often consider something so fashionable one day and out-of-date the next. We are not conscious of making that decision. To give an example, when we talk about “decades” in the United States, we think of the 1980s as the period when the cult of the individual ruled and the pursuit of personal wealth was all that mattered, yet we regard the 1960s as a time when we were more concerned with social good than individual good. At certain periods we have been more compassionate, more giving as a society; at others, more isolationist. All of these are ruling ideologies of their time. Many of these ideas are so inherent to us that we forget that they have been learned. We think of them as natural, as common sense. And this “common sense” both influences how we see the world around us and is reflected in the films we make or in the way we receive them. When watching a film about another culture, the viewer needs to distinguish between ideological (assumed) knowledge and empirical (based on evidence) knowledge. When we watch a film about a subject with which we are familiar, we already have a point of view that mediates our reception to the film, and we can agree or not with the filmmaker’s interpretation. But we cannot do that when we are unfamiliar with the subject. The filmmaker frames the material according to his or her own value system and we are often more than ready to accept that point of view. And when we don’t accept it, we interpret what we see according to our own value system, which often results in a complete misreading of the culture under scrutiny. In order to correctly interpret a filmic view of a strange society, we need to make ourselves aware of our own ideology and also to make an educated guess as to the filmmaker’s ideology. The clues to the filmmaker’s ideology are found by analysis of the film, as outlined below. T h e P o w e r Of F i l m

It is important to analyze the ideology in a film because film is an affective medium—that is, it engages a viewer’s emotions—which is why it is so effective in teaching. When their emotions are engaged, viewers forget that they are watching a representation of reality, not reality itself. Film requires a “suspension of disbelief,” the term used to describe the process that viewers go through when they watch live theater or film or television. At some point, viewers become so engaged in the action in front of them that they ignore the fact that they are actually seated in a theater or in their living room and feel that they are part of what they are watching. Film in a classroom is frequently shown from beginning to end, and it is always this way on television or in a theater. It becomes a one-way communication, a single event communication. It is linear in that one cannot turn back a page and reread it to make sense of it. It must be interpreted correctly the first time. Before the advent of inexpensive recording media such as videotape and DVDs, which allow the viewer to treat a film in the same way as a written text, this was true for all film viewing. Film suffers from confusion with its photographic image. A photograph is assumed to be an accurate depiction of reality, whereas it is only a sign r e a d i n g t h e m i n d o f th e e t h n o g r a ph i c fi lm m a k e r

123

representing that reality. Film is a series of signs. Because of its iconic imagery, film asks us to accept what we see in front of us without questioning its reality. Many films also use symbolic signs as metaphors of a suggested reality. There are three kinds of signs. A sign can be iconic, in that the sign looks like the thing signified. For example, a photograph of a dog represents the idea of a furry, barking pet. An indexical sign draws attention to the thing to which it refers. For example, an image of blowing hair signifies wind. A symbolic sign has no obvious connection with the thing signified except through cultural convention. For example, a cross symbolizes Christianity. Sometimes symbols are obvious, at other times less so, as is the maple leaf that stands for Canada. Written language is the most obvious symbolic part of many cultures. Most symbols have both denotative and connotative meanings. For example, the denotative meaning of the stars and stripes is the United States. More often, though, the flag is used connotatively to represent patriotism or loyalty. Color use is often symbolic. We use black in our society to represent mourning, whereas in China white is used, and yet other cultures use red. In film, connotative meanings can be affected by the mechanics of film production. Although the actual photographic image is iconic and, as such, carries a denoted meaning, a connotative meaning can be attached to it by using one of the film conventions, such as varying the camera angles, changing focus, emphasizing a certain color, using filters, changing lighting, playing with depth of field, or even using special effects. Symbols are culturally specific. The same symbol can have different meanings for different people. The swastika, a Sanskrit symbol, is not considered evil when used in India, but it gained that connotation when taken over by Nazi Germany. Symbols often represent binary opposites. Left and right have inherent symbolism apart from their denotative meanings. Right is also used to mean correct. Think of the words “sinister” and “dextrous”: the first, derived from the Latin for “left,” has a negative meaning; the second, derived from “right,” has a positive meaning. Male/female is another frequently used binary pair. Ideology is frequently expressed through symbols and symbolic language. In film, symbols are often used metanymically to express ideological points of view. In his film Dead Birds, for example, Robert Gardner uses shots of flocks of birds to express death. Signs are strung together in codes, which are learned patterns. The making of messages is known as encoding; the interpretation of messages is known as decoding. These are not always equal and opposite. A viewer who is knowledgeable about the subject of a film can get an aberrant or discrepant decoding. Alternatively, the filmmaker can intend a message in a certain direction, but the viewer with less knowledge of the subject can read it in a different way. For example, Wilton Martinez (1990) notes that first-year students shown The Ax Fight, by Timothy Asch and Napoleon Chagnon, reacted with a very negative image of the participants, which was the opposite reaction to that intended by Asch and Chagnon.

them. Students asked to review a film in an anthropology class will automatically describe the content of the film. What the film is about, who are the people depicted, and what they are doing usually take up most of the discussion. Unfortunately, few teachers of anthropology go beyond this. Nor do they try to see what about the film creates the impressions to which the students are responding. Content in a film is not transparent. What you see has been manipulated by the technique of creating the film. So the more important aspect to analyze, and one that should be discussed before content, is structure. Rather than asking what the film is about, one can rephrase the question: What was the filmmaker trying to say? Once we learn to search for the conventions that the filmmaker has chosen, both technical and narrative, we are able to critically discuss the connotations behind the images we have been watching. Technical Choices

How the filmmaker produces the film affects the reality given to the viewer. This can be influenced in three ways: through the visual effects, the audio effects, and the narrative structure.

Visual Effects a. Montage versus Unfolding Reality: Juxtapositions. Film uses the fact that it occurs in linear

In (a) a tourist sunbathing is intercut with scenes of a crocodile and (b) tourists who happen to be caught by the camera are treated with the same disdain as those whose behavior shows disrespect for the native Papuans. From Cannibal Tours by Dennis O’Rourke. (Used with permission of Dennis O’Rourke.)

Figure 6.1.

time to imply connectedness that may or may not exist in reality. Film is edited together in what Sol Worth referred to as “videmes”: scenes, shot independently, but edited together. This is known as montage and was originated by Sergei Eisenstein in the early days of feature film, in opposition to Dziga Vertov’s cinema verité, and is now used almost exclusively. Film condenses time by cutting off one real-time scene and affixing it to another. If shot number one shows a person gazing off to one side

a

and the subsequent shot shows a gun, the viewer infers that the person is looking at the gun. In other words, a cause-andeffect connection is made by the viewer between two disparate filmic events that were recorded at different times and possibly in different places but have been juxtaposed during editing. Filmmakers use this metaphorically. For example, in Cannibal Tours, Dennis O’Rourke cuts from

A n a ly z i n g F i l m S t r u c t u r e

an image of a woman in a bikini to that

As mentioned earlier, the reality in front of a camera is easily modified by certain technical and narrative conventions. Most viewers are so used to seeing these conventions that they take them for granted and are rarely aware of 124

carol hermer

of an alligator, symbolizing the predatory nature of the tourists. (Figures 6.1a and b.)

b

In The Kawelka: Ongka’s Big Moka, Charles r e a d i n g t h e m i n d o f th e e t h n o g r a ph i c fi lm m a k e r

125

Naim cuts back and forth from shots of Ongka and other Big Men in pig-

interest from the rest of the view. We can only focus on one

exchange ceremonies to shots of Ongka’s wife, bent double as she cares for the

small thing at a time. We may see many things peripherally,

growing herd. (Figures 6.2a and b.)

but our attention is only on one spot. Although it is impossible A common form of cutting in

to do this with a camera lens, the closest approximation of

documentary (also used frequently

how we see, rather than what we see, is probably a wide shot

in newscasts) is what is known as the

followed by a series of close-ups.

“noddy.” Most interviews outside of a studio setting are conducted with a

a

d. Depth of Field and Lenses. The camera uses lenses and

single camera, which is usually focused

photographers know that different lenses create different

on the person being interviewed. At

impressions of what is shot. Using a lens with a long

the end of the interview, the camera is

focal length brings faraway objects closer and diminishes

trained on the interviewer who nods,

perspective. It makes things that in reality are far away from

repeats his or her questions, and smiles,

one another appear on the same plane. Gardner uses this

even laughs, at the camera. When

effectively in Dead Birds, making it appear that the opposing

the interview is condensed into the

armies are closer to each other than in reality.

final version, the editor inserts these

By changing the size of the aperture through which the

“cutaways” over the edit points so that

light passes, the camera is also capable of having more or

the viewer is unaware of the cuts.

less of the image in focus. This is known as depth of field. A wide aperture (f5 or lower) means only a small area of the

b. Transitions: Cuts and Dissolves.

image will be in focus. It is used to isolate the main object of

Cutting not only adds a sense of

attention away from its background in a similar effect to a

connectedness, it also has a perceptual

close-up. A narrow aperture (f8 or larger) keeps most of the

quality of its own depending on how

image in focus and gives us a more neutral view.

long each scene is allowed to run. The

b

Shots of the small mokas (pig exchanges) (a) are intercut with shots of Ongka’s wife caring for the pigs (b) to make the point that men celebrate while women work in The Kawelka: Ongka’s Big Moka. (Permission for use requested from the BBC; shots used under the assumption of fair use for educational purposes.)

Figure 6.2.

126

shorter the scene, the more heightened

e. Direction of the Gaze. To whom is the film directed? Does it

the emotion it conveys. The intercutting

speak directly to the audience or is it indirect, acting as if the

between Ongka at the ceremonies

audience is not there? Do people address the camera directly

and his wife tending the pigs (Figures

or speak to an interviewer at one side? A viewer is likely to be

6.2a and b above) gets shorter and

more influenced by someone speaking directly to the camera

shorter as the filmmaker emphasizes the

rather than to one side. If two parties to a controversy are

connection between men’s status and

filmed, the audience’s main sympathies will be with the party

women’s work. Although used less often

addressing them directly and less so with the people who are

nowadays, dissolves, the fading out of

just observed. Dennis O’Rourke uses this very effectively in

one scene concurrently with the fading

Cannibal Tours.

Focal length of lens. In both examples, the camera is focused on the teacher in the center. On the recorded tape, with the 35mm lens (top), the people appear to be separated from one another. With the 125mm lens (bottom), they appear to be at the same distance from the camera. (illustration by Carol Hermer)

Figure 6.3.

in of another, convey the sense of time passing, or a shift to another place. In more reflexive productions, dissolves are sometimes used instead of cutaways to acknowledge the truncated nature of an interview.

f. Omissions and Repetitions. Yet another element to look for in the content of a film is not actually there. Omissions— those elements that have been eliminated from the text—

c. Framing. A filmmaker chooses which part of the scene in front of the

can be as revealing as what is shown. For example, think

camera shows in the image. This is called “framing the shot.” A camera angle

of a film supposedly about ordinary life that neglects to

looking up to a person suggests importance; a camera angle looking down

present a female point of view. Repetition emphasizes a

diminishes the subject. A wide shot is impersonal; a close-up shot becomes

point the filmmaker is trying to say. The alternating shots

personal. Filmmaker O’Rourke in Cannibal Tours frames his shots to suggest

of Ongka amassing pigs at the ceremonies with Ongka’s

distance from the tourists but intimacy with the villagers, implying that his

wife looking after more and more pigs, mentioned earlier,

sympathies are with the villagers. Heider (1976) has expressed dislike of

illustrate this point. Gardner uses repeated shots of villagers

the use of the close-up in ethnographic film, but in many ways this type of

killing pigs and villagers at war in Dead Birds, emphasizing

shot also expresses how we process what we see. A wide shot is closest to

the warlike nature of the Dani, the New Guinea people

how we see in life, but the human brain is adept at separating the focus of

depicted in the film.

carol hermer

r e a d i n g t h e m i n d o f th e e t h n o g r a ph i c fi lm m a k e r

Depth of field. In both examples, the camera is focused on the teacher in the center. On the recorded tape, the area between the red lines will appear in focus. If the aperture is wide open (top) only the teacher is in focus. If the aperture is narrow (bottom) most of the picture will be in focus. (illustration by Carol Hermer)

Figure 6.4.

127

g. Aesthetic Style. The style of the film also affects how we accept its message. Lighting can affect mood. For example, pools of light, associated

narration do not match, this is an anomaly and can be a telling indicator of the ideology behind the film.

with film noir, are sometimes used in interior shots, though this can be a result of technical limitation rather than intent. As mentioned earlier, film is

b. Background Music. Use of background music is one of the most

an affective medium. It plays on our emotions, and beautiful (or, conversely,

effective means for creating audience response. Unless the audio is the

ugly) images reinforce stereotypes. When the aesthetics are important in a

natural sound of whatever is seen in the image, it acts to alter audience

film, the viewer’s opinions of the content are often swayed.

perception of what is being viewed. For example, in feature film, drum The serene landscape in Dead Birds does not match the message of death and war in the narration. (Used with permission of Documentary Educational Resources.)

Figure 6.6.

Audio Effects a. Authority of Narration. Because of the absence of synchronized location sound, classic anthropological cinema had a voiceover narration rather than subtitles. Unfortunately, even when synchronized sound became available, the convention had become established and the soothing voiceover, the so-called “voice of God,” was almost ubiquitous to the genre. Even many current films, frequently those found on the Discovery Channel, still use this outdated mode of address. The problem with a voiceover is that it tends to be authoritative. Viewers believe what is said even when the evidence on the screen contradicts the words spoken. For example, in Dead Birds, which was made before the invention of synchronized sound, Robert Gardner introduces a sense of menace in his narration, which is spoken over a scene of a perfectly calm flowing river. (Figure 6.5.) The narration again adopts an ominous tone when describing a no-man’s land between the villages as an area of terror while the image on screen shows a peaceful agricultural vista (Figure 6.6). Though in this case Gardner is expressing what the Dani have told him, with different words and tone, the viewer would have a completely different impression. When image and rolls and heavy chords suggest to the viewer that something momentous

Gardner shows a peaceful river in Dead Birds, but his narrative overvoice has intonations of menace and danger. (Used with permission of Documentary Educational Resources.)

Figure 6.5.

or anxiety-producing is about to happen. Light trills suggest happiness or a lack of importance of the image. Most films made with a specifically anthropological, as opposed to documentary, purpose tend to eschew added music and rely on natural sound or on contextually produced music that is used only in the beginning or ending of the film. But films made for broadcast or cable television almost always have some sort of music added. Cannibal Tours has one of the most impressive soundtracks in ethnographic film, with an initial combination of Mozart, ambient sounds, and static radio combining to set the ideological tone. c. Who Is Speaking? I mentioned earlier the problems associated with a narrative voiceover. On any documentary subject we want as much input as possible from the people depicted in the film. The term indigenous voice is usually used to describe the voice of native or third world peoples in a film, but I prefer to use it to describe the opinions of any primary subjects of a film, whether they are native or not. My point is that we are trying to assess the validity of the film’s point of view, and what the participants of the film have to say about what is shown is always relevant. In some cases, like Cannibal Tours, the filmmaker uses various means to put his point across, but the people depicted, both Papuans and Western tourists, are allowed to speak for themselves.

128

carol hermer

r e a d i n g t h e m i n d o f th e e t h n o g r a ph i c fi lm m a k e r

129

d. Choice of Words. The use of vocabulary in the voiceover is also relevant. As is often expressed, one man’s “terrorist” is another’s “freedom fighter.”

the nature of the filmmaker’s relationship with the people in the film. Unfortunately, any of this in a film is rare. Ruby (1980) speaks of the importance of self-reflexivity, which he defines as

Narrative Structure a. Narrative: How Is the Story Ordered? Another important element is analysis of the narrative imposed on the events under scrutiny in the film. Reordering life into a narrative is so integral to us that we are rarely aware of the constructed nature of the stories we are watching. If you ask twenty students to describe in some detail what they did the day before, chances

[W]hen the producer of a work decides to make his awareness of self a public matter and convey that knowledge to the audience. . . . The producer deliberately, intentionally reveals to his audience the underlying epistemological assumptions which caused him to formulate a set of questions in a particular way, to seek answers to those questions in a particular way, and finally to present his findings in a particular way.

are that none of them will include that they got dressed, brushed their teeth, had breakfast, got on the bus to go to school, and so on unless something happened while doing one of those things that fixed the activity in memory. Of the twenty-four hours in each day, only those moments that inspired humor, pain, excitement, or some other emotion are recalled for recounting (see Hermer 1998). Similarly, when viewing the hours of tape or film that have been collected for a film, only those moments that can be combined into some sort of rational narrative sequence are retained in the finished production. And because most anthropological films are made for broadcast television first, and the classroom second, they are structured to fit into a specific space of time, usually between fifty and fifty-six minutes. Films made by Westerners, even when they purport to tell the story of non-Western peoples, often use a familiar construct for their narratives. It starts with orientation, an introduction to the setting and the characters involved, follows with some complication, what is going on and what is the character’s problem, continues with a resolution of the problem or conflict, and concludes with an evaluation, letting the viewer know why this particular story is of relevance to his or her life. Frequently, some image of travel appears in the beginning and as a coda to clue the viewer into the sense of distance needed to reach the people observed and then to bring the viewer back to the cozy confines of Western complacence. b. Elements in the Narrative: Judgments and Stereotypes. Structural analysis also looks for the position of each element within the whole production. In newscasting, producers tend to group items they see as related—all stories about Africa, for example. Mike Cormack (1992) refers to this as “diachronic structure.” Synchronic structure is the grouping of elements in order to stress binary opposites, framing a narrative by comparing one good thing against the negativity of its opposite. O’Rourke uses the tourists and villagers in Cannibal Tours as binary opposites. Whenever I watch that film, I feel pity for the woman (Figure 6.1b) who happened to be on the tour. She does little but give an infectious smile, says and does nothing egregious, yet is condemned along with her shipmates. Transparency of Production

To what extent does the filmmaker include him or herself in the story? As Jay Ruby has suggested, it would be wonderful if every filmmaker told the viewer up front about his or her methods, the purposes behind the film, and 130

carol hermer

There are few films used in anthropology classes that adhere to this definition. One that does is Kwame Braun’s passing girl: riverside. In many ways, Braun fulfills Ruby’s criteria for anthropological filmmaking. Here is a clear statement of why the filmmaker is making this film. The first ten minutes are an analysis of the ethnographic filmmaking process replete with self-reflex­ ivity and consciousness of the manipulation of images and their consequences. Braun starts by analyzing twenty seconds of footage of a little girl caught on tape while walking with her mother in a parade along a street in Ghana (Figure 6.7a). Braun shows the footage in slow motion, in fast forward, running backward, zoomed into pixels (Figure 6.7b), and with time code visible (Figure 6.7c). He shows himself reflected in the monitor of his editing equipment (Figure 6.7d) and his footage as part of an editing process (Figure 6.7e). He makes it clear, both visually and in voiceover, what the power vested in the manipulator of video images consists of, and the meaning and relevance of anthropological filmmaking to the representation of the people filmed. More common than true self-reflexivity is some sort of self-reference, which attempts to break down the classic convention of camera invisibility, to break apart the suspension of disbelief and remind the viewer that there is a camera and a cameraperson interposed between viewer and subject, and to do away with the conceit that what they are watching is pure reality, not a structured product framed and interpreted. Signs of selfreference are subjects who talk directly to the audience, the voice of the filmmaker readily heard, intentional shots of boom mikes, or reflections of the camera. Dennis O’Rourke’s Cannibal Tours has many instances of selfreference, including a German tourist handing over his camera to the filmmaker. Some filmmakers, like E. E. Evans-Pritchard in writing r e a d i n g t h e m i n d o f th e e t h n o g r a ph i c fi lm m a k e r

Scenes from Kwame Braun’s passing girl: riverside, which is an excellent essay on the implications of anthropological imagemaking. Pictured above: (a) a shot from the scene that Braun manipulates, (b) pixilated image, (c) image with time code, (d) reflection of Braun in the monitor of his editing setup, and (e) video in the process of editing. (Used with permission of Documentary Educational Resources.)

Figure 6.7.

131

The Nuer, attempt to introduce themselves at the beginning or ending of a film, but disappear from evidence for the rest of the work. Anthropological Film’s Place in History

1. The perception of superiority of White Caucasian peoples over Black African peoples did not exist in 1000 AD. Its development may be traced back to shifts in power in the medieval world resulting from the Black Death and the development of the lateen sail that allowed ships to sail against the wind and led to the voyages of the Portuguese and Spanish explorers. These voyages resulted in the opening of equatorial Africa and the Americas to the depredations of Europeans in search of slaves, gold, and ivory.

132

Earlier I discussed the formation of ideology. Ideology is historical. One can trace its origins and the rise of ideological ideas in society. For example, racism is not inherent.1 Because it is historical, ideology is never static. It is always contested. This is how it changes. For example, note how the role of women has changed in the past fifty years. Because of changes in ideology, the structure of a film, and the choices made by the filmmaker, are frequently influenced by the time period in which the film was made. Anthropological film grew out of the travelogues and scientific records of explorers in the same way that anthropology emerged from the need of the Western middle class to explore, document, explain, understand, and symbolically control the ‘exotic world.’ Film genres and written ethnography are culturally related, though the first anthropological documentaries were closer to feature films both in length and fictional underpinnings. Over the years, filmmakers have been aware of the deficiencies in past representations of other cultures and have tried to redress the balance, though often introducing other limitations in the process. Bill Nichols (1994) has made a historically based classification of documentary film that is useful in analysis. He starts with Hollywood fiction, which even when dealing with actual people has been more concerned with narrative than reality. The first films about other cultures, like Nanook of the North or In the Land of the War Canoes, introduced their ethnographic material against a fictional story. For Nanook, Robert J. Flaherty constructed a narrative battle between man and nature, but Edward S. Curtis created a totally fictional love and war story for Canoes. In both cases, the filmmakers even recreated ethnographic sets of Native villages. Expository documentary, common from the 1940s to the 1960s, relied on an omnipotent didactic voiceover to tell the viewers what they were seeing. Gardner’s Dead Birds and John Marshall’s The Hunters, edited by Gardner, are two examples. The voiceover, frequently spoken in an emotionless tone intended to represent lack of bias, serves to distance the viewer from the people in the film, who are never allowed to speak for themselves. (It is only fair to point out that part of the reason for the voiceover and lack of indigenous voice was the inability to record synchronous sound on location. Until the late 1960s even feature films were rerecorded in sound studios.) As mentioned earlier, this genre of film became so dominant that many contemporary documentaries that supposedly are ethnographic and no longer hampered by out-of-date technology still use the same convention. Most of the films on the Discovery Channel, for example, still use voiceover. This type of documentary, similar to the classic written ethnographies of the time, also eschews history, treating societies as unchanging and permanently set in the ethnographic present. In the later 1960s, filmmakers such as Jean Rouch, Frederick Wiseman, and Peter Adair, among others, championed the observational documentary, an outgrowth of cinema verité. Early examples of this genre include John Marshall’s Joking Relationship and Adair’s Holy Ghost People. True to its title, the carol hermer

observational documentary offers no commentary, instead observing things as they happen. David MacDougall, whose films include The Wedding Camels and the Doon School series, is one contemporary filmmaker whose films fall into that category. The classic observational cinema offered no context or history to explain what one was seeing, but currently most filmmakers whose work is mainly observational use interviews with some protagonists to provide context. Interactive documentary of the 1970s relied on the subtitled interview, allowing a personal history to give context to the images. The reintroduction of society as a historical process instead of a timeless present was welcome, though this approach has been criticized for an excessive faith in a few witnesses resulting in a naive approach to history. Examples of this genre are John Marshall’s N!ai and Charles Naim’s The Kawelka: Ongka’s Big Moka. In the 1980s, some form of reflexivity and camera-consciousness became the vogue, a reaction against the invisible camera of the past. Reflexive documentary was a child of postmodernism, questioning documentary form. Dennis O’Rourke’s Cannibal Tours is one example of a reflexive documentary. This genre has often been criticized for losing sight of the issues it purports to discuss. Performative documentary of the 1980s and 1990s is a category that Nichols espouses, looking for it to change ethnographic film from a work about other cultures to an expressive depiction of that culture. Films that stress subjective aspects of experience, as opposed to objective discussions, could allow for affective experiencing of another culture without fixing it under a Western gaze.2 Trinh Minh-ha’s Reassemblage is one example, with its silences, disjointed cuts and blank screens, speech riffed into musical passages, and absence of narrative. But because of its overly stylistic approach, it may be dismissed as avant-garde or criticized as lacking context. Not all performative documentary is new. Jean Rouch experimented with this form of expression in The Lion Hunters in the early 1970s. I would add to Nichols’ list activist documentary, which has been a prevalent form of cultural documentary in the past few years. “Between two worlds,” or permutations of that idea, features in many currently produced films, following an agenda for integrating refugees, immigrants, or other minority groups into a society. AIDS activism is the focus of the Steps for the Future3 series of films, and John Marshall’s Death by Myth, part of the Kalahari Family series, argues for an agricultural future for the Bushmen. Some Case Studies

I have given a long list of what to look for when watching a film, but the more one attempts it, the easier it becomes. Let’s look at some popular classroom films, all depicting people of New Guinea, and see how this method of analysis works. At the end, I will provide a checklist for students to follow when doing their own critical analyses.

Case One: Robert Gardner’s Dead Birds (1964) Dead Birds is probably the most frequently shown film in anthropology classes, possibly because it is the one most anthropologists know. It is a beautiful film, r e a d i n g t h e m i n d o f th e e t h n o g r a ph i c fi lm m a k e r

2. Because of the history of slavery and colonialism, and the resultant economic advantages that these gave the West, Western societies are assumed to have power over the rest of the world. The “Western gaze” is assumed to be diminishing of the people on whom it is fixed. 3. The Steps for the Future films consist of thirty-five productions, each made by a different filmmaker. From all parts of Southern Africa, the films were made to combat the spread of AIDS. They use many different techniques, such as pathos, humor, satire, personal history, or direct discussion, but all are all “message” films aimed at the population most at risk for the disease. They are distributed primarily by mobile cinemas that set up temporary screens in rural areas across Southern Africa. For more information see their website www. newsreel.org/nav/title. asp?tc=CN0151.

133

one that illustrates many of the aspects of classic anthropological discourse about New Guinea societies. But the main reason that I use it regularly in classes is that it demonstrates many of the features that I believe compromise the representation of the people shown. The film provides a picture of the day-to-day life of the Dani of Irian Jaya, but the essays on pig keeping, weaving, salt collection, sweet potato farming, and children’s play are all set against a narrative of constant war, fear of ghosts, and ritual pig killing. Dead Birds is edited to form a narrative, to carry out director Robert Gardner’s primary focus of illustrating a Dani myth. The myth tells of an argument between a bird and a snake about death. The snake wants Man to come back to life after cremation, a metaphor for its own shedding of skin. The bird wants Man to stay dead. The bird wins the argument, so men, like birds, must die. Gardner starts his film with the claim: This film was made in a remote corner of the Baliem Valley high in the central mountains of West New Guinea. It is a true story composed from actual events photographed during the Peabody Museum of Harvard Expedition to the Baliem in 1962. No scene was directed and no role was created. The people in the film merely did what they had done before we came and, for those who are not dead, as they do now that we have left.

Figure 6.8. The opposing armies in Dead Birds have been photographed through a long lens to make it appear as if they are closer to each other than was the case. (Used with permission of Documentary Educational Resources.)

134

There is no background music in the film, but it depends on a constant narration. The narration purports to voice the inner thoughts of the people onscreen. There is no sign of indigenous voice or reflexivity or self-reference. At no point does anyone in the film look directly at the camera; rather, they act as if the camera is not present. Dead Birds provides good examples of disjunction in that there is often no correspondence between the image and the message of the voiceover. The image of the beautiful river mentioned earlier (Figure 6.5) is played against a voiceover carrying a sense of menace. On another occasion, the image is of peaceful countryside (Figure 6.6), but the narration mentions “noman’s land” and “enemy,” and the impression is one of danger directly contradicting the image. Gardner insists that he was merely voicing what he had been told by the Dani, but looking at the film as an individual text, without supplementary written information, the narration is unsupported. One of the camera tricks that is not easy to see, unless one is told of it, is the use of a long foreshortening lens (see Figure 6.3) in filming the battle scenes. The effect is to make it appear as if the armies are mere yards from one another (Figure 6.8), whereas according to Heider, who was the anthropologist on-site, the distances between armies was considerable. Several battle scenes shot at different times have also been edited together. The narrative plays on war, enmity, revenge, and superstition. Rather than a battle between Man and Nature as in Nanook of the North, Dead Birds carol hermer

features a battle between implacable enemies who live in eternal revenge cycles. The viewer is told of constant war and ever-present danger, yet if one analyzes the actual cost in human life during the time period depicted in the film, the death toll adds up to about five people per year. Much footage focuses on the ritual killing of pigs, and the viewer is taken repeatedly through the shooting, pain, and eventual death of the animals. The conclusion is that, though Gardner may have believed he was giving an accurate portrayal of a people, the consequence of using war and superstition as the underpinning of the narrative results in an image of the strangeness and savagery of a foreign world. Another filmmaker may have used the same scenes, without the foreshortening lens, to illustrate war as theater, a way to enliven the daily grind of life in a Stone Age economy, a point of view that would have seemed less strange to the average American audience.

Case Two: Charles Naim’s The Kawelka: Ongka’s Big Moka (1974) This film was made six years after Dead Birds and is also about a pig-keeping New Guinea highlands society, though this time the setting is Papua New Guinea. Ongka is a “big man,” a traditional leader in the society, and the film follows his attempts to accumulate enough pigs to stage an enormous feast to honor his rival, a government official. The film also covers death rituals and rivalry between groups, but it was filmed after the banning of intertribal fighting by the Australian government and emphasizes negotiation rather than revenge. The film still relies on voiceover commentary to provide the context, but there is also some subtitled translation of Ongka’s voice and other scenes when conversation is neither translated nor referred to. Like that in Dead Birds, the commentary here is somewhat condescending toward Ongka’s quest for pigs, and though certain scenes show money being presented, it is not commented on. The filmmaking is fairly straightforward. There is no attempt to hide Western influence in the framing. Ongka repeatedly appears in a T-shirt bearing the slogan “Do it on the road.” On one occasion, a subtitled comment refers to the filmmaker, and Ongka looks directly at the camera on several occasions. There are various obvious infusions of filmmaker ideology in the editing of the film. As Ongka’s pig stocks grow, the film cuts back and forth from shots of the ceremonies involved in the collection to shots of Ongka’s exhausted wife who has to care for and find food for the pigs, thus implying an unfair division of labor (see Figures 6.2a and b above). Though Ongka is shown as a loving father, he is also depicted as vain (an elaborate sequence of images shows him preparing his ceremonial headdress; see Figure 6.9), argumentative, and ultimately impotent in that his big ceremony r e a d i n g t h e m i n d o f th e e t h n o g r a ph i c fi lm m a k e r

Figure 6.9. Although Ongka is mostly subtitled to give the audience his point of view, the camera and a narrative overvoice also condescend at times, such as during this scene of him preparing his costume for a moka. From The Kawelka: Ongka’s Big Moka by Charles Naim. (Permission for use requested from the BBC; shots used under the assumption of fair use for educational purposes.)

135

never takes place. So though there is a glimmer of self-reference and a beginning of the inclusion of indigenous voice, the film is still firmly grounded in a comparison of Us and Them in terms of values and behavior.

Case Three: Dennis O’Rourke’s Cannibal Tours (1992)

The German tourist in Dennis O’Rourke’s Cannibal Tours hands his camera to the video maker for him to take a photograph. (Used with permission of Dennis O’Rourke.) Figure 6.10.

136

Cannibal Tours accompanies a group of European and American tourists on a luxury trip up the Sepik River in New Guinea. We watch the tourists visit a craft village and bargain for artwork, hear about the Sepik people’s history of cannibalism, and visit a ritual longhouse. We learn what the tourists think of the natives and what the natives think of the tourists. When I have shown this film as the third in a series of New Guinea films, the students have a very different reaction than when they view it as the first of a series of films about film criticism. In the first instance, many students receive the film as if it is a straightforward film about New Guinea peoples and don’t recognize that it is actually about the tourist encounter and that the Westerners are as much the subjects of the film as the New Guinea natives. Cannibal Tours was made in 1992 and by then self-reference and indigenous voice had become de rigueur. O’Rourke’s voice is regularly heard in the film, his hands appear in the shot (see Figure 6.10), his reflection and that of his camera show on the side of the plane that will take the tourists home. There is no voiceover commentary and all interviews and conversation are subtitled. At first glance, it appears as if O’Rourke is allowing the tourists to condemn themselves with their self-serving and self-satisfied remarks. But certain shots indicate that his ideology favors the natives heavily over the visitors. His ideology is made clear by his opening statement, “There is nothing so strange in a strange land, as the stranger who comes to visit it.” O’Rourke does not believe that any encounter between those with power and those without is innocent. His use of Mozart as background music suggests the visitors as elitist. Even his title indicates his view of tourists as consumers of strangeness. He intercuts shots of tourists sunbathing (see Figure 6.1a) with shots of crocodiles; he makes no distinction between tourists whose egregious behavior is caught on camera and those just along for the ride (see Figure 6.1b). There is no room in his ideology for the person intrigued by another culture who is not in the business of studying it. By the end of the film, the viewer is embarassed to have ever visited a foreign place. In his framing, O’Rourke places the tourists at a middle distance (see Figure 6.11a) but provides a more intimate close-up of the natives (see Figure 6.11b). He asks the natives about their history, but the tourists are only asked for their opinions of the natives and of other places they have visited. We are never allowed any intimacy with them. Even their fun is shown in slow motion in order to ridicule. We never hear from the Papuan tour guides or drivers who may have other opinions of both tourist and native. carol hermer

a

b

Conclusion

All films are products of human ideas and desires, and for a film to be useful as a teaching tool, those ideas and desires must be excavated from the text and weighed against the message it is promoting. Some filmmakers make it easy for the reader to do this; others pretend human agency was not involved. This chapter attempts to crack open the frames of the latter by providing a list of clues to the filmmaker’s masked intent.

1. Briefly discuss the content of the film. What is the film about, who are the people depicted, and what are they doing? 2. Analyze the structure of the film. Make an educated guess about the

Figure 6.11. In Cannibal Tours, Dennis O’Rourke keeps the tourists at midrange, establishing some distance between them and the viewer (a), whereas he photographs the native Papuans in close-ups (b).

A Checklist For Analyzing Film:

Writing a Critical Film Report

ideology of the filmmaker. What was he or she trying to make us, the viewers, think? a. Look for any anomalies or disjunctions you notice that are not made

explicit by the filmmaker, for example, sound and visuals that do not



complement each other.

b. How does the filmmaker use close-ups? Are these necessary to bring

attention to something that appeared in the previous visual or do



they merely lead the viewer toward a specific assumption?

c. Are there any juxtapositions of shots that create implications not

necessarily apparent in the visuals? Are there differences in the



rhythm of the cutting in certain scenes?

d. Look at the narrative structure. Has the filmmaker modified the

events to create a specific story, set up binary oppositions or



artificial confrontations?

e. Are there any judgments expressed, or characters or actions that are

stereotypical? Characters may be chosen to represent binary oppositions.

f. Are certain images shown repeatedly and at length, whereas others

are glossed over or absent altogether?

r e a d i n g t h e m i n d o f th e e t h n o g r a ph i c fi lm m a k e r

137

g. What vocabulary is used to describe something? Do the words have

positive or negative connotations?

h. What symbols appear that may influence viewers? i. Listen carefully to the sound track. Sounds can also be used symbolically. j. Are any shots particularly beautiful—or ugly? 3. Is there any evidence of self-reflexivity or self-reference? 4. How much indigenous voice is present? Are we asked to listen to the voices of the subjects or the filmmaker? 5. When was the film made? Is it typical of its time?

References Allen, Jeanne. 1991. “Self-reflexivity in Documentary,” Explorations in Film Theory, Ron Burnett, ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Cormack, Mike. 1992. Ideology. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Heider, Karl G. 1976. Ethnographic Film. Austin: University of Texas Press. Hermer, Carol. 1998. Performing Our Pasts: Representing History, Representing Self (dissertation). Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI. Martinez, Wilton. 1990. “Critical Studies and Visual Anthropology: Aberrant vs. Anticipated Readings of Ethnographic Film,” CVA Review (Spring): pp. 34–47. Nichols, Bill. 1994. Blurred Boundaries. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ruby, Jay. 1980. “Exposing Yourself: Reflexivity, Anthropology, and Film.” Semiotica 30½, pp. 153–179. 2000. Picturing Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Film References Adair, Peter. 1968. Holy Ghost People. Distributed by Thistle Films, 10 Charlotte Street, Collingwood, Victoria, Australia 3066. Holy Ghost People can be watched online at www.archive.org/details/HolyGhostPeople. Asch, Timothy and Napoleon Chagnon. 1975. The Ax Fight. Distributed by DER, 100 Morse Street, Watertown, MA 02472, www.der.org. Braun, Kwame. 1998. passing girl: riverside. Distributed by DER, 100 Morse Street, Watertown, MA 02472, www.der.org. Curtis, Edward. 1914. In the Land of the War Canoes. Distributed by DER, 100 Morse Street, Watertown, MA 02472, www.der.org. Flaherty, Robert. 1922. Nanook of the North. Distributed by First Run Icarus Films, 32 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201, www.frif.com. Gardner, Robert. 1964. Dead Birds. Distributed by DER, 100 Morse Street, Watertown, MA 02472, www.der.org. Marshall, John. 1958. The Hunters; 1962, Joking Relationship; 1980, N!ai: The story of a ¡Kung woman; 2004, Kalahari Family. Distributed by DER, 100 Morse Street, Watertown, MA 02472, www.der.org. Minh-ha, Trinh. 1982. Reassemblage. Distributed by Women Make Movies, 462 Broadway, Suite 500WS, New York, NY 10013, www.wmm.com. Naim, Charles. 1974. The Kawelka: Ongka’s Big Moka. Distributed by Filmakers Library, 124 E. 40th Street, New York, NY 10016, www.filmakers.com. O’Rourke, Dennis. 1992. Cannibal Tours. Distributed by CameraWork (Pty.) Limited, PO Box 8, Edge Hill 4870, Cairns-Queensland, Australia. E-mail: mail@cameraworklim ited.com; www.cameraworklimited.com/. Distributed in the United States by Direct Cinema Limited, P.O. Box 10003, Santa Monica, CA 90410-1003. E-mail: orders@ directcinemalimited.com. Rouch, Jean. 1965. The Lion Hunters. Distributed by DER, 100 Morse Street, Watertown, MA 02472, www.der.org.; 2005. Steps for the Future. Distributed by California Newsreel, PO Box 2284, South Burlington, VT 05407, www.newsreel.org.

Recommended Readings The following books are suggested for students wishing to explore the subject further: Askew, Kelly and Richard R. Wilk, eds. 2003. The Anthropology of Media. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers. Banks, Marcus and Howard Morphy. 1997. Rethinking Visual Anthropology. New Haven: Yale University Press. Devereaux, Leslie and Roger Hillman, eds. 1995. Fields of Vision: Essays in Film Studies, Visual Anthropology, and Photography. Berkeley: University of California Press. Gross, Larry, John Stuart Katz, and Jay Ruby, eds. 2003. Image Ethics in the Digital Age. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. MacDougall, David. 1998. Transcultural Cinema. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Morris, Rosalind C. 1994. New Worlds from Fragments: Film, Ethnography, and the Representation of Northwest Coast Cultures. Boulder: Westview Press. Nichols, Bill. 1994. Blurred Boundaries: Questions of Meaning in Contemporary Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ruby, Jay. 2000. Picturing Culture: Explorations of Film and Anthropology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stoller, Paul. 1992. The Cinematic Griot: The Ethnography of Jean Rouch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Taylor, Lucien. 1994. Visualizing Theory: Selected Essays from V.A.R. 1990–1994. New York: Routledge.

138

carol hermer

r e a d i n g t h e m i n d o f th e e t h n o g r a ph i c fi lm m a k e r

139

Chapter 7

Visual Anthropology in a Time of War Intimacy and Interactivity in Ethnographic Media Peter Biella

The bombs falling on South-East Asia are exploding in the ghettos of America.

A

Martin Luther King Jr.

nthropology has a long applied tradition of fighting racism, defending gender equality, and condemning violence.1 In visual anthropology, too, one of our originating documents emerged from the applied tradition; its own battle was against a violence deeply connected with gender and racial oppression. The Study of Culture at a Distance, edited by Margaret Mead and Rhoda Métraux, was written during

World War II. It critiqued films and other media produced in enemy countries, and its goal was to identify symptoms of characterological weakness that would bring the war to a more rapid and just conclusion (Mead and Métraux 1954).

My goal for this chapter falls in this same tradition. The United States is again in a time of war; my objective, like that of Mead and Métraux, is again to identify character weaknesses in order to bring the war to a more rapid and just conclusion. In my study, though, the weaknesses are found not in official enemies of the state but in a large portion of the state’s own citizens. Militarism, racism, and sexism are symptoms of a psychological syndrome that contributes materially to the nation’s insistence on war and imperialist ambition. These deadly weaknesses are based on a fundamental character flaw, the illusion of a hypermasculine white supremacy. The syndrome is widespread because its symptoms are so often reinforced in mainstream media: the “news” and “entertainment.” In light of this conclusion, I am deeply interested in analyses of mass media. I recognize the burgeoning academic niche of anthropological and communications media research (e.g., Askew and Wilk 2002; Ginsburg, Abu-Lughod, and Larkin 2002; Perse 2001), but my commitment to applied visual anthropology causes me to be influenced more directly by the psychoanalytic contributions of Stephen Ducat (2004) and other activist media scholars. As a filmmaker, too, I am also deeply influenced by the visual anthropologists whose films and videos contribute significantly, if indirectly, to the discipline’s struggle against militarism, sexism, and racism. Countless creative works, exploring the brilliance of cultural variety, inherently condemn violence. Revealing women’s lives and rights, such works

1. My thanks to Liberty Winn, Jim Quesada, Chris Bettinger, Anne Biella (please rest peacefully), Joan Biella, Greta Snider, and Mary Strong for helping me with drafts of this essay.

141

praise the alternatives to patriarchy; heralding humanity in people of color, they refute the foundation of racism. Because these intimate films and videos, when shown in the right contexts, have the power to counteract illusions of supremacy, they also provide viewers with the tools to expand their own cultural sensitivity and the opportunity for emotional growth. Some of these works foreswear exhilaration and present in its place intimate views of human suffering and preventable tragedy; these films also, under the right circumstances, contribute to viewers’ emotional wisdom and move them to action. Many films in the visual anthropology lexicon are works of art. Their value to me and their influence on my life have been profound. Yet for reasons I explore, they cannot always be effective. Contexts and expectations change: no one should expect otherwise, given the depth of the problems that our films explore. Thus visual anthropology must continue to develop new strategies for applied scholarship and applied media-making long into the future. This chapter makes the case for a strategy that combines a new platform with two familiar tools. The new platform is multimedia; the familiar tools are visual anthropology’s intimate time-based imagery and apparatus of scholarship. Multimedia’s juxtaposition of imagery with textual analysis not only makes possible new media scholarship but also contributes significantly to our arsenal of weapons against the syndrome of supremacy, which takes the form of sexism, violence, and racism. Before I develop this latter point, I must describe multimedia’s remarkable juxtaposition of time-based imagery with text-based scholarship. Before the digital revolution, audio and video could only flow forward, irreversibly, most often uninterruptedly. These two linear media were mighty Heraclitean rivers, never to be stepped in twice. Yet with the digital revolution, the flow of the rivers was forever transformed. Digital media took on a paradoxical double existence. Their temporal flow was arrested but also maintained; time-based expositions became timeless; irreversibility was reversed. In the analog age, linear moving images were shielded from close scholarship by their ephemerality. In the digital age, they became as vulnerable to scholarly critique as a passage in a book (Biella 1993a). Applied visual anthropology has absorbed this new reality slowly and has begun to incorporate both the architecture of scholarship and scholarship’s rhetorical tools onto multimedia platforms. The first media that anthropologists placed in the platform were created by themselves (Farnell 1995; Biella, Chagnon, and Seaman 1997; Coover 2003). Only the limits of our own imagination held us back. As visual anthropology seeks to turn multimedia toward the critique of mainstream media, it is the vagaries of copyright law (of which see endnotes 11 and 16), rather than a failure of analysis, that will first block our path. But despite legal impediments, the application of scholarship within a multimedia media critique is highly effective. My understanding of its effectiveness is deeply influenced by the work of Bertolt Brecht (1964). He argues that the theater, like the time-based media of TV news and entertainment, gains much of its persuasive power from the fact that its emotional messages are rapidfading and subliminal. When the flow of a moving image is systematically interrupted, its emotional load is rendered vulnerable to evaluation. When 142

p e t e r b i e lla

interruptions are choreographed into systematic analyses, the subliminal is made conscious, covert default readings are re-recognized as overt ideology, and the illogicalities and blind spots of spin are bled dry in the light of day. Visual anthropologists use multimedia to enhance the pedagogical value of our own media productions. We must also use multimedia to expose the dominant default readings. First, we must do so because we are in a struggle with the syndrome of supremacy, with racism, sexism, and militarism. Second, we must do so because dominant readings of mass-mediated imagery shape how our own imagery in visual anthropology is read; the effect is repressive (Martinez 1991). Our work is already deeply implicated in struggle, with or without our intentional engagement. If visual anthropology will survive, it must recognize that it occupies a strategic place in the culture wars. Beyond that, if our own intimate imagery, interruptions, and dispassionate scholarship together offer a glimpse of oceanic insight, cultural compassion, eidetic ethnography, and perhaps a place of peace, they have offered much. The Problem

Twentieth Century, Atomic Century, Computer Century, the most brutal in history. The United States emerged from the twentieth century at the top of the militaryindustrial food chain, and since World War II has launched some 197 attacks against “enemies” in other nations (Vidal 2002:22–41). Wars past and present, not all our own, are everyday concerns, bringing famine, malnutrition, psychological scars, rampant hatred, and the horrific, if comprehensible, desire for revenge. A 2003 white paper commissioned by the Pentagon predicted that if the “unlikely” scenario of catastrophic climate change should manifest over the next century, the United States would need to become a violently isolated fortress state, blocking its borders to what will inevitably be an upsurge of hostile attacks (Schwartz and Randall 2003). In 2003, the Pentagon thought global warming was “unlikely.” Now the unlikely catastrophe is an acknowledged reality (Silva 2007). Citizens of the rest of the world are becoming increasingly desperate as their environments degrade and their lives are ravaged by violence and war. Within their desperation is outrage at the global inequalities and massive death tolls that benefit a few people in the United States (Sachs 2003). Only a few. Although America has a relatively small population and although it sucks the largest share of the world’s resources, the number of Americans living in poverty is on the rise (DeNavas-Walt, Proctor, and Mills 2004). Disparities in the quality of American life here increase, as an elite few are enriched beyond reason by U.S. militarism and global power (Gilbert 2003; Jones and Weinberg 2000). Yet everyone in this country—university students, anthropologists, I myself—benefits to some extent from the U.S. “triumph.” Oil and coffee are only two of our militarily subsidized pleasures. “To breathe is to pass judgment,” writes Albert Camus (1942). We are breathing and our taxes pass judgment, making us coparticipants in the violence and global crisis, morally responsible, as Noam Chomsky argues, for confronting forces of militarism and annihilation (Achbar and Wintonick 1992). Visual anthropology, along with its parent disciplines, is pitched unwillingly into the flood, but it offers countercurrents, havens, and images that can literally save lives in a time of war. v i s ual a n t h r o po lo gy i n a t i m e o f wa r

143

P a r t I . Intimacy

2. Race cannot be defined biologically, intellectually, or behaviorally. Fixed cultural, intellectual, and behavioral qualities caused by this indefinable nonentity have never been found. A recent work debunking the idea of significant biological differences between people whose skin or eye colors are different is What It Means to be 98% Chimpanzee (Marks 2003). The myth of intellectual inferiority is dissected in Race in Mind (Alland 2002) and The Funding of Scientific Racism (Tucker 2002). Excellent film critiques of racial behavior stereotypes are found for African Americans in Ethnic Notions and Color Adjustment (Riggs 1986, 1991); for people of Asian descent in Charlie Chan Go Home (Tajima 1984); for Hispanics in The Gringo in Mañanaland (Halleck 1995); and for Native Americans in Imagining Indians (Masayesva 1992).

144

Visual work in anthropology can strengthen resolve, inform emotion, and help us discover and feel what is worth fighting for in the global crisis. Visuals, too, help us understand what we fight against. Racism, the foundation of much war and killing, was the foremost antagonist fought by anthropology in the twentieth century. As many have argued, the myth of race persists as the world’s most deadly myth (Montagu 1975 [1945], Cole 1995, Rigby 1996). It continues to justify war and genocide as it once justified slavery—the worst human atrocities. The myth of race proposes that human groups are profoundly different from one another not only biologically but also behaviorally and intellectually. The African American race, so runs the myth, is violent and dances in tap or tennis shoes. Asians are inscrutable and too smart; Latinos live only for siestas; Arabs want to kill us. Although the list is endless, the concept of human races has no foundation in science.2 Still, the consequences of the race concept are increasingly fatal, found in an increasing willingness of populations and militaries to dehumanize, brutalize, and exterminate. To combat racism, anthropology has entered many fronts. Biological anthropology dispenses with the myth of physical and intellectual hierarchies. Economic anthropology explains how the myth of race is used to justify pillage and theft. Postcolonial studies analyze how the process of Othering supports racist ideologies. And visual anthropology at its best undermines the emotional foundation of racism, the deepest level of the myth. Like sexism, ageism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and other prejudices named and unnamed, racism is possible only through the maintenance of deep ignorance, an avoidance of intimacy, and the denial of shared humanity. Racism serves purposes: it functions to justify international conquest and national inequalities (Hardin 1991). But in order for people to be willing to serve these purposes, they must acquire the capacity to dehumanize. They must suppress emotion and become indifferent to the spirit, dreams, language, and everyday activities that make other people human. The most potent visual anthropological works fight against indifference. These works are produced only when anthropologists have attained sufficient intimacy with their subjects to allow these qualities to blossom. Only then can they be filmed and shared with others. In recent years, a rich literature has emerged on the importance of intimate relationships in human development and in society. Karen Prager (1995) and Anthony Giddens (1993), for example, cite more than a thousand items in their bibliographies on the psychology and sociology of intimacy. Because intimacy fosters mutual protection, it is a powerful countermeasure to dehumanization and can be used by filmmakers against racism and the wars it breeds. Yet because intimacy also renders people vulnerable to one another, it rarely emerges in everyday cross-racial encounters. This is true because intimacy is a dangerous condition in which each individual exposes truths that the other could exploit. Individuals in whom racism (or sexism) are strong attempt to conceal their vulnerabilities. Their secrecy inhibits others from revealing themselves. Confronting this impasse, the paradoxical qualities of visual anthropology and documentary representation open new possibilities. Ethnographic films that depict the intimate confidences between anthropologists and informants, p e t e r b i e lla

and show intimacies among informants, offer viewers the vicarious experience and discovery of close personal revelations and vulnerabilities by people in other cultural worlds. This type of cross-cultural discovery is almost risk-free: it can be attained without requiring the viewers to be vulnerable themselves.3 Visual anthropological records, then, are unique among all of anthropology’s “tools for conviviality” and antiracism (Illich 1973). They can promote a sense of virtual intimacy.4 Without being threatened, viewers can be privy to the intimate revelations of others. A strong component of cross-cultural racism is overcome. Along with racism, two other social illnesses, militarism and hypermasculinity, flourish through the suppression of intimacy. They are familiar features of American family life and should also be considered in relation to visual anthropology in a time of war. Militarization is “the contradictory and tense social process in which civil society organizes itself for the production of violence” (Geyer 1989:79, cited in Lutz 2002:723). This process leads to militarism, “the phenomenon by which a nation’s armed services come to put their institutional preservation ahead of achieving national security or even a commitment to the integrity of the governmental structure of which they are a part” (Johnson 2004:23–24). In addition to making constant warfare inevitable, militarism in the American superpower also shapes gender identities, particularly ideals of manly behavior. In the world-conquering West, among the most pathological gender roles is the hypermasculine tough guy, the Top Gun macho, the killing machine.5 Hypermasculinity is a condition that suppresses the will and capacity for intimacy. It entails femiphobia, a disdain for the intimate and “feminine,” a disdain that has characterized American conservative politics and identities for several hundred years (Ducat 2004). On a conscious level, hypermasculine men scorn emotional sensitivity because it is thought to be a feminine quality. Unconsciously, sensitivity is feared because it opens wounds. To close down emotion, as many men do, is to deny real wounds, “a defense against dealing with more intimate experiences of love, loss and loneliness” (Hirsch 1980:421). Such wounds resonate in militaristic societies and nonnurturing families, which are common within such societies. Ducat (2004) argues, on the basis of work by Melanie Klein (1975) and Eve Feder Kittay (1983), that unresolved object relations with the mother lead to unrecognized envy and disdain for nurturance. Hostility is turned against the nurturing mother, nurturing welfare system, or nurturing “do-gooders” who want to protect the environment. These femiphobic qualities of everyday life in the United States also correspond to the ascendancy of the U.S. economic system in which enormous corporate profits are taken to be signs of manliness.6 Erik Erikson (1964, 1968) argues that the attainment of adult maturity requires the attainment of intimate relationships. (See Figure 7.1) With so much pressure on men and women to suppress their own weaknesses or take advantage of the weaknesses of others, the experience of intimacy in the United States is often restricted to impersonal eroticism or primary dyadic relationships, especially marriage. To expand intimacy beyond the dyad is threatening; to expand it beyond the “race” or culture is unknown, particularly to the hypermasculine man and particularly in a time of war, when racism and sexism are normal. v i s ual a n t h r o po lo gy i n a t i m e o f wa r

3. In the case of narrative films, as Cowan (1991) shows empirically, when fictional depictions of people of color are intimate and favorable, even highly prejudiced viewers adopt a favorable impression. The invisibility of the viewers permits them enough safe distance to reappraise their attitudes in private. 4. The phrase virtual intimacy occurred to me in 1997. My Internet search for the phrase that year received only two hits. One was an essay describing how crisis volunteers build virtual relationships with their clients (Jones 1997): this usage was compatible with my own. The other was an analysis of eroticism in interactive video (Douglas 1996). That virtual intimacy was discovered to have qualities of erotic voyeurism was not the breakthrough I hoped my concept would inspire. Just the same, seven years later, Google produced 1,060 hits for virtual intimacy. Most of them were pornographic. Though visual anthropologists have rarely theorized ways that media can touch the intimacies of men and women, others have done so. An essay by Hansen, Needham, and Nichols (1991) argues implausibly that ethnographic films simply are pornographic. Loizos (1993) critiques many of that essay’s errors and oversights. 5. A grim revelation about the emotional world of one of America’s “bravest and most experienced military leaders” was made public in a speech by Lt. Gen. James N. “Mad Dog” Mattis. At a San Diego convention sponsored by top defense contractors, Mattis boasted, “It’s fun to shoot some people.” He justified his sadistic pleasure with an unlikely appeal to feminism: “You go into Afghanistan, you’ve got guys who slapped women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.” Given the outcry at the general’s confessed enjoyment of killing, Mattis’ spin doctors were not able to explain why, in a culture of militarism, sadists can have statues built in their honor. Instead, they pleaded that Mattis was just being honest about “the unfortunate and harsh realities of war.” Equally unfortunate is the fact that sadism and indifference to human welfare have also become harsh realities of “peace” in the United States. (News item and quotations are from Schrader 2005.) 6. For a linguistic analysis of the relationship between political conservatism and the rejection of nurture and intimacy, see Lakoff (2002, 2004).

145

different filmed subjects, they offer viewers the possibility of analogous, virtual relationships with people of different ethnicities and worlds. They also offer viewers models for future intimacy in their outside lives. Jane Stadler, citing work on the moral consequences of narrative by Maria Lugones (1987) and Martha Nussbaum (1995), argues that film narratives can have powerful moral consequences: When viewing films we are honing our skills of interpretation, imaginative projection, discernment of salience, empathic connection, and engagement with others. . . . All of these elements are central to the practice of “world”-traveling, not as an exercise in textual interpretation but as an experience that involves relating to actual human beings. Traveling into story-worlds opened to us by the movie screen gives us practice in developing the skills we need for the worlds, people, places and issues beyond the screen, with which we would otherwise have no intimate contact (Stadler 2003:99). Intimacy Is Not Enough

Although images of intimacy have the power to transform negative emotions, they can also be used to reinforce stereotypes. If anthropologists resolve to invest their resources in representing ethnographic intimacy, examples of the abuse of intimacy in film should be understood. In the following, I identify four ways that intimate images are misused, twisted, and misread. First, the emotions prompted by intimate views of politically loaded subjects are often so strongly stereotyped that, in the absence of countermeasures, the stereotype overshadows reason. Second, audiences’ interpretations of intimate images can be manipulated through “spin,” ways that their meanings are constricted and defined with narration, captions, and editing. Third, when intimate depictions in film promote feel-good fantasy and complacency, they suppress the impulse for action. Finally, because films have stylistic qualities that go out of date, they progressively lose their power to evoke a sense of intimate understanding in many viewers. These four limitations show that, if the representation of intimate moments is a necessary part of ethnographic education, it is not sufficient to guarantee that viewers will share an anthropological understanding, will act on anthropologists’ proposals, or will even be moved to compassion by their images. Reason Overshadowed

Figure 7.1. A moment of intimacy from Maasai Interactive. Daudi begins to remove a painful chigger from the heel of his agemate, Mangeti. Photo: Richard Cross; © Peter Biella.

146

Visual anthropology can present countermeasures to the blunted sensitivities of militaristic, racist, and sexist ideology. Countermeasures may be effective in film (even if they are elsewhere blocked) because the experience of coming to know someone through film does not demand immediate reciprocation. Film intimacy is a safe first step into a world of increased awareness and compassion. That awareness, though, may ultimately call for sacrifices on behalf of others. Compassion can engender action. When visual anthropologists present first-person accounts of their relationships with their subjects, when they document moments of intimacy between p e t e r b i e lla

Among the most intimate moments of which images can be made are those of suffering, vulnerability, and death in war. Independent of their immediate content, images of war also evoke preexisting, stereotypic passions in viewers. Strong prejudices, whether patriotic support of wars or equally strong antiwar passion, exist in adult viewers before they are exposed to any specific images. These prejudices may be understood as interpretive frames that serve as forces majeures in shaping viewers’ interpretations of images (Lakoff 2002, 2004). Viewers’ commitments to prejudicial frames render them insensitive or hypersensitive to the specific content of images. The frames provide stereotypic default readings to fill what would otherwise be an interpretative gap.7 During the Second Gulf War (the Iraq War), the Pentagon found a way to promote default, promilitary readings of news imagery. It insisted that v i s ual a n t h r o po lo gy i n a t i m e o f wa r

7. Stereotypes based on presumed racial attributes are common default readings that Americans use for many categories of people. The categories change historically: ideological fads often shift, as Americans are taught to hate each new “Enemy of the Month” (Vidal 2002). Blacks, hated because they were once enslaved, have long been suspect and stereotyped. During World War II, Japanese were depicted with equal offensiveness (Biella 2002a). In the current antiterrorism hysteria, Arab men are demonized.

147

American news cameramen and journalists be embedded: this meant that if they wished to cover the war, they were required to live with troops day and night (Katovsky and Carlson 2003).8 Embedding caused journalists to become immersed in the lives of soldiers. When TV viewers saw the journalists’ news videos of suffering and heroism, it was, mostly, the suffering and heroism of U.S. troops.9 Even without overt spin, viewers responded sympathetically to what they saw. This was true despite the fact that Washington’s reasons for going to war were lies: Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and was not supporting al-Qaida 9/11 terrorists.10 Embedded footage from Iraq prompted default emotions and readings, patriotic admiration, as the Pentagon had assumed it would. Powers-that-be knew that depicting the war with the bias of an embedded journalist would distract attention from the injustice of the war. Audience admiration for the selflessness of American troops would displace audience outrage at the selfishness of a war waged on the basis of lies. Reason was overshadowed by intimacy. Just as superpatriotic stereotypes can trump reason in the political realm, racial stereotypes can undermine the ethnographic goals of anthropological mediamakers. A study of college students who viewed anthropological films about nonwhite subjects found that 85 percent described them with racial slurs or failed to recognize that the filmmakers intended them to be read sympathetically (Martinez 1991). In both embedded war footage and anthropological films, stereotypic default interpretations based on patriotic or racist ideas are readily available from the outside. Even when the ideas are not uttered out loud, they still affect how people think. Part of the reason is that war footage and anthropological films almost never explicitly contradict default interpretations. Embedded journalists are too busy keeping their jobs and ducking bombs to philosophize about an unjust war; and the makers of the ethnographic films in Martinez’s (1991) sample did not understand the need for explicit countermeasures to racist presumptions. I want to draw my first lesson from these examples of intimate images that fail to promote “oppositional” readings. When images tap deep emotions about 8. The military has deeply influenced journalistic depictions of war. In Vietnam (ca. 1964–1975), U.S. journalists were permitted by the Pentagon to accompany American combat troops. News footage often revealed the soldiers’ bravery, but the insider view also led to unintended consequences. As the movement against the war gained momentum, it was strengthened by nightly telecasts of horror—bloody combat, flag-draped body bags, the My Lai massacre, and the carnage of the Tet Offensive (Braestrup 1977, Riser 1999, DeLoss 2004). Footage that some sectors of the American press identified as “news” was denounced by other sectors as “communist propaganda” (Irvine 1973). From Vietnam, the Pentagon learned a lesson about intimate images: graphic coverage abroad foments radical dissent at home. The military therefore restricted

148

press freedoms in the First Gulf War (1991), denying journalists access to troops and the battle at large, arguing that secrecy was needed to protect lives (Wicker 1991, NCAC 2001). As a result of this questionable censorship, and because the combat was brief and few Americans died, few horrific images reached America’s televisions. Afterward, though, the press challenged the Pentagon’s secrecy, arguing that First Amendment freedoms are as important to democracy as a strong military (NCAC 2001). By the time the United States reinvaded Iraq twelve years later (2003), the Pentagon agreed to permit a weak variant of its Vietnam position: journalists would be “embedded” with troops as they had been in Vietnam, but would no longer be allowed to leave the platoons to which they were assigned or to conduct independent investigations.

Since embedded journalists’ lives depend on the good will of the troops with whom they live, and since the troops can read journalists’ dispatches daily on the Internet, self-censorship has to be a factor in embedded journalists’ strategy for self-preservation. 9. Most Hollywood war films use the fictional equivalent of embedded journalism to ensure one-sided sympathy for the combatants. Edward Zwick’s (1996) Courage Under Fire, for example, shoots scenes of U.S.-Iraqi combat only from the U.S. side, even though an important part of its plot is based on multiple perspectives. Courage also includes Hollywood’s most vulgar and racist dialogue about Iraqis. Terrence Malick’s (1998) The Thin Red Line, however, is unusual because it shows both sides suffering the horrors of war.

10. The United States has difficulty admitting error, let’s face it. From a psychological perspective, this fact reveals a link between the arrogance of power with a hypermasculine ineptitude for intimate know­ ledge. Grotesque profits demand grotesque indifference to human suffering. Yet, from the perspective of U.S. multinationals, the conquest of an oil-rich nation for any reason is not an error (cf. Stevenson 2003).

p e t e r b i e lla

war, “race,” and sexuality, equally deep default interpretations will usually prevail unless they are anticipated and explicitly contradicted in the image and its text. Intimate Spin

Intimate film and photographic images seem real and have deep emotional resonance. The realism and emotion lend conviction to default readings. Yet mediamakers who distribute intimate images may disagree with default readings or believe that they do not communicate strongly enough. Makers therefore try to channel the emotional intensity of images by challenging anticipated readings or reinforcing them with words. When such reframing occurs in the political realm, the process is called “spin.” Through it, explicit reading instructions are bolted to images, telling viewers exactly what to see and feel. In one highly emotional example from the Second Gulf War, spin doctors from the political left and right battled one another in shaping public readings of intimate footage. An embedded American journalist named Kevin Sites happened to be videotaping as a U.S Marine shot and killed an unarmed, wounded Iraqi prisoner who lay before him on the floor of a mosque (Figure 7.2).11 Within three days, Sites’ video footage had been aired internationally; within a week, it was discussed in eight thousand Web sites; in three months, the number of Web citations had increased to sixty thousand. The image content is so explicit and grotesque that, like the photographs of tortured Iraqis in Abu Ghraib prison (Hersch 2004), it was incompatible with patriotic default interpretations, admiration for the bravery and compassion for the suffering of American troops. Commentators from the antiwar movement told viewers to read the killing as a violation of human rights and the Geneva Conventions (Goodman 2004) and as evidence against U.S. claims to the high moral ground in Iraq.12 The International Committee of the Red Cross called it a demonstration of “utter contempt for humanity” (Political News 2005). From the political right, spinsters were obliged to ignore the murderous content of the footage and complained instead about its distribution: right-wing spin characterized Sites as a traitor, coward, and terrorist sympathizer (WorldNetDaily 2004, JawaNews 11. Despite the fact that NBC refused to air Sites’ video, because they said it was “too gruesome” for prime time, MSNBC still displays it on its Web site; CNN, ABC, and Fox News all aired Sites’ footage; CBS broadcast a video still (Political News 2004). When I tried to purchase copyright permission to reproduce the still in this textbook and was refused, I pointed out to the NBC archivist with whom I spoke that the image was widely available on the Web. She replied that people steal images all the time, but that doesn’t make it right. She was mistaken about this one being stolen, though. NBC sold the gruesome publication rights—hard copy and Web—to many newspapers, including the London Times. My point to the archivist was that one more copy in an anthropology textbook was unlikely to compromise national security or make the world much

more gruesome than it already is. (But could NBC News fear that the anthropology of intimacy is more powerful than I dare to hope?) Online stills from Sites’ footage may be seen at Fido (2004), Associated Press (2004), and Monaghan (2004). As of this writing (June 2007), the video clip may be viewed at MSNBC (2004); it was until recently accessible on Ogrish (2004). Postscript: I decided to make a recognizable but impressionistic drawing of Sites’ video image, proposing to use it in place of the copyrighted original. I must say that I do take solace in the fact that fair use and First Amendment rights have not atrophied altogether. This story indicates the degree to which the fear of litigation has a chilling effect on the academy’s ability to investigate mass media, all of which, naturally, is “protected” by copyright.

v i s ual a n t h r o po lo gy i n a t i m e o f wa r

Figure 7.2. A U.S. Marine killing a wounded Iraqi prisoner in Fallujah— based on a video image by Kevin Sites (Associated Press 2004). I was forced to draw the image because NBC News, the copyright holder, refused to sell reproduction rights of the original to this textbook. Artwork: Peter Biella.

In this case, NBC News’ refusal seems designed to suppress academic criticism of the Iraq War. A second refusal I received from a different media mogul, however, was not related to Iraq (see Note 16). Research is needed to discover if a policy or culture of hostility to the fair use doctrine exists in the media giants.

12. Sites obliquely spins the footage this way himself, belying the argument that the U.S. military always adopts the “high moral ground.” After describing how the Marine shot his victim, Sites quotes the Marine’s troubled commanding officer, whom he had interviewed just before the incident occurred: We’re the good guys. We are Americans. We are fighting a gentleman’s war here—because we don’t behead people, we don’t come down to the same level of the people we’re combating. That’s a very difficult thing . . . [to] keep the moral high ground (Lt. Col. Willy Buhl, in Sites 2004).

149

2004, WarriorsforTruth 2004).13 In Sites’ own Weblog, he ignored the vast majority of readings that came from the left and responded only to his critics: [T]his week I’ve even been shocked to see myself painted as some kind of anti-war activist. Anyone who has seen my reporting on television or has read the dispatches on this website is fully aware of the lengths I’ve gone to play it straight down the middle—not to become a tool of propaganda for the left or the right (Sites 2004). In a chilling if understandable sequel to this episode, by 2007 Sites had removed this passage—along with all other references to his videotape and the day it was shot—from his Weblog. Self-censorship, as Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky (1988) point out, is a key ingredient to survival in professional journalism. Like many journalists, Sites understands his documentary work to stand above the subjective world of politics and propaganda. Given that he risks his life on a regular basis in the service of video-truth, it is understandably difficult for him to admit that videotape loses its claim to objectivity the moment it is geared up and spun for the mass media. There, journalists’ images of intimate moments are systematically sapped of their uniqueness by default meanings, rescripted by spin, or merely refused publication. Intimate images generate emotion, but that emotion is unable to resolve ethical dilemmas.14 Only thoughtful analysis can do that. Most people who use a camera are drawn to it by the knowledge that film can accurately represent qualities of the empirical world and bring up intense emotions. Yet empirical accuracy and emotional intensity do not guarantee accurate and intense understanding. In this is a second lesson for visual anthropologists who wish to touch the heart and challenge the emotional closures of militarism, racism, and sexual chauvinism. They must not only anticipate and challenge the default prejudices that viewers already hold (my lesson one), but also challenge the postpartum spin that intimate imagery is likely to be given by “analysts,” whose captions, denials, and red herrings are motivated by the imperial spirit. Particularly in a time of war, visual anthropologists committed to demilitarization and social justice must marshal their ethical ideas and critical theory to challenge and contradict spin. Intimacy, Passivity, and Pedagogy

Intimate footage—whether in news, documentary, or ethnographic film—entails another problem for ethnographic filmmakers. If viewers are often stirred by images, they are rarely stirred to action. Playwright Bertolt Brecht addresses this 13. A military investigation following the incident concluded that there was insufficient evidence to charge the Marine with any crime (Political News 2005). The court’s decision may have been made in recognition of the fact that Iraqi suicide bombers do sometimes pretend to be injured in order to lure American soldiers near them to their death. Though the victim in Fallujah had been a prisoner of the Marines, he had also been left unguarded for some hours.

150

14. The most devastating proof that compassion requires critical theory is found in Marcel Ophuls’ film, The Memory of Justice (1976). There, Nazi war criminals are seen released from prison after having served the twenty-year sentences they received at the Nuremberg Trials. These past administrators of genocide engender compassion, for they are handsome and urbane, though despicably unrepentant. Errol Morris’ The Fog of War (2003) paints a similarly intimate and repulsive

portrait of Robert S. McNamara, one of the American architects of both the brutal conflagrations and atomic attacks in Japan in 1944, launched after its defeat was certain, and the deforestation of Vietnam with carcinogens in the 1960s. In the film, McNamara takes time from his erudite lessons for world conquerors to acknowledge his lingering suspicion that he may be a war criminal. 15. Brecht contrasts Aristotle’s dramatic theater with his own epic project of activism:

The dramatic theatre’s spectator says: Yes, I have felt like that too— Just like me—It’s only natural—It’ll never change—The sufferings of this man appall me, because they are inescapable . . . . The epic theatre’s spectator says: I’d never have thought it—That’s not the way—That’s extraordinary, hardly believable—It’s got to stop—The sufferings of this man appall me, because they are unnecessary (1942:71).

p e t e r b i e lla

problem in many essays, notably one that critiques Aristotle’s theory of theatrical tragedy. He writes that the goal of theater for Aristotle is catharsis, the emotional purging of the audience. Yet if the emotional consequence of Aristotelian tragedy is passive exhaustion in the theater, Brecht reasoned, its political consequence is passive inaction in the world (Brecht 1964 [1942]:189). The theater teaches people what tragedy is, how they ought to feel when it occurs, and how they should respond to it when the play ends. For Aristotle, tragedy is the work of the gods. No human action can prevent its occurrence, and viewers should accept that fact with some relief and gratitude, if also with cathartic tears. For Brecht, in contrast, most horrible conditions in the real world are not inevitable cosmic tragedies but rather the consequences of human action. As such, they are preventable and they must not be accepted quietly at home or on stage. Brecht’s epic theater therefore demands rebellion against itself, against passive viewing, and against passive living. Only active self-criticism in the theater serves as a model for self-critical political analysis and activism in the world.15 In a contemporary Brechtian critique, Jill Godmilow (1997) argues that an emotional response to “traditional [Aristotelian] documentaries” also replaces the impulse for action. Such films encourage audiences to feel that they’re interested in other classes, other peoples’ tragedies, other countries’ crises. By producing their subjects as heroic and allowing us to be glad for their victories, or producing them as tragic and allowing us to weep, [traditional documentaries allow the audience to experience] itself as not implicated, exempt from the responsibility either to act or even to consider the structures of their own situation… [Audiences] feel they’re somehow part of the solution, because they’ve watched and cared (Godmilow 1997).

Figure 7.3. Why can’t all civil wars come in nice packages? Can parodies, like this spoof on the DVD jacket of Burns (1990), upset manageability and prompt political activism? Culture jam theorists like Lasn (1999) say that they can, if they touch deep emotional chords.16 Artwork: Peter Biella.

Godmilow levels her critique of passivity at an outrage-depleting PBS television series, The Civil War (Burns 1990). In it, tragic nineteenth-century letters by soldiers imaged in battlefield photos stand in for our own twenty-first-century American soldiers trapped in Baghdad’s civil war. The nineteenth-century vision, Godmilow writes, offers national nostalgia, a “mourning moment,” but makes no effort to do what documentaries ought to do. The task ought to be to upset viewers’ “coherence, manageability and moral order,” to show viewers how they are implicated in the world of preventable tragedies, competing classes, racism that divides allies, sexism that entails self-hate, militarism that kills what is best. For Godmilow, documentary films must also challenge 16. As further evidence of the extent to which media giants have hostility to fair use and academic scrutiny (see Note 11), in a separate incident PBS Home Video refused to grant me permission to reproduce their copyrighted jacket cover of the Ken Burns Civil War DVD (Burns 1990). Like NBC, PBS did not ask the reason for my interest nor give a reason for its refusal. Evidencing the same suspicious lack of avariciousness, both moguls refused even to let me pay a royalty fee. Could the suppression of fair use be a higher

good than the pursuit of profit in a capitalist democracy? I decided to create a parody, which resembles, yet significantly alters, the original work. In 510 U.S. 569, the United States Supreme Court (1994) staunchly defended parodies of copyrighted materials as fair use, keenly aware that parodies must resemble the originals they critique. (After all, as Justice David Souter states in the unanimous ruling, “It is the heart [of the original] at which parody takes aim”!) An important aspect of the ruling is

v i s ual a n t h r o po lo gy i n a t i m e o f wa r

that market harm to the copyrighted material is not presumed to indicate infringement if the harm occurred because the public was swayed by the parody’s criticism of the original and not because the public purchased the parody in the mistaken belief that it was the original. To quote again from the ruling: “The cognizable harm is market substitution, not any harm from criticism.” My brief sorties against two media Goliaths suggest that a Supreme Court ruling must inevitably determine whether the academic

quotation of photographs, film, and video will be allowed to enjoy the same legal protection that has long been defended in the academic quotation of text. More money is at stake with the other mass media than with copyrighted text, and media copyright law emerged in the litigious twentieth century. For these reasons, the battle will be hard fought. For those considering image quotation, the Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices (Center for Social Media 2005) provides useful guidelines.

151

viewers’ frames and worldviews with insights that make action a logical and emotional necessity. Godmilow’s goals for documentaries lead to a third lesson for ethnographic mediamakers. An anthropology of the intimate must do more than anticipate default readings and counteract spin. It must also guide viewers in the direction of social activism. Anthropology should not treat the pathologies of power merely as engaging case studies for ivory tower contemplation. Racism, sexual chauvinism, and militarism are responsible for much of the suffering in the world, which media-making anthropologists are in a position to reduce. Years in the peace movement and years of making applied anthropological films have led me to an important conclusion. The documentaries of filmmakers who want to promote nonviolent social change are most effective if they follow the educational model proposed by Paulo Freire (1970) in Pedagogy of the Oppressed. My understanding of Freire’s pedagogical method for film developed over two years as Iván Drufovka and I collaborated in making the first Spanish-language HIV/AIDS documentary in the United States (Biella and Drufovka 1989). Ethnographic fieldwork among mainland Puerto Ricans and endless brainstorming about how to reduce the frequency of high-risk behavior led us time and again to Freire’s position: if as outsiders we can help insiders identify and discuss their problems, we have given the best possible service. This kind of educational leadership is relatively nonhierarchical and relatively free of paternalism. It seems to avoid the ways of the oppressors. It is not a course to be taken by commandantes, zealots, or missionaries. Transience of Realist Styles

Even when viewers are exposed to fragile lives in distant worlds, offered corrections for stereotype and spin, shown the need for action, and prevailed upon to act, they may still resist the call of intimate ethnography. The study by Wilton Martinez (1991) cited above found that anthropological films perceived to be old-fashioned prompted indifference or racist comments from 85 percent of their viewers. Stylistically out-of-date films often failed to spark compassion.17 For intimate scenes to have a powerful effect on the lower 85, Martinez (1991) found, they are more effective if they seem contemporary and hip. For that to occur, Martinez believes, the ethnographic product has to be packaged 17. Since the beginning of cinema, viewers have felt awe at realism onscreen. Yet the sense of the real has been coded and sponsored by many contradictory techniques. When motion pictures were first shot from the perspective of the proscenium arch, they seemed real. Later, when they were shot without the proscenium arch, they also seemed real, and the proscenium-arch style seemed unreal. Sync-sound made fictional motion pictures seem real, but for a time in documentaries voiceover narration seemed real. For a time in anthropological motion pictures, voiceover narration seemed unreal and voiceover translation seemed real. Then voiceover translation seemed unreal and subtitled translation seemed real. Once, for a time,

152

jump-cuts made motion pictures seem unreal, but later, jump-cuts made motion pictures seem real. CinemaScope, 3D, and color once made motion pictures seem real. Later, CinemaScope and 3D seemed unreal and color seemed ordinary. My keyword search for “realism and ‘documentary film’” on Google found 16,400 hits. The topic is so hot that there are as many opinions as authors. Beginning sorties into realism studies should include Rotha (1952), de Heusch (1962), Barthes (1964, 1974), Stoller (1992), Loizos (1993), Nichols (1994, 1997), and Rouch (2003). Advanced students should sample the mindpunishing but sometimes brilliant prose of Minh-ha (1991, 1999), and Russell (1999).

18. Yet reflexivity, commentary on the production of an artistic work within the work, has had an illustrious history in Western literature. In antiquity, plays by Aristophanes (e.g., The Clouds), Menander (The Bad-Tempered Man), and Plautus (The Captives) contain many reflexive, comic elements. Shakespeare (All’s Well That Ends Well, ca. 1604) and Ben Jonson (Bartholomew Fair, 1640) revived the comic reflexive tradition in the seventeenth century. It reemerged in the eighteenth century with Laurence Sterne’s hilarious Tristram Shandy (1759–1767) and Ludwig Tieck’s Puss in Boots (1797). More serious uses of reflexivity flourished in twentieth-century drama, such as that of Thornton

Wilder in Our Town (1938), Clifford Odets in Waiting for Lefty (1935), and, of course, Brecht. Most films by Jean-Luc Godard explored political reflexivity. Comedies of Mel Brooks (1974) and Woody Allen (1977) depoliticized it again. In the ethnographic arena, Ruby’s first attempt at reflexivity in film underuses the potential (Aibel et al. 1984); his later work in multimedia is more rewarding (Ruby 1999–2004, 2006). Hubert Smith’s (1984) four-hour Living Maya series is disappointing because its theme of research methodology is often reduced to quarrels between the filmmaker and ethnographer. The most successful reflexive effort is the Jero Tapakan series, by Connor, Asch, and Asch (1978–1980, 1986).

p e t e r b i e lla

stylishly. Works can evoke feelings of intimacy when the style is persuasively realistic. Once a movie’s style wears thin, though, it loses its power to move. Unfortunately, the sense of realism and the persuasiveness it entails do not last forever. There is no timeless, essential, invariably successful style to evoke a sense of intimacy. Essentialist notions of realism and realist style are palpably false, since with the passage of time, that which feels real in the movies will change. Here is a fourth lesson, then, for a visual anthropology that holds intimate communication to be its goal: the understanding of style and realism must be historical and anti-essentialist. If all realist styles are subject to creeping decline of persuasiveness, visual anthropologists have at least two options to consider. They may choose a policy of adopting the newest styles, enjoying their transient success, and replacing them at need. This has been the preferred option on the Web; a lovely example in ethnographic multimedia is the work of Roderick Coover (2003). However, visual anthropologists may alternatively choose to concentrate their efforts on those attributes of anthropology and visual representation that, lacking faddishness and stylish fragility, have persisted better than others over time. P a r t I I . Interactivity

Visual anthropology finds itself in a dilemma. An adequate theory must be historical and anti-essentialist. It must not only explain how intimate representations can be designed to counteract old prejudices and new spin, but must also do so with the awareness that styles of filmmaking lose their plausibility over time. I believe that an adequate theory must also show how ethnographic visions can define and motivate means of social healing in a time of war. My goal for the second part of this chapter is to define a place in visual anthropology for new computer-based media. Though I focus on scholarship, media interactivity, and film shooting styles, I do so in order to show how each can contribute to the task of breaking paths to ethnographic sensitivity and intimate knowledge. Attributes of Ethnographic Film

Visual anthropologists have hotly debated the question of how ethnographic films should be made. Scholars have proposed a number of defining attributes or criteria. In light of the development of computer-based multimedia, this debate has new relevance. Jay Ruby (1975, 1980), one of the debate’s initiators, proposes that ethnographic filmmakers should be “reflexive.” By this, he means that they should always provide in their films a description of the methodology they used in research, shooting, and editing. Ruby argues, reasonably, that since research methods influence conclusions, the explanation of methods will help viewers evaluate the quality of conclusions. This is a presumption that is widely shared in the social sciences. Given the fact that research methods are complex and require theoretical support, their explanation in film, I can only imagine, would need to be verbal, either in titles, sync-sound, or narration. (See Figure 7.3) Although book-length ethnographies universally include sections on methodology, ethnographic films almost never do. Ruby’s call for film reflexivity was largely unheeded by ethnographic filmmakers.18 Among explanations for this fact are the recognition by filmmakers that screen time is precious and that heads talking on screen about theory are rarely captivating. Moreover, many v i s ual a n t h r o po lo gy i n a t i m e o f wa r

153

Figure 7.4. A reflexive moment from Maasai Interactive as Mama Toreto listens to herself singing. Ilparakuyo had never heard their voices recorded before. Photo: Richard Cross; © Peter Biella.

19. Heider (1976:3–15, 46–117) prescribes what he calls “attributes of ethnographicness.” In addition to asking camera operators to shoot in long takes, sync-sound, and whole acts, Heider also proposes compositions with whole bodies in deep focus and the avoidance of close-ups, the telephoto lens, fast motion, and slow motion.

154

filmmakers believe that the role of ethnographic films should not be the same as that of books. David MacDougall (1998) makes this point eloquently, and it is seconded by Anna Grimshaw (2001) and Sarah Pink (2006). Ruby’s argument is debatable, but it raises an important issue: if expositions on methodology belong in ethnographic films, such films have an equally compelling need for the other properties of anthropological scholarship. Strikingly different criteria for makers of ethnographic film are proposed by another visual anthropologist, Karl Heider (1976). Unlike Ruby, who calls for verbal explanations, Heider proposes a specific style of ethnographic camera work. He argues that anthropologists should use film to do what film does best: they should not chat about method but should document the empirical world. Documentation is most scientific, Heider argues, when filmmakers allow the camera to run uninterruptedly, in sync-sound, for as long as is necessary to record “whole acts.” Though I disagree in part with this perspective,19 I am a strong advocate of long-take, synchronous footage. It has a valuable capacity to represent spatial, temporal, and acoustic qualities of empirical events with great verisimilitude.20 Nevertheless, the long-take shooting style is no more often found in ethnographic films than is reflexivity. One reason is that long takes are often hard to understand. So much information is embedded in them that viewers are unable to notice much of it on first viewing. Further, filmmakers know that when information is unfamiliar, as it often is in ethnographic films, it quickly becomes boring. Viewers are likely to interpret what they do not understand and do not enjoy according to default stereotypes. Although engaging explanations of footage might be added through narration or editing, such interventions are frowned upon in Heider’s style. It might be added, too, that not everyone in anthropology likes what Heider’s long takes are best at achieving: spatial, temporal, and acoustic continuities. Ethnographic filmmakers whose interests depart from “whole acts” find use for a multitude of styles, including short takes. Finally, long takes are rare in documentaries because they are very difficult to shoot well. Partly for that reason, some of the most breathtaking and intimate moments in ethnographic and documentary film have been shot in long takes.21 In David and Judith MacDougall’s Lorang’s Way (1980), one short and two long takes give the viewer almost five minutes of intense visual exploration (Figure 7.5). A Turkana family head, Lorang, takes the camera on a circumnavigational tour of his homestead. Beginning at his gate to the outside world, Lorang eventually leads us to ten inner compounds belonging to ten women; five are his wives. One is “Judy’s [Judith MacDougall’s] friend.” Two are off with animals; another is away. We catch glimpses of fifteen people, 20. I have spilled much ink criticizing Heider’s (1976) reductive notion of science, his stimulus-response theory of learning, the essentialism of his notion of “ethnographicness,” and the fatal imprecision of his definition of the “whole act” (Biella 1984, 1988, 1993a). Nevertheless, Heider’s long-take/sync-sound/ whole-act style of shooting can create footage that has verisimilitude, empirical fidelity. By this, I mean

that the footage can have accurate, point-to-point correspondences with properties of the empirical world. Such footage can be useful in teaching and research because it allows one to study aspects of what people do and say—and it can be very beautiful. It is not the only kind of footage that can be useful and beautiful, however. 21. Some of the most remarkable documentary long takes appear in

four goats, and one dog. We see the sleep-kraals of Lorang’s camels, his donkeys, and his goats, sources of milk, meat, and wealth. We see inner fences and outer fences, passageways and gates, clusters of huts, congregations of women nurturing babies. Through the long-take passage, we observe dimensions of homestead life and begin to sense the personality of its patriarch. Lorang is restrained, but the vision he allows us to share is unforgettably intimate. An important part of that sense of intimacy comes from MacDougall’s long-take shooting style.

Two long-take sequences from Lorang’s Way (MacDougall and MacDougall 1980).

Figure 7.5.

Flaherty (1922), Rouch and Morin (1960), Rouch (2005 [1967]), Kakatozov (1964), MacDougall (1972, 1980), Asch and Chagnon (1975), Lanzmann (1985), and Dvortsevoy (1998). In fiction film, wonderful long takes animate Hitchcock (1948), Welles (1958), Godard (1967), Kubrick (1975), Kurosawa (1985), Scorsese (1990), Linklater (1991), and Sokurov (2002).

p e t e r b i e lla

v i s ual a n t h r o po lo gy i n a t i m e o f wa r

155

Attributes of Scholarship and Interactive Media

The ideas for ethnographic filmmaking of Ruby and Heider were formulated before the advent of the computer revolution, but they have important implications for interactive media.22 Ruby’s call for an increased investment in theory and Heider’s proposals for empirical verisimilitude can both enhance the user’s intimate sensitivity to ethnographic worlds. The capacity to link text and video makes possible a hybrid form of anthropological communication in which text-based and time-based media are integrated and interactively linked. The links bring together qualities of scholarship, traditions of film exposition and research, and the capacity to touch the heart in a time of war. In analyzing purposes served by ethnographic film, I have so far restricted myself to the consideration of their intimate messages. Valuable as those messages are in fighting the terrible isms of our day, ethnographies are also committed to other goals. Before I return to the question of intimacy, I will expand the search for important attributes in ethnography to include those of the parent discipline, cultural anthropology. A salient quality of both is the development of theory and knowledge through scholarship (Rollwagen 1993, Biella 1993a). Two qualities of print-based scholarship can be distinguished: the architecture of scholarly works and the rhetorical qualities of scholarly argument. From the perspective of architecture, scholarly works have a conventional framework that is divided into sections. These include, at the peripheries, a table of contents, an abstract or preface, acknowledgments, footnotes, a bibliography, glossaries, appendices, and an index. The main body of scholarly works contains an introduction, a description of the problem, discussion of relevant literature and the research method, a theoretical argument, empirical evidence, and the author’s conclusions.23 The different sections of the scholarly architecture serve different purposes. They are visited at need. Revisitations also must often occur: a passage is too difficult to be understood at one reading, a reference requires clarification, a definition has been forgotten, a paraphrase rings false, or an idea needs to be slept on. The scholarly architecture includes page numbers and subject headings that allow readers to jump around, stop, return, reread, and take notes, depending on the contingencies and interests of the moment. Readers’ interests cannot fully be anticipated, but the familiarity of the scholarly sections allows readers to find what they need. 22. I follow contemporary usage and treat the nominally plural nouns interactive media and multimedia as singular. Equally disconcerting is the necessary replacement of the term viewer (of film) with user (of multimedia). The latter is needed as an acknowledgment of the ongoing series of decisions, choices, and actions—such as mouse clicks to new screens and search queries—that individualize every multimedia use. Film theorist André Bazin (1971) extolled the fact that viewers of films that were shot in the mise-en-scène style (with long takes, sync-sound, whole acts, whole bodies, and deep focus) are also constantly making decisions

156

and taking actions regarding which part of the screen they want to look at. I don’t say Bazin is wrong. 23. This list of architectural properties of scholarly works is not exhaustive, nor do scholarly essays and books always include all of the properties listed here. See Biella (1993a) and its bibliography for further discussion.

24. The problem of rendering timebased media vulnerable to scholarly research has been tackled in several ways. In Balinese Character, Bateson and Mead (1942) reproduce dozens of still frames from motion pictures, and they characterize these images with surrounding text. Since the original films are not in distribution, however, readers have no adequate way to query the time-based data in light of the text. Without an adequate hyperlink between the two, the author’s characterizations and arguments are less compelling and less amenable to criticism than they might be. When Heider (1972) published a written ethnographic companion to the film Dead Birds

(Gardner 1964), both film and book were available to scholars. This was an important first step toward multimedia, but it too was not entirely satisfactory. The endless process of finding and rewinding film wasted valuable time and destroyed sprocket holes. When, later, print companions were written to accompany videotaped ethnographies, the solution was more satisfactory, since replaying short segments of video does not destroy it. Still, the time lost in long-distance video searching can often be more valuable than the information gained. Pre-multimedia forms of interactivity, then, have not been very convenient.

p e t e r b i e lla

Unlike books and essays, which are read and used nonlinearly, analog-era films and videos unfold in one direction over time. Viewers rarely have the luxury of watching films more than once, and, in film, cannot easily hop between argument and data, introduction and conclusion, in order to query each in light of the other.24 A major technological breakthrough for ethnographic scholarship occurred with the development of digital media. At the instant films could be viewed digitally on computer screen, they acquired the architectural qualities of scholarly print. Video on computer is ideal for nonlinear study: it allows links to all of the conventional sections of the scholarly apparatus, permits complex searches, and waits patiently while the user naps or learns something new. The hybrid of ethnographic multimedia thus provides the architectural means and opportunities for more scholarly ethnographic film. Multimedia also enhances the rhetorical qualities of scholarship. Works in cultural anthropology exist to make arguments, the task of rhetoric. In anthropology, arguments are usually based on original research and always based on research and arguments developed by others. The principal vehicle of anthropological rhetoric is scholarship, a historical process, a discourse that unfolds over time. Authors create new works, they study and evaluate works written before, and they expect that their own work will later be studied. The paths of scholarly argument are inherently nonlinear. Ethnographies are an important part of cultural anthropology’s history, committed to the discipline’s slowly transforming theoretical and applied goals. In their service, ethnographies make arguments and justify them using conventional rhetorical procedures and tools. These include the fact that arguments must be constituted in theoretical paradigms or research programs, are often tested by hypotheses, are couched in reflections on method, necessarily cite field observations and informant reports, acknowledge local meanings, and appeal to intuition, logic, and new and existing theory. As Bill Nichols (2001) has shown, the salient feature of documentary films is also rhetorical. Ethnographic films (documentaries that have a pedigree in cultural anthropology) do engage in rhetoric. However, if we chose to design their rhetoric differently, they could provide even greater benefits to anthropological scholarship. Multimedia will allow such scholarship to flourish. The choice is not simple. Motives for taking advantage of multimedia’s new tools in anthropology should be clearly justified and understood. One motive concerns the ability of multimedia to improve the quality of ethnographic argument. In the past, each ethnographer was alone with his or her field observations. Empirical qualities of the research—the flow of time, words, sights, and sounds—were preserved in the ethnographer’s memory, fieldnotes, and occasional photos or videotapes. The empirical flow was not available for close scrutiny or interpretation by the community of scholars and peers. With multimedia, the situation might be changed if multimedia anthropologists were more willing, more often, to base their arguments on the footage that they present. Since the link between theoretical argument and observation is of fundamental importance, multimedia offers the platform for significant new discussions in social scientific research. In the future, video that has been brought into the fold of scholarly scrutiny, made vulnerable to analysis by becoming digital, will contribute more substantially to the development of anthropological theory. v i s ual a n t h r o po lo gy i n a t i m e o f wa r

157

I consider this new opportunity attractive not because I believe that footage of an event provides proof of its typicality or that its presence proves a filmmaker’s interpretation to be correct. Rather, my interest springs from the fact that anthropological theory inevitably rests in part on empirical observations. To provide viewers with access to some relevant empirical records makes the mechanisms of theorizing more transparent and subject to more fruitful debate. But if intimacy is not enough in visual anthropology, neither is theory. We need a way to make the two work together. The link between theory and visual media, then, is particularly important for the goals of an anthropology of intimacy. In the following paragraphs, I summarize my argument thus far in order to show its connection to multimedia. Intimate ethnographic media can undermine racist and sexist attitudes and question the wisdom of militarism that they reinforce. Yet intimate footage can also sometimes fail in this task when it is read through stereotypes. Default meanings and spin must be challenged, usually overtly, always assertively. Media-based ethnographic scholarship can take this challenge and contribute to the development of informed intimacy. If digital visual anthropologists wish to attack the problems of stereotypic readings, they can place footage on screen, expose and dissect the implicit default meanings, and subject them to counterinterpretations. Ethnographies made with interactive media, like those in books, can marshal data, theory, reports, logic, and the other rhetorical tools of scholarship. Most importantly, they can allow viewers to study time-based media over and over—as they would study any difficult text—in order to understand it thoroughly and dispassionately. Dispassionate arguments that transmit a sense of justified conviction are cumbersome and slow, whether in print or on computer, but the time required is the price of a debate that is relatively transparent. Scholarly analysis of media presented on computer screens contests stereotypes and monolithic spin, the first two dilemmas faced by intimate footage. By openly exposing what are often unconscious readings and by contesting these readings overtly with alternatives, scholarship refuses to replace bad ideas by others that are equally opaque and unassailable. The third dilemma is that intimate footage may create complacency but suppress action. Anthropologists who wish to critique existing films or use original footage interactively to promote social change can use scholarly techniques to determine and explain what actions they judge to be ethical. Scholarship in ethnographic media can seek a knowing and activist stance, grounded in debate. Only when such grounding is provided can we say that we have laid the strongest ethical foundation. Long Takes, Interactivities, and Interruptions

It is not necessary to believe that the long-take, sync-sound style is the most real or most scientific way of shooting to demonstrate that it can provide useful material for teaching (Asch, Marshall, and Spier 1973). Designers of long-take ethnographic multimedia will have studied their footage closely and will have learned a great deal of intimate information that they may choose to share with users. Moreover, the spatial, temporal, and acoustic fidelity of long takes can also be so rich ethnographically that they reward new research (Sorenson and Jablonko 1975). Because long-take ethnographic material is so rich, users can 158

p e t e r b i e lla

always make new discoveries in it. If the long-take style is not new, not stylish, its rewarding ethnographic richness is a significant antidote to boredom. Long-take footage, when placed within the architecture of multimedia and enriched by ethnographic annotations, provides users with the empirical basis for cultural understandings that are deeply informed and therefore intimate and exciting. “Whole acts” (or at least the vast majority of them) are not the linchpins of history. Yet when whole acts are conversations, shared activities, the setting and completion of tasks, they are bases of everyday rapport between people. Their representation provides a foundation for psychological intimacy and ethnographic knowledge. If only for this reason, the long-take style is a boon to interactive ethnography. Comprehension of a complex long take can be achieved with explanations that are overt and sometimes more lengthy than the event explained. Humans don’t usually provide ongoing voiceover explanations of their lives. Interactive multimedia, however, includes a technique through which users may view an event in long take and profit from a verbal explanation in addition. The technique is called “interruption.” As the ethnographic film flows, representing what was once a real-time event, the viewer is offered electronic footnotes, annotations, and invitations to click here. With the click, the interruption, action stops, and discussion begins. Every interactive choice a user makes, every decision to stop a film, jump from one vantage point to another, is an interruption, an opportunity to reflect, critique, feel, and query feelings. Every moment may be revealed as full with its histories and biographies. Doubts, analogies, arguments, analyses, perspectives, poems, and laments— all of these may be unspoken and invisible in the empirical rendering of the event, but they are, arguably, significant to its participants. As such, they may be brought to the fore during the interruption. Interruptions take time, but time is a crucial resource that anthropologists have at their disposal. In a key essay on interruptions in Brecht’s epic theater, Walter Benjamin (1973) analyzes ways that the suspension of disbelief is broken and interrogated. Alienation effects, Brecht’s techniques of interruption, stimulate critical thought. Interruptions in Brecht’s theater block catharsis and interfere with the audience’s character identification. They do not, however, destroy the audience’s intimate knowledge of characters. Rather, Brecht first encourages his audience to feel sympathy for characters. Then, through interruptions, he leads them to condemn the social conditions that have made the characters cruel or their lives intolerable. Brechtian interruptions do not destroy intimacy, but they do politicize it. v i s ual a n t h r o po lo gy i n a t i m e o f wa r

Figure 7.6. Another way to ethnographic meaning: a pan reconstructed from the long take in Lorang’s Way (MacDougall and MacDougall 1980).

159

Durable Scholarship

Through the use of multimedia, film is removed from the realm of the rapidfading and rendered vulnerable to scholarship. When this occurs, film is incorporated into a world where premises, alternatives, and logic come to the foreground. Scholarly analysis—the overt acknowledgment of premises, the open contestation of conflicting perspectives, and the insistence on logic—has served Western thinkers since Plato. The procedures of scholarly argument are rarely depicted in film or television. They take too long, and, anyway, polemical filmmakers do not want to provide their viewers with the opportunity to disagree: better in such cases to have the premises hidden, alternatives out of sight, and illogic off camera. The images are sexier that way. Couched in multimedia, film becomes less ideologically and emotionally seductive, less real-seeming, and less vulnerable to the inevitable obsolescence of fashion and style. If jump cuts or long takes make a film seem dated, scholarly arguments about film lend it a timeless quality. Indexes, bibliographies, summaries, chapter titles, and other attributes of the scholarly architecture are clumsy, but the kinds of information they provide do not go out of style. Syllogisms, for example, have been stylish for twenty-two hundred years. Revealing spurious premises and rejecting faulty arguments on the basis of better arguments have also been in style for at least that long. When film is placed in a multimedia framework, a context can be designed in which scholarly investigation is the expected norm, in which the meaning of film footage is reframed as an articulable assertion, not a default impression hardly conscious and certainly not up for discussion. Short-lived efforts to look stylish and real can be replaced with the ancient scholarly effort to make sense. When a film style appears in multimedia, it will be relatively unlikely to prompt intellectual escape through default interpretations. The “dated” film will be couched in the relatively permanent architecture and rhetoric of scholarship. In this way, multimedia provides at least part of a solution to the fourth dilemma of intimate footage, obsolete-seeming styles leading to inattention and disdain.

Amendment rights of a Santería church (Biella 1999). Ethnographic material played a key role in the judges’ decision. My site had more than forty screens, beginning with the decision itself, the lawyers’ amicus briefs, and several lower court decisions. Most importantly, the site contained dozens of excerpts from literature written by anthropologists about the Santería religion in Cuba and West Africa. I wanted to show my users that frequent reference to all of these materials would enrich their understanding of the case, so I placed a sizable collection of navigation buttons at the bottom of every page. (See Figure 7.7.) To my dismay, my Web-savvy friends told me that the buttons looked “clunky,” a polite way of saying “obsolete and very bad.” Because the buttons seemed old-fashioned, they said, hip users would think that the intellectual content of the site was necessarily obsolete. I needed to make it look more hip—say, by using pulldown menus. Unfortunately, hearing this after I had spent more than a hundred hours gathering and linking materials pushed me so deeply into future shock that I was unable to comply. (Compare the buttons of Figure 7.7 with the slightly less out-of-date-looking pull-down menu of Figure 7.8.) Here then is a new problem for visual anthropology to overcome. The rhetoric of scholarly argument does not change much over time, and the richness of long-take media has the power to excite and reward unlimited research. But if

Figure 7.7. Old-fashioned-looking Web buttons from Santería Web (Biella 1999).

Stylistic Obsolescence on the Web

Although the richness of film scholarship made possible by multimedia resists stylistic obsolescence, the Web and multimedia do transform constantly. Many transformations are beneficial to scholarship. More offer nothing but cosmetic bells and whistles. Changes in the surface appearance of the Web may be inevitable, given the capitalist world in which they emerge: if things look old, no matter how well they work, we have to buy new ones. Ours is a world of capitalist marketing: we are exposed to thousands of commercial impressions every day, each jostling aside the seductions of the last (Jhally 1998). Whether in automobiles, academic theories, or Web design, fads play a profound role: they ensure that consumer dissatisfaction will always be renewed so that the new will always be consumed. But endless changes in style contribute to a serious problem, a mind-set in which two-year-old interactive programs, lacking the latest cosmetics, appear outdated and therefore foolish. Good material, presented in a stylistically outmoded way, has no credibility. Consider the example of a Web site I created almost a decade ago. It concerns the Supreme Court decision that found that a city in Florida had violated the First 160

p e t e r b i e lla

v i s ual a n t h r o po lo gy i n a t i m e o f wa r

161

a Web site looks dated, visual anthropologists are still threatened by the fourth dilemma, death by style. In response to the dilemma, I see a fifth lesson for anthropological mediamakers. We need to design a relatively shock-proof, fadfree style of multimedia, one that will not look obsolete three months before it goes to press. Although there is no degree-zero or neutral style, at least we can avoid fads and glitz that contribute nothing but planned obsolescence. Glitz only helps short-term sales. Clunky is beautiful. Obsolescence-Resistant Attributes of Interactive Media

Not all changes in the Web and interactive media serve the purpose of making earlier efforts seem foolish and useless. Six valuable and enduring features make possible the integration of visual media, scholarship, and, ultimately, intimacy in anthropology: 1. Storage. Normal hard drives have the capacity to hold trillions of bits of data, millions of pages of print, and dozens of hours of audio and video. These media, along with tables, charts, files, and data, are now also easily stored on DVDs and Web servers. They invite research. 2. Speed. Hardware and software can deliver information to the screen in microseconds. High-resolution video can fill the computer screen, playing at full-motion speed. High processor speeds bring instant, random access to any frame of film or selection of data, improving the architecture of scholarly books and encouraging productive research. 3. Searchability. Hardware speed and software design facilitate research into the content of huge databases and files. Search engines can make query results available in an instant, facilitating unlimited research on unlimited topics. Coding and key words permit rapid searches of nonprint media as well. The use of Boolean operators in search engines reduces false hits. 4. Navigation. This feature completes the task of searches. Once a node of information has been selected, software makes it appear on-screen. Navigational access may be achieved through menus, navigation bars, and hot text. For visual media in anthropology, the most important navigational attribute is instant random access. 5. Juxtaposition. Multimedia can simultaneously present, on a single screen, text, quotations, references, photographs, graphs and sidebars, audio, video, hot links, navigational devices, databases, and search engines. Their copresence on-screen serves as a reminder of the scholarly work at hand. Film meanings (like the meanings of graphs, arguments, and theories) in this context are to be worked out, not swallowed whole. 6. Artificial intelligence. A strand of ethnographic media may be linked interactively to discussions of what it may mean, to annotations, abstracts, bibliographic entries, and the rest of the scholarly apparatus. The apparatus itself embodies a kind of wisdom in its design and scholarly tools. 162

p e t e r b i e lla

Interactive visual anthropology can profit from all of these features. The field of multimedia changes so rapidly, however, and so much has been written on it, that self-education is difficult. Remaining current is more than a full-time job.25 Yet the rhetorical and architectural properties of contemporary multimedia can be traced back to writings that are more than two thousand years old. They have longevity. They are fad-resistant and constitute a large part of the strategy by which anthropological knowledge has been passed down. Theoretical approaches change, but the stable and deliberate apparatus of scholarship transmits theory and encourages its transformation.

Yanomamö Interactive: An Ethnographic Analysis of a Long Take In the early 1990s, I realized that computer-based multimedia enhances audiovisual microanalysis and diversifies anthropology’s techniques for scholarly comment and interactivity. Tools for the exploration of media, available on the computer, could be used, I realized, in the study of existing motion picture documents and in the creation of new multimedia ethnographies. I explored the first possibility in a CD-ROM, Yanomamö Interactive: The Ax Fight, which I made with Gary Seaman and Napoleon Chagnon (1997). The famous Ax Fight film, the subject of the CD, had been shot twenty-five years before (Asch and Chagnon 1975). It uses only eleven minutes of film footage, and the first eight minutes are a single long take. Almost all of the footage is shown three times in the film and is analyzed from several different perspectives. What interested Seaman and me most about this film is that its repetition of footage and multiple analyses anticipated the techniques of multimedia ethnography. We wanted to take the film to a computer platform and explore the extent to which the addition of multimedia’s scholarly tools would increase its educational usefulness. Seaman and I had previously used The Ax Fight in many of our university classes. That experience had convinced us that despite the film’s importance, it had two major pedagogical failings. First, its voiceover analyses are too complex to be understood in the brief time that the film allows them. Second, visual properties of the footage are too complex to be comprehended at the pace set by the filmmakers. More than fifty Yanomamö people from six different lineages appear on screen. They are very hard to tell apart since they are all dressed similarly, have similar haircuts, and are usually far from the camera. What’s more, many of them dart on and off screen repeatedly. When Chagnon conducted his own microanalyses of the footage in 1971, he identified thirty-eight people in the footage and came to an interpretation of their activities, which he presents as his narration to the film.26 Seaman refined Chagnon’s interpretations. He further analyzed the eleven-minute document by breaking down the activities of the thirty-eight people into some three hundred distinct segments or “current moments,” as we called them. In the sample screen here (Figure 7.8), a digital version of The Ax Fight movie appears in the upper left. Seaman’s three hundred descriptive commentaries are placed in the scrolling text field immediately below it. Each description is hyperlinked to the moment of the film it describes. As part of the application’s v i s ual a n t h r o po lo gy i n a t i m e o f wa r

25. My search on Amazon.com for the word “multimedia” found almost three thousand hits; on Google, the number was closer to 90 million! Let the buyer beware. I can vouch for the following books and essays on the subject. Writers on ethnographic multimedia include Howard (1988), Houtman and Zeitlyn (1996), Banks (1994, 2000), Coover (2003), and Biella (1993a, 1993b, 1994, 1997, 2002b, 2007). Inspiration in hypermedia theory and practice abounds in Woodhead (1991) and Landow (1991, 1992, 1997, 2006), though their style now seems “clunky.” Graham (1999) and Garrand (2001) offer more current models for user-friendliness and interactivity. Qualities of strong screen design are analyzed in Nielsen (2000), though screen simplicity and the needs of scholars do not always coincide. Edward Barrett’s (1992) edited volume introduces a number of multimedia environments in academia. Fascinating histories of interactive media and virtual reality are given in Rabinovitz and Geil (2004) and Hillis (1999). Vannevar Bush’s sixty-year-old predictions for multimedia are astonishingly prescient (1945), as is the work of Marshall McLuhan (1964). Interactive narrativity and gaming are discussed in Landow (1992), Bartle (2004), and Glassner (2004). First prize for the most inspiring but utterly wacky text on multimedia goes to Meadows (2002). 26. To learn more about how Chagnon developed his interpretation, see transcripts of tape recordings he made the first two times that he viewed the footage in 1971 (Chagnon 1997a, 1997b). He describes the difficulties of making The Ax Fight in Chagnon (1997c) and the film’s implications for his overall ethnographic conclusions about the Yanomamö in Chagnon (1996). The integrity of the film was targeted in a series of charges against Chagnon by journalist Patrick Tierney (2002). I counter Tierney’s libelskirting deceptions in Biella (2000a, 2000b).

163

scholarly architecture, whenever the film is paused, the description of the current moment is always made available.27 Likewise, video playback of each current moment is always accessible through a mouse click on a description. A sample “People” screen from Yanomamö Interactive (Biella, Chagnon, Seaman, and Chagnon 1997). Räaiyowä’s name has been clicked and his image identified with a white “X” in the movie window.

Figure 7.8.

27. We realized how difficult advanced scholarship on the Ax Fight footage would be without a hard copy version of Seaman’s commentaries, and so we placed them, along with the CD’s other chapters, on the Web (Seaman 1997).

164

Yanomamö Interactive allows users to study the same eleven minutes of footage from the perspective of two theoretically distinct but empirically indistinguishable qualities, individual biography and historical event. The graph in Figure 7.9 shows how the event is analyzed from both perspectives. The columns represent the eleven minutes of linear time; at four seconds per column, there are 165 columns. The rows represent each of the thirty-eight people identified in the film. A black rectangle at the intersection of a column and row signifies that the person’s name appears in Seaman’s description of that foursecond moment. In Figure 7.9, column 29 is highlighted, representing seconds 116 to 120. Its intersection with the highlighted row for Keböwa indicates the first moment when that remarkable individual appears on-screen.

People described on camera in Gary Seaman’s (1997) moment-by-moment descriptions of the eleven minutes of Ax Fight footage (Biella 1998).

Figure 7.9.

Users are able to identify people on-screen by clicking their names in the descriptions. When a user clicks, the movie cues up to the current moment and a cross-hatch arrow appears over the person’s image, as in Figure 7.8. In the original thirty-minute film, Chagnon’s narration names and describes the actions of only five people. In the CD version, three dozen people are identified for the user, allowing the possibility of independent virtual fieldwork on their activities. When users read Seaman’s moment-by-moment commentaries linearly, they have an eleven-minute collective historical account of the activities of thirtyeight people. Users may also study the event in a nonlinear way that allows them to study each person’s individual biography. Because people appear on-screen intermittently, the cumulative meaning of their activities can best be understood by users who study it nonlinearly, skipping over the periods of time when they are holding still or are not on-screen. To draw out the biographical qualities of the footage, the CD includes one screen for each of the thirty-eight identified people. Figure 7.8 is the screen for a boy named Räaiyowä who makes several appearances in the film and is named in ten of Seaman’s descriptions. Räaiyowä’s “People” screen contains all ten descriptions with his name. Again, a click on a description calls up that moment of the film when the individual is visible. Users gain intimate knowledge, a glimpse into each person’s biography, by reading the descriptions and viewing the person’s actions. The effort to retrieve biography in history is the defining attribute of C. Wright Mills’ (1956) sociological imagination. It has guided my vision for interactive ethnography. p e t e r b i e lla

v i s ual a n t h r o po lo gy i n a t i m e o f wa r

165

Some of the other nonlinear offerings of the CD-ROM are search engines, transcribed discussions, and essays about the film by Chagnon (1997a, b, c), 35mm slides of the ax fight shot by Chagnon (from several angles) while the 16mm camera was running, more than a hundred photographs taken of the Yanomamö by Chagnon over thirty-five years of fieldwork, maps of the region, a database of vital statistics about the Yanomamö in the film, and a list of film resources.

Maasai Interactive: An Ethnographic Analysis of Fifteen Hours of Audio and Six Hundred Photographs A second multimedia project of mine explores different possibilities for intimate ethnographic biography. Maasai Interactive presents original audio recordings and photographs that had not previously been used. Working with photographer Richard Cross and ethnographer Peter Rigby, I recorded this material in 1980 in a Tanzania Ilparakuyo Maasai homestead. The Ax Fight CD explores eleven minutes of sync-sound film recorded in a single afternoon. Maasai Interactive explores fifteen hours of audio and six hundred photographs recorded over twenty-four days. The historical depth of the Maasai work, while still relatively shallow, is much greater than that of Yanomamö Interactive. I have divided the Maasai recordings into forty-four scenes, events that were taped and photographed with the same group of people at a single location. Almost all of the audio in Maasai Interactive was collected in recordings that run interruptedly for at least five minutes. Like Heider’s “long takes,” they represent a considerable period of real time. As such, they have properties of empirical fidelity and cultural intelligibility that I have discussed above. The still photographs, however, are mostly exposed at 1 — 125  th of a second, which is quite a short take! My original purpose for using still photographs instead of motion pictures was Brechtian: I wanted to interrupt the flow of time, block audience identification, and critique the ideology of sync-sound realism. I wanted to show that despite their brevity, the photos have remarkable fidelity and intelligibility. Karl Heider, take note! An audience’s comprehension of a filmed event will inevitably lack nuance unless nonvisible aspects of the event are explained. In motion pictures, subtle comprehension requires multiple viewings as well as explanation. Photographs can be looked at for any length of time, but they too need to be explained. Consider the image in Figure 7.10, taken from one of the nine scenes I have worked into chapters for Maasai Interactive. This photograph is one of a sequence of ninety similar compositions made over the period of an hour in the men’s courtyard of our homestead. It is about nine in the morning. Seated at center-left is Muharami, wearing a shirt and pants. He is a farmer and speaker of Kikwere, not a Maasai. He has come 166

p e t e r b i e lla

here from his nearby village accompanying two women who have temporarily stepped out of sight. One of the women, Mother-of-Rajabu, organized the visit. She had been dating Daudi, the Maasai man seated to the right in the background, one of the homestead’s ilmurran.28 Mother-of-Rajabu brought her entourage to tell Daudi that she has decided to end their relationship. She also wanted him to know that she has chosen Muharami to be his replacement. She has brought Muharami along as proof. Daudi received the unwanted news ten minutes before this picture was taken. After some tenseness, he moved his chair to the back and has not spoken. Then Kone arrived, Daudi’s age-mate: they are both members of the Maasai ilmurran age-grade, the group of men currently between their teens and their thirties. Kone sat down next to Muharami and the two have been joking and trading put-downs for the last few minutes. In the photograph, Kone brandishes his machete, inviting the farmer to pose

as victim in a dramatic shot for the camera. Muharami doesn’t like the idea. “I don’t play with machetes, bwana,” he protests laughingly as the photograph is taken. Daudi pays no attention. Also in the picture is yet another olmurrani, Daudi’s older brother-in-law, who is curled up, barely visible, on the mattress. Finally, at stage-right is Kipondo, a Maasai herdboy whose amusement at the situation indicates he knows that the business with the machete is only a mock attack (Geertz 1973). This minimal description of a fraction-of-a-second peek into another world shows the need for verbal explanation. A more thorough job would include a discussion of the economic rivalry between Maasai and Wakwere, their farmer neighbors, and the obligations between Maasai age-mates like Kone and Daudi. v i s ual a n t h r o po lo gy i n a t i m e o f wa r

Kone’s mock attack in the Daudi chapter of Maasai Interactive. Photo: Richard Cross; © Peter Biella.

Figure 7.10.

28. Maasai ilmurran (singular: olmurrani) are men in their prime whose responsibility is to defend their homesteads and cattle. The Maa word is often mistranslated as warriors, which suggests that the Maasai come in hordes of aggressive, predatory fighters. Actually, ilmurran are rarely required to use violence: when they do, it is almost always in solitary acts of self-defense against predators, notably lions and thieves. The anthropologisthistorian Alan Jacobs (1979) argues that Maasai were first described as being dangerous warriors by nineteenthcentury Arab slave traders who wanted to frighten away their Portuguese and British competitors. The idea stuck.

167

A sample screen from Maasai Interactive. Mama Toreto sings a transcendental lullaby to her grandson, Raymondi. Photo: Richard Cross; © Peter Biella.

Figure 7.11.

Although Kone’s technique is playful, his purpose is serious. I believe that the mock attack is a way of sustaining the reputation of all ilmurran in the face of an intrusive rival. More than this, Kone’s motives for assisting Daudi, his often acerbic age-mate, cannot be explained within the spatial, temporal confines of this scene. An approach to an adequate explanation of the economic rivalry between the Maasai and their culturally distinct farming neighbors, the Wakwere, needs links of its own. It would also require a discussion of mutual obligations. In Maasai Interactive, forty-four scenes, including Daudi’s chapter here, all have extensive photographs, audio recordings, transcriptions, translations, and annotations, and all are electronically cross-indexed. One of the annotations I have written about Kone’s responsibility to his age-mate is linked to another annotation (number 299) in another scene. Figure 7.11 is a screen-grab of the latter. Here, Mama Toreto, a Maasai grandmother, sings to her favorite son’s first son. Mama Toreto cradles the boy, surrounded by cousins and cowives, in the warmth of his mother’s house. Her song recounts aspects of his birth and his identity. As the recording is played back through a QuickTime movie in the upper left of the screen, the text field in the lower left scrolls with subtitled transcriptions and translations. One line ends with the number 299. This is a link to the ethnographic annotation called up in the screen’s lower right. Kone’s dedication to his age-mate and to all ilmurran is clarified by Mama Toreto’s song. Before her grandson is even one year old, he is steeped in the values of age-

grade solidarity. Mama Toreto calls the baby her father, her brother, and her son. He is born of her mother’s house and of her father’s house. He is an elephant and a god! More than this, in the passage visible in Figure 7.11, Mama Toreto praises the boy “laterrapie ilmurran.” This means he should be praised not only for what he is—which is nearly everything, every man, beast, and god in Mama Toreto’s universe—but he must also be praised for the sake of the ilmurran agegrade itself: even before he is a year old, he is destined to its greatness. Maasai boys are taught a sense of identity that is oceanic and a destiny that is shared with all others of their age. They are encompassed in totality. The Scottish poet George MacDonald (1890) expresses the same oceanic insight: Where did you come from, Baby dear? Out of the everywhere into the here. Mama Toreto’s chapter offers users of Maasai Interactive something akin to everywhere, something different from what can be offered to viewers of a film. A filmmaker may edit and cut from Kone’s jokes to Mama Toreto’s vision. The first will play, and end. The second will play, and end. In multimedia, no scene ends. In the past, filmmakers have insisted, censored, and closed. Multimedia makers can allow themselves to lose much of this authoritarian power. In Maasai Interactive, for example, the two scenes with Daudi and Mama Toreto always exist and coexist for the user as potentialities. True, users may cut away from them, follow links or initiate escapes on their own from the long-take scenes. Yet whatever integrity and intelligibility an uncut recording may have, it retains them in the work as a whole. Long takes in multimedia preserve spatial, temporal, and acoustic fidelities of empirical events, but they are also always annotated, excerpted, and linked according to the sensitivity and insight of the makers. This capacity of the new media reduces makers’ power to stifle and erase, while permitting makers and users the greatest license to interpret and transcend. This paradox marks an important advance for visual anthropology. Intimate Ethnography in a Time of War

Before the video revolution, motion picture editing was perilous. To cut in film was so permanent and irreversible that the editors’ tool was called a guillotine! Digital video editing, though, like interactive linking, is nondestructive. Nothing of the original is lost. The scene is cut and uncut at the same time. Visual anthropologists of the future will no doubt shoot footage that anticipates use in multimedia. My experience with Yanomamö Interactive and Maasai Interactive has convinced me that long, uninterrupted takes are wonderful tools for making sense. Long takes need not be shot according to all of Heider’s (1976) strictures: we don’t need unvarying wide-angle lenses, endless wholebody compositions, and whole-act filming. Many acts aren’t whole. Many wholes aren’t enacted. Still, footage will have great value for scholars if the sound is sync and takes are long. Sequences of still photograph and long-take footage that are recorded in a calm and collected way are likely to have a better stylistic shelf life than tightly edited films. Such footage, especially when transcribed and translated, will counteract 168

p e t e r b i e lla

v i s ual a n t h r o po lo gy i n a t i m e o f wa r

169

the problem that Martinez (1991) identifies: when the style of a film seems obsolete, viewers lose interest. Long-take footage is so rich empirically that it will reward multiple excursions into virtual fieldwork (Biella 2002b). It gives users an excellent resource, perhaps the best resource available in audiovisual media, to pursue their own unprecedented cultural investigations (Biella 2007). Footage and its analytical annotations are most valuable to users when they invite a multitude of intellectual and passionate excursions. Annotated footage is most valuable if it can gracefully be abbreviated, rearranged, interrupted, and cajoled into proposing and disputing meanings by users and makers. In multimedia, users are makers. Much is at stake with intimate visual ethnography. It offers cogent and inspiring replies to racism, sexism, and militarist deceit. If in mass media intimate images prompt default readings or spin, they can in multimedia be subject to the cooling fire of the scholarly apparatus. It is true that intimacy alone can free no one from the prison of prejudice and that academic deliberation at a distance hardly slows the pace of violence. Yet, in a world that is dying from its wars and still seeks warriors, intimacy and deliberation may clear a path to wisdom.

1 Jill Godmilow argues that PBS-style “heartbreaking” documentaries like The Civil War lull their viewers into self-satisfied smugness and social passivity.

Reader Questions

What are the arguments for Godmilow’s position? How might films upset “coherence, manageability, and moral order”? 2 This essay paints a grim picture of hypermasculinity in the United States, linking it to sexist, racist, and militaristic tendencies. Can the intimacies of ethnographic film counteract these tendencies? 3 To what extent do “default meanings” and “spin” blind viewers to images and visual nuances that contradict expectations? 4 In what way might multimedia enhance the richness of long takes? 5 Is clunky beautiful? 6 NBC News refused to grant this textbook permission to reproduce a still photograph that depicted a U.S. Marine shooting an unarmed Iraqi prisoner (See Note 11). In light of American traditions of fair use, freedom of the press, and academic freedom, what factors may have influenced the NBC refusal? (Also refer to Note 16 in your response.) 7 Stylistic attributes of Web pages and Web graphics change rapidly. Find elements on the Web that seem old-fashioned and contemporary. What qualities tend to change and seem obsolete? Are some attributes less subject to obsolescence than others? 8 The experience of intimacy can alter stereotypes and increase one’s appreciation of other people. Recount an experience of unexpected intimacy from your own life in which you were led to reappraise beliefs that you thought were true. 9 Long takes in motion pictures contain so much information that it is impossible to see everything in one viewing. Viewers often take in only what they expect to see. With a friend, view the “Copacabana” long-take scene in Martin Scorsese’s (1990) Goodfellas. Assign one of you the task of interpreting the scene from a feminist perspective; the other, on the basis of race and class. Discuss similarities and differences in what you saw. 10 Printed materials allow scholarship to be nonlinear. Monitor your own study of an essay or book and describe how your technique moves between linear and nonlinear research. 11 Using the CD-ROM Yanomamö Interactive (Biella, Chagnon, and Seaman 1997), trace the movements of the boy named Räaiyowä and write a biographical sketch about him. To what extent does this eleven minutes of footage permit an intimate portrait of the boy to emerge? To what extent can a sense of intimacy about him be gained from viewing the film itself (Asch and Chagnon 1975)?

170

p e t e r b i e lla

v i s ual a n t h r o po lo gy i n a t i m e o f wa r

171

References Cited Achbar, Mark and Peter Wintonick, dirs. 1992. Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media. 167 minutes. New York: Zeitgeist Video. Aibel, Robert, Ben Levin, Chris Musello, and Jay Ruby, dirs. 1984. A Country Auction: The Paul V. Leitzel Estate Sale. 58 minutes. College, Pa.: Penn State Audiovisual. Alland, Jr., Alexander. 2002. Race in Mind: Race, IQ, and Other Racisms. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Allen, Woody, dir. 1977. Annie Hall. 93 minutes. Santa Monica, Calif.: MGM/UA. Asch, Timothy and Napoleon Chagnon, dirs. 1975. The Ax Fight. 28 minutes. Watertown, Mass.: Documentary Educational Resources. Asch, Timothy, John Marshall, and Peter Spier. 1973. Ethnographic film: structure and function. Annual Review of Anthropology 2:179–187. Askew, Kelly and Richard R. Wilk. 2002. The Anthropology of Media. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Associated Press. 2004. Report: U.S. Marine Kills Wounded Iraqi. Television Pool Report Says U.S. Marine Shoots, Kills Wounded Prisoner in Fallujah Mosque. November 15. Electronic document, http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=255312, accessed February 25, 2005; link no longer accessible, June 1, 2007. Aufderheide, Patricia. 1997. Public intimacy: The development of first-person documentary. Afterimage 25(1):16–19. Balikci, Asen, dir. 1967. Netsilik Eskimo Series. 630 minutes (21 half-hour segments). Watertown, Mass.: Documentary Educational Resources. Banks, Marcus. 1994. Interactive multimedia and anthropology: A skeptical view. Electronic document, http://online.sfsu.edu/~biella/banks1994.htm. 1998. Time-consuming technologies: using the web and visual media in anthropological teaching and research. Electronic document, http://rsl.ox.ac.uk/isca/marcus.banks.04.html, accessed November 12, 2004; link no longer accessible, June 1, 2007. 2000. Review of Yanomamö Interactive: The Ax Fight. Electronic document, http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/ issue8/reviews/banks.html#text1, accessed June 1, 2007. Barrett, Edward, ed. 1992. Sociomedia: Multimedia, Hypermedia, and the Social Construction of Knowledge. Boston: MIT Press. Barthes, Roland. 1964. Elements of Semiology. New York: Hill and Wang. 1974. S/Z: An Essay. Richard Miller, trans. New York: Hill and Wang. Bartle, Richard R. 2004. Designing Virtual Worlds. Indianapolis: New Riders Publishing. Bateson, Gregory and Margaret Mead. 1942. Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis. New York: New York Academy of Sciences, Special Publications 2. Bazin, André. 1971. What is Cinema? Vol. 1. Hugh Gray, trans. Berkeley: University of California Press. Benjamin, Walter. 1973. Understanding Brecht. Anna Bostock, trans. London: New Left Books. Biella, Peter. 1984. Theory and Practice in Ethnographic Film. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Temple University. 1988. Against reductionism and idealist self-reflexivity: The Ilparakuyo Maasai Film Project. In Anthropological Filmmaking: Anthropological Perspectives on the Production of Film and Video for General Public Audiences. Jack R. Rollwagen, ed. Pp. 47–72. Chur and London: Harwood Academic Publishers. 1993a. Beyond ethnographic film: hypermedia and scholarship. In Anthropological Film and Video in the 1990s. Jack R. Rollwagen, ed. Pp. 131–176. Brockport, N.Y.: The Institute. 1993b. The design of ethnographic hypermedia. In Anthropological Film and Video in the 1990s. Jack R. Rollwagen, ed. Pp. 293–341. Brockport, N.Y.: The Institute. 1994. Codifications of ethnography: linear and nonlinear. Electronic document, www.usc.edu/dept/elab/welcome/codifica tions.html, accessed June 1, 2007. 1997. Mama Kone’s possession: scene from an interactive ethnography. Visual Anthropology Review 12(2):59–95. 1998. Poster representing the structure of Yanomamö Interactive. Electronic document, www.usc.edu/ dept/elab/urlist/images/Poster.jpg, accessed June 1, 2007. 1999. Santería Web: Documents for 508 U.S. 520, the Supreme Court Decision on Santería. Electronic document, http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~biella/santeria/dec1.html, accessed June 1, 2007. 2000a. Public e-mail on The Ax Fight scandal. Electronic document, http://online.sfsu. edu/~biella/biella2000a.html, accessed March 30, 2008. 2000b. Visual anthropology in the plague year. Anthropology News, Dec. 3:3. 2002a. Posters from World War II. In Japanese American Internment Curriculum. Ivan Drufovka and Peter Biella, eds. 172

p e t e r b i e lla

Electronic document, http://bss.sfsu.edu/internment/posters.html, accessed June 1, 2007. 2002b. The Ax Fight on CD-ROM. In Timothy Asch and Ethnographic Film. Douglas Lewis, ed. Pp. 239–262. Chur and London: Harwood Academic Publishers. 2007. Coherent Labyrinths. Electronic document, http://online.sfsu.edu/~biella/ perry/coherent.html, accessed June 1, 2007. forthcoming. Maasai Interactive (DVD). Biella, Peter, Napoleon A. Chagnon, and Gary Seaman. 1997. Yanomamö Interactive: The Ax Fight (CD-ROM). Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace. Biella, Peter and Iván Drufovka, principal makers. 1989. AIDS in the Barrio: Eso no me pasa a mi. New York: Cinema Guild. Braestrup, Peter. 1977. The Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. Brecht, Bertolt. 1964 [1942]. Brecht on Theatre. John Willett, trans. London: Eyre Methuen. Brooks, Mel, dir. 1974. Blazing Saddles. 93 minutes. Burbank, Calif.: Warner Home Video. Brown, Steve. 2004. War coverage highlighting casualties over context. CNSNews.com. Electronic document, www.lifeway.com/lwc/article_main_page/0%2C1703%2CA% 253D152832%2526M%253D50011%2C00.html, accessed June 1, 2007. Bruner, Jerome S. 1965. Man: A Course of Study. Cambridge, Mass.: Educational Services Inc. Burns, Ken, dir. 1990. The Civil War. 660 minutes. Boston: PBS Home Video. Bush, Vannevar. 1945. As we may think. Atlantic Monthly 176(1):101–108. Also available as an electronic document, www.ps.uni-sb.de/~duchier/pub/vbush/vbush.shtml, accessed June 1, 2007. Camus, Albert. 1991 [1942]. The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. New York: Vintage International. Capitaloutlook. 2003. Embedded media might add bias to the news. Electronic document, http:// capitaloutlook.com/columns/grainarchives/April3%202003.htm, accessed November 5, 2004; link no longer accessible, June 1, 2007. Center for Social Media. 2005. Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices. Electronic document, http://centerforsocialmedia.org/files/pdf/fair_use_final.pdf, accessed June 2, 2007. Chagnon, Napoleon A. 1996. The Yanomamö, 5th ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing. 1997a. First Comments. In Yanomamö Interactive: The Ax Fight (CD-ROM). Peter Biella, Napoleon Chagnon, and Gary Seaman. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace. Also available as an electronic document, www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/axfight/updates/ chagnon1stcomments.html, accessed June 1, 2007. 1997b. Second Comments. In Yanomamö Interactive: The Ax Fight (CD-ROM). Peter Biella, Napoleon Chagnon, and Gary Seaman. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace. Also available as an electronic document, www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/axfight/updates/chagnon2ndcomments.html, accessed June 1, 2007. 1997c. Ethnographic and Personal Aspects of Filming and Producing The Ax Fight. In Yanomamö Interactive: The Ax Fight (CD-ROM). Peter Biella, Napoleon Chagnon, and Gary Seaman. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace. Also available as electronic document, www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/axfight/updates/filming.html, accessed June 1, 2007. Cole, Johnnetta B. 1995. Human rights and the rights of anthropologists. American Anthropologist 97(3):445–448. Connor, Linda, Patsy Asch, and Timothy Asch, dirs. 1978–1980. Jero Tapakan Series: Four Parts. 104 minutes. Watertown, Mass.: Documentary Educational Resources. Connor, Linda, Patsy Asch, and Timothy Asch. 1986. Jero Tapakan: Balinese Healer: An Ethnographic Film Monograph. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Coover, Roderick. 2003. Cultures in Webs: Working in Hypermedia with the Documentary Image. Watertown, Mass.: Eastgate Systems. Cowan, Paul S. 1991. A social-cognitive approach to ethnicity in films. In Unspeakable Images: Ethnicity and the American Cinema. Lester D. Friedman, ed. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. de Heusch, Luc. 1962. The Cinema and Social Science: A Survey of Ethnographic and Sociological Films. Reports and Papers in the Social Sciences, No. 16. Paris: UNESCO.

v i s ual a n t h r o po lo gy i n a t i m e o f wa r

173

DeLoss, Rob. 2004. Reasons why a young person should not join the military, or enter at your own risk and buyer beware! May 18. Electronic document, www.tvset.org/ letter.from.reader_00.html, accessed November 28, 2004; link no longer accessible, June 1, 2007. DeNavas-Walt, Carmen, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Robert J. Mills. 2004. Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2003. U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, pp. 60–226. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Electronic document, www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/p60-226.pdf, accessed June 1, 2007. Douglas, J. Yellowlees. 1996. Sorry, we ran out of space—so it’s just a guy thing: Virtual intimacy and the male gaze cubed. Leonardo 29(3):205–215. Also available as an electronic document, http://web.nwe.ufl.edu/~jdouglas/intimacy.html, accessed June 1, 2007. Ducat, Stephen J. 2004. The Wimp Factor: Gender Gaps, Holy Wars, and the Politics of Anxious Masculinity. Boston: Beacon Press. Dvortsevoy, Sergey, dir. 1998. Bread Day. 53 minutes. Brooklyn, N.Y.: First Run/Icarus. Erikson, Erik. 1964. Childhood and Society, 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton. 1968. Identity: Youth and Crisis. New York: W. W. Norton. Fackler, Martin L. 2004. Accountability of the press. Washington Times, Op Ed, November 12. Also available as an electronic document, www.pej.org/html/index.php/ modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=977&mode=thread&ord er=0&thold=0, accessed June 1, 2007. Farnell, Brenda. 1995. Wiyuta: Assiniboine Storytelling with Signs. CD-ROM. Austin: University of Texas Press. Fido, Semper. 2004. Marines shoot wounded prisoners in Fallujah mosque. November 15. Electronic document, http://la.indymedia.org/news/2004/11/119384.php, accessed June 1, 2007. Flaherty, Robert, dir. 1922. Nanook of the North. 79 minutes. Criterion Collection. Freire, Paulo. 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Myra Bergman Ramos, trans. New York: Herder and Herder. Gardner, Robert, dir. 1964. Dead Birds. 84 minutes. Watertown, Mass.: Documentary Educational Resources. Garrand, Timothy. 2001. Writing for Multimedia and the Web, 2nd ed. Boston: Focal Press. Geertz, Clifford. 1973. Thick description. In The Interpretation of Cultures. Pp. 1–16. New York: Basic Books. Geyer, Michael. 1989. The militarization of Europe, 1914–1945. In The Militarization of the Western World. John Gillis, ed. Pp. 65–102. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. Giddens, Anthony. 1993. The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Gilbert, Dennis. 2003. American Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality: A New Synthesis, 6th ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth. Ginsburg, Faye, Lila Abu-Lughod, and Brian Larkin, eds. 2002. Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain. Berkeley: University of California Press Glassner, Andrew. 2004. Interactive Storytelling: Techniques for 21st Century Fiction. Natick, Mass.: A. K. Peters, Ltd. Godard, Jean-Luc, dir. 1967. Weekend. 105 minutes. New York: New Yorker Video. Godmilow, Jill. 1997. How real is the reality in documentary film? Jill Godmilow, in conversation with Ann-Louise Shapiro. History and Theory 36(4):80–102. Also available as an electronic document, www.nd.edu/~jgodmilo/reality.html, accessed June 1, 2007. Goodman, Amy. 2004. U.S. war crimes in Fallujah (interview with Jules Lobel). Radio broadcast, November 19. Electronic document and streaming audio, www.democracynow.org/ article.pl?sid=04/11/19/1524257, accessed June 1, 2007. Graham, Lisa. 1999. The Principles of Interactive Design. Albany, N.Y.: Delmar Publishers. Grimshaw, Anna. 2001. The Ethnographer’s Eye: Ways of Seeing in Modern Anthropology. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Halleck, DeeDee. 1995. The Gringo in Mañanaland: A Musical. 61 minutes. The Willow, N.Y.: Halleck. Hansen, Christian R., Catherine Needham, and Bill Nichols. 1991. Pornography, ethnography, and the discourses of power. In Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Bill Nichols, ed. Pp. 201–228. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

174

p e t e r b i e lla

Hardin, Bristow. 1991. The Militarized Social Democracy and Racism: The Relationship between Militarism, Racism and Social Welfare Policy in the United States. PhD dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of California at Santa Cruz. Heider, Karl. 1972. The Dani of West Irian: An Ethnographic Companion to the Film Dead Birds. Andover, Mass.: Warner Modular Publications, Module 2. 1976. Ethnographic Film. Austin: University of Texas Press. Herman, Edward and Noam Chomsky. 1988. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books. Hersch, Seymour M. 2004. Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib. New York: HarperCollins. Hillis, Ken. 1999. Digital Sensations: Space, Identity, and Embodiment in Virtual Reality. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press. Hirsch, Irwin. 1980. Aspects of pseudointimacy in the psychotherapy relationship. In Intimacy. Martin Fischer and George Stricker, eds. Pp. 403–425. New York and London: Plenum Press. Hitchcock, Alfred, dir. 1948. Rope. 81 minutes. Universal City, Calif.: Universal Studios. Houtman, Gustaaf and David Zeitlyn. 1996. Information technology and anthropology. Anthropology Today 12(3):1–3. Howard, Alan. 1988. Hypermedia and the future of ethnography. Cultural Anthropology 3(3):387–410. Illich, Ivan. 1973. Tools for Conviviality. New York: Harper and Row. Irvine, Reed, ed. 1973. AIM [Accuracy in Media] Report: The POWs and the press. April. Electronic document, www.aim.org/publications/aim_report/1973/04.html, accessed June 1, 2007. Jacobs, Alan H. 1979. Maasai inter-tribal relations: Belligerent herdsmen or peaceable pastoralists? In Warfare among East African Cattle Herders. K. Fukui and D. Turton, eds. Pp. 33–52. Senri Ethnological Studies 3, Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology. JawaNews. 2004. Kevin Sites, you’re still a traitor. November 22. Electronic document, http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/055944.php, accessed June 1, 2007. Jhally, Sut, dir. 1998. Advertising and the End of the World. 48 minutes. Lincoln, Neb.: Great Plains National, Nebraska Educational Telecommunications, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Johnson, Chalmers. 2004. The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic. New York: Metropolitan Books. Jones, Jr., Arthur F. and Daniel F. Weinberg. 2000. The Changing Shape of the Nation’s Income Distribution, 1947–1998. Current Population Reports, U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. Census Bureau. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Electronic document, www.census.gov/prod/2000pubs/ p60-204.pdf, accessed June 1, 2007. Jones, Lee A. 2001. Ethnographic edged weapons resource site. Electronic document, www.vikingsword.com/ethsword/, accessed June 1, 2007. Jones, Lynn Cerys. 1997. Both friend and stranger: How crisis volunteers build and manage unpersonal relationships with clients. In Social Perspectives on Emotions: Real Life Applications, vol. 4. Rebecca J. Erickson and Beverley Cuthbertson, eds. Pp. 125–148. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press. Kakatozov, Mihail, dir. 1964. I Am Cuba (Soy Cuba/Ja Cuba). 2 hours, 21 minutes. Chatsworth, Calif.: Image Entertainment. Katovsky, Bill and Timothy Carlson, eds. 2003. Embedded: The Media War in Iraq, An Oral History. Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press. Kittay, Eve Feder. 1983. Womb envy: An explanatory concept. In Mothering: Essays in Feminist Theory. Joyce Trebileot, ed. Pp. 94–128. Savage, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield. Klein, Melanie. 1975. Envy and Gratitude and Other Works: 1946–1963. New York: Delacorte. Kubrick, Stanley, dir. 1975. Barry Lyndon. 185 minutes. Burbank, Calif.: Warner Home Video. Kurosawa, Akira, dir. 1985. Ran. 165 minutes. New York: Wellspring/Fox Lorber. Laird, Charles, dir. 2004. Through These Eyes. 68 minutes. Montreal: National Film Board of Canada. Lakoff, George. 2002. Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2004. Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate—The Essential Guide for Progressives. White River Junction, Vt.: Chelsea Green. v i s ual a n t h r o po lo gy i n a t i m e o f wa r

175

Landow, George P. 1991. The rhetoric of hypermedia: Some rules for authors. In Hypermedia and Literary Studies. Paul Delany and George P. Landow, eds. Pp. 81–103. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 1992. Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1997. Hypertext 2.0: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2006. Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Lanzmann, Claude, dir. 1985. Shoah. 563 minutes. New York: New Yorker Films and Video. Lasn, Kalle. 1999. Culture Jam: How to Reverse America’s Suicidal Consumer Binge—And Why We Must. New York: Eagle Brook. Linklater, Richard, dir. 1991. Slacker. 97 minutes. Philadelphia: Movies Unlimited (Turner Classic Movies). Loizos, Peter. 1993. Innovation in Ethnographic Film: From Innocence to Self-Consciousness 1955–1985. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lugones, Maria. 1987. Playfulness, “world”-traveling and loving perception. Hypatia 2(2):3–19. Lutkehaus, Nancy. 2004. Man, a course of study: situating Tim Asch’s pedagogy and ethnographic films. In Timothy Asch and Ethnographic Film. E. D. Lewis, ed. Pp. 57–73. London and New York: Routledge. Lutkehaus, Nancy and Patricia Greenfield. 2003. From The Process of Education to The Culture of Education: an intellectual biography of Jerome Bruner’s contributions to education. In Educational Psychology: A Century of Contributions. Barry J. Zimmerman and Dale H. Schunk, eds. Pp. 409–430. Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum Associates. Lutz, Catherine. 2002. Making war at home in the United States: Militarization and the current crisis. American Anthropologist 104(3):723–735. MacDonald, George. 1973 [1890]. At the back of the north wind. In The Oxford Book of Children’s Verse. Iona Opie and Peter Opie, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press. MacDougall, David. 1998. Transcultural Cinema. Lucien Taylor, ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. MacDougall, David, dir. 1972. To Live With Herds. 90 minutes. London: Royal Anthropological Institute Film Library. MacDougall, Judith and David MacDougall, prods. 1980. Lorang’s Way [Turkana Conversations 1]. 70 minutes. Berkeley: Berkeley Media LLC, Saul Zaentz Film Center. Malik, Terrence, dir. 1998. The Thin Red Line. 170 minutes. Woodland Hills, Calif.: Twentieth Century Fox. Marks, Jonathan. 2003. What it Means to Be 98% Chimpanzee: Apes, People and Their Genes. Berkeley: University of California Press. Martinez, Wilton. 1991. Critical studies and visual anthropology: Aberrant versus anticipated readings in ethnographic film. Commission on Visual Anthropology Review. Spring:34–74. Masayesva, Jr. Victor, dir. 1992. Imagining Indians. Watertown, Mass.: Documentary Educational Resources. McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill. Mead, Margaret. 1995 [1975]. Visual anthropology in a discipline of words. In Principles of Visual Anthropology, 2nd ed. Paul Hockings, ed. Pp. 3–12. The Hague: Mouton. Mead, Margaret and Rhoda Métraux. 1954. The Study of Culture at a Distance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Meadows, Mark Stephen. 2002. Pause & Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative. Indianapolis: New Riders Publishing. Mills, C. Wright. 1956. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. Minh-ha, Trinh T. 1991. When the Moon Waxes Red: Representation, Gender, and Cultural Politics. New York: Routledge. 1999. Cinema-Interval. New York: Routledge. Monaghan, Elaine. 2004. NBC cameraman breaks silence over mosque shooting. November 22. Electronic document, www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1370611,00.html, accessed June 1, 2007. Montagu, Ashley. 1975 [1945]. Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race. New York: Oxford University Press. Morris, Errol, dir. 2003. The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. 107 minutes. Culver City, Calif.: Columbia/TriStar/Horn.

176

p e t e r b i e lla

MSNBC. 2004. U.S. probes shooting at Fallujah mosque: Video shows Marine killing wounded Iraqi. November 16. Electronic document and digital video, www.msnbc.msn.com/ id/6496898/, accessed June 1, 2007. NCAC: National Coalition Against Censorship. 2001. Statement sent to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on wartime censorship. Electronic document, www.ncac.org/ issues/rumsfeld.html, accessed November 27, 2004; link no longer accessible, June 1, 2007. Nesbitt, Phil. 2003. Commentary: Are the media afraid of “embedded” journalists? American Press Institute. Electronic document, www.americanpressinstitute.org/ content/939.cfm, accessed June 1, 2007. Neumayr, George. 2003. Embedded patsies: suddenly leftist media doesn’t want journalists to get close to their subjects. American Prowler. Electronic document, http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/877200/posts, accessed June 1, 2007. Nichols, Bill. 1994. Blurred Boundaries: Questions of Meaning in Contemporary Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1997. Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 2001. What gives documentary films a voice of their own? In Introduction to Documentary. Pp. 42–60. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press Nielsen, Jakob. 2000. Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity. Indianapolis: New Riders Publishing. Nussbaum, Martha. 1995. Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life. Boston: Beacon Press. Odets, Clifford. 1993 [1935]. Waiting for Lefty. New York: Grove Press. Ogrish. 2004. US marine fatally shoots wounded prisoner in Fallujah mosque (New York AP). November 16. Electronic document, www.ogrish.com/archives/us_marine_fatally_ shoots_wounded_prisoner_in_fallujah_mosque_Nov_16_2004.html, accessed February 22, 2005; link no longer accessible, June 1, 2007. Ophuls, Marcel, dir. 1976. The Memory of Justice. 278 minutes. Los Angeles: Paramount Repertory. Perse, Elizabeth M. 2001. Media Effects and Society. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Pink, Sarah. 2006. The Future of Visual Anthropology: Engaging the Senses. London and New York: Routledge. Political News. 2004. Marine shown on US networks shooting wounded man in Fallujah mosque (Washington AFP). Electronic document, www.political-news.org/ breaking/2445/marine-shown-on-us-networks-shooting-wounded-man-in-fallujahmosque.html, accessed June 1, 2007. 2005. Not enough evidence to charge marine in point-blank Fallujah shooting: report (Washington AFP). Electronic document, www.political-news.org/breaking/6850/not-enough-evidence-to-charge-marine-inpoint-blank-fallujah-shooting-report.html, accessed June 1, 2007. Prager, Karen Jean. 1995. The Psychology of Intimacy. New York: Guilford Press. Rabinovitz, Lauren and Abraham Geil, eds. 2004. Memory Bytes: History, Technology, and Digital Culture. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Rigby, Peter. 1996. African Images: Racism and the End of Anthropology. Oxford and Washington, D.C.: Berg Publishers. Riggs, Marlon T., dir. 1986. Ethnic Notions. 56 minutes. San Francisco: California Newsreel. 1991. Color Adjustment. 88 minutes. San Francisco: California Newsreel. Riser, George. 1999. Vietnam ‘60s. Electronic document, http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/ exhibits/sixties/viet.html, accessed June 1, 2007. Rollwagen, Jack. 1993. Introduction. In Anthropological Film and Video in the 1990s. Jack Rollwagen, ed. Pp. 1–10. Brockport, N.Y.: The Institute, Inc. Rotha, Paul. 1952. Documentary Film: The Use of the Film Medium to Interpret Creatively and in Social Terms the Life of the People as it Exists in Reality. London: Faber and Faber. Rouch, Jean. 2003. Cine-Ethnography. Steven Feld, trans. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Rouch, Jean, dir. 2005 [1967]. Tourou et Bitti. 9 minutes. In Jean Rouch (DVD, 4 discs, 660 minutes) Paris: Editions Montparnasse. Rouch, Jean and Edgar Moran, dirs. 1960. Chronicle of a Summer (Chronique d’un été). 85 minutes. Brooklyn, N.Y.: First Run/Icarus. Ruby, Jay. 1975. Is ethnographic film a filmic ethnography? Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication 2(2):104–111. 1980. Exposing yourself: reflexivity, anthropology and film. Semiotica 30(1–2):153–179. 1999–2004. Maintaining Diversity: An Ethnographic v i s ual a n t h r o po lo gy i n a t i m e o f wa r

177

Study of Oak Park, Illinois. Electronic document, http://astro.ocis.temple.edu/ ~ruby/opp/, accessed June 1, 2007. 2006. Oak Park Stories. 5 CD-ROMs. Watertown, Mass.: Documentary Educational Resources. Russell, Catherine. 1999. Experimental Ethnography: The Work of Film in the Age of Video. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Sachs, Jeffery D. 2003. A rich nation, a poor continent. New York Times, Op Ed. July 9, Section A, page 21. Also available as an electronic document, www.globalpolicy.org/ socecon/inequal/2003/0709rich.htm, accessed November 7, 2004; no longer accessible, June 1, 2007. Schrader, Esther. 2005. General counseled after he says, “It’s fun to shoot some people.” San Francisco Chronicle, February 4, p. A3. Schwartz, Peter and Doug Randall. 2003. An abrupt climate change scenario and its implication for United States national security. Report commissioned by the U.S. Defense Department, Office of Net Assessment. Electronic document, www.ems.org/ climate/pentagon_climatechange.pdf, accessed November 5, 2004; no longer accessible, June 1, 2007. Scorsese, Martin, dir. 1990. Goodfellas. 146 minutes. Burbank, Calif.: Warner Home Video. Seaman, Gary. 1997. Blow-by-blow descriptions. In Yanomamö Interactive: The Ax Fight on CD-ROM. Peter Biella, Napoleon Chagnon, and Gary Seaman. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace. Also available as an electronic document, www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/ axfight/updates/index.html, accessed June 1, 2007. Silva, Mark. 2007. Bush calls for anti-global warming plans. Chicago Tribune Online. Electronic document, www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-070531bush-warm ing,1,961311.story?coll=chi-news-hed, accessed June 1, 2007; no longer accessible. Sites, Kevin. 2004. Kevin Sites blog, Sunday, November 21, 2004: Open letter to Devil Dogs of the 3.1. Electronic document, www.kevinsites.net/, accessed November 24, 2004; as of June 1, 2007, the blog still existed, but Sites’ link to the November 21 posting had been removed. Smith, Hubert, dir. 1984. The Living Maya. Four parts, 58 minutes each. Watertown, Mass.: Documentary Educational Resources. Sokurov, Aleksandr, dir. 2002. Russian Ark. 96 minutes. New York: Wellspring Media. Sorenson, Richard E. and Allison Jablonko. 1975. Research filming of naturally occurring phenomena. In Principles of Visual Anthropology. Paul Hockings, ed. Pp. 147–162. The Hague: Mouton. Stadler, Jane. 2003. Narrative, understanding and identification in Steps for the Future HIV/ AIDS documentaries. Visual Anthropology Review 19(1–2):86–111. Stevenson, Richard W. 2003. Remember “weapons of mass destruction”? For Bush, they are a nonissue. New York Times, December 18. Electronic document, www.nytimes.com/ 2003/12/18/politics/18PREX.html, accessed November 7, 2004. Stoller, Paul. 1992. The Cinematic Griot: The Ethnography of Jean Rouch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tajima, Renee, dir. 1984. Charlie Chan Go Home. 61 minutes. New York: Paper Tiger Television. Tierney, Patrick. 2002. Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon. New York: W. W. Norton. Tucker, William H. 2002. The Funding of Scientific Racism: Wickliffe Draper and the Pioneer Fund. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. United States Supreme Court. 1994. Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. 510 U.S. 569. Van Sant, Gus, dir. 2002. Gerry. 103 minutes. Los Angeles: Miramax Films. Vidal, Gore. 2002. Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to be So Hated. New York: Thunder Mouth Press/Nation Books. WarriorsforTruth. 2004. Kevin Sites NBC news reporter—terrorist sympathizer, seditionist, traitor or just dumb liberal ass? Electronic document, www.warriorsfortruth.com/ kevin-sites-news-reporter.html, accessed June 1, 2007. Welles, Orson, dir. 1958. Touch of Evil. 105 minutes. Los Angeles: Universal Studios. Wicker, Tom. 1991. An unknown casualty. New York Times, March 20. Also available as an electronic document, www.ncac.org/issues/tomwicker.html, accessed November 27, 2004; no longer accessible, June 1, 2007. Wilder, Thornton. 1939. Our Town: A Play in Three Acts. New York: Coward-McCann. Woodhead, Nigel. 1991. Hypertext and Hypermedia: Theory and Applications. Wilmslow, England: Sigma Press.

178

p e t e r b i e lla

WorldNetDaily. 2004. NBC cameraman an anti-war activist: Man who shot footage of Fallujah killing has presence on Web. November 22. Electronic document, http://world netdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41506, accessed June 1, 2007. Zwick, Edward, dir. 1996. Courage Under Fire. 116 minutes. Woodland Hills, Calif.: Twentieth-Century-Fox. Zwirko, Walt. 2003. Embedded journalists’ reporting questioned. Dallas Morning News. April 8, pp. 1–3.

v i s ual a n t h r o po lo gy i n a t i m e o f wa r

179

Chapter 8

Guestworkers

Farmworkers, Filmmakers, and Their Obligations in the Field C h arl e s T h omp s on The danger represented by the thing given or transmitted is possibly nowhere better expressed than in very ancient Germanic languages, [which reveal] the double meaning of the word Gift as gift and poison. The obligation attached to a gift itself is not inert. The theme of the gift, of freedom and obligation in the gift, of generosity and self-interest in giving, reappear in our own society like the resurrection of a dominant motif long forgotten.

A Marcel Mauss

T h e G i ft: Fo r m s a n d F u ncti o n s of E xc h a n g e i n A rc h a i c S o cie t ies

s fieldworkers—in this case, those who go to communities asking for the favors of interviews, images, and film footage—we often find ourselves caught in a complex web of promises, obligations, and gifts. Receiving the gifts of interviews often requires something of us in return, placing us in fieldwork predicaments that we must continue to negotiate long after the actual fieldwork ends. Fieldwork, of course, is

a relationship we enter because we want to. Yet once we begin the work itself, people we meet in the field and who give us their energy, time, and stories begin to have their own designs on the outcome of the work we produce and how it will be used. As this happens,

we who receive the gifts yielded by fieldwork enter into relationships that we could not have foreseen. Sometimes these relationships are gifts, but, as with all gifts, the expectations, hopes, and assumed outcomes that grow out of fieldwork relationships can ensnare us. Regardless of whether they are positive or negative, however, gifts given during the fieldwork process always last longer than the fieldwork itself, and often keep on giving and taking after we thought the work was done. Thus, it is easy to start fieldwork, but it is not so simple to end it. In this chapter, I examine my fieldwork among a particular sort of farmworkers our government calls “guestworkers,” and by reflecting both on the farmworkers’ obligations and mine, I explore the ironic meanings of “guests” in both contexts. Beginning with Mauss’ assertions that gifts are double-edged because they always carry obligations along with their benefits and that imbedded in the concept of “gift” are both boon and burden, often simultaneously, I am particularly intrigued with the responsibilities necessitated by and inherent in the exchanges of fieldwork. I also address the complications that we as 181

fieldworkers face as we attempt to retell stories of others while negotiating the interviewees’ gifts of time, images, and words. Receiving these gifts ties us to those we meet in the field long after our trips are complete, even as we exhibit, publish, or screen our works about them. In certain cases, the images, sounds, and interpretations we take from others can leave impressions or even expectations and, in some cases, lead to confrontations with people angered or disgruntled with the results of our work. At other times, the gifts continue to give to us for the rest of our lives, holding us in a positive web of friendship, fieldwork, and mutual benefits. We feel obligated to give back to those who shared their lives with us in these cases, but, being caught in the positive web of giving, we find ourselves wanting to stay in touch and to somehow help those we have befriended in the field. Both meanings of the word “gift” tend to require something in return, either as what Mauss refers to as “balanced reciprocity,” meaning mutual exchange where there are ultimately no losers, or perhaps what we might call “damage control,” a process of giving back wherein fieldworkers attempt to appease the communities and individuals portrayed in a visual production. In the following section, I turn to the guestworker visa program in U.S. agriculture, describing both the program and how I became involved in working with farmworkers and farmers. The subject with whom I have worked most closely over the past several years in making a film titled The Guestworker is named Don Candelario Gonzalez Moreno.1 Even as I write Don Cande’s name here, I know that we are linked together forever through this work. I am obligated to him because of the gift of his time and his story to me. But, aside from any sense of obligation, I want to continue, out of a sense of loyalty, to be in touch with him and to make sure the film somehow helps him. He has given me the gift of his story and he has become my friend. And through my fieldwork with him, his story has continued to give to others. This inspires both my appreciation for and commitment to Don Cande. To acknowledge, examine, and act upon my obligation to give back is my goal. Yet reciprocity or collaboration in fieldwork is not always that easy. Power differences and the trappings of boss/worker relationships on the farm where Don Cande worked have complicated our exchange. In order to film a worker I had also to negotiate a relationship with the grower. Giving and receiving, particularly in the field, are never simple one-time acts. They are rarely completed on a level playing field.

farm in Mexico, looking ever deeper into the United States for farms where labor was in short supply.2 There was no money to be made in his small town. He raised cattle, corn, and beans there, enough to eat, but not enough for saving for old age, for sending children to school, or for paying off debts on his house and lot. So, even as he aged and realized he was getting too old to run from the border patrol, he continued to enter the United States to work. Don Candelario (“Don Cande”) Gonzalez Moreno, sixty-six years old in this portrait, was most likely the oldest H2-A guestworker in the United States at this point. Here he sits on the porch of the house he shared with eleven other men for a growing season on Wester Farms. (Photograph by Charles Thompson, 2003)

Figure 8.1.

A Guestworker in North Carolina

1. The Guestworker: Bienvenidos a Carolina del Norte was produced and directed by Cynthia Hill and Charles Thompson. Web site: www.the guestworker.com.

182

2. Ejidos are collective farms formed by landless farmers. Following the 1910–1917 Revolution, these farmers applied to the Mexican government for the use of idle land. Although the ideal of the Revolution was complete land reform, in reality, many small farmers were left with too little land to escape poverty.

When we filmed him, Don Candelario was sixty-six years old. For years he had made his living as an undocumented worker in the United States. Each year, starting in the early 1960s, he crossed “como mojado,” wading and swimming across Río Bravo (Rio Grande) into Texas. For more than twenty years he traveled that course, risking his life, attempting to evade La Migra (immigration officials), always seeking a living wage for his family, and always working in agriculture. Three times in three different states he went to jail and was then deported. His crime: working without a permit. When freed, he came back yet again, returning through the no-man’s-land of the border region from his small ejido (collective) charles thompson

G u e st wo r k e r s : fa r m wo r k e r s , fi lm m a k e r s , a n d th e i r o b li g ati o n s i n t h e fi e ld

183

These protesters in Durham, North Carolina, called for fair treatment for farmworkers and others living in that state. The rally was held by the organizers of the 1982 Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, commemorating earlier Civil Rights Freedom Rides in the 1960s. (Photograph by Charles Thompson, 2003)

Figure 8.2.

3. The bracero program (1942–1964) brought Mexican workers to the United States to replace U.S. citizens leaving the fields for the military or for war-related jobs. The program continued for more than two decades due to the demands of a strong agricultural lobby that claimed a continuing labor shortage in rural areas.

184

He found North Carolina years before the waves of hundreds of thousands of Latinos there today. He was one of the migrants deemed a godsend by farmers once reliant on local labor. “The Mexicans,” the farmers called them, too often not knowing their names, much less their stories. The Mexicans wanted to work, the farmers said, when no one else would work, at least for the wages they were paying. These migrant workers were the answer to their problem of profit on the farm. The farmworkers’ pay for labor was the one variable over which the farmers had control, and too many would exploit that variable for their own gain. Such is the nature of an underregulated market in human beings. By the mid-1980s, agriculture in the Southeast, including North Carolina, was totally beholden to these laborers from the other side of the border, many of whom remained undocumented. Then, in 1986, caving to pressure from human rights activists, labor activists, and, to some extent, farm lobbyists, the federal government passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which granted green cards to all Mexican nationals who could prove they had been in the country working for at least three years. That was one year that Don Candelario had chosen to stay in Mexico, and thus, despite his long record of service in the United States, he missed out. Amnesty, as many already knew, created new opportunities for laborers in the United States. The new bill actually destabilized the farm labor supply. Instead of keeping workers in agriculture, IRCA gave rise to new entrepreneurial ventures everywhere across the South: Latino-owned tiendas, painting and construction businesses, and restaurants became common sights in every small town as farmworkers left their former jobs in the field. Hence, the federal government—long a labor supplier for farmers and already foreseeing the problem—invented an accompanying program, known as the H2-A Guestworker Program, to fill the gap left by those fleeing farm work as soon as their amnesty took effect. Essentially, the guestworker program resurrected the so-called bracero (strong arm) program, a government response to war-related labor shortages. The program, which began in the 1940s and continued into the 1960s, first contracted foreign labor to come to U.S. farms from the Caribbean and Mexico.3 Following the inception of the new guestworker program, new organizations, such as the North Carolina Growers Association (NCGA), sprang into action to process contracts for guestworkers and to make arrangements to bring them charles thompson

into the states for seasonal work. Under the new plan, the workers would be bused across the border and back, ensuring, on paper though not in reality, that the workers would be prevented from adding to the waves of undocumented laborers. The program provided for a minimum wage and a certain standard of housing that included, in some cases at least, a refrigerator for every eight people, a shower for every fifteen, and a mattress for every worker. For the workers who had been given nothing before, this would actually be an improvement. That is, if these rules were really put into practice. Many guestworkers skip out on their contracts and find work on their own, thereby forfeiting part or all of their transportation reimbursement. Chihuahua buses from Mexico arrive in North Carolina every year carrying thousands of guestworkers. The workers have H2-A visas that give them legal access to jobs on farms. (Photograph by Charles Thompson, 2003)

Figure 8.3.

In 1986, Don Cande was forty-nine years old, already well beyond the average age of most farmworkers. (H2-A program recruiters in Mexico say they are looking for young men from twenty to forty-five years old.) Still he wanted to work. He had to work. His children, still in school, continued to need his help, as did his wife. But as he had became too old to continue running across the border, fleeing helicopter and SUV patrols, the guestworker option opened a way for him. He visited a local recruiter, Jorge, who worked for the NCGA on the Mexican side of the border. Jorge gave Don Cande the opportunity to borrow money to pay his recruitment fee and transportation costs—and most likely the bribe that goes with it—and sign up. The interest rate for the $1,500 he borrowed was 10 percent per month. Soon Don Cande was on his way to North Carolina in a bus. He would have to pay the transportation up front, not an easy proposition, but there was the promise of getting part of it back at the end of the year, if he worked hard and fulfilled his contract. The trip on the bus was not particularly hard, but it was long and boring. Don Cande resigned himself to the ride, remembering those who were dying in the backs of trucks or in the desert. The same went for the program: it was not as dangerous as some of the earlier work he had done and, most attractive of all, it was not considered illegal. Yet this work, even though sponsored by G u e st wo r k e r s : fa r m wo r k e r s , fi lm m a k e r s , a n d th e i r o b li g ati o n s i n t h e fi e ld

185

the U.S. government, is far from optimal. Much of the housing is substandard; the hours of work spotty, ranging from eighty hours a week to none; and the means by which a worker could express grievances less than clear, and sometimes nonexistent. Growers keep lists of workers they want back and those they do not, and workers live in fear of being on the list of the uninvited, or what they call “la lista negra” (the black list). Despite some changes, relationships between growers and workers did not seem to improve over those of farm labor systems from the past. Communication remains a problem where language barriers exacerbate power differences. Racism is still prevalent. On top of this, H2-A workers are contracted to a single farm regardless of the problems a worker encounters. To leave a particular farm is to violate the contract and forfeit one’s participation in the program as a whole. Although farmers pay transportation costs eventually, workers front the travel money and are not reimbursed the full amount until they have worked the entire season. Plus, travel from the workers’ homes to the border is not covered, just from the border to the U.S. farm where they will work. Debt keeps many farmworkers from escaping exploitative work situations, particularly because many borrow their transportation money at the exorbitant interest rate of 10 percent per month. Some call this debt peonage.

Above: Figure 8.4. Don Candelario Gonzalez Moreno harvesting cucumbers on Wester Farms. (Photograph by Charles Thompson, 2003) Right: Figure 8.5. Don Cande makes sure his bucket is full. His rubber gloves protect against the itchy pricks of the cucumber plants. (Photograph by Charles Thompson, 2003)

186

If we think of a guest as one who receives the gift of hospitality from another, then the term “guestworker” is clearly a misnomer here, an Orwellian name invented to convey welcome while asking that the newcomer go to work and only that. If a gift, this is more poison than present. “Worker” is correct. “Guest” is far from the way it really pans out. In fact, as Don Cande learned, the only welcome available to the newcomers is the word “bienvenidos” offered through a loudspeaker at an office where the H2-A workers sign papers. When a worker arrives on the farm, fellow workers—non-residents themselves—may help, but they are hardly in a position to give the gift of welcoming. Though none of the workers owns the space where they live, they take on the role of host as best they can, helping one another find beds and orienting newcomers charles thompson

to the work. But the relationship to space is confusing and the questions of whose guests are whose is left to outsiders to work out. Those who might offer true welcome are absent from the arrival scene. F i e l d w o r k A m o n g Fa r m w o r k e r s

I first began meeting H2-A workers on North Carolina and Virginia tobacco farms through my participation in several different oral history projects. In most films about tobacco and farming in North Carolina, farmworkers have remained conspicuously silent as the farmer speaks about the crop. News coverage of agriculture in the South is filled today with farmers talking about the latest weather catastrophe, farm prices, or even labor issues, while Latino and African American workers toil away in the background. They merely provide an interesting visual for the camera, a prop, as it were, to the words of the white man answering questions. They rarely, if ever, open their mouths to speak on camera or in print. This silence needed breaking. Thus, I began listening and recording. Historian Lu Ann Jones and I recorded some workers as part of a project about North Carolina tobacco for the Southern Oral History Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I later went to Virginia to work with documentary photographer Jesse Andrews on a project we named “The ThirteenMonth Crop.” We showed that the silent workers on the Virginia farm where Jesse worked for more than a year making photographs were also farmers with stories of their own about destructive weather, low crop prices, and families needing support, very much like those in the United States. The local Virginia farmers who came to his exhibit opening asked for more information about the workers. They were interested to know that the other farmers next door— although their farms were more than a thousand miles apart—had more in common with them than they realized. The Guestworker, my latest project about H2-A, undertaken with independent filmmaker Cynthia Hill, is an hour-long documentary film. When we decided to work together, Cynthia had just completed her first film, entitled Tobacco Money Feeds My Family. Through the film, she had gained access to the North Carolina Growers Association and had footage of the farmworkers’ orientation process. Given our interest in fostering understanding between farmers and farmworkers, I thought our partnership could yield a film that could have potential value for both groups as well as for academic and other film audiences. We began interviewing farmworkers in 2002. Filmmakers as Guestworkers

Immediately before we began the film, in the summer of 2001, the North Carolina Legal Services had called to ask me to serve as an expert witness in an H2-A case and I agreed.4 Their client, a former H2-A worker, was suing for back pay because he believed he had been forced to sign a resignation form without knowing its contents. I was called in to speak about why a worker from rural Mexico, who had worked for a variety of strong-arm bosses there, would feel he had to sign a form if told to do so in the United States. On the G u e st wo r k e r s : fa r m wo r k e r s , fi lm m a k e r s , a n d th e i r o b li g ati o n s i n t h e fi e ld

4. Legal Services, a nonprofit quasi-governmental institution mandated to represent those with limited resources, has long emphasized farmworker rights. Indeed, in several states, legal services actually succeeded in ending H2-A programs. This success led the North Carolina Growers Association to target Legal Services as their archenemy. The two organizations seem to have reached an ideological impasse.

187

Figure 8.6. This sign, posted in the North Carolina Growers Association headquarters the summer we filmed there, explains why workers should never talk to Legal Services lawyers, cautioning that the organization is trying to end the guestworker program and guestworker jobs. (Photograph by Charles Thompson, 2003)

5. The growers and their representatives appear to be genuinely frightened of losing their organization because of numerous lawsuits they consider frivolous. Legal Services believes they are hated by growers because they are successful in insisting on fair treatment of all farmworkers in the program.

188

stand I did not speak of the particular situation at hand because I knew none of the parties involved. Instead, I answered questions regarding the culture of farm work in Mexico and the United States. I tried to paint a picture of rural people leaving their small collective holdings, known as ejidos, to work on large plantations and how it might seem necessary to have to work, and perhaps sign papers, in such unequal and exploitative situations. The case was against Wester Farms. Len Wester’s lawyer argued that the signed form was proof of the worker’s resignation and also argued against the Legal Services case based on a number of technicalities. Wester Farms won the case. When Cynthia Hill and I approached the North Carolina Growers Association to ask about filming, they were hesitant at first. The Charlotte Observer and the North Carolina Independent had already published withering attacks against the group. But, because Cynthia’s film had been sympathetic to the plight of tobacco farmers and perhaps because we both had a lot of experience talking to farmers as well as farmworkers, they finally agreed to cooperate, even saying they would help us find farmers who might talk with us. When we said we wanted to film on a farm within driving distance of where we both live near Duke University, they gave us three names. The first two farmers declined after minimal consideration. Both were leery of the attention on their farms and believed they had little to gain from the project. Who could blame them? Yet, the third farm suggested was Wester Farms! I felt paralyzed by the thought of going there to ask to film after testifying on behalf of the NCGA’s archenemy North Carolina Legal Services. The animosity was so great that the NCGA had placed a large sign in their offices that included the following in Spanish, “Don’t become puppets of Legal Services” and “Don’t believe anything Legal Services says about the Association.”5 Even so, hoping for a chance at a story with some positive aspects, the NCGA director, Stan Eure, was willing to call Len Wester to ask permission for us to film on his farm. Wester agreed. On our first visit, I let Cynthia do most of the talking and waited to see if he would allow us to film there, hoping that in the different setting he would not recognize me, at least not right away. Neither Wester nor I said anything about knowing one another throughout the visit. And he agreed to give us access to his workers and complete freedom to tell the story of the guestworkers. Wester said he would allow us to film anytime or any place we wished without his assistance. His only stipulation was that he be allowed to tell his side of the story. When we returned home, I felt as if I had lied. The obligation of his gift was bearing down on me. I told Cynthia that she should go ahead without me, that I could not proceed without divulging my complete identity. She agreed to call Len Wester. When she asked about me, he said he had recognized me immediately and had elected not to say anything either! With this, Wester let us know that he had agreed to let us film regardless of my connections. While I had said nothing particular about Wester Farms while in court, I was flabbergasted by charles thompson

this gift of openness. And I realized my judgments about Len Wester needed revamping. He had become a willing host, and we became guests while trying to do our work in a space over which we had no control. We were guestworkers of sorts. We were being pulled into an obligation of the gift. O b l i g at i o n s o f F i l m m a k e r s

Giving of time creates certain obligations for the recipient. Reciprocity becomes an expectation, and this dynamic can wreak havoc on objectivity of fieldwork. Every permission to interview creates an obligation of one kind or another, if only in attitude. Escaping the pull of such gifts is impossible. Adding to the complexity was the fact that Cynthia Hill and I had first met with a grower—read: landed power-holder—and we then had to turn to the farmworkers—read: landless, without rights of citizenship, and totally dependent on Wester, being both employed by him and living in housing he provided. How perplexing it was to ask permission for interviews with farmworkers in a situation where we had to explain that their boss first had given us permission to be on the farm! We had to tell them that the grower gave us an okay or they might believe they would be putting their jobs at risk to cooperate with us. Were we then perceived as working for the boss? Did the workers believe they had to cooperate? Would they tell us the truth as a result? Our response to this dilemma was to try to convince everyone, including ourselves, that regardless of our allegiance to the powerless, we are independent

G u e st wo r k e r s : fa r m wo r k e r s , fi lm m a k e r s , a n d th e i r o b li g ati o n s i n t h e fi e ld

Above: Figure 8.7. Len Wester supervises guestworkers on his farm, his livelihood intertwined with theirs. (Photograph by Charles Thompson, 2003) Below: Figure 8.8. Len and Saul survey their field hands on a hot afternoon in June. (Photograph by Charles Thompson, 2003)

189

filmmakers in search of the truth from all sides, interpreting what we find in a story that would be fair. Wester permitted us on the farm, he said, as long as we told his side of the story. We knew, of course, that his story would not be necessarily positive. The farmworkers, in a weaker position, only said they approved of our being there and asking them questions, asking nothing in return but a copy of our tape. These two requests—one for a fair treatment and the other simply for a copy—reveal much about the imbalance of power among the characters in the film. The obligations of the gift of time and access registered quite differently with the groups. Regardless of power differences, both parties, by giving us gifts of their time, obligated us. Nevertheless, we stood in between two different sides somewhat at odds with one another, and we were obligated in certain ways to both, at times having to negotiate between the two groups standing and working in the same field. We learned later that Len Wester felt under some obligation to allow us on his farm because the North Carolina Growers Association called to legitimate Left: Figure 8.9. Workers newly assigned to farms check their North Carolina map to see where they will be living for the season. (Photograph by Charles Thompson, 2003) Right: Figure 8.10. Don Candelario taking a water break in the pepper field. (Photograph by Charles Thompson, 2003)

our request. So, as the NCGA had helped him find so many workers, apparently their call meant he felt some sense of reciprocity as well. We were exceedingly lucky that one man, Stan Eure, had called on our behalf. Did he assume we were working for his side? Most likely not, but he was eager to work with someone who might understand a farmer’s perspective and who could do a story that might soften the bitter press coverage his organization had received prior to our arrival. Hence, scathing critiques of the program from journalists had led to permission to do our film story. This was a strange turn of events, and not without its potential entrapment in an obligatory softening of our critique in order to live up to trust placed in us. Our awareness of this was our only shield. 190

charles thompson

In subtle ways I continued to work as a farmworker advocate. Where there were impasses, I wanted to open new avenues for dialogue. Our position in the middle of a one-sided power relationship seemed a compromise on the surface, but in reality I felt more like a diplomat or a labor negotiator than a double agent. I vowed to myself that I would never do harm to farmworkers. Always inclined to favor the side of the weak, I could not compromise on that point. Yet, rather than pit farmers and farmworkers against one another in our treatment, I believed that our film could help farmers also begin to favor the weak, that we could speak to their strong rural values, we could humanize the story and the people, and break down barriers. When we arrived on the farm to start our interviews, we were guests carrying a lot of ethical baggage with us. I could not help but think of the paradoxical situation of the real guestworkers’ arrival on the same day as ours. As the new guestworkers wandered around looking for housing, no one welcomed them. They were no one’s guests after all. Instead, we, the filmmakers, the interviewers, were the only U.S. citizens to talk with them. We, also guests of sorts on the farm, were perhaps the first ones to stop to ask their names or to appear interested in them as human beings. In turn, our showing interest in people as human beings perhaps obligated them to answer our questions. Our smiles and kind words were followed by a request. Would it be possible to film here in their house that they did not own? What could they say? After all, it was not their place. And neither was it ours. We were simultaneously there to work, feeling like strangers, being called guests, and neither having our bearings about where we were headed. In a strange twist of events, in mid–growing season in 2002, Len Wester called the NCGA. He mistakenly thought we had been giving out information for Legal Services and that I had been acting in a sense as a double agent! Someone had given him false information; in fact, I had done nothing. However, we were forced to argue and plead our way back onto the farm. Our position was that we had never breached the trust of the grower. Our promise had always been to do straightforward fieldwork, not organize or recruit, and we had lived up to our bargain. Hence, regardless of the fact that I had once testified on behalf of Legal Services, I was now obligated once again to relinquish firmly any position as farmworker advocate in order to continue a fieldwork project. Because of this, I also had to turn down several new requests to serve as expert witness for Legal Services while we were filming. Thus, the obligation of the gift precluded my being able to offer my services—my gift—to an organization I happen to support. I bided my time because I believed that in the long run our film would help. The goal was always to open new dialogue. G u e s t s i n Fa r m w o r k e r H o u s i n g

Beginning the process of filming in the field, particularly with people living away from their own homes, requires sensitivity and careful negotiation. Just by having expensive equipment, driving up in a car, and enjoying the luxury of free movement and decision making, we were clearly more independent and appeared more powerful than those farmworkers whose stories we sought to G u e st wo r k e r s : fa r m wo r k e r s , fi lm m a k e r s , a n d th e i r o b li g ati o n s i n t h e fi e ld

191

North Carolina Growers Association employees assign workers to particular farms, calling out the names of farms and pointing out the buses the workers are to board. Each worker is assigned to a single farm for the entire season. (Photograph by Charles Thompson, 2003)

Figure 8.11.

192

record. How does one ask about filming among people who have very little power to say no to much of anything? We did ask nonetheless, and tried as sensitively as possible—though equipment is never sensitive—to set up and to begin filming on the day of the farmworkers’ arrival. We turned on the camera, simply recording life in the house, conversation on the porch, and cooking in the kitchen. Then we turned to interviews. Some of the workers were more cooperative than others. One of the young men refused to participate. That was no problem for us, though we always wondered what he was really thinking as we avoided panning the camera in his direction. He gave us some strong nonverbal hints: even when left alone, he always wanted to put his hand in front of the lens or disrupt the others while they answered questions. We never understood why exactly. We

charles thompson

surmised that perhaps he was angry at having to be in his situation in the United States and that we were easy targets. Such are the predicaments of unbalanced power—the weak, as James C. Scott, author of Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, would say, have subtler weapons. Early on in our time on Wester Farms, Don Candelario emerged as the most willing and most eloquent speaker. He was certainly no complainer. In fact, he seemed to be a proponent of H2-A. Yet, as we continued to get to know him better, it became clear that he knew that the program was the only way for a sixty-six-year-old Mexican worker to return to the United States. Knowing he could not work as fast as he once did, he seemed resigned to seeing his lot positively. As we progressed further, Don Cande began to level with us. The pay was inadequate and he did not really want to be in the program. In fact, if he could retire, he would, he said. By giving us this information on camera, he was saying that he trusted us to do right by him. Gradually we had moved beyond a rudimentary relationship of fieldworkers and farmworkers. We became confidants and he let himself be in a more vulnerable position. Although the truth is what we wanted, receiving information that could potentially harm farmworkers who are our friends is a gift that contains some of the poison to which Mauss referred. In solidarity with Don Cande, we believed we had to guard the gifts of the interviews carefully, weaving a story that would ring true with him while not getting him into any trouble with the boss. On top of this, we had certain obligations to Len Wester as he opened his life and livelihood to us. We were not beholden to Wester in the same way we were to the workers, as he actually held power over us by allowing us to be on his farm; but at the same time, we had promised him his side of the story as well. So, as we filmed in the cucumber or tobacco fields, where both farmer and farmworkers worked at the same time, what physical position would we take? It turns out that we could work both sides of the power relationship simultaneously. I became the primary communicator with the farmworkers, particularly because I was the main Spanish speaker on our crew. Cynthia, having already made a film about farmers, became the primary spokesperson with Len Wester and his family. So we obligated ourselves to both, splitting up and sometimes standing beside both parties simultaneously in their positions as boss and workers in the field, accompanying them in their positions in the hierarchy of agriculture. In a sense, we straddled the fence of power. In another sense, we became obligated to every party in the film in a variety of ways. G u e st wo r k e r s : fa r m wo r k e r s , fi lm m a k e r s , a n d th e i r o b li g ati o n s i n t h e fi e ld

193

As the season progressed, we seemed to become an accepted third party, not having to worry about being on one side or the other. At times we rode in the front of the farmer’s pickup to get a particular shot. At other times our cinematographer rode with the farmworkers alone. Power relations remained rigidly in place, but we somehow negotiated our way through them without giving up our role as fieldworkers on either side while standing on both. The longer we stayed, the more invisible we became. Don Candelario as Main Character

Figure 8.12. A guestworker has his bucket of peppers recorded on a computer probe he keeps with him at all times. The number of buckets picked is calculated by computer at the end of the day. Workers receive printouts of the contents and often compare the records with their own memory of their production. (Photograph by Charles Thompson, 2003)

194

As it became clearer to us that Don Candelario was the primary character in our film, new dynamics of the project began to emerge. At first we had asked an entire household of twelve men for permission to film them, interview them, follow them through their year. Gradually, as we began to turn the camera on just the one person—both because his story is the most compelling as the oldest man on the crew and because he was our most willing interviewee—other men began to vie for our attention. One man in particular would corner us and tell us that he, too, wanted to speak about particular issues. A few times we actually filmed knowing that we might not be able to use some material we were getting. We filmed because we were asked, not because we chose. At the same time, it was nearly impossible to say no to someone in the field who wants to tell an important story. In fact, we did receive many important stories that may never reach the screen. This means we received gifts we cannot return or reciprocate. Film footage that we told workers was the raw material for a film remains in the can, perhaps forever. We were telling the truth, of course, but we turned more than one hundred hours of film into just one. Many intriguing ideas and beautiful faces are not part of the final cut. Others, including Len Wester himself, gradually recognized Don Cande as the main character of the project. This was good on the one hand because people began to look out for him and tell us how to find him. On the other hand, our attention to one worker perhaps drew some favoritism from the boss. For instance, we will never know if he got to work in the shade more because we were around. We will never know if the boss or his labor supervisor restrained some form of intimidation in the field because we were around. We will never know if paychecks looked more accurate because we were filming the recipients. Perhaps we prompted change simply by filming something that appears objective. If so, this meant that we as fieldworkers were unknowingly giving gifts to farmworkers. charles thompson

Guests in Mexico

Our project ran through an entire work season and beyond. As the season ended, we asked Don Candelario if we might accompany him to his home in Durango, Mexico, to help us close his circuit of travel, to meet his family, and to help us understand more of his life. Over the summer, we had followed several main participants in the film, but as his story became more and more compelling, we knew that we wanted to concentrate on him. Following this tack would necessarily diminish the stories of the others we had interviewed. What were we to do when guestworkers with whom we had established relationships were also requesting that we go to their homes? In the end, we visited and interviewed several people and filmed in locations that could not appear in the film. When the participants gave us this gift of their time, we felt obliged. When they invited us to see them as they really live in Mexico, we could hardly turn them down. After all, we had asked them to tell their stories to us in a place in which they were not proud to be, a place where they were so-called guests and over which they had no control. To interview the farmworkers in only this place would make them into people who seemed to want to live in substandard conditions. Hence, filming here made us obliged to tell the rest of the story. But stories must all end somewhere. To include one story excludes others. Someone will always be left out. Then, by going to Mexican homes, where wives and children welcomed us with food and their own beds while they ate after us and slept on floors, we became guests of entirely new people in this equation, the families of the farmworkers. We had certainly given little in our relationships with the guestworkers, nothing but our time and interest—and some videotape. They had given so much more: their time, their thoughts, and the stories of their lives. They had much more at stake in the relationship. So, in addition to our being beholden to the workers, now we were sitting at their tables eating the best meals they could make or afford. We could buy and leave groceries, we could buy detergent and even bedding, but still we were the guests and we had to avoid spending so much that it looked as though we were disappointed in the accommodations or food. Then there was the visit to Daniel’s house in a little town near Taxco. He had been one of our main spokespersons early on because he immediately recognized that the guestworker program was unfair to the new workers. He complained about having no orientation to the work, about the experienced workers getting the best rows, and the inexperienced being put on a “blacklist.” One day we returned to Wester Farms to find that Daniel and his brothers had left the farm, completely disgruntled, and headed back to Mexico. When we told some of the workers at the end of the season that we wanted to find Daniel in Mexico to find out how it all played out, they said they might not receive us. We went anyway. We found Daniel working with his cattle. He was gracious enough, but having left the program and Wester Farms he had nothing to gain from the project. He said, “I’ve already told you everything. What more do you want to know?” We replied that we simply wanted to know how the program appears from the Mexican side of the border. He launched into a scathing critique G u e st wo r k e r s : fa r m wo r k e r s , fi lm m a k e r s , a n d th e i r o b li g ati o n s i n t h e fi e ld

195

on camera, essentially calling the guestworker program modern-day slavery because he believed he had no rights to make any of his own decisions. He was angry throughout the season that he was never treated as an equal, as he treats people who help him with his own harvest. He was completely open with his criticism, but he did not want us to film his family. When we left, we knew that we were part of the United States that he wanted to forget—the part that reminded him of what he considered his time of peonage. In Mexico he had dignity. In the United States, people tried to belittle him. Our film would do nothing for him as far as he was concerned. As we walked up the road leading away from his house to catch a bus, I knew that he was glad to see us go. Our gift as documentarians, if you could call our fieldwork a gift at all, was meaningless in his world. He clearly believed reform of the program or new awareness of dialogue would mean little for him. W o r k e r s : F r e e d o m a n d O b l i g at i o n

In the end, there is no resolution, and no finality to the obligations of the gift or fieldwork projects. Both sides hold us in invisible webs of responsibility and even liability. Although the H2-A guestworkers come knowing their obligations and expecting little in return as the powerless ones in their labor contract, they, getting to know and trusting us, began to expect something of us through our storytelling. And of course we wanted to oblige them because we as fieldworkers are in a position to give, and we have the power to follow through. We as fieldworkers do the asking and most of the receiving when we visit someone. Even in the farmworkers’ own labor camp, we were able to orchestrate the ways that we conducted interviews, including making decisions about who would participate. The farmworkers always treated us as guests and tried to accommodate us in their humble places. We asked for a lot and received it. They gave. We now live with the obligations to give back. As we do this kind of work, we can hope—as fieldworkers among workers, who negotiate their one-sided arrangements—that we can give back in some intangible way for all their gifts of time, honesty, and goodwill. Although our government may call these farmworkers “guests,” the workers must negotiate, often in poisonous ways, our economic system, a system that has multiplied by economic strategies the entrapments of gift giving already present in ancient societies as Mauss delineates. Our society’s collective exploitation of the Mexican nationals who harvest our crops is far from reversed by our fieldwork. But at least we listen and we receive much from doing so. This gift of knowing, being far from inert, holds us, changes us, and keeps us. We never quite walk away. Of course, neither do the H2-A workers. We have entered a web of obligation and seen its hold on them. Its pull on us is weak in comparison. We finished the film some two years after we started, and as I sit in my airconditioned office writing this, the guestworkers have not yet fulfilled their contracts for this year. They wait, obligated to stay till the end. Through our film and its obligations, we are forever tied to its subjects, but nowhere near as tightly as the workers are tied to their roles we perversely term “guestwork.” There is also the fact that our film will take on a life of its own. We have made it in both Spanish and English and are sending copies to all the farmworkers 196

charles thompson

who participated. In Don Candelario’s town, we have contacted local officials who will help us conduct a public screening in the state capital. We held a screening at a farmworker festival, paying Don Cande and his son Joel for their participation. We have given the family multiple copies of the work. Len Wester’s wife, Dot, has taken part in screenings and, hopefully, Len will also participate in future screenings. The film is our gift to farmworkers, our attempt to create dialogue where there was none, perhaps even understanding or recognizing similarities across borders, perhaps even helping others consider putting the concept of “guest” into real action in the equation. In turn, the gifts of stories have been turned into a narrative that will reach others who will never meet Don Cande in person. His gifts and those of the others will continue giving to people far from the field where we first encountered the workers. Whether this creates certain “obligations” or any other kind of exchange on the part of viewers is a factor of our skills as fieldworkers and filmmakers, the individual consciences of viewers, and the power of gifts to travel through the technological mediums we have invented to carry them. Regardless of the film’s power, we, the filmmakers, are forever held by the gifts we have been given while making it. Regarding Student Projects

There is no substitute for getting out and meeting people, and students should do it. However, students who want to work with farmworkers or others living as immigrants in a society where they have few rights should never forget their own privileges of travel and of crossing into “foreign spaces” without penalty. Imagine your surprise if a few farmworkers were to knock on your door at home and ask to film you in that context. Realize, too, that those who hold power over others are not likely to give it up willingly. Your presence is often threatening because it calls attention to dynamics some might choose to ignore. Your best strategy must be to always be aware of complex social relationships of which you are a part. Never believe that in situations of unequal power all is innocent. Be informed and be careful of what you promise. And know that the gift of fieldwork obligates you as much as or more than it does your hosts. Fieldwork is an entrapment of sorts, but a trap or predicament that—now that I’ve done it—I wouldn’t want to do without. Some advice: in the field, be yourself, be honest, and always be aware that you will find yourself part of as well as betwixt and between a variety of power relationships, including your own. And know that once you begin a project, as with all gifts and works done in the field, its obligations can last forever.

G u e st wo r k e r s : fa r m wo r k e r s , fi lm m a k e r s , a n d th e i r o b li g ati o n s i n t h e fi e ld

197

section IV

Roads Less Traveled: Unusual Subfields

Se ction IV R o a d s L e s s T r av e l e d : U n u s u a l Su b f i e l d s

I n tr o d u c t i o n

M

ost visual anthropologists specialize in still photography and film; however, there have always been specialists who both study and present their work about and in the form of other audiovisual media. There is a groundswell of new work being done in computer-generated modes and new digital telecommunications technology in general. Here we include chapters in visual anthropology fields that charac-

terize a relative minority of practitioners. However, more and more young people are entering these fields, and you may be interested in one of them. The section has two divisions: the first includes more unusual subject areas and the second contains chapters that focus on media other than film and photography.

Part I

form the basis for her work. Studying primate facial communication requires a quick eye and attention to detail. While observing free-ranging primates, Zeller realized that visual recording of rapid movements of the face and body would make the study of individual gestures much more accurate. She discusses how she used Super-8 film originally to record gestures that she often could not capture with her eyes, as well as new questions that arose from her filmed observations. In addition to descriptions of early and more recent pho- Is there a readily availtographic equipment, the chapter covers how the researcher applies the able recent digital technology you could use to scientific method to an ethological field project, how to gain and maintake Zeller’s work a step tain rapport with nonhuman primates, how to maintain good health in a further? How would you difficult exotic environment, and many other useful suggestions. carry on such a study, Anne Zeller has training as a biological anthropologist as well as choosing a group of priextensive skills in photography and filmmaking. Biological/physical mates as your subject? anthropologists share theoretical perspectives with other natural scientists. Zeller comes from the same tradition as other natural scientists who rely on inductive reasoning and the use of the scientific method. Her specialty is “ethology,” or the study of animal behavior. She chooses to study primate behavior, which is part of anthropology.

Uncommon Subject Areas

Traditionally, the field of anthropology has four major subareas: cultural anthropology, archeology, biological or physical anthropology, and linguistics. Anne Zeller’s chapter shows how a biological anthropologist makes and uses images in her work. The study of different aspects of expressive culture usually gets classified either as cultural anthropology or linguistics. Najwa Adra’s chapter on dance shows how the study of one of the performance arts can fit into the field of visual anthropology. Archeologists concentrate on the visual materials they excavate. Edward Ochsenschlager shows how this subfield of anthropology can be a means to enter the field of visual anthropology. The work of some linguists, particularly those who study the nonverbal contexts of word-based communication, also overlaps into our field. There are other expressive forms in the performance arts, which fit into cultural anthropology, folklore, or linguistics/ethnomusicology. These could be included here as well. C h a p t e r 9 . Anne Zeller “Envisioning Primates”

Early in her career, Anne Zeller became interested in how macaque monkeys living on Gibraltar communicate through social gestures. A biological anthropologist, Zeller used moving and still images of her subjects to provide the data that 200

C h a p t e r 1 0 . Najwa Adra “Steps to an Ethnography of Dance”

Najwa Adra is both an anthropologist and a dancer. She is an insider to the Middle Eastern cultures she studies while at the same time adopting to a degree the outsider perspective demanded of a fieldworker. She contrasts two types of dance in Yemen, one most often performed by men in a formal public setting and the other performed by women in a private personal space. If you have skills in one Noting that ideas of beauty coincide with ethical and philosophical of the arts, especially one characteristic of preferences, Adra presents the thesis that the aesthetic principles we your own cultural backfind satisfying are those that resonate with our own value systems. In ground, how would you this way, she shows how the dance forms studied represent two oppos- present a study such as ing faces of a single value system in the throes of change as a result Adra’s? of globalization in its various manifestations. The final section of this chapter shows why actually dancing is important for dance specialists, examines schools of thought within this area, and describes work and findings by important scholars in the field. Adra has an advanced degree in anthropology. She chooses a path halfway between dancer and anthropologist to describe her work. She also sits on the dividing line between being an insider to her own cultural tradition and an outsider/analyst she has, in a sense, become through her anthropological training. 201

The title of Adra’s chapter is an homage to Gregory Bateson, an anthropologist and pioneer in visual studies who was also a consummate humanist.

Edward Ochsenschlager “Looking for the Past in the Present: Ethnoarcheology at Al Hiba”

Chapter 11.

Where did you spend your childhood? What different kinds of training and experience do you have? Can you think of ways in which you can use your unique background as a special strength to help you carry on an interesting and useful project?

202

The author was first trained as a classics scholar and from there became interested in archeological research with an emphasis on how, given common factors, we can understand more about cultures of the past by looking at the lifeways of contemporary peoples. This approach is called “ethnoarcheology,” and it provides information beyond artifacts and other material remains found in archeological excavation. Professor Ochsenschlager has directed excavations in Egypt, Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Yemen. This chapter, about his work at an important Sumerian site in southern Iraq, shows how archeology based on objects alone can easily lead professionals to arrive at mistaken and sometimes comic conclusions. The chapter also gives us a poignant picture of a way of life almost lost due both to actions against this village-based culture by national leaders as well as to the effects of war on the larger region. The anthropological subfield of archeology represented by this piece shows that visual anthropologists can choose this career option as well as the one represented by Anne Zeller’s chapter based on the biological anthropology subfield. Like Charles Thompson, Ochsenschlager grew up on a farm, and this gave him insights into Iraqi village life and its environmental constraints that might have been lost on a researcher coming from an urban background. His questioning of well-accepted truisms in his field comes from an artful blending of humanitarian and scientific training and experience.

Chapter 9

Envisioning Primates A nne Ze ll e r

W

hen I was a graduate student I had the opportunity to go to Gibraltar to study Macaca sylvanus, the Barbary macaque, also called the Barbary ape. These are large macaques, ranging from twenty to forty pounds, who roam freely over the top part of the Rock of Gibraltar. As I followed them around, watching them, I became

intrigued with the subtlety of their interactions and facial communications. Facial gestures would flash by so quickly that sometimes I could not tell what had inspired one animal to respond to another. In other cases, even when one made a clear threat face at another, the receiver did not visibly respond. What was going on? What were the differences between the gestures made by different animals? How could I study this rapidly occurring subtle set of behaviors called facial gestures?

The initial answer to this last question seemed fairly obvious. I would have to establish some way of recording these interactions in such a way that I could slow them down and replay them, several times if necessary, until I could extract the information from them. This would involve deciphering the code of the gestures and weeding out the random aspects, or “noise,” in the communication system. Macaques use a variety of calls and facial expressions to transmit information to each other within the group, as well as to warn of dangers external to the group. At the time I began this work, in the early 1970s, most researchers considered primate communication to be a hard-wired system mainly based on stereotyped gestures that animals inherently understood. Tests were conducted in which newborn infant monkeys were isolated from their species at birth and raised alone. When they responded with fearful screams to a picture of a threatening adult projected into their cages, it was considered evidence that primate communication systems were inherent and did not have to be learned (Sackett, 1966). In this model, there was no room for variability in the code system. It was assumed that members of each species made their gestures in the same way, in order that they would be understood without having to be learned, and variability in gesture productions was considered to be “noise” or “interference” in the system. After I had spent some time watching these Barbary macaques, it became clear to me that there was considerable variability among expressions of a particular gesture. I decided to focus on the intragroup variability in producing 205

particular facial expressions to see if it could be associated with meaning. I chose threat gestures, friendly approaches, and fearful expressions as my foci of attention. This number of gesture patterns proved to be too ambitious, and I initially narrowed my attention to threat gestures. The results of this study were extremely interesting in terms of understanding primate communication at several levels. I did find patterns of variability in the construction of facial threats. The interesting aspect was not just that gestures were not stereotyped but also that the variability was not by individual but patterned by kin group. In other words, animals who were related maternally used specific facial components more frequently than those who were not so related. There were standard or constant components that every individual used and these were concentrated in the upper region of the face, around the eyes. The mouth region was always incorporated in a threat, but the way the mouth moved helped to distinguish kin groups. This is significant because it provides information about what social groupings the animals themselves consider important. Age and sex classes were also distinguished by the variable mouth positions. This was also true for later studies on friendly and fearful interactions. Altogether, this provides a meta-level coding system, communication about communication in macaque gestures, which was almost unknown at the time this research was conducted. G at h e r i n g D ata Permissions

When anthropologists decide to film their subjects as part of their research methodology, there are a number of issues that they must take into consideration. First, they must get permission from their subjects to allow filming to occur. One benefit of working with monkeys is that the researcher cannot be expected to get a signed waiver from them. But, in a sense, you do have to get their permission. Free-ranging animals will not remain passively in one place if you are annoying them. The second issue on Gibraltar was that the areas where the research monkeys lived were restricted access locations, deemed by the British army to be sensitive areas. Therefore, I had to get written permission from the army to take any pictures, either still or moving, in the area, and I had to give the army the right to confiscate any material that they felt revealed information that was restricted. Once I had obtained this permit, I was free to consider the third issue, the problems associated with trying to film animals who are very sensitive to being stared at. When doing research with wild/free-ranging primates, I do not even wear sunglasses because the macaques find them quite disturbing. A direct stare is a major component of a threat gesture, and the larger the eyes, the more intense is the effect of the stare. In making threats these monkeys often tighten the skin around their eyes to make them appear as large as possible. This is why the large dark lenses of sunglasses are so alarming to macaques and why they are very wary of having a camera lens pointed in their direction, especially for any length of time. It requires patience and a willingness to develop a positive relationship with the animals in order to help them accept that the stare of the camera will not be followed by an attack. 206

anne zeller

The next issue is one of the distances involved. If you are working with a habituated group, sometimes you can approach the animals quite closely. Usually, however, it takes some time for the monkeys to become comfortable with strangers. In many cases, you must begin filming from a greater distance than you might wish and gradually work your way closer over a period of several weeks. The speed with which you can move closer will depend on a number of factors, including the level of threat that humans normally represent to them. When working with people as a participant observer, the anthropologist often has some idea of what is happening or, at least, what is being planned. You can discuss with your informants the probable timing of aspects you might want to film, such as a dance or a wedding. In many cases, you will have some idea of the location in which an activity will occur and therefore the opportunity to assess the lighting. If necessary, you may be able to move within the group, focusing on different angles. Also, if you happen to miss something important, it is possible to ask respectfully if people would mind repeating a particular dance step or ritual gesture. Primates are not so accommodating. You need to be ready at all times for unexpected but important interactions to occur. When you are a skilled observer, you may be able to sense increasing tension in the group and suspect that a fight or a flight is about to occur. However, there is no scripted location or direction that such an interaction may take, so you need to be very watchful in order to anticipate where to be in order to get the best view. An additional aspect of this is the speed with which primate facial gestures occur. Often they are too rapid for the untrained human eye to see, and it requires a lot of experience and focus to catch some of these behaviors. This means that you must learn to anticipate what may be about to happen, and who it may involve. You can pull back the frame of the picture to include several individuals, but for the work on individual facial gestures that I was doing, I needed shots that were as close as possible. This need for close approaches and full-frame pictures of faces must be balanced with the negative results of being too intrusive on the animals’ personal space. Close approaches and prolonged staring or filming can be quite a negative experience for the animals, and this can be turned back on the observer. Either the animals can leave and not allow you to find them for several days, or they can make their displeasure evident more directly. In one experience, I crossed the boundary of personal space and was very lucky to escape without being bitten. In this case, early one morning I came upon a female who had just given birth to an infant, and it was the first time I had seen such a tiny newborn. The placenta was still attached and the infant was still wet. The female let me take a picture (see Figure 9.1) and then retired to a tree. A short time later, she moved up the hill with me following and taking pictures. By e n v i s i o n i n g pr i m ate s

Adult female Barbary macaque with newborn infant.

Figure 9.1.

207

late that afternoon, I had been following her all day. The leader male was sitting with her, and when I picked up my camera again, he turned and reached me in a few strides. Since I was sitting down, he had no trouble grabbing my camera. The strap of the single-lens reflex camera was around my neck and as he pulled on the camera, my face was pulled close to his. He opened his mouth wide, and all I could see were his two-inch-long canine teeth just a few inches away from my face. I was sure he was going to bite me, but I lowered my eyes and did not struggle. After some seconds, he released me, and I backed away and left the new mother alone for the next few days. He could have hurt me badly, but, as it was, he made it clear that I had been coming too close and that he was not happy with the camera or me (see Figure 9.2). I have spent thirty years filming monkeys since then, but I have never forgotten the lesson and always try not to intrude on the animals’ personal space.

Adult male in between author and group members.

Figure 9.2.

208

In order to learn more about the “rules of engagement” that you will need to follow when studying and filming monkeys, it is wise to begin by watching them quietly from a distance. With a broader frame you will be able to see if there are some animals who require more empty space around themselves or are less tolerant of approaches under particular situations, such as when they are feeding. You may also see the conventions of polite approach: you do not move toward them directly face on, but obliquely so it appears that you are going to pass by. Speed is also a consideration, where rapid approach usually means either attack or flight—both situations of heightened intensity. If, as you approach the group more closely, you are unlucky enough to infringe anne zeller

their boundaries and are subject to even mild aggression, you can reduce the impact of your presence by turning away, lowering your eyes, or breaking eye contact (but not by closing your eyes, which is a component of some threats) and moving slowly. I have always accompanied this by soft, low-pitched talking in a reassuring voice, on the grounds that monkeys communicate vocally, visually, and kinesically. If they think you are being aggressive, you will be mixing the codes by using this kind of vocalization, and they may slow down to reconsider the situation. Generally, humans are much larger than monkeys and they are reluctant to attack unless they feel themselves severely threatened. One absolute cardinal rule: never, never get between a mother and her young infant. Even a fairly small female will attack if she thinks her baby is in danger, and frequently the whole group will support her. After the animals will accept your presence at some distance—say, fifty feet—move a little closer and sit down. Wait for ten or fifteen minutes to see if they retreat at all. If they do not, you can move forward a little and wait again. Probably you should not try to cut down the distance more than about ten feet per day. When they start retreating from your approach, back up about five to ten feet, and use that distance for several days. You must be very watchful to interpret movements occurring during foraging, since they can drift quietly away, and suddenly you realize they are gone without you noticing. This means you have come too close for the stage of habituation you have developed. Another factor of concern: do not be misled by the approaches of curious juveniles. These approaches can be quite hazardous, since they may come too close, scare themselves, and scream, at which point an adult may attack you. Thus, the researcher should not let a juvenile get closer, in the earlier stages of research, than an adult will approach, even if you have to retreat. Later, as the group is more comfortable, this rule can be relaxed. One personal rule I have is not to get within arm’s length of any free-ranging primate. You need to maintain some personal space yourself. If the animals become increasingly difficult to find at the beginning of the day, you may need to give them a few days to relax and settle down again. If the group is constrained in some way, such as in a corral or fenced area, I usually make a practice of not observing them for one day out of the week to give them a rest. Having an observer around is something of a strain, especially on the animals whose roles are protecting, defending, and leading the group. Unless the animals in the group can retreat to areas where they cannot be followed, constant surveillance can lead to increased levels of stress. This in turn may result in changes in behavior, which you, as a researcher, want to avoid. If free-ranging animals are not found every day, they may be regulating the amount of time they are comfortable being observed, or they may be foraging in a different part of their range. After a day of no contact, I am comfortable going to look for them. All of this is relevant for any type of observation protocols, but it is even more important if you are conducting a long-term study using visual recording techniques. Observation Considerations

If you are using animals who live in a zoo or fairly constrained research habitat, there are particular obstacles to consider in conducting observations. In many e n v i s i o n i n g pr i m ate s

209

cases, you will be observing from outside an enclosure, which has both advantages and disadvantages. If you are able to observe from outside a moat, or from a vantage point over the wall, bars, or fence, you will have a much easier time getting pictures, although perhaps at a considerable distance. If you must take pictures through glass, bars, or wire mesh, probably the best option is the wire mesh because if the focal distance is reasonably far behind it, you can arrange the focus to get pictures through the mesh. Bars are thicker and more difficult to obscure, while glass is frequently smeared by the animals or human zoo-goers. The other problem with glass is that you may have trouble with reflections, especially if you need additional light to get clear pictures. Working in a zoo setting also obliges you to respect the daily schedules of the animals and the keepers in terms of moving and feeding the animals. Members of the public pose another potential problem: they are often very excited by seeing primates and may make a lot of noise, thus interrupting your observations. However, with patience and practice, you can still do valuable work in a zoo setting. Another technique that may be helpful in developing your observation skills is to practice using films of primates behaving in small groups. This may allow you to check by replay or slow motion whether you have actually seen everything that happened or have recognized who started an interaction. I encourage students to watch unedited segments of film that last for two or three minutes to try to ascertain details of behavior. For this reason, many of the teaching videos that I have made include long sequences to allow this type of practice. Other people have also made videos with instruction in primate observation techniques that may be very useful. Films and videos about primate observation techniques include a very old film by C. R. Carpenter called Social Behavior of Rhesus Monkeys, available from Pennsylvania State University; a tape called Isla Tigre that includes two programs, “Social Ecology of Stumptail Macaques” and “Observation Methods” by Dennis R. Rasmussen; and my film, What Do Primatologists Do?, which is available from Documentary Educational Resources. The best part about using films is that you can slow the video down enough to get a really good look at what is happening and then review it again at full speed to see what it looks like in natural conditions. Film practice may also allow you to see how animals use their natural environments and what the personal space requirements and interaction patterns of the particular species you want to observe are like. Another difference between working with primates and people is that you cannot ask primates their names, and they do not wear clothes or jewelry that can help to identify them. You must spend the time required to learn the cast of characters and to be able to recognize them from the front, back, or side, standing or moving. This can take a considerable amount of time if there are twenty to thirty animals in a group. Many groups of semiterrestrial primates include even larger numbers. Several techniques can be used to learn the identities of free-ranging primates. Here, I am assuming that they are not tattooed, already collared, or marked in some way. These identification practices are really only appropriate in captive settings. In a free-ranging situation it is much better to learn to identify individuals by their appearance. This can take several weeks of intensive work for even thirty animals. First, count the 210

anne zeller

number of each age/sex/class of animal you see, several times a day. Since you can rarely see them all, this is necessary to establish how many adult males, females, subadults, infants, etc. are present in the population. Second, while doing this, you may notice animals with evident scars, missing tails or ears, or odd-colored fur patches. This is the beginning of a list of recognition features. It is often useful to take identity photos of these animals and list and describe them. Then expand the list by looking carefully at others, noting, for example, notches in the ears, missing digits, and color of the nipples in females. You need to write notes about and sketch or photograph these features for a longterm database. I usually do this on file cards with a photo attached to be able to study the information and easily compare the image with the description and the real individual. This is much easier to do if the group has already had names assigned and you are using someone else’s database and trying to recognize animals and match them to a description protocol such as I have just described. If you are the initial researcher, you will have to decide the basis of naming, as well as collecting the identity information. If the list was compiled by another researcher, it is very helpful to have him or her introduce you to the animals at least once, so you can correlate the written description with the actual appearance of the marks or other identity indicators. You always have to keep in mind that appearances can change quite quickly after a serious fight and that there may be more notches in the ears or missing digits than originally reported. Usually central or high-ranking animals will be most easily identified because they will frequently be the most visible individuals. After you have identified one, watch it carefully from all sides to help you learn a variety of features about it. Identifying mothers helps with learning their infants because they usually come as a pair for the first weeks of the infant’s life. If possible, get a good look at the infants; once they begin to grow and move independently, it can become difficult to identify them. I usually use binoculars intensively for this part of the work, looking for small color spots on the face or ears or scars in the fur. Eventually, you will begin recognizing the whole animal, not just the indicated features. If your research requires individual recognition, you will need to take the time to learn this. Some types of research can be undertaken at the level of age/sex/ class recognition, and it may be possible to gather some data at this level in the early weeks of observation. Zoo animals are usually named already, and a few sessions with the zookeepers, or caregivers, can aid immeasurably in the process of learning individuals. Usually the groups are quite a bit smaller than in the wild and the viewing distance is closer, both of which make the process of learning this information much easier. Equipment

For the particular research project of recording and studying facial gestures in the mid-1970s, I used a relatively small battery-driven Super-8 movie camera with a good zoom lens. The filmed data was supplemented with prints, slides, and notes, which provided context and allowed me to get identity shots of the e n v i s i o n i n g pr i m ate s

211

animals. Because the Super-8 film did not have sound, it was necessary to take meticulous notes to keep track of who was being filmed. I used a Super-8 camera for three reasons. First, in the early 1970s, portable handheld video equipment was not an option, at least not for graduate students. Second, film provides a clear frame for viewing, rather than one composed of a number of fields, as is the case when doing a video frame grab. This was particularly important to me because I was looking for very small movements of detailed face regions in order to conduct my analysis. With film shot at 24 frames per second (fps), I also had a tight time control over how quickly components of a particular facial expression were used. The third rationale for using this format was that the camera ran on AA batteries, which did not have to be recharged. This can be very advantageous when conducting research in parts of the world with a nonstandard electrical supply. I have taken a video camera through Africa using a direct charge off the jeep motor to keep it running, but without access to some kind of motor or generator, keeping an electric battery charged can be difficult. Larger format cameras, such as 16mm, while producing better quality images in a larger film size, are also less maneuverable because of the substantially increased size and weight of the equipment and require somewhat more set-up time. I had to carry the camera, film, and all of the other equipment I needed in a backpack, or in my hands, all the time. Since the 1970s, I have also used a waistpack to carry camera bodies and lenses, as well as extra batteries, for increased accessibility, but size and weight are significant constraints on using a larger format camera. There are also serious constraints on tripod use, as discussed below. Some people might consider using motor-driven digital still cameras with good lenses to get sequences of shots, but the number that would be required to conduct this kind of analysis would be prohibitive. For every minute’s worth of film, shot as movie film at 24 fps, you have 1,440 frames of film with which to work. Very few digital cards would give you the equivalent information that ten minutes’ worth of film would provide, and the wear on camera batteries would be extensive. When using my Super-8 camera carefully over a period of two months, I only had to change the batteries twice. The disadvantages of working with real film as opposed to video include the sensitivity of film to heat and moisture, the need to process it in a timely fashion, and the difficulty of digitizing it if you want to computerize the data back in the lab. Another issue is the fact that Super-8 film came in 50-foot rolls, so I had to be very circumspect about the amount of film I shot. Also, it has become very difficult to get since the advent of handheld video and there are only a few places in North America that process this format. Currently, there are other possible choices. Modern technology has developed digital imaging video, which is now the most frequently used recording medium for visual material. In recent years, the size of cassettes has diminished from the VHS and regular 8 size to the Mini DV format. These small Mini DV cassettes provide about one hour of recording time each and are very convenient to use and carry in the field. However, there are a number of difficulties in conducting fine resolution observation from video due to the way the material is captured. The information is laid down in a series of horizontal lines on the tape in such a way that one frame of video is made up of two sets 212

anne zeller

of information lines called “fields.” One set, the odd field, is laid down first, and the second set, the even field, is laid down interdigitated with the first. This provides a total of 525 lines of information that make up the picture. Each frame of video is made up of the two fields, the odd and the even, superimposed, but these are recorded 1/60th of a second apart. This is why when you do a “frame grab” on your digital viewing equipment, or attempt to analyze a single frame of video, it can be shaky or have indistinct outlines. If the animal is moving quickly—and some of these facial gestures are very fast indeed—it can be difficult to get clear resolution of individual frames due to frame flutter. If you separate the frame into its component fields, you lose quite a lot of resolution. My facial gesture research requires very detailed analysis of fine levels of movement, so video is not the ideal format. The speed of 30 fps is adequate for most work, but you may not be able to see the details you need. However, for studying interactions or behaviors on a larger scale, such as object use, I have found digital video to be perfectly adequate. One of the major advantages of digital video is the fact that direct copies, using a “fire wire,” do not show degradation of the image. Thus, a number of researchers can work from the same material after copying, with no loss of resolution. The ability to transfer digital information to DVD and computer format is also a major advantage, especially for particular kinds of movement analysis. Editing of the material and the ability to slow the action or enlarge the picture image are also extremely useful. In terms of the level of video equipment that might be used in the field, there are three main categories. The top end is professional-level cameras costing upward of $10,000 and weighing between ten and twenty pounds. These large cameras provide broadcast quality pictures and generally have substantial zoom capabilities, but are only useful in primate field research in a limited range of conditions. They require some means of external stabilization because internal stabilization features are not built into cameras at this level. Intended for use on heavy tripods or secure mounts, they can be set on a van roof, in a blind, or on an observation platform, but in these cases you must rely on the animals coming to you, rather than vice versa. These cameras can be portable, but they are large and the battery packs are heavy. This means that an all-day follow in hilly terrain would be difficult and tiring, even if you were able to find a way to stabilize the camera. Also, the large lens would be a problem for the sensitivities of many types of primates. In addition, these cameras only have eyepieces, not visual display screens, so the camera operator can only see what is happening through the eyepiece. Since high resolution is one of the main rationales for using a camera of this quality, the viewfinder only shows images in black and white in order to refine the focus. When observing primates, especially in trees, it is very difficult to find them using a black-and-white viewfinder. (I know this because a blackand-white viewfinder was a characteristic of my first video camera.) However, if weight, portability, and expense are no consideration, you do get excellent resolution and zoom capabilities from a broadcast quality unit. A second, and somewhat less expensive option, is the “prosumer” level of video camera. This is a fairly rugged unit, smaller than the broadcast quality, but maintaining a number of its features. Sony and Canon both make them, with somewhat different options, and they sell for between $3,000 and $5,000. e n v i s i o n i n g pr i m ate s

213

These units can be handheld, weighing around four to five pounds with battery, and include a full range of features, such as manual and auto focus, exposure control, zoom capabilities, and a “zebra stripe” feature to allow for fine-level focusing. The accessory options with this level of camera include microphone input for an extended mike and a wind sock to help reduce extraneous noise. The built-in microphone is a separate unit with excellent sound pick-up, although if the camera is handheld, the operator may contribute to the audio input more than is desirable. Main advantages of this camera include a color viewfinder and LCD display screen, as well as a variety of exposure options. This is an excellent camera for use under average conditions as long as you have good access to power sources to recharge the batteries. (The more options used, the heavier the demands on the battery.) These cameras usually have zoom functions up into the digital range, but this is not extremely useful unless the camera is stabilized externally, such as on a tripod. The third level of equipment that can be used for primate research is a good quality handicam consumer-level camera. These come in much smaller sizes than the other two choices, weighing about one to four pounds. The batteries are generally smaller than those for the other formats, which tends to reduce the overall weight and also makes them more quickly rechargeable. Most of these cameras now come with image stabilizing circuitry, which helps to compensate for the difficulties in holding such a small unit steady. Other standard features on most of these cameras include a color viewfinder, LCD display screen, autofocus and exposure control, and an excellent microphone, for the size of the camera. Among the disadvantages is an autofocus that can be extremely annoying if you are trying to video monkeys in trees; the camera tends to focus on intervening leaves and branches. Autofocus and the LCD screen use battery capacity fairly rapidly, so if battery life is an issue, manual focus and shooting through the viewfinder are preferred options if available. Also, manual control over exposure can be very useful if you are shooting up into a tree with the sky behind; without this control, you will not be able to see very much. The lens is much smaller in these cameras. It is necessary to remember that the cost of the lens is a good proportion of the purchase price, and it is important not to skimp on lens quality. Also, the signal-to-noise ratio in the built-in microphones is often excellent, but, if possible, get a camera with an external microphone jack. This can be very useful if gathering sound is part of your research methodology since built-in mikes often pick up camera noise. One factor I have not yet mentioned is light sensitivity. Modern technology has allowed the lux value—a measure of the amount of light needed to film— to drop so low that it may be hard to see what you are videoing, yet you can still get useable tape. This is particularly useful for some aspects of work with primates, although infrared recording, which can be done under very dark conditions, lacks color values. In my opinion, the three really important features for a camera are rugged construction, including the ability to stand up to heat, humidity, and some rough handling; the size and weight of the unit, complete with its battery pack; and the amount of taping time it will give you, coupled with the ease of recharging the batteries. If the camera gets fogged up and will not work, runs out of battery or becomes problematic to carry over the terrain you are 214

anne zeller

working in, it will not be very satisfactory, and this may severely impede the success of your project. Remember that in addition to the camera, tapes, and batteries, you will also be carrying your binoculars, notebook or recording device, water, and quite possibly a still camera. I have found that a higher-end consumer-level camera is adequate for my current research, and when in the field, I usually pack it every night in a waterproof case in silica crystals in an effort to keep condensation from building up in it. Advances in video technology are rapid, and new high resolution formats with a 16 x 9 screen ratio, rather than the current 4 x 3 ratio, are set to become the new industry standards. Sony and other camera companies are currently developing cameras that will have programmable screen formats that will allow playback on both screen sizes, but may cause distortion in the figures at the 4 x 3 ratio. As the new format becomes standard, these programmable cameras may drop the 4 x 3 format as obsolete in the next few years, which may require transformation of older data tapes. One of the major advantages of this new format is that the same type of camera will be sold around the world with the choice available of whether to record in NTSC or PAL formats. An additional major advantage is that the new high-definition DV format tapes will lay down data at twice the density of the old format, i.e., using 1,050 or more lines of information. This means that a single frame grab will give the same resolution as that available for current two meshed frames (with odd and even lines) without the possible distracting frame flutter. This should help to overcome one of the major disadvantages of using video for a very detailed, highly timecontrolled movement analysis. In all probability, this type of camera will be extremely advantageous for visual research. Practical Problems

In addition to considerations about animal availability and camera choice, there are a number of other practical aspects to consider when attempting to conduct a visually based study of primates. These include the level of habituation to humans, problems of predation, habitat preferences, difficulties with the terrain, equipment issues, weather, and other dangerous wildlife. My work in Gibraltar was possible because the monkeys were already fairly well habituated to people and were not hunted. There was very little predation, except by the occasional local dog or birds of prey flying over Gibraltar, which is part of the shortest crossing of the Mediterranean in the migration route to Africa. Since the Gibraltar work, I have continued this type of research with two other species of macaques, both of which were fairly well habituated to human observers. It is only because of years of preliminary work by others that the monkeys did not see humans as dangerous predators and would allow approaches as close as ten feet without becoming nervous. The Japanese macaques (M. fuscata) at Arashiyama West lived in a 50-acre corral at the time, so although they had the option of hiding, the still considerable open space made filming easier. Also, all the animals were named individuals with tattooed identification marks that made recognition a little easier in a shortterm study. The facial tattoo marks were tiny blue dots, which were not very visible but did allow some way to check identification, in addition to appearance. This was very useful since there were around two hundred animals in e n v i s i o n i n g pr i m ate s

215

the group, rather than the twenty-two in the Gibraltar group. The presence of other researchers who knew the animals much better than I did was of great assistance. Predators included bobcats, as well as humans, who trapped the monkeys every year for tattooing but released them again. There were also many rattlesnakes in the undergrowth, as well as other poisonous creatures. The other population, an enclosed troop of long-tail macaques (M. fascicularis, also called crab-eating macaques), lived in Monkey Jungle in Florida in a 10-acre outdoor corral with natural Florida vegetation. They had been an intact social group for sixty years and were completely habituated to people, but still had areas of refuge to which they could retreat. Local hawks preyed on the young among these animals, and there was a pit with resident alligators who also claimed a few monkeys. The ground is very rough and uneven and covered with catclaw and other vegetation that is difficult to move through. Most of the humans see the monkeys through a very fine mesh fence, which increases the animals’ sense of security. As the above indicates, this type of close approach filming usually requires animals who have been habituated to human observers for a long time, in order to approach to within 10–15 feet of relaxed, naturally behaving animals. If you were beginning to work with a group that was still nervous of close approach, a study involving interanimal spacing or interactions would be much more appropriate until close approach was a reasonable option. The level of tree cover and the amount of time the animals spent in the trees would also seriously affect the level of success in acquiring close-up images. Even if the monkeys are not very far up in the trees, shooting into the sky is quite problematic. This also raises the matter of lighting since monkeys are frequently most active early and late in the day when the shadows are long and tend to sleep a lot in the middle of the day. Carrying reflecting panels or extra lights is simply not an option unless the animals are in a small corral or closely caged. Under field conditions, you would either need a crew to deploy such devices, and protect them from inquisitive fingers, or you would have to set them up yourself. This would probably disturb the animals to the point that they would simply leave, unless they were heavily baited with food. Thus, it is important to have a camera with a good range of light capability. Another, and unrelated, problem can be the ruggedness of the terrain. If you are carrying a camera in your hands and trying to negotiate a steep and rocky hillside, especially if you are following a rapidly moving troop of monkeys, you could easily fall and hurt yourself and damage the camera. When negotiating the landscape of Gibraltar, I decided not to try to keep up with the animals if they moved away to another location. The top of the rock is knife-edged, with a 1,400-foot drop off the steep side. I absolutely had to watch where I was going and keep my footing at all times since there are steep ravines. Several people have fallen to their deaths over that cliff edge, usually pursuing monkeys who had stolen their camera or binoculars. This rocky, uneven ground is another reason why a tripod was difficult to use, even though the increase in stability would have been highly advantageous. While I did not pursue the monkeys if they left the area, I had to move around derelict buildings, over roofs, and across ravine areas, as well as negotiate around the undergrowth (Figure 9.3). 216

anne zeller

Tripods take some time to set up on uneven ground and there is little flexibility in following animals with the lens when established in one spot. I was using the tripod when I could in the early stages of the work until one day one of the legs slipped on a rock, causing the tripod, and the camera with its menacing lens, to lurch toward a young animal. It immediately screamed with fear and suddenly the big leader male was there. He grabbed my arm and I was sure he was going to bite me, but I stood still and dropped my eyes and spoke softly, and he let me go. I put the tripod away after that. Other times, I have draped a coat around the tripod in an effort to make it look more like a person than a strange unknown object. A monopod is another possible choice and one that I have used with some success, although extra weight is also a consideration. I should also mention at this point that in Gibraltar my day began just before sunrise with a climb from sea level to the top of the rock, about 1,400 feet, back down at midday, and a return visit in the late afternoon carrying everything I needed on my back. Eventually I was able to afford a small car to help carry myself and the equipment up, but I still had to carry everything as I worked and any extra weight on all-day activities needs to be taken into account. Other practical considerations include problems with the weather. Sudden rain, intense fog, and blowing dust can all be very hard on your cameras. I strongly recommend keeping a waterproof container close by in which you can store batteries, tapes, and the camera itself if it becomes necessary. You will have to carry or sit on or otherwise maintain possession of this, along with everything else, because habituated animals will take anything they can get their hands on. This also means that when changing tapes or batteries, moving from notebook to camera, or freeing up one hand for your binoculars, you must have enough pockets to put everything in. Do not put anything down or, in all likelihood, it will disappear. The use of digital cameras that do not require rolls of film to be changed will be a great help when trying to juggle everything and maintain a grip on all of it. Depending on where you are working, you may need to keep watch for other kinds of wildlife besides your study subjects. It is amazing how short grass can be and still conceal an adult lion. Leopards also tend to lurk quietly in branches, and you need to always be aware of what is above you. However, you are much more likely to encounter snakes or biting insects than large mammalian predators. Snakes often live in rough rocky terrain and come out of their holes to bask in the sun or swim around in swamps looking for prey. While studying the Japanese macaques in Texas, I found that rattlesnakes were a particular concern since there were large numbers of them in the area. Large numbers of pythons and cobras, as well as other poisonous snakes, shared the habitat with the wild long-tail macaques that I was studying in the rainforest e n v i s i o n i n g pr i m ate s

Figure 9.3.

Landscape in Gibraltar.

217

Adult female orangutan trying to take my camera in Camp Leakey, Tanjung Putting, Borneo.

Figure 9.4.

swamps of Borneo. Long pants, shoes, and extreme caution were required when moving around looking for monkeys in the swamp forest. I only took video from a secure base on dry ground in order to be able to focus on what I was doing, although the rehabilitant orangutans at Camp Leakey were a definite factor in my attempts to retain my camera equipment (see Figure 9.4). You need to watch where you put your feet and hands all the time. This level of vigilance may save you from standing on the entrance to a fire ants’ nest, as I have done, or something equally unpleasant. Also, be careful where you sit down or put your equipment. Not only is the wildlife problematic, but in many cases in rainforest situations the vegetation can be quite poisonous. There are many places in the field where I wear lightweight cloth gloves or even socks on my hands if gloves are not available. Some plant toxins can be extremely corrosive and burn the skin right off. In the Gibraltar study, there were a few snakes and insects (such as ground wasps) to consider, but taking precautions and paying attention to what is around you is always a wise strategy. One of the useful aspects of observing primates is that they are often more aware of dangerous situations than you might be. So, if you hear a warning bark or sense increased tension in the group, it is always a good idea to ascertain what has upset them. Once I heard a vervet group give a leopard alarm call, closely followed by a scream. Within thirty seconds, I came upon a freshly killed vervet monkey, so clearly the predator was very close. I left quietly and quickly. Wild pigs and outsized (6 feet long) monitor lizards are not necessarily dangerous to humans, but not the kind of animal you want to stumble over while backing up to get a better shot. Bird alarm calls are also useful indications that a predator may be nearby. Observer’s Role in Group

Once you have spent some time habituating the group to your presence and learning who the members are, the group will also have learned something about you. There are certain kinds of things that are more beneficial for them to learn if your study is to be successful. In order for the group to see you as a predictable “known” quality to whom they can become accustomed, it is useful to wear similar colors of clothes each day and arrive at the group at approximately the same time. If they are on the ground, you should also spend as much of your time as possible sitting or crouched down so you do not loom over them. If they are in the trees, a standing posture is fine. You should move with quiet, slow, controlled movements, rather than loud, rapid, or jerky ones, since this would suggest agitation on your part. Even if you need to call to another researcher, do so as quietly as possible, or better still, organize a system of signs to communicate at a distance. When moving through the group, do so quietly if they are feeding or resting, and with due concern for their personal space. Supplanting an animal by causing it to move from its resting or feeding spot is an assertion of dominance. 218

anne zeller

From my perspective, the goal of the researcher is not to establish a social position in the troop (whether it is high or low ranking). Rather, the goal is to be seen as part of the landscape, neither predator nor prey, but also not someone they should intimidate or fear. For this reason, I very seldom feed animals in the field unless there are particular circumstances that require it. If I am involved in feeding, I try to put it all down at once and get out of the way, allowing the animals to sort out who gets first access to it. Once again, controlling access to food is a prerogative of higher-ranking animals, while giving up control of food—as in hand-feeding animals—gives you a very low-ranking position. As a summary statement, I would say that you need to respect all the animals you are observing, no matter what their size or species. You are intruding on their lives, and it is up to you not to make their lives more difficult by your presence. A n a ly s i s Organizing the Research Project

The project of assessing variability in macaque facial gestures had two major aspects: the data collection and the analysis. A blind study is one in which the person doing the observations has no idea of the expected direction of the outcome. For example, in a drug study, if neither the patient taking the pills nor the person recording the outcome of taking them knows which ones are the placebos, this is a double-blind study. My research was a true blind study in that when I gathered the data, I had no idea whether I would find significant levels of variability between animals, or whether, even if I did, they would be individual differences or based on some social category such as age or sex. Having just discussed some of the practical aspects of obtaining film or videotape of primates, I would now like to turn to the second major aspect of the research: coding and analyzing the results. I used an ethological approach to the problem. Ethology refers to a combination of theory and methodology that many researchers use as a basis for studying animal behavior. According to Lehner (1979), ethologists often use a fairly simple framework of questions about behavior: what is happening, when, how, why (motivation, ecological adaptation), and where. Nicolaas Tinbergen categorized these questions into four main areas of study: function (proximate and ultimate), causation, ontogeny, and evolution (Lehner, 1979) that encompass the basic questions into a hierarchically structured series. The methodology involves observing animals behaving in as naturalistic a situation as possible and focusing on the complex behavior, one aspect at a time (the hypothetical deductive method). Thus, with this research on communication, I focused on determining which variables are to be measured, establishing the units of measurement, observing the actual events, and interpreting the meaning of the observed events (Lehner, 1979). This approach led to hypothesis testing after I had established what the various animals were doing. The hypotheses dealt with whether there was any variability between the manifestations of the gestures; if so, how the variability was patterned; and what the implications of this patterning might be. I had gathered the data by filming a number of threat expressions by all the adult and subadult members of the group. I did not include animals under three e n v i s i o n i n g pr i m ate s

219

years of age on the grounds that variability in young animals might be due to errors or inexperience. The next task was to subdivide the regions of the face and head into independent aspects, which I called components. I looked closely at the film and included each area of the face and head where I observed movement to occur to come up with thirty-four components. Each component included a morphological region and a movement or aspect, such as eyebrows raised, eyebrows lowered, eyes stare, or piloerection. Some of the thirty-four components I defined had never been listed as aspects of a threat before by other researchers such as van Hoof (1962). These included such features as nostrils flare and upper lip stretch. There were also some components that were relatively rare, such as mouth open wider right (see Figure 9.5), which actually turned up in higher frequencies in other species of macaques that I studied later. When coding this data, I entered the state of each component on a four-point scale from neutral, to mild, medium, and maximum expression. This analysis was done on a separate sheet for each frame of film I had in a unit, which was one episode of threat by a particular animal. In the first study, I analyzed eightyseven units for nine adult and subadult Macaca sylvanus, which worked out to many thousands of frames since there are 1,440 frames in one minute of film. It is important to note that I did not choose the research subjects based on any aspect of their facial gestures but merely on their status as adult or subadult animals. This was also the case with the other two species with which I did this type of research. In the larger groups, some animals were too shy to be filmed successfully so they were self-selected out of the study. Problems

Old adult female Barbary macaque. Threat—mouth open wider on one side.

Figure 9.5.

220

There were quite a few problems associated with the schema that I just laid out. The first one was where to begin a “unit.” Did it begin only when the animal started to move, or did it begin when another animal threatened the focal one? When did the unit end? These are questions that each researcher must decide for him or herself, based on his or her level of success in filming the animals. If the animal continued to move during the duration of the interaction, I generally considered that there might be several bouts of threat in a unit, i.e., several episodes of opening the mouth or slapping the ground. The unit ended when the animal came to a resting or neutral state or turned away from the interaction. I also had to develop empirical definitions for what constituted neutral, mild, medium, and maximum engagement for each of the components. In order to analyze the film at all, I had to go through the whole amount of exposed film and grade it from “useless” to “excellent.” The “excellent” and “very good” categories, by definition, only had one animal in the field of view. Since there was no sound on the film, I could not tell, in retrospect, what had been happening when I took the film. For that, I needed my notes. Second, there was the issue of recognizing each animal in the filmed data since, when filming, I could not also be taking notes. It required a good archive of identified slides to confirm exactly who was in the filmed data, and I had to take all of those pictures myself. Thus, in order for this project to yield usable results, there was a considerable amount of ancillary data that had to be recorded at the time of filming. This included extensive notes on who was being filmed on each roll of film, who was related to whom (kinship associations), and anne zeller

what was going on in the interaction at the time. The best way to gather the corroborative data while filming is to have a helper who can take notes as you quietly dictate them, keying everything to the time of day. The helper would have a two-column notebook, one column to enter the context data and the parallel column to enter what was being filmed and who the interactants were. This would be correlated by noting the exact time of each entry. If a helper is not available, a small portable voice-activated dictaphone or tape recorder can let the filmer make audio notations. Also, individuals just out of the picture Message Source of frame frequently had considerable impact on Information Input how an interaction proceeded. The relationships between the individual animals were also a very important factor, and these could be quite variable from day to day. This was especially true since there was a power struggle in progress that year between a high-ranking Noise and female and the breeding male (it was a one-male Distortion distance group) over who was going to have the major vision audition influence on group movement patterns. unaccountable There were also problems in the analysis due to the fact that my samples were not all independent, and I had a different number of units available for each animal observed. The ordinal level of the data and the conditions of collecting repeated episodes from a small number of subjects meant that the levels of statistical analysis were shaped by these constraints.

Transmitter Encoder

(Transmitted signal)

Channel (medium)

(Received signal)

Receiver Decoder

Message Input

Destination of Information

Analyzing the Code

Most scientific research relies on the development of models about how natural or mathematical systems operate. These models may represent the structure of a system, its function, its mathematical components, or a theoretical plan of how something works. When modeling behavioral systems, the idea is to reduce the system to a very basic generalized level to see which are the necessary aspects and how they interact to produce the results you see in the real world. A simple example is Galileo’s vision of the universe that suggested that the planets orbited around the sun, which he viewed as the center of the universe. The stars were seen as fixed points of light outside an upper shell. This was not an accurate model, but it did allow astrologers to predict the movements of the planets more regularly than had been the case with the previously used earth-centered vision of the universe developed by Ptolemy. The model that I was using as a foundation for this research was a simple cybernetic information transfer model, with a sender who coded data in a particular channel and a receiver who received, decoded, and filtered the noise from the signal and responded to it (see Diagram 9.1). The medium in this case was the channel of visual communication, and the code included the message, which, in this case, was defined as a threat. The major problem of converting the observations into usable data involved e n v i s i o n i n g pr i m ate s

Diagram 9.1. Diagrammatic representation of information transmission (taken from Corso, 1967:463).

221

sorting out which components were necessary to the meaning of the message and which were extra additions—whether they were identity markers, class markers, or noise in the system. By using SPSS frequencies, cross tabs, and chi squares, I was able to assess the frequencies and use patterns of the components to determine that components that were used by every animal, pretty well every time the message was sent (constant components), were necessary or core aspects of the meaning of the message, while components used less frequently, or by only some of the animals (variable components), were ones that might be “noise” or might carry a different type of information. If the use of these components was completely random, it seemed likely that they did represent noise, a non-information-carrying aspect of the signal. Noise is a technical term referring to randomly caused fluctuations in the signal that might be accidental inclusions of nonrelevant information or caused by malfunctions in the channel of the signal transmission. Such factors in this research could include an animal wriggling its nose because it was itchy, while making a facial gesture, or jumping up because it sat on something sharp, or individual twitches that are not repeated and irrelevant. Channel problems could include exaggeration of movements to send the message a long distance (but the observer sees it at close range), or problems with visibility due to branch shadows passing over the face, or low light levels that could affect the visibility of the message. The important point about noise is that its occurrence is random. However, if I could find regularities in the use of these components, there was a rationale for searching out what governed these regularities and thus, what information they might contain. If these variable components were used in some regularized way—either by individuals or by animals that could be assigned to a social category, such as age, gender, or kin group—their presence could provide information about the sender, as well as a message. This would mean that messages were set up with multiple levels of code, one about the message and one (at least) about the sender. These multilevel codes are called “meta-communication,” or communication about communication. I was excited by this possibility because it would give primatologists a window into how the primates in a group organized their social categories, from their own perspective. Did they differentiate between themselves on the basis of age, gender, or kin group? Which category was most important to them? To extract these data, I made up lists of the components and assessed how frequently each one was used in the eighty-seven units analyzed (for detailed discussion and tables, please see Zeller, 1986). In order to do this, I went through each frame of film in a unit, assessing the presence, and level of intensity, for each component. This was all entered on paper and transferred to punch cards for computer analysis of the time. Modern computer technology would make this task much easier because the data could be entered directly to be analyzed in SPSS format. When this had been done, I found four movements that were classed as constant components, and they were used by every animal in all or all but one of its interactions. In this species, no component was used in 100 percent of the interactions. This was an exciting discovery because it revealed that there was no irreducible core of a threat. Up until this 222

anne zeller

time, most researchers had described threats as a combination of face movements, with the level of the threat being determined by the number of movements included. The next aspect of the constant components was that they were all around the eye region—the upper face. Until this time most threats were characterized in the literature by the movements of the mouth (van Hoof, 1967; Morris, 1967), so this was a departure from previous ideas. The variable components, on the other hand, were mainly in the mouth region (Fisher’s exact test P < .001). This division of the face into regions carrying different aspects of the message was a totally new idea. In fact, recent work on the enervation of the face reveals that the two regions are controlled by different sets of nerves (Fridlund, 1994). I looked for individual patterning in the variable gestures and found only one component that was peculiar to one individual animal, so it seemed unlikely that these variable components were individual markers. However, when I sorted the variable components by social category of Subadult vs. Young adult vs. Old adult, and Male vs. Female, I did get noticeable groupings of distinctive variable component use in the various categories. The most important and clearly distinguished social category associated with variable component use, however, was kin group. There were four main kin lines in this group, as well as one unrelated individual, and the pattern of use of particular variable components distinguished between them clearly. This was an extremely important discovery since one of the main questions about primate social organization has long been: how can monkeys learn who is in the same matriline unless they were born in the group? An example of the similarity in facial gestures in one kin line is seen in Figures 9.6, 9.7, and 9.8. Figure 9.6 is one old female, and Figure 9.7 is her sister. Figure 9.8 is the adult

Figure 9.6. Old adult female Barbary macaque—threat face, low brow, mouth pinched together. (Sister to female in Figure 9.7, mother of female in Figure 9.8.)

e n v i s i o n i n g pr i m ate s

Old adult female Barbary macaque—threat face, mouth slightly open, teeth (canines) showing. (Sister to female in Figure 9.6.)

Figure 9.7.

Figure 9.8. Young adult female Barbary macaque—threat face, brows lowered, mouth pinched together. (Daughter of female in Figure 9.6.)

223

Figure 9.9. Adult male Barbary macaque—threat face, open mouth, brows raised, eyes wide open.

Figure 9.10. Young adult female Barbary macaque, eyelid flicker threat. Note eyebrows raised.

224

daughter of the female in Figure 9.6. Note the levels of similarity in eyebrow position and mouth shape between mother and daughter, who are more similar than are the two older sisters. These animals all show noticeable differences to the threat expression in Figure 9.9 of the adult male, who is not closely related to any of them. Figure 9.10 shows a subadult female of a different kin line using an “eyelid flicker” as part of her threat, but you will notice that the mouth region is quite different from that in the more mature females of the other kin line. This discovery about the important impact that membership in a kinship group has on the component pattern of facial gestures is an excellent example of the kind of discovery made by observing the filmed data rather than real life. The complexity of the gestures is great enough that, although I could tell that gestures differed, I was not able to demonstrate clearly exactly how they differed until I slowed them down and examined them carefully. Finding that there was clear evidence of kin-based variation was one of the most interesting and important features of this research, and yet, I had no idea that the component use would sort this way until I had run the analysis. I could tell that there were some similarities between related animals, but I could not see the specific components that distinguished between the lineages. This discovery of different patterns in the visual code for threat expressions among Barbary macaques, based on differentiation by age, by gender, and by kin line, has enormous implications for our understanding of the complexity of primate information coding systems. In order to confirm this pattern of meta-level coding, I did return to the data and analyze friendly approach (Zeller, 1986), as well as fearful gestures in this troop (Zeller, 1996). Although I had fewer units of data with which to work, the results supported my initial analysis. Kin line membership is indicated in all three types of gestures by differential component use (see Figure 9.11, fear expression). The most interesting result of this stage of the study was the discovery that the components used in threats were essentially the same ones used in friendly and fearful faces, but combined differently and used in different proportions and by different animals. This was such an intuitively unlikely result that I repeated the same entire research protocol with two other species of macaque, Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) and long-tail macaques (Macaca fascicularis). Although I did not have the tight control over kin line membership that was available for the Gibraltar animals, distinct differences in the use of components according to age and gender classification were present (Zeller, 1996). In addition, the universality of the component set for macaque facial communication was confirmed. In fact, as mentioned above, some components that were relatively rare in Barbary macaques were more common in the other species, such as mouth open wider right (Figure 9.5). If you look carefully at Figure 9.11, which shows a young male mounting a female, you can notice that he has an open mouth with “mouth corners back,” “lower teeth show,” and “eyebrows raised.” The female also has her “eyebrows raised.” Comparing the mouth region with that in Figure 9.7, an older threatening female, we can see that her “open mouth” also has “mouth corners back” and some “teeth show,” but her eyebrows are lowered. However, “eyebrows raised” is a definite part of a threat gesture and is particularly evident in Figure 9.10, where the young female is doing an “eyelid flicker.” anne zeller

This type of detailed research into the use of facial components in the communication codes of macaques would have been completely impossible without the use of film/video to gather the data. The complexity of facial gestures, the number of components involved, and the speed with which the animals move make it extremely difficult to see what is happening with the unaided human eye. The macaques, of course, can interpret the messages, but I suspect that they also interpret them at a gestalt level, rather than noting exactly what components are used each time. They see a whole threat with a kin group “signature” on it, and do not stop to analyze how they know who is sending the message, any more than we consider exactly what letters make up a verbal message we receive. We hear “Hello” and know it is a greeting from a friend, family member, or stranger by the sound, without stopping to analyze exactly what it is about the sound that distinguishes the classes of individual senders. C o n c l ud i n g Issu e s

There are many types of research that could be undertaken using a fairly similar approach and methodology to the one discussed in this chapter. Any research question that required a detailed visual analysis, or a slowed replay of events, would benefit from this approach. I have already undertaken interaction analysis between primates to study how they manipulate or influence each other to achieve particular goals. I have also undertaken a recent analysis of object manipulation patterns, looking at the transmission of particular manipulation patterns from adults to younger animals. One could track the spread of a novel behavior through a group in this fashion. I am also interested in how adults interact with young animals and those who are disabled in some way, and differences in manner of approach and interaction in these situations could profitably be analyzed from a visual record. Once a research topic has been chosen, the main issues to keep in mind include: what kind of terrain you will be working in, how sensitive the animals are to cameras and close approaches, and how suitable your camera is to the task at hand. The most interesting research question cannot be answered if you cannot gather the necessary data. You must be able to reach the animals and observe them without interfering with their behavior. You must respect their need for space and their sensitivity to the apparent threat that the camera lens implies. In particular, you have a responsibility not to drive them away from food or water sources by impinging on their space. A well-concealed blind may provide a good solid place from e n v i s i o n i n g pr i m ate s

Fearful expression on subadult male Barbary macaque mounting young female.

Figure 9.11.

225

which to work, but you must then attract the animals to it, without disrupting their resource use and ranging patterns. I have found that extensive experience in studying film records of primate communication patterns has allowed me to learn to see more quickly and completely what is actually happening, and this can be exceedingly advantageous in general observation situations. The last comment I have is that if you have managed to take film of freeranging animals in their natural habitat, this is a resource that should be banked in an accessible way after your research is complete so it can be shared with other primatologists and students. The plight of free-ranging primates in the modern world is such that many researchers who will work in future years may have to turn to film archives for some idea of the life situation of primates currently on the verge of extinction.

4 A pair, or small group, of students could collaborate. For example, one could shoot video and the other take notes of the same interaction, about the same topic, and they could compare the types of data that they were able to collect from the different techniques. They could draw up their own lists of positive and negative features of each, as well as assess how the two methodologies could contribute to each other. 5 A video project requiring fairly close approach conditions could focus on mother-infant bonds from birth to ten or twelve weeks, examining maternal responses to infants and vice versa, especially in terms of changing amounts of time spent, for example, holding, nursing, grooming, carrying, social face, and interacting with other adults around the infant. This could be done on a captive pair, preferably in a social group, or on free-ranging animals. The video aspect would provide detailed close-ups, more than you could get by

S ugg e s t e d S t ud e n t S t ud i e s

straight observation, and a sampling regimen would have to be worked out. 1 An initial type of study that could be conducted in a cage or enclosure

Once again, this would make an interesting comparative study.

situation would be to assess which animals use particular aspects of the space and how often. If the area (cubic if relevant) is gridded in dimensions

References Cited

about three times the size of the primate, you could assess who sits on, for example, the floor, the perches, the swing, for how long, and with whom. Are parts of the cage/enclosure not used? Is there conflict over access to certain areas? If so, who wins the conflict? Does the same animal win every time? This type of study looks at the proxemic relationships of animals to each other and the use of the space that they have. Are there any social factors, like small infants, affecting the spacing? Constant conflict and supplantation could suggest that the space was too small for the number of animals. Photographs of the cage area taken every ten minutes over a period of several weeks would provide data with which to work. This obviates the problem of animals moving around while you take notes. 2 A similar type of study from a reasonable distance could be undertaken in a free-ranging situation by using an overlapping series of shots, or short segments of video, to take scan examples of the locations of all the animals. Here you would also assess activities—for example, eating, grooming,

Corso, J. 1967. The Experimental Psychology of Sensory Behaviour. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Fridlund, A. J. 1994. Human Facial Expression: An Evolutionary View. London: Academic Press. Lehner, P. N. 1979. Handbook of Ethological Methods. New York: Garland STPM Press. Morris, D. 1967. Primate Ethology. London: Weidenfield and Nicolson. Sackett, G. P. 1966. Monkeys reared in isolation with pictures as visual input: Evidence for innate releasing mechanism. Science 154: 1,470–1,473. van Hoof, J.A.R.A.M. 1962. Facial Expressions in Higher Primates. Symp. Zool. Soc. Lond., 8: 97–125. van Hoof, J.A.R.A.M. 1967. The facial displays of the catarrhine monkeys and apes. In Primate Ethology. Ed. D. Morris. London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, pp. 7–68. Zeller, A. C. 1986. Comparison of component patterns in threatening and friendly gestures in macaca sylvanus of Gibraltar. In Current Perspectives in Primate Social Dynamics. Ed. D. M. Taub and F. A. King. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, pp. 487–504. Zeller, A. C. 1996. The interplay of kinship organization and facial communication in the macaques. In Evolution and Ecology of Macaque Societies. Ed. J. E. Fa and D. G. Lindburg. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, pp. 527–550.

resting, locomotion, aggression—as well as preferred substrate and height above ground. Ten-minute intervals between the scans, taken over a severalweek period, would give you, if lucky, about forty scans a day, which would provide a sample large enough with which to work. This would be quite useful if several students did different species and compared results. 3 On a closer scale, a comparison of the features of approach interactions could be done. Animals could be filmed approaching another, and the characteristics of the approach analyzed. Was it friendly, aggressive, submissive, or passing by? How do the characteristics of each type differ? Body movement and orientation, as well as response of the approaches, would be data to collect. Speed, direction, angle, eye contact, and presence of an infant would all be variables, as well as many other possibilities.

226

anne zeller

e n v i s i o n i n g pr i m ate s

227

Chapter 10

Steps to an Ethnography of Dance Naj wa A dra

So you are here to study dancing and culture in Yemen? Well, you must look at bara’. It is a very important dance. You should see the bara’ performed in different regions and talk to . . . 

T

Bara’ isn’t raqs! Come to the wedding tonight, and we will show you beautiful raqs. he two quotes above reflect responses given to me when I first went to the highlands of Yemen to study potential relationships between dancing and culture. It was clear early on that I had to study something called “bara’,” but it also soon became evident that I was not to call it “raqs,” the term usually used in Arabic for the English word “dance.” Thus, while the English dance described both activities, a distinction between these two genres was important locally.

Later, I found out that bara’ was performed only by men out-of-doors to the beat of drums, and each tribe had its own distinctive bara’ that differed from the others in rhythm; steps; the way men held their daggers (traditionally, men in Yemen who self-identify as tribal wear a dagger, which they use as part of bara’ performance); whether or not they chanted poetry during a performance; and whether or not a reed instrument also accompanied the dance. Bara’ performance was one of the markers that distinguished tribesmen from men not defined as tribal, and the style of bara’ performed distinguished one tribe from another. Although women never perform bara’ in public, most women I met knew this dance and could teach its steps to me. Figure 10.1. Men in the village of Mahjar perform bara’. Drummers are seated toward the rear of the photograph. The performer on the far right, carrying a dagger in his uplifted right hand and a shawl in his left, is wearing the clothing worn by tribesmen in Yemen’s northern highlands until the 1970s. (Photo: Najwa Adra, 1979)

229

I had the opportunity to focus on changes in the dancing in the highland community where I had conducted my original research.2 The following sections summarize my major findings. Research Objectives

Figure 10.3. The fourth movement of bara’ is an optional duet performed only by the best dancers. Here, two master performers of the village of Al-Husn perform this movement while other men and boys watch. Drummer, with black turban, stands in the middle rear. (Photo: Najwa Adra, 1979)

Figure 10.2. Men in the village of Al-’Urra perform bara’. Drummers are seated to the right. (Photo: Daniel M. Varisco, 1978)

230

The term “raqs,” on the other hand, refers to any of the more than fifty other “dances” performed throughout Yemen. In the valley of Al-Ahjur, where I initially conducted eighteen months of fieldwork in 1978–1979,1 raqs refers to a couple dance, named “lu’b,” which is usually performed indoors, in gendersegregated spaces, during weddings and other celebrations, or in the intimacy of family gatherings where women, men, and children relax together. At large parties, lu’b is always accompanied by song and musical instruments performed by professional musicians. At home, lu’b is danced to taped music or the beat of a drum (or even of an upturned cooking pot). Although raqs varies with region, it is not a tribal marker. At first, I was told that men and women never dance together. But months later I would hear female friends say something like, “When my husband and I were first married, we danced together more often.” Or, “My cousin and I used to dance together when we were kids.” Or, “I learned to dance from my father.” I was puzzled and intrigued by this new information. Why was bara’ not labeled raqs, and what was its connection to the tribe? How did women learn it? Why did everyone tell me that men and women never perform raqs together when clearly some of them did sometimes? Over the next twenty-five years, Yemeni society experienced radical changes, including changes in dancing behavior. I documented some of these changes on subsequent trips to Yemen in the 1980s and again beginning in 2001, but it was not until January 2005 that n a j wa a d r a

My argument is that the artistic phenomena we find satisfying are those that resonate with our own value systems and that the arts form basic elements of the anthropological concept of culture. I define culture in terms of aesthetic principles that order everyday life but are not necessarily verbally articulated. These are largely appreciated by members of a single society and differentiate societies from each other.3 In order to test this conceptualization of culture, as well as its expression in, and construction through, dancing behavior, I lived in a community and learned as much as I could about daily life, values, and attitudes. I also attended weddings and other dance events, learned and filmed dancing when I had permission,4 interviewed good dancers, and asked everyone who would let me about local classifications of dances, appropriate contexts for dancing, suitable dress and music, who danced and who did not, what dancing stood for, dance spaces, and any other information I could glean. I also collected proverbs and poetry about dance and dancing and dialect terms that refer to dancing. Local people had no problem giving me rules of appropriateness, information on the classification of dances, and folklore related to dancing. Most, however, could not provide the more abstract information about the symbolic dimension of dancing in their lives. Their dances were simply aesthetic forms that they appreciated. They performed and watched dancing for pleasure. It was among sociologists and folklorists in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, that I could discuss these abstractions. My husband, Daniel Varisco, was with me conducting research on irrigation and water use. He filmed the dancing at men’s wedding parties. We also filmed people working in the fields and in cooperative work projects and sowing sorghum with a step that is called “dasa’” and often compared to the first movement of the local lu’b, also called dasa’. Da n c e R e s e a r c h i n A l-A h j u r The Community

Al-Ahjur is a verdant basin-shaped valley about 34 kilometers north of Sanaa. In the 1970s, the Al-Ahjur region contained about twenty-four villages with populations ranging from fifty adults to five hundred. Its population has increased dramatically in the past thirty years. The majority of Al-Ahjur’s population self-identifies as tribal, Qaba’il (sing. Qabili).5 By local definition, this means they belong to a cooperative social unit that inhabits a more or less bounded geographic region. Tribal subdivisions in Al-Ahjur are distinguished by villages, each with its own leader (Shaykh). These are, in turn, divided into extended families (Adra 1983). Most of the tribal population in this region is composed of farmers who cultivate their own land in addition to sharecropping land that belongs to others.6 Although an increasing number of Qaba’il have moved to towns and cities where they participate in wage ste ps to a n e t h n o g r a ph y o f da n c e

1. My fieldwork in 1978–1979 was funded by a National Science Foundation Grant for Improving Doctoral Dissertation Research and a Temple University Graduate Fellowship. 2. My fieldwork in 1983 focused on local attitudes toward breastfeeding and fertility and was funded by a MEAward in Population and Development, The Population Council. My 2005 research on changes in dancing and tribal identity was funded by a fellowship from the American Institute of Yemeni Studies. I made other trips to Yemen in conjunction with consulting assignments. 3. Some anthropologists have given up on the culture concept because it seems so elusive. Especially in our global world, it is difficult to distinguish the cultural from the universal in local economic and political systems, architecture, or clothing. Another reason that many anthropologists are wary of the concept is that culture has sometimes been made to seem absolute and unchanging. It has been seen as coercive, as dictating that each individual in a given society is a model of the culture. This is, of course, simplistic. Culture seen through an aesthetic lens, on the other hand, is flexible and can elucidate cohesion, difference, and societal responses to change. 4. Although I was encouraged to film bara’ and raqs performed by men, I was rarely permitted to film or photograph women’s raqs performances. 5. Tribe is a problematic concept in anthropology because it has been used indiscriminately to refer to groupings as diverse as families or nations. The term as used in this chapter is a direct translation of the Arabic qabila, which denotes the English word “tribe.” 6. In other regions of Yemen, Qaba’il may be itinerant herders or fishermen.

231

labor, most maintain their ties with their rural villages. Tribes in Yemen are still associated with rural life. In the northern highlands of Yemen, the tribal population is distinguished from two other socially recognized status groups. The first is a scholarly and religious elite, Sada (singular: Sayyid; Sada are said to be descendants of the Prophet Muhammad) and Fuqaha’ (singular: Faqih, which means “judge”). The other major nontribal grouping includes low-status service providers known collectively in this region as Bani Khums (or Khadam or mazayina). This group includes professional musicians, barbers, and butchers, among others. Some members of the elite and service providers live in Al-Ahjur, but both of these groups were historically associated with towns and urban life. In the past, each status group was endogamous, and Bani Khums were not allowed to own land. Since the formation of the Republic of Yemen in 1962 and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) in the south in 1969, these and other status distinctions have been made illegal, in theory equalizing all groups. Although Bani Khums have greater access to education than they did in the past and are now permitted to own land, and although many have accumulated considerable wealth, intermarriage between the groups remains stigmatized. To a lesser extent than in the past, these social distinctions still affect local self-definition. What It Means to be Tribal in Al-Ahjur

Qaba’il were (and are) very aware and proud of their own identity. Whenever I asked what distinguishes a Qabili from other members of the society, I would be told that a Qabili is honest, generous, hospitable, courageous, perceptive, strong, and hardworking, and can be trusted to follow through on his or her word. Proverbs refer to the urban population as weak, in contrast to the perceived strength of rural tribes. This self-definition, which I first heard in the 1970s, is still provided today. Ironically, city people are said to be “ignorant,” although the scholarly elite were historically associated with learning. There are times, however, that Qaba’il may refer to themselves self-deprecatingly as rough, simple people in comparison with a perceived sophistication of the urban population. Attitudes of the nontribal populations toward the tribes are also ambivalent. Sada, Fuqaha’ and Bani Khums often idealize tribal honesty, hard work, courage, and generosity. They invariably add, however, that the tribal population is “unruly,” “crude,” “rough,” and “uncultured.” Qabyala

In the Yemeni highlands, I often heard the term “qabyala” used to describe appropriate and admirable behavior. This behavior ranged from the fulfillment of social duties, such as hospitality, to beauty, as in a beautiful and appropriate dress. The term is derived from qabila (tribe), but is not heard in other Arabicspeaking countries. It is a purely Yemeni term that denotes tribal customary law and a set of values associated with the tribe. These values emphasize cooperative behavior in war and peace, courage, hospitality, the protection of the weak, generosity, integrity, and an egalitarian ethic, as well as autonomy and resistance to authority. From a tribal perspective, the term refers to the “good, true, and beautiful.” Those who are not tribal, however, often associate qabyala 232

n a j wa a d r a

with arrogance and warlike behavior. Thus, the concept of qabyala unites the tribes around a set of values with which they identify and distinguishes them from the nontribal population that disdains the tribes at the same time as it gives value to characteristics attributed to them. Tribal Law

Tribal customary law is still followed in rural areas of Yemen to settle most disputes. Essentially, this system is based on persuasion rather than coercion. All levels of dispute are mediated by a third party. The parties involved present their cases, usually in poetic form.7 The mediator’s decision is based on the consensus reached after open discussion of the case. The party considered at fault provides a gift to the victim (the monetary value depends on the seriousness of the infraction) and slaughters an animal, which may be a chicken in the case of domestic quarrels or a bull in serious quarrels that involve entire communities. All parties share in the subsequent meal, thus indicating that they consider the decision binding. Tribal law is based on precedent. When Qaba’il say that the urban population is ignorant, they are referring to its lack of familiarity with the rules of tribal law. City folk, on the other hand, often criticize tribal law as un-Islamic. In fact, both tribal and religious law are intertwined: the religious law practiced in the towns incorporates principles of tribal law, and tribal law includes precepts of formal Islamic law. An Egalitarian Ethic

Unlike some hierarchical communities in other regions of Yemen and in other Arab countries, historical status distinctions are downplayed in Al-Ahjur. A visitor who does not know the individuals concerned cannot readily distinguish a Qabili, Sayyid, or member of the Bani Khums. Clothing differences reflect differences in wealth and identification with urban fashion, rather than status. Especially today, members of the Bani Khums may be quite wealthy and some of the elite quite poor.8 Houses resemble each other. All eat and socialize together. In the 1970s, only Sada and Qaba’il farmed grain, and only members of one group of Bani Khums grew vegetables for sale. Currently, most landowners in all groups participate in cash cropping. Technically, only members of the Bani Khums play musical instruments professionally, and only Qaba’il perform bara’. Yet, I have seen Sada and Bani Khums performing bara’ in Al-Ahjur, and an increasing number of Qaba’il and Sada are playing musical instruments for pay at weddings and other celebrations. Recently, a member of the Bani Khums was elected Shaykh (leader) of his village, further blurring historical status distinctions. This deemphasis on status reflects the egalitarian ethic of rural communities in Yemen’s northern highlands. It is supported by tribal law, which stresses equality among all Qaba’il and, before 1962, by the egalitarian theology of north Yemen’s religious leaders. Two Genres of Dancing: Bara’ and Lu’b

As mentioned earlier, bara’ is a men’s dance, performed outdoors during the day on occasions of celebration. As few as two, or as many as forty, men perform in an open circle with the leader positioned near the middle, rather than at the ste ps to a n e t h n o g r a ph y o f da n c e

7. For extended discussion of the use of poetry in the mediation of tribal disputes in Yemen, see Caton (1990, 2005). 8. Clothes did define status groups in the past, especially in towns (Mundy 1983; Adra 1998).

233

Figure 10.4. Bara’ performance in the village of Al-Husn. Dances performed locally seldom appear as tidy as those performed on stage. Here, children play in the foreground. A boy in the rear of the photograph flourishes a plastic sandal in place of a dagger because he could not find one to borrow. Although impertinent, this move is taken in good humor by the others. (Photo: Najwa Adra, 1979)

234

head, of the line formed by the dancers. In the bara’ performed in Al-Ahjur, the men stand close enough to one another so that each can place a hand on his neighbor’s shoulder or his waist with elbow slightly bent. The basic step is a forward step-together-step-hop initiated by the left foot, followed by a forward step-hop on the right foot, accompanied by appropriate arm movements. To the fast-paced accompaniment of one or two drums, the men perform skips, small jumps, slides, turns, and knee bends while brandishing their daggers above shoulder level. The line of dancers may reverse its direction of movement or lunge forward toward the middle of the arc before stepping back. The coordination of steps with the drumming is so close that it is not initially clear to the observer if changes in rhythm are initiated by the drummers or the dancers. The dance leader signals changes. He is flanked by the older and more skillful dancers, while novices perform at the two ends of the arc. When others join in during a performance, they usually enter at the edges. Less skilled dancers tire early and may drop out during the dance. Drummers are almost always professional musicians who have a contract with the village, but they are not paid in cash for accompanying bara’. Instead, they receive a portion of the harvest for their services. Whereas the steps themselves are not very difficult to execute, it takes much practice to perform in unison with the other dancers while wielding a dagger, and learning to excel in bara’ is taken seriously. Generally, all of the men present at an occasion perform. Members of a community perform bara’ together, and each community performs its own distinctive bara’. A genre of tribal poetry known as “zamil” is chanted on the way to bara’ performance and during breaks in dancing as dancers walk to a new location together. Although no one in Al-Ahjur associated bara’ with warfare, the dance is considered warlike by Yemenis from other areas. In the 1970s, all the people I talked with asserted that this dance had not changed throughout history. Lu’b, the form of raqs performed in Al-Ahjur, is also the Arabic term for play. This dance involves intricate steps and light weight shifts. As dancers move forward and back, their steps outline geometric designs on the floor. This is a couple dance performed indoors, in the afternoon or at night, during times that are normally devoted to leisure or sleep. At gender-segregated celebrations, one or two couples at a time perform in a small space cleared for dancing in a room that is otherwise crammed with people sitting on mattresses on the floor. Generally, a person dances with a close friend or relative. Lu’b is accompanied by the singing and playing of a paid professional musician if the hosts can afford this. (Dancers also pay the musicians a small fee when they get up to dance.) The songs may be love songs or songs in praise of God or the Prophet Muhammad or of the dancers and hosts. Sometimes song lyrics include humorous sexual puns. Musical instruments n a j wa a d r a

include the mizmar (a kind of double-reed clarinet), most commonly at men’s parties, or ‘ud (lute) along with percussion instruments. Lu’b is performed at weddings and other parties to mark rites of passage, such as circumcision (only infant boys are circumcised in Al-Ahjur). In the past, it was performed after harvest when several families worked together. As late as 1979, lu’b events typically lasted until three or four in the morning. In recent years, however, women’s dances stop at sunset, and men only dance until midnight. Although there is regional variation in lu’b, dancers may perform the dances of other regions, and new steps are constantly added. In the Al-Ahjur region in the 1970s, three forms of lu’b were performed, corresponding to the age of the dancers, with the oldest dancers performing the most traditional steps. Younger dancers performed two versions of lu’b indigenous to the city of Sanaa. Guests from other regions would perform their own dances while Ahjuris watched with interest. One of Al-Ahjur’s villages performed its own distinct dance. When residents of this village attended weddings in other villages, the musicians would play their particular beat. Some urban conservative religious leaders have found the frivolity of lu’b offensive. Thus, some urban families did not perform this dance, and its performance has been banned in some periods of Yemen’s history. Dancing as a Metaphor of Culture

I had been in the field about a year when I was faced with the data presented above: two dances, one considered frivolous and the other a tribal display of skill, but both performed first and foremost for pleasure and enjoyment; a set of values strongly tied to local definitions of tribe and tribal identity; and conflicting data on status distinctions. To help make sense of all of this, I focused on the dancing itself. Bara’ clearly is a dance of display, in which tribal groups show off their members’ skills to each other and outsiders. Not only does a particular bara’ identify a tribal group, but there is fierce pride in one’s own bara’ style. While watching the performance of another group, men are quick to say, “But you should see ours,” implying that their bara’ is superior. Guests from other parts of Yemen are greeted with bara’ performance. Bara’ confirms the contractual union of two families at a wedding and occurs soon after the common meal that seals this union. It is also performed to celebrate religious and national holidays. Bara’ is closely linked to cooperative work projects. All adult male members of the tribal group who can do so contribute labor to projects that a single family or individual cannot perform alone, such as cleaning cisterns, repairing roads, or building schools or mosques. Like tribal litigation, these projects rely on and express the cooperative nature of the tribal unit. I was surprised to learn that during these projects half of the workers perform bara’ while the other half works; then the two groups switch activities. That bara’ is performed only by men reflects the male public face of the tribe. While women’s behavior, like men’s, can affect a tribe’s reputation (positively or negatively), women are rarely asked to formally represent the tribe in public. Women watch bara’ discreetly as they run errands or from windows and rooftops. The bara’ performance itself necessitates cooperative behavior, as it teaches performers to synchronize their movements with each other. Failure to do so ste ps to a n e t h n o g r a ph y o f da n c e

235

would not only ruin the dance but could also endanger other dancers if daggers are not wielded properly. The leader of a bara’, who decides changes in direction, steps, and tempo, is almost always an older man. Throughout the performance, the eyes of all other performers and drummers focus on him. He performs in the middle of the circle, not at its head as in the dabka, a line dance performed elsewhere in the region.

Bara’ performance can be seen as a metaphor of what it means to be tribal in Al-Ahjur. Cooperation is the paramount value of tribal identity. That the leader performs in the middle affirms the egalitarian ethic of qabyala. Although warfare has not been an issue in Al-Ahjur’s recent history, Yemen’s tribes were historically its warriors, charged with defending the unarmed population (women, the scholarly elite, and the service groups), hence the importance of the dagger and the interminable drum beat. Finally, the tribe, as displayed to others, is symbolically male. In performing, bara’ tribesmen in Al-Ahjur learn and affirm a set of values that define them as tribal to themselves and to others in the society. But what of lu’b? Although its performance is not displayed openly as is bara’, I did not meet anyone in Al-Ahjur who did not appreciate this dance. Weddings are seen as dancing occasions. Those who do not dance enjoy watching; spectators pay attention to the dancing and praise good dancers audibly. A Yemeni proverb states, “A people that does not dance will not survive.” So why was this dance relegated to performance indoors? Why the verbal insistence that it is only performed by same-sex couples, when this was not the case in practice? Why had it been banned in periods of Yemen’s history?

Learning bara’ is an integral part of the event when performed locally. In Figure 10.5 a young boy enters the performance space on the left with the intention of practicing the last movement with the masters. Others try to pull him away, out of camera range. The boy successfully ignores his detractors and is seen practicing in front of the master dancers in Figure 10.6. (Photos: Daniel M. Varisco, 1978 [10.5] and 1979 [10.6]) Figures 10.5, 10.6.

236

n a j wa a d r a

ste ps to a n e t h n o g r a ph y o f da n c e

Figures 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, 10.10.

Men performing lu’b at the men’s party at a wedding in the village of Al-’Urra, Al-Ahjur. The performance takes place in a large guest room. Guests are seated along the walls. Two musicians, seated on the right, accompany the dancers. Facing the camera (fifth from rear of the room) and wearing a straw hat is the mizmar player, Salih al-’Arusi. No photographs of women dancing are included in this chapter because women of AlAhjur prefer that their photographs not be published. (Photos: Daniel M. Varisco, 1979)

237

9. Sexual relationships outside marriage are expressly forbidden in this community as they are elsewhere in the region. 10. This dichotomy does not correspond exactly to the public vs. private distinction often discussed in the literature. For example, visiting behaviors and large parties are not at all private. Women and men dress in their best attire as they would in any public venue. Yet, the fact that these events are gender segregated permits an informality that would not be permitted in mixed contexts. 11. Like lu’b, belly dance, which is performed largely in urban centers in the Middle East, also signifies a playful, intimate side of social life that contrasts with the restraint expected in public (Adra 2005). 12. See Adra (1983:29– 82) for a detailed discussion of this issue.

238

In contrast to bara’, lu’b highlights the individual virtuosity of the dancers. Few individuals dance at large celebrations without having mastered the steps. The songs that accompany lu’b may have religious themes, but they also include love songs and praise of individuals, especially dancers, hosts, and guests. Group cooperation is deemphasized in this context. Lu’b events highlight intimacy, as dancers perform with close friends or relatives, not necessarily anyone in their community. Autonomy is also accentuated. Dancers decide the beat for their dance, which version of lu’b to perform, and how long they wish to dance. As a couple dance, lu’b references marital relations.9 Sexual connotations in song lyrics serve to counteract the strict prohibitions against sexual behavior in public. The mizmar, the favored traditional instrument to accompany lu’b, is itself rife with sexual imagery, often referred to as the “cock of paradise,” with an intended sexual pun. Is lu’b also a cultural metaphor? If so, how? As further research brought to light, qabyala does not exhaust the entire corpus of values adhered to in Al-Ahjur, but only the tribe’s public face. There are clearly bounded contexts in which rules are relaxed, allowing women as well as men to express their own individuality and autonomy. These contexts include gatherings at home with family and close friends, marital relations, behavior toward intimate friends, the disposal of one’s personal property, leisure, and play. Within these sites, play, romance, and friendship blossom, and joking behavior, often off-color, abounds. These contexts complement the serious demeanor and focus on others’ welfare that is expected from adults in public. Lu’b events glorify individual virtuosity and imply sexuality. Performances are limited to small, clearly bounded spaces, out of the public limelight, corresponding to areas considered appropriate for informal, intimate behavior.10 In performing lu’b, dancers learn to express themselves within bounded contexts. Lu’b, then, is a metaphor of the intimate side of life in which a relaxed self-expression is encouraged. Bara’ and lu’b together replicate two complementary sides of tribal life (Adra 1983, 1998). The opposition between bara’ and lu’b is summarized in Table 10.1. I want to make it clear that I do not think people dance in order to signal aspects of their culture. Especially with social dancing, people dance simply for pleasure, because it is fun to do so. I suggest that dancing affirms local values and that the values that underpin culture may be created, re-created, and changed in the process of dancing, but that this process is largely unconscious in the sense that it is not easily accessible to verbal articulation. Cultures differ in their approaches to the basic problems of social integration faced by all societies. Examples include: how to balance public vs. personal, work vs. play, community vs. autonomy, and how to organize leadership and hierarchy. These issues are negotiated on a daily basis by all of us, whether consciously or not. In Al-Ahjur, as elsewhere in Yemen and other Arab countries, community responsibility and a serious demeanor are given priority in the public sphere, while a great deal of flexibility in modes of selfexpression is permitted and encouraged in contexts defined as intimate.11 As in other parts of Yemen’s northern highlands, the expression of an egalitarian ethic takes precedence over social hierarchies in Al-Ahjur.12 These values are danced in bara’ and lu’b. With each dance, they are affirmed, created, and re-created by the dancers and their audience. n a j wa a d r a

Bara’

Lu’b

Unchanging

Constantly Changing

Varies by region but ideally does not change

Steps are borrowed from other regions in

through time.

Yemen; changes are introduced frequently.

Uses Large Spaces

Confined to Small Spaces

Performed outdoors. Dancers often change

Only a small space is allotted to dancers,

locations during a single performance.

barely enough to keep them from stepping on seated guests.

Dance of Display

Self-Expression

Performed outdoors during public occasions

Performed indoors, among intimates or

and to honor guests from other communities.

others of the same sex.

Daytime activity.

Accompanied by drum. (In some regions of

Afternoon and nighttime leisure activity.

Yemen, also by a reed instrument.)

Accompanied by musical instruments.

Associated with tribal poetry.

Songs may be love songs, praises of the Prophet Muhammad, or relate to the personal lives of the dancers.

Legally permitted throughout history.

Sometimes legally forbidden; sometimes frowned upon.

Serious activity, connotes skill and excellence.

Frivolous activity, called play.

Culture change is accompanied, and often anticipated, by changes in dancing behavior. As people experiment with new forms of dancing they are trying out metaphors for new ways to present themselves and interact with others. Changes that are incorporated in the community’s dance repertoire tend to anticipate the direction of cultural change.

Table 10.1. Oppositions Between Bara’ and Lu’b as Performed in the 1970s

Culture Change

Al-Ahjur, along with the whole of Yemen, has experienced major economic, political, and social change since the 1970s (Adra 1983, 1993, 1998; Varisco and Adra 1984). The Zaydi Imams who ruled North Yemen in the first half of the twentieth century did their best to isolate the country in order to protect it from colonization. While this policy shielded the country from the negative impacts of colonialism, it also kept out technological developments and hindered the development of modern infrastructure. As farmers, pastoralists, and warriors, Yemen’s semiautonomous tribes fed and protected the society. The 1962 revolution that abolished the imamate and created the Yemen Arab Republic of Yemen (YAR), or North Yemen, was followed by seven years of civil war. As the new Republican government established itself, its relationship ste ps to a n e t h n o g r a ph y o f da n c e

239

13. Although some Sada had performed with Qaba’il in the past, bara’ performance had not been integral to weddings of Sada.

240

with Yemen’s tribes also changed. No longer were the tribes considered quasiindependent entities but were expected to work together as part of a single Yemeni nation. In turn, government services—including schools, clinics, roads, and electricity—have created a dependence on, and respect for, the central government. A major influx of imported goods, large waves of labor outmigration to neighboring oil-rich countries, and exposure to other lifestyles through television affected the ways Al-Ahjur’s residents saw themselves in relation to others in Yemen and globally (Adra 1996). Other changes in people’s daily lives included a reliance on automobile transportation and dietary changes from local whole grains to imported refined wheat and an increase in sugar consumption. Soap operas on television now took up time that in the past was spent dancing, exchanging poetry, and recounting stories. In 1990, the former Yemen Arab Republic in the north united with the former People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) in the south to form the Republic of Yemen. This increased the diversity of regions within Yemen. Yemen underwent further upheavals in the 1990s: during the First Gulf War (1991), 800,000 Yemeni migrant workers in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf had to return to Yemen, leading to major unemployment and increased poverty in their home country. This was followed in 1994 by a civil war between political factions in the north and south. Economic and political changes have led to a redefinition of the tribe and its place. No longer does the tribal population form the political and economic backbone of Yemeni society. Allegiance to tribal leaders has been replaced by allegiance to the president of Yemen. Growing urbanization has devalued rural lifestyles among some members of the population. Significantly, at least some of these changes were anticipated in dance performances. In 1979, I observed and filmed young men in one of Al-Ahjur’s villages experimenting with new forms of bara’ learned in the capital city of Sanaa. At the time, this was considered heretical by most of Al-Ahjur’s residents who maintained that bara’ was unchanging. Meanwhile, older performers all over Al-Ahjur complained of subtle changes in bara’ everywhere. Bara’ performance declined in the villages during holidays, as men in the community traveled to towns to perform with tribesmen from other regions or simply did not respond to the drumbeat announcing bara’. In a marked change from the past, Al-Ahjur’s Sada began to perform bara’ at their own weddings.13 At the same time, new urban forms of lu’b, with faster, more complicated footwork, became popular in Al-Ahjur. In the years preceding, and those immediately following, unification with South Yemen, a southern dance (lahji) often replaced the northern lu’b in northern cities and, to a lesser extent, in Al-Ahjur. Lahji is livelier and easier to learn than lu’b and includes subtle hip swinging, which is frowned upon by older members of the rural community. Currently, at weddings in Al-Ahjur, several dances are performed according to the dancers’ whims. These include three variations of lu’b (including the oldest versions); lahji, which is the most popular; and an Arabian Gulf dance (khaliji) learned from television. At a wedding in 2005, one woman performed a brief belly dance to the disapproval of many. In contrast, belly dance and khaliji have become popular in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. A parallel diversity in dance style is found among men in Al-Ahjur. At men’s wedding parties, lu’b, lahji, and khaliji are all performed. Some men no longer n a j wa a d r a

Bara’

Lu’b

No Longer Unchanging

Constantly Changing

Rhythm and performance slower.

New styles and steps are added according to

Experiments with styles from other regions.

fashion. This is not new. What is new is the introduction of dances from outside Yemen.

Uses Large Spaces

Confined to Small Spaces

This has not changed, but increased

Larger rooms are now available for dancing,

construction has limited the spaces

and several couples may perform at the same

available for bara’ performance.

time in different parts of the room.

Dance of Display This has not changed.

Self-Expression Lu’b is still a form of self-expression. For some people, this means that fashions and clothing have changed to reflect their taste for modernity and urban sophistication. Others maintain local dress and dance styles to emphasize their support for tradition and disapproval of new styles.

Emphasis on Community and

Emphasis on Individual Virtuosity

Cooperation

and Intimacy

This has also not changed, but fewer

This has remained the same but the times

members of the community participate,

that women may dance at parties have been

and fewer young men learn bara’.

curtailed to omit nighttime dancing.

perform bara’, while others are eager to learn it. Those who do perform are markedly slower and heavier than the dancers of thirty years ago. This is probably related to their increased reliance on automobile travel and their less nutritious diet. Changes observed in Al-Ahjur’s dances are summarized in Table 10.2.

Table 10.2. Changes in the Performance of Bara’ and Lu’b Observed in 2005

An Apparent Contradiction

In the 1970s and 1980s, any swinging of the hips during dancing was considered shameful. The current popularity of lahji, khaliji, and, in Sanaa, belly dancing, indicates an interest in experimenting with more overtly sexual forms of expression. Women’s dress is also more sexualized, reflecting global styles with plunging necklines, exposed arms, bare heads, and copious layers of makeup. At the same time, and in apparent contradiction, there has been a marked increase in religious conservatism in Yemen influenced by a Wahhabi interpretation of Islam imported from Saudi Arabia. This approach targets all dancing and music, as well as the mobility of rural women and their traditional modes of expression, including their sung poetry. The impact of this conservatism is felt mostly in urban contexts, where some families hire a religious chanter to entertain guests instead of musicians. Other urban families include religious chanting along with ste ps to a n e t h n o g r a ph y o f da n c e

241

music and dancing. In Al-Ahjur, these attitudes are reflected primarily in the curtailment of evening dancing parties for women. Currently, dancing at weddings is limited to the afternoons, or, if at night, is terminated early. Is the increase in hip swinging a response to this conservatism? Does it provide a way for young women to assert their autonomy as their mobility and other traditional forms of self-expression are curtailed? Or, does the new religious conservatism inadvertently sexualize women? Answers to these questions require further research because the situation continues to change rapidly. Unity and Diversity

The unification of North and South Yemen in 1990 has encouraged identification with a more inclusive Yemeni nation state, one that includes tribes that are not farmers and Yemenis who do not self-identify as tribal. A large number of southern Yemenis now live and work in the north. Their presence has affected northern diets, dress, and dialects, as well as dancing behavior as discussed above. The 1994 civil war between North and South, however, created considerable mutual resentment between the two regions. Southerners frequently express their resentment of northern hegemony by criticizing bara’ as warlike and crude. They contrast this with their more fluid and, in their perception, “refined” dances, implying that they are more “civilized” than their northern counterparts. For them, bara’ represents not only “arrogant” northern Yemenis but the government that has adopted a tribal rhetoric. Perhaps in response to these attitudes, and in a reassertion of their own identity, young, educated women and men in Sanaa have initiated a resurgence of traditional local lu’b performance. Clearly, cultural transformation has been accompanied by changes in dancing behavior. The introduction of the southern lahji in northern communities in the 1980s anticipated the unification of North and South Yemen, even at a time when many rural people in the north were objecting verbally to the idea of unification. Current discord between North and South is expressed by southerners’ disdain of northern dances and a resurgence of indigenous dances among some people in the north. In sum, using dance as an example, I have argued that the relationship between artistic process and its culture is one of mutual feedback carried on through performers and audience. As the traditional model of the selfsubsistent tribe began to lose its relevance in Al-Ahjur, so did the appreciation of its aesthetic representations. Young people are experimenting with new forms that better signify their changing allegiances and identities. I have presented an example of an anthropological study of dancing in a rural community in Yemen. But this is not the only way that anthropologists study dancing in culture. The dances described differ from those in other countries, and my theoretical interests may differ from those of other anthropologists. The next section will summarize the range of anthropological approaches to dancing. T h e A n t h r o p o l og y o f D a n c i n g

Dancing is widespread among the world’s populations, and its cultural significance varies from one society to another. Although social dancing is often performed just for pleasure, some dances are integral parts of political or religious 242

n a j wa a d r a

ritual. Dancing may be economic activity; it may also be a component of therapy. Dancers may be amateurs or professionals. Although some societies have specific prohibitions against dancing, nowhere is dancing unknown. Unlike food and shelter, which are also ubiquitous, the “meanings” and functions of dancing are usually ambiguous. This is what makes the anthropology of dancing such a challenging topic for study and an important subfield of visual anthropology. Dancing differs from ordinary movement even when it mimics everyday movement. In walking or running, for example, the movement is primarily a tool to accomplish a given purpose: getting there, or exercise. But in dancing the movement itself has inherent value. Its relationship to ordinary movement adds an aesthetic dimension, like poetry’s relationship to speech. In poetry, the manipulation of words for their own sake is primary, while in everyday language, words are most often tools for conveying messages. In dancing, poetry, and other artistic forms, there is a sensible exploration of the medium, and the aesthetic component takes precedence over, or is as important as, utilitarian considerations. Dancing is multisensory, invoking the visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic senses. Yet, it is not random movement. Not all nonutilitarian movement should be called dance. Usually, clear concepts of what constitutes dance are culturally defined. Most societies regulate the situations and places where dancing is considered appropriate, and these vary from one culture to another. Dancers may perform for an audience of strangers or primarily at home in the presence of intimate kin. Dancing may be considered the holiest of activities, as with the hula in ancient Hawaii, or the most lowly, as in professional nightclub belly dancing in Arab society. In some communities, professional dancers are selected from the highest social strata, as in Mali, and, in others, the lowest, as with the Nawar Gypsies in Egypt. Men and women may dance together (e.g., ballroom dancing) or separately (as in some line dances of Eastern Europe). In some places, only married people dance in public; in others, only the young and unmarried do so. Dancing may be performed by a few for the enjoyment of others (ballet or Kabuki), or the whole community may participate, as with the traditional Yemeni bara’. Not all studies of dancing fall under the rubric of anthropology. Dance historians study the historical evolution of dances as well as current dances and their cultural and social contexts. Dance history differs from the anthropology of dancing primarily in its goals. If the goal is to understand the dance, then it is probably dance history. If the purpose of the research is to understand what dancing tells us about a culture and/or the impacts of culture on dancing, then it becomes an anthropological approach to dance. Anthropologists may study a culture’s dances as these interact with the economy, politics, social structure, gender, identity, and/or underlying value systems. The study of dancing from an anthropological perspective varies with the problem that motivates the research (Spencer 1985). Good, but dated, introductions to the field are The Anthropology of Dance (Royce 1977) and To Dance is Human: A Theory of Nonverbal Communication (Hanna 1987). Several approaches will be discussed below. These include early functionalist studies, approaches based on linguistic models, work that focuses on motor behavior, and studies of the historical and political dimensions of dancing, among others. ste ps to a n e t h n o g r a ph y o f da n c e

243

Early Studies of Dancing by Anthropologists

Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead (1942) pioneered in the use of film and photography in ethnographic research. Their work on trance and dance in Bali, conducted from 1936–1938, was intended to support a theory of culture and personality that is no longer considered valid by anthropologists. Yet, this early research provided an important building block for subsequent research in dance as well as for the use of film in anthropology. Other early anthropologists, such as A. R. Radcliffe-Brown (1948), Franziska Boas (1972), and Gertrude Kurath (1960), were most interested in the social functions of dancing. Radcliffe-Brown concluded that dancing is a cohesive force, producing a level of unity and community that is felt by all. He argued that dancing achieves these functions by involving the whole body and concentration of the dancer, by the fact that dancers submit to the constraints and rhythm of custom (that is, community action), and by generating a collective feeling of “harmony” and well-being (1948:148). E. E. Evans-Pritchard (1965) further developed these ideas by paying attention to the contexts of dancing, leadership, and organization within dances, musical accompaniment, as well as detailed descriptions of the movements of each dance. He diverged from Radcliffe-Brown’s implication that dancing is always cohesive by pointing out that not everyone in the community participates in a dance and that dances could be sites of conflict as well as solidarity. James Fernandez (1975–1976), who studied the social significance of dance exchanges in West Africa, wrote that “this practice serves to link otherwise disparate groups” (1975–1976:6). Other scholars have focused on historical changes and political implications of dancing in various societies. Notable among these are Joanne Kealiinohomoku (1976), Yvonne Daniel (1995), Thomas F. DeFrantz (2002), Anthony Shay (2002), Kimberly DaCosta Holton (2005), and William Washabaugh (1996, 1998). These studies point to the importance of dancing in social life. Dancing as Seen Through Linguistic, Semiotic, and Phenomenological Lenses

A number of researchers have explored the potential significance of dancing beyond issues of social, political, and economic function. They have applied linguistic, semiotic, and phenomenological models to the study of dancing in culture. Adrienne Kaeppler’s application of linguistic theory to dances in Tonga are well known (1967, 1971, 1972, 1978, 1985, 1993). She abstracts a “grammar” of Tongan dance through analysis of the dance structure and isolates dance movements into analogs of phonemes, which she calls kinemes. This approach works well for dance traditions in which particular movements carry semantic meaning. Kaeppler’s work is interesting for demonstrating new applications to linguistic theory and method, but it does not help anthropologists understand underlying values. In 1973, I applied linguistic concepts elaborated by Roman Jakobson to dance parameters identified by Rudolf Laban to see if these could illuminate relationships between Balinese dancing and underlying values as described in the literature on Bali (Adra 1973). This is known as a semiotic approach to dancing. It treats dancing as one of many communicative modes in society and as a metaphor of cultural relations. Anca Giurchescu (1974, 1994); Sally Ann Ness (1987, 1990, 1992); Susan Rasmussen (1994); and Louis Hieb (1974) also apply semiotic models to dancing. 244

n a j wa a d r a

Hieb elaborates on this approach. Starting with the observation that “it is by no means apparent what dance does or what dance says,” he first defines dance as: A multi-dimensional phenomenon which includes not simply patterned movement in space, but also as significant, the use of color and sound, the social and ritual role of the participants, the social and religious meaning of the dance as understood by the people themselves, the place of dance in a sequence or cycle of ritual activities, and the relationship of this symbolic activity to other symbol systems. (1974:222) Hieb applies the semiotic concepts of “code” and “distinctive features” to a discussion of Pueblo dances of the American Southwest, arguing that elements used in ritual dance are selected from ways of ordering the world based on Pueblo notions of space, time, color, and number. The “message” of dance is the part it plays in expressing certain interdependencies between this world and the world of the spirits. When it is incorporated into prayer, dancing is part of a reciprocal relationship between man and the spirits. Thus, understanding Pueblo dancing helps to understand local (cultural) assumptions, and the dancing itself cannot be understood except in the context of a wider understanding of its cultural context. Likewise, in my own work, I treat dancing as a metaphor of cultural relations. I argue that the principles of organization, which give a culture its sense of coherence and predictability and distinguish it from other cultures, are constructed, replicated, and affirmed in the principles that define that culture’s performance styles. This view necessitates that culture be conceptualized in terms of particular ways of ordering the elements of social life rather than mere collections of traits or symbols.14 Other anthropologists who have written about dancing as a metaphor of underlying cultural principles include Sally Ann Ness (1987, 1990, 1992), Edward Schieffelin (2005), John Blacking (1985), Yoshihikio Ikegami (1971), Richard A. Waterman (1962), Alfred Gell (1975, 1985), and O. S. Ajayi (1998). In a corrective to overrationalizing the “meanings” of dancing and other body behavior, Michael Jackson (1989) turns to phenomenology. He points out that movement does not always “stand for” something that can be verbalized. The movement itself may have meaning that is prior to, or outside of, verbal explanation. Franca Tamisari’s (2005) research in an Indigenous Australian community in Arnhem Land develops this approach with a discussion of a farewell ritual conducted for her when she left the field. Approaches that Focus on Motor Behavior

An approach to the cross-cultural study of dancing known as choreometrics attracted considerable interest in the 1970s and 1980s. It was developed by Alan Lomax, a folklorist with an expertise in folk song, and dance analysts Forrestine Paulay and Irmgard Bartenieff (Lomax, Bartenieff, and Paulay 1968). None of these researchers were trained as anthropologists. In order to demonstrate that dance style reflects everyday behavior, they plotted film clips of dancing from around the world using cross-cultural categories developed by George Murdock in the Human Relations Area Files (Lomax 1977a, b, c). Although there is little doubt ste ps to a n e t h n o g r a ph y o f da n c e

14. A number of anthropologists have discussed the ways that other artistic forms reproduce patterns fundamental to a culture. On painting in Bali, see Gregory Bateson (1972), and on poetry in Yemen, see Steven Caton (1990). James Fernandez (1966, 1977) found that principles of spatial organization in Fang architecture, village layout, and statues, are reproduced in principles of Fang social organization. Others include Adams (1973), Sugarman (1989), Turino (1989), Urban (1997), and Wade (1976, 1998).

245

that dancing elaborates everyday movement vocabularies, as Lomax, Bartenieff, and Paulay argue, they unfortunately used an outdated evolutionary typology of culture that anthropologists do not support. A major anthropological criticism of this work is that culture is not defined, nor is it distinguished from ecology or geographic location. Another problem is that isolated traits—such as types of stepping, the way that dancers display their palms, or the way they hold their torsos— are assumed to define a style. Although these aspects of dance style are important, dance is not simply a collection of traits. What is relevant to any study of style is the way its various components are combined, and this is not dealt with in choreometrics. The choreometric project does not account either for culture change or for diversity within a culture. Examples of dances that do not reflect everyday behavior are ignored or glossed over. Consequently, a number of anthropologists have published critiques of choreometrics, including Suzanne Youngerman (1974), Joanne Kealiinohomoku (1974a), and Drid Williams (1974). One carefully designed choreometric study does support Lomax’s thesis, however. Allison Jablonko (1968:117) identified a set of movement patterns used in the daily activities of the Maring of Papua New Guinea. These are also repeated in all of the instances of local dancing that she analyzed. Her work helped establish the idea that distinct or “signature” movement patterns characterize different societies as Lomax tried to show through choreometrics.15 Drid Williams’ (1982, 2004) “semasiology” focuses primarily on human movement and not on dance as an aesthetic form. Basic to her approach is the application of Labanotation (discussed below) to the documentation of all movements studied. She sees this as a first step in the development of movement literacy, similar to literacy in language or music notation. It cannot be denied that an understanding of Labanotation improves the researcher’s sensitivity to movement and allows groups of movement to be compared with each other. What is less clear is how a semasiological analysis will help us learn more about culture and social organization. Other Anthropological Approaches to Dancing

Although they are numerous, the approaches described so far do not exhaust the range of topics explored by anthropologists interested in dancing. The relationships between dance and identity have been studied by Paul Austerlitz (1997), Yvonne Daniel (1995), Thomas F. DeFrantz (2002), Zoila S. Mendoza (2000), and the various contributors to Caribbean Dance from Abakua to Zouk: How Movement Shapes Identity (Sloat 2002). Other scholars have focused on gender relations in dance (e.g., William Washabaugh 1998). Karin van Nieuwkerk (1995) has studied gender in relation to the lives of professional dancers in Egypt. Some scholars are interested in the global discourse surrounding dance. Among these are Anthony Shay and Barbara Sellers-Young (2005), who have edited a comprehensive volume on the various “histories” of oriental belly dancing. Several scholars have studied folkloric dance troupes, including Anthony Shay (2002), Kimberly DaCosta Holton (2005), and Lois E. Wilcken (2002). 15. A history of choreometrics and ongoing project updates can be found at www.culturalequity.org/ index.html.

246

Summary

The approaches outlined above are not mutually exclusive. Studies of dancing and identity may also focus on historical and political impacts of, and on, n a j wa a d r a

dancing. They may treat dancing as a metaphor. The study of professional dancers often involves an investigation of gender issues; and linguistic models take history and context into account. The diversity of anthropological approaches to dance reflect the various interests of the researchers. Not all are interested in underlying values and culture. Some focus on the role of dancing in politics or economics; others in potential applications of linguistic models. Taken together, these studies enhance our understanding of the social, cultural, and historical significance of dancing, as well as the reciprocal impact of social and cultural forces on dancing. Methods in the Anthropological Study of Dancing

The anthropological study of dancing requires field research on dance events and an understanding of their cultural contexts that are best acquired through long-term participant observation. Along with a study of the dances performed in a community, the researcher needs to live in the community for an extended period of time to develop an appreciation for the way the community operates and how its members interact with each other. Major economic, political, and environmental systems and the pressures these exert on the community should be understood. It is not only important to understand when and how people dance but also how dance events and spaces relate to their everyday lives and how individuals perceive these dance events. In order to develop a deeper kinesthetic appreciation of the dancing, the researcher should learn the dances performed. First, it is much easier to describe a dance that one has learned to perform. Second, performing a dance provides the researcher with a dancer’s perspective: what does the dance feel like? What kind of body attitude is required to perform the dance successfully? Which rules must be followed and which are flexible? Is improvisation allowed and under which conditions? What is the dancer’s relationship to the audience? To the musicians? Finally, learning the dances signals to the people studied that the researcher appreciates their art form. Although most Yemenis in Al-Ahjur are much more proficient dancers than I, my efforts at performing Yemeni dances are always met with sincere and enthusiastic appreciation. Documenting Dances

Documentation of the dances performed is important. Film is necessary. When filming dancing for social research, it is important to film the entire dance, showing the dancers’ whole bodies and including as much contextual information as possible. Some form of movement notation is useful. A large number of notation systems are available; they differ in the ways they look at movement, how they describe movement, and how much detail they include (Guest 1998b:683). The choice of notation system depends largely on the researcher’s interests. Some forms of dance notation have been digitalized and motion capture systems developed. (Box 10.1 provides a preliminary list of Web sites devoted to dance notation.) For example, Benesh Notation is often used for studies of ballet, and some other forms of notation have been adapted to the study of particular national dance forms (Guest 1998b). The most popular systems appear to be Labanotation and its variations (Guest 1998a, 2005; Maletic 1998) and Benesh Notation (Inman 1998). Williams ste ps to a n e t h n o g r a ph y o f da n c e

247

(1982, 2004) strongly recommends Labanotation. This is a notation system developed by Rudolf Laban in which every single movement is documented. It is possible to reproduce the steps of a dance from a Labanotation score. There are problems with the use of Labanotation in social research, however. It is tedious to apply, few scholars understand it, and it is not at all clear how steps and particular movements are related to culture or social organization. Labanotation is unsurpassed if the purpose of the study is to make an inventory of all the movements. But what do we learn about culture and society from such an exhaustive inventory? Motif Description, developed by Ann Hutchinson Guest, is an adaptation of Labanotation that records only the essential aspects of a movement sequence (Guest 1983). This may be more conducive to social science research, depending on the research goals. Systems that incorporate Laban’s qualitative analysis of movement (Laban Movement Analysis) may be more relevant to research on underlying values than Labanotation. As demonstrated by several studies (Adra 1973; Ness 1987, 1990, 1992), a qualitative analysis of dance movements can shed light on the cultural implications of dancing as well as on changes in dancing behavior. Documentation based on Laban Movement Analysis shares with Labanotation the advantage that different sets of movements can be compared to each other.

Box 10.1

Web sites Devoted to Dance Notation

Increasingly, notation systems are being digitalized and motion

Web Sites Devoted to

Calaban. http://aweb.bham.ac.uk/calaban/frame.htm

Labanotaton

The Dance Notation Bureau Homepage. http://dancenotation.org/DNB/lnbasics/frame0.html New York University Movement Research Group. http://movement.nyu.edu/projects/lma/studio.html LED and LINTEL, a Windows Mini-Editor and Interpreter for Labanotation. http://www-staff.it.uts.edu.au/~don/pubs/led.html Labanwriter for Macintosh. http://dance.osu.edu/3_research_gallery/laban_writer.html Labanatory. http://labanatory.com/

Web Sites Devoted to

Dance Notation Bureau. http://dancenotation.org/DNB/

Motif Description

lnbasics/frame0.html Motif Description, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Motif_Description

Conclusion

Dancing is nearly universal and is primarily an aesthetic form. As with other artistic forms, what is most important is the medium itself. Even if there are “practical” reasons for dancing (for example, for wages), the act of dancing is about movement and its exploration. Like all other behaviors, dancing is closely tied to its social and cultural contexts. Who dances, when, where, in the presence of whom, varies with culture. The importance given to dancing also varies cross-culturally. In some places dancing is central to community life; in others, such as some communities in the United States, it is a marginal leisure activity. Anthropologists who study dance focus on different aspects of dancing behavior according to their theoretical interests. My own interest is in what we can learn about a culture through analyzing its dances. Results of my research in a highland community in Yemen indicate that the two complementary genres of dancing performed in the community affirm a complementarity in the culture between cooperative behavior and autonomy. Through dancing, people acquire experientially the values of cooperation in public and selfexpression at home and other intimate settings. Other approaches to the anthropological study of dancing include investigations of the social functions of dancing, applications of linguistic models to dances, and explorations of the relationships between dancing and identity, gender relations, political movements, and economic aspects of professional dancing. The method chosen by researchers to document dances varies according to their research needs. Film is always useful. Labanotation is used when one wishes to inventory all the movements of a dance. Motif Description and Laban Movement Analysis are more amenable to semiotic approaches. Some researchers have developed their own forms of notation to study particular genres of dance. In the final analysis, it is movement that moves a dancer. 248

capture systems developed.

n a j wa a d r a

Web Sites Devoted to

For Effort-Shape, see the EMOTE Model for Effort and Shape.

Effort-Shape

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=344779.352172

Benesh Notation

For PC Windows software made for Benesh notation, see the Benesh Institute Web site. http://www.benesh.org/BNAbout_

Benesh.html

S u gg e s t e d P r o j e c t s f o r S t u d e n t s 1 Pretend you are a Yemeni anthropologist interested in studying dance genres in your hometown. Design a study that outlines what you would need to know. Include the following questions: who dances and who does not? Why? Which spaces are considered appropriate to dance in? How are these spaces used when not used for dancing? When do people dance? What would they do in this time slot if not dancing? Is this primarily a spectator or participant activity? What are the economic implications of this dance? Does anyone make money through dance events? Is the dance political? What does it tell you about gender relations in this society? 2 Choose a dance you enjoy or know about and apply the parameters listed by Hieb (1974:222) and cited above in this chapter. Describe the dance’s movements; its use of color, sound, touch, or associated smells; the clothes worn by the dancers and how these compare with the clothes they wear when not dancing; the social status of dancers; how people talk about the dance and the values they attach to it. Do they think of the dance as good or evil? Where does this dance fit in the lives of dancers and others in the society? ste ps to a n e t h n o g r a ph y o f da n c e

249

3 From the discussion of approaches to the study of dancing, choose two

References

references representing different approaches. After reading the two works, apply each approach to a dance you enjoy. Then evaluate how each approach influences the kinds of questions you ask and the kinds of information you uncover about the dance. How does each approach help you understand the place of dancing in your society? What are its limitations? 4 Investigate the history of a dance you enjoy or know about. How has it changed through time? What societal changes have influenced this dance? In what way has the dance affected its society?

250

n a j wa a d r a

Adams, Marie Jeanne. 1973. Structural Aspects of Village Art. American Anthropologist 75:265–279. Adra, Najwa. 1973. Style and Information in Balinese Dance. Unpublished ms. 1983. Qabyala: The Tribal Concept in the Central Highlands of the Yemen Arab Republic. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Temple University. 1993. Tribal Dancing and Yemeni Nationalism: Steps to Unity. Revue du Monde Musulmane et de la Méditerranée 67:161–168. 1996. The “Other” as Viewer. Reception of Western and Arab Televised Representations in Rural Yemen. In The Construction of the Viewer: Media Ethnography and the Anthropology of Audiences. Peter Ian Crawford and Sigurjon Hafsteinsson, eds. Pp. 255–269. Højbjerg, Denmark: Intervention Press. 1998. Dance and Glance: Visualizing Tribal Identity in Highland Yemen. Visual Anthropology 11:55–102. 2005. Belly Dance: An Urban Folk Genre. In Belly Dance: Orientalism, Transnationalism, and Harem Fantasy. Anthony Shay and Barbara Sellers-Young, eds. Pp. 28–50. Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, Inc. Ajayi, O. S. 1998. Yoruba Dance: The Semiotics of Movement and Body Attitude in a Nigerian Culture. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press. Austerlitz, Paul. 1997. Merengue: Dominican Music and Dominican Identity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Bateson, Gregory. 1972. Style, Grace and Information in Primitive Art. In Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Pp. 128–152. New York: Ballantine. Bateson, Gregory, and Margaret Mead. 1942. Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis. New York: New York Academy of Sciences. Blacking, John. 1985. Movement, Dance, Music, and the Venda Girls Initiation Cycle. In Society and the Dance. Paul Spencer, ed. Pp. 64–91. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boas, Franziska, ed. 1972 [1944]. The Function of Dance in Human Society. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Dance Horizons Press. Caton, Steven. 1990. “Peaks of Yemen I Summon”: Poetry as Cultural Practice in a North Yemeni Tribe. Berkeley: University of California Press. 2005. Yemen Chronicle: An Anthropology of War and Mediation. New York: Hill and Wang. Daniel, Yvonne. 1995. Rumba: Dance and Social Change in Contemporary Cuba. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. DeFrantz, Thomas F., ed. 2002. Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1965. The Dance. In The Position of Women in Primitive Society and Other Essays in Social Anthropology. Pp. 165–180. London: Faber and Faber. Fernandez, James W. 1966. Principles of Opposition and Vitality in Fang Aesthetics. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 25:53–64. 1975–1976. Dance Exchange in Western Equatorial Africa. Dance Research Journal (CORD) 8(1):1–7. 1977. Fang Architectonics. Philadelphia: ISHI Press. Gell, Alfred. 1975. Metamorphosis of the Cassowaries. London: Athlone Press. 1985. Style and Meaning in Umeda Dance. In Society and the Dance. Paul Spencer, ed. Pp. 183– 205. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Giurchescu, Anca. 1974. La danse comme objet sémiotique. Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council 5:175–178. 1994. The Dance Symbol as a Means of Communication. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 39:1–2, 95–105. Budapest: Akademia Kiado. Guest, Ann Hutchinson. 1983. Your Move: A New Approach to the Study of Movement and Dance. New York: Gordon and Breach. 1998a. Labanotation. In International Encyclopedia of Dance, vol. 4. Pp. 95–98. New York: Oxford University Press. 1998b. Notation. In International Encyclopedia of Dance, vol. 4. Pp. 683–694. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005. Labanotation: The System of Analyzing and Recording Movement, 4th ed. New York: Theatre Arts Books. Hanna, Judith Lynne. 1987. To Dance Is Human: A Theory of Nonverbal Communication. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hieb, Louis A. 1974. Rhythms of Significance: Towards a Symbolic Analysis of Dance in Ritual. In New Dimensions in Dance Research: Anthropology and Dance—The American Indian. Tamara Comstock, ed. Pp. 225–232. Proceedings of the Third Conference on Research in Dance. New York: Committee on Research in Dance. Holton, Kimberly DaCosta. 2005. Performing Folklore: Ranchos Folcloricos from Lisbon to Newark. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ste ps to a n e t h n o g r a ph y o f da n c e

251

Ikegami, Yoshihikio. 1971. A Stratificational Analysis of the Hand Gesture in Indian Classical Dancing. Semiotica 4:365–391. Inman, Tania. 1998. Benesh Movement Notation. In International Encyclopedia of Dance, vol. 1. Pp. 417–418. New York: Oxford University Press. Jablonko, Allison. 1968. Dance and Daily Activities among the Maring People of New Guinea: A Cinematographic Analysis of Body Movement Style. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University. Jackson, Michael. 1989. Paths Toward a Clearing: Radical Empiricism and Ethnographic Inquiry. Pp. 119–155. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Kaeppler, Adrienne. 1967. Preservation and Evolution of Form and Function in Two Types of Tongan Dance. In Polynesian Culture History: Essays in Honor of Kenneth P. Emory. Genevieve A. Highland, et al., eds. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press. 1971. Aesthetics of Tongan dance. Ethnomusicology 15:175–185. 1972. Method and Theory in Analyzing Dance Structure with an Analysis of Tongan Dance. Ethnomusicology 16:173–177. 1978. Melody, Drone and Decoration: Underlying Structures and Surface Manifestations of Tongan Art and Society. In Art in Society: Studies in Style, Culture and Aesthetics. M. Greenhalgh and V. Megain, eds. Pp. 261–274. London: Duckworth. 1985. Structured Movement Systems in Tonga. In Society and the Dance. Paul Spencer, ed. Pp. 92–118. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1993. Poetics and Politics of Tongan Laments and Eulogies. American Ethnologist 20:474–501. Kealiinohomoku, Joann M. W. 1974a. Review of Choreometrics Discussion in Lomax, Alan, Folk Song Style and Culture: A Staff Report. Review Number One. CORD News 6(2):20– 24. 1974b. Dance Culture as a Microcosm of Holistic Culture. In New Dimensions in Dance Research: Anthropology and Dance—The American Indian. Tamara Comstock, ed. Pp. 99–106. Proceedings of the Third Conference on Research in Dance. New York: Committee on Research in Dance. 1976. Theory and Methods in the Anthropological Study of Dance. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Indiana University. Kurath, Gertrude P. 1960. Panorama of Dance Ethnology. Current Anthropology 1:233–254. Lomax, Alan. 1977a. Dance and Human History. Movement Style and Culture I. 40 min. 16 mm. color. 1977b. Palm Play. Movement Style and Culture II. 30 min. 16 mm. color. 1977c. Step Style. Movement Style and Culture III. 30 min. 16 mm. color. Lomax, Alan, Irmgard Bartenieff, and Forrestine Paulay. 1968. Dance Style and Culture; Choreometric Profiles; The Choreometrics Coding Book. In Folksong Style and Culture. Pp. 222–273. Washington, D.C.: American Association for the Advancement of Science. Publication no. 88. Maletic, Vera. 1998. Laban Principles of Movement Analysis. In International Encyclopedia of Dance, vol. 4. Pp. 98–103. New York: Oxford University Press. Mendoza, Zoila S. 2000. Shaping Society through Dance: Mestizo Ritual Performance in the Peruvian Andes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mundy, Martha. 1983. San’a’ Dress, 1920–1975. In San’a’, An Arabian Islamic City. R. B. Serjeant and Ronald Lewcock, eds. Pp. 529–541. London: World of Islam Festival Trust. Ness, Sally Ann. 1987. The Sinulog Dancing of Cebu City, Philippines: A Semeiotic Analysis. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Washington. 1990. The Latent Meaning of a Dance: The Cebuano Sinulog as a Model of Cultural Performance. Studies in Communication 4:128–133. 1992. Body, Movement, and Culture: Kinesthetic and Visual Symbolism in a Philippine Community. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Nieuwkerk, Karin van. 1995. “A Trade Like Any Other”: Female Singers and Dancers in Egypt. Austin: University of Texas Press. Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. 1948 [1922]. The Andaman Islanders. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press. Rasmussen, Susan. 1994. The “Head Dance,” Contested Self, and Art as a Balancing Act in Tuareg Spirit Possession, Africa, Journal of the International Africa Institute 64(1):74–98. Royce, Anya Peterson. 1977. The Anthropology of Dance. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Schieffelin, Edward L. 2005. The Sorrow of the Lonely and the Burning of the Dancers, 2nd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Shay, Anthony. 2002. Choreographic Politics: State Folk Dance Companies, Representation and Power. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press. Shay, Anthony, and Barbara Sellers-Young, eds. 2005. Belly Dance: Orientalism, Transnationalism, and Harem Fantasy. Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers. Sloat, Susanna, ed. 2002. Caribbean Dance from Abakua to Zouk: How Movement Shapes Identity. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

252

n a j wa a d r a

Spencer, Paul, ed. 1985. Introduction: Interpretations of the Dance in Anthropology. In Society and the Dance. Pp. 1–46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sugarman, Jane C. 1989. The Nightingale and the Partridge: Singing and Gender among the Prespa Albanians. Ethnomusicology 33(2):191–215. Tamisari, Franca. 2005. The Responsibility of Performance: The Interweaving of Politics and Aesthetics in Intercultural Contexts. Visual Anthropology Review 21(1&2):47–62. Turino, Thomas. 1989. The Coherence of Social Style and Musical Creation among the Aymara in Southern Peru. Ethnomusicology 33(1):1–30. Urban, Greg. 1997. Culture: In and About the World. Anthropology Newsletter 38(2):1,7. Varisco, Daniel, and Najwa Adra. 1984. Affluence and the Concept of Tribe in the Central Highlands of the Yemen Arab Republic. In Affluence and Cultural Survival. Richard F. Salisbury and Elisabeth Tooker, eds. Pp. 134–149. Washington, D.C.: American Ethnological Society. Wade, Bonnie C. 1976. Fixity and Flexibility: From Musical Structure to Cultural Structure. Anthropologica 18(1):15–26. 1998. Imaging Sound: An Ethnomusicological Study of Music, Art, and Culture in Mugal India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Washabaugh, William. 1996. Flamenco: Passion, Politics, and Popular Culture. Oxford: Berg. Washabaugh, William, ed. 1998. The Passion of Music and Dance: Body, Gender and Sexuality. Oxford: Berg. Waterman, Richard A. 1962. Role of Dance in Human Society. In Focus on Dance II: An Interdisciplinary Search for Meaning in Movement. B. J. Wooten, ed. Pp. 47–55. Washington, D.C.: American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation. Wilcken, Lois E. 2002. Spirit Unbound: New Approaches to the Performance of Haitian Folklore. In Caribbean Dance from Abakua to Zouk: How Movement Shapes Identity. Susanna Sloat, ed. Pp. 114–123. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Williams, Drid. 1974. Review of Choreometrics Discussion in Lomax, Alan, Folk Song Style and Culture: A Staff Report. Review Number Two. CORD News 6(2):25–29. 1982. Semasiology. In Semantic Anthropology. D. Parkin, ed. Pp. 161–181. London: Academic Press. 2004. Anthropology and the Dance. Ten Lectures, 2nd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Youngerman, Suzanne. 1974. Choreometrics. Curt Sachs and His Heritage: A Critical Review of World History of the Dance with a Survey of Recent Studies that Perpetuate His Ideas. CORD News 6(2):16–17.

ste ps to a n e t h n o g r a ph y o f da n c e

253

Chapter 11

Looking for the Past in the Present Ethnoarchaeology at al-Hiba E dward Oc h s e ns c h l age r

W

hen I first saw al-Hiba, the sun was shining, glittering from the open marshes near shore, ruffled by a light breeze. In the distance, a forest of reeds broke from the water’s surface. Smoke from dung fires rose from village houses made of reeds and mud, and the noise of people at work and children at play blended with the sound of

barking dogs. Villagers dressed in long flowing robes were everywhere, on the marshes in boats harvesting reeds or fishing, ashore going about their daily tasks.

Al-Hiba is the name of a mound in southern Iraq that stands on the edge of these marshes. The mound is made up of the buried remains of Lagash, a great Sumerian city that existed more than five thousand years ago. Sumer is often called the “cradle of civilization,” for here, it is thought, people first established cities and invented a system of writing. Around the ruins of the ancient city lived two tribes, the Mi’dan, whose entire lives depended on the marshes, and the Beni Hasan, who lived on the edges of the marshes as fishermen and farmers. Every fall, as the marshes dried up, Bedouin tribes arrived with herds of sheep, goats, camels, and a few horses to pasture on the new growth of vegetation appearing on the emerging land.

A village near al-Hiba seen from the water. (Photograph by Edward Ochsenschlager)

Figure 11.1.

255

In the weeks that followed, my colleagues and I worked hard at al-Hiba, excavating a temple oval dedicated to the Sumerian goddess Inana. Whenever possible, I visited one of the nearby villages in my spare time, for I was fascinated by village life. I noticed that many of the artifacts we were excavating in ancient strata were the same or similar to tools and receptacles made and used by modern villagers. Could we learn more about the ancient Sumerians who lived here five thousand years ago by studying these modern people? Indeed, the ethnoarchaeological study we initiated gave us much information about the ancient Sumerians and exposed flaws in many routine and unquestioned archaeological assumptions that professionals accepted as a matter of course. W h at i s E t h n o a r c h a e o l o g y ?

Ethnoarchaeology tries to understand the past by studying the present. Clearly, there must be some connection between the past and the present for such a study to have validity. One cannot, for instance, infer the behavior of a Neolithic tribesman from studying the behavior of a modern city dweller nor the life of an ancient fisherman from that of a modern Midwestern farmer. The people one studies must have a fundamental connection to the past if ethnoarchaeology is to have any value. Connections might include such linkages as direct descent or continuity of traditions over time, both of which would be difficult to prove. In our case, we found our connection in the environmental details. We are looking at two groups of people connected by lives led in similar ecological settings, who used the same available raw materials to make the same or similar artifacts. We long suspected this connection because of the nature and composition of the ancient artifacts we found at al-Hiba. Ancient models of boats and fishnet sinkers are indications that the people who made them lived in a watery environment, while impressions of reeds and reed products show clearly that there were marshes nearby in which reeds grew. In addition, Jennifer Pournelle (2004: 208) cites cylinder seal evidence from the area that depicts reed structures, cattle fed in and led from reed byres, personages poled along fish-filled watercourses in high-prowed boats, fishing from small watercraft, and persons carrying tribute of fish and waterfowl. She argues that much of the archaic alluvial landscape of southern Iraq consisted in large part of wetlands (2004: 208). This connection between the past and the present both legitimizes our study and establishes its relevance within the confines of material culture. We must remember here that we are talking of ethnoarchaeology and not ethnography. We needed to understand the impact of the environment on the people we were studying and the possibilities and limitations of the available raw materials. We needed to see clearly the nature of those raw materials, how and why they are transformed, and how and why they are used. E t h n oa r c h a e o lo g y a n d V i s u a l A n t h r o p o lo g y

Notice that I use the word “see” and not words like “understand” or “comprehend.” I want to emphasize the importance of the visual aspect of 256

E d wa r d O c h s e n s c h l a g e r

ethnoarchaeology.1 Only repeated visual observation over long periods of time can help us escape our own preconceptions, the danger of questionnaires that can be intentionally or accidentally designed to elicit precisely what the designers predetermine they want to hear or to formulate rather than sample opinion, and the many pitfalls of relying on informants. Informants are often biased against those of different tribal, social, educational, economic, or religious status in their own communities. They often take advantage of being placed “center stage” to promote their own self-interest and enhance their own self-images to the total detriment of the topic being pursued. They can also be culture-protective, choosing what to say and how to say it on the basis of what they think the investigator will think culturally admirable or offensive. Ashamed of their ignorance of a process that is part of their culture, they can make up explanations that have no basis in reality. How we see things depends on our point of view. Our preconceptions arise from our own cultural bias and what we have read or been told by others. Of the two, the latter, often unrecognized, is the most destructive of true understanding. Many of us accept without reexamination, from early childhood through old age, solutions provided us by the books we read, the television or movies we see, our friends and relatives, and, most dangerous of all in this respect, our teachers. So powerful is this kind of indoctrination that I have sat alongside college students who watch a videotape of pottery making three or four times before realizing that major aspects of the process are different from the way I have described it to them.2 What we are capable of seeing depends on our ability to suspend our routine processing of visual images. Most of us, in everyday life, look at phenomena only long enough to place them in categories with similar phenomena we have seen in the past. This is especially apparent in an action situation. If a driver is about to run over a dog with his car, we do not have the time or need to ponder the breed, size, or condition of the dog; the make, year, and model of the car; or the physical description, clothing, and expression of the driver. We immediately act to save the animal. In the same way, we sufficiently identify any given phenomenon, through classification, in order to assess its utility or meaning and avoid the sensory overload that might keep us from functioning in a world where every detail of everything we see must be absorbed and understood before it can be related to life experience. In ethnoarchaeology, as in many other disciplines, we must learn to suspend this habitual route to quick identification and try to clearly see and evaluate phenomena in all their complexity. Fortunately, speedy absorption of detail and comprehension are easily taught for most kinds of visual stimuli. Courses in speed-reading and reading comprehension have in particular enjoyed considerable success. The camera is also very useful in helping both students and practicing ethnoarchaeologists see clearly. People can view a filmed record of an ethnographic process over and over. Mistakes made in viewing it the first time can be corrected at a later showing. Today’s interactive media and such techniques as stopped-frame technology make interpretive photography even easier. A film can serve as a training tool for students, and it can help the ethnoarchaeologist verify previous observations or discover new aspects that escaped him in the field.3 In the late 1960s, movie and video cameras were readily available as E th n oa r c h a eo lo gy at a l- H i b a

1. Oswalt (1974:8) points out that it is desirable to observe what is done, rather than depend on what people say they do, in order to avoid the normative statements or ideal patterns offered by informants. He presents a “let’s pretend” technique for use when observation is not possible. This could be a useful tool, but in the kind of long-range project I am advocating there would be ample time for observing even those events, such as re-covering a boat with bitumen (Ochsenschlager 1992:51–53 and 2004:180– 185 and in the section on the “Moral Value of Crafts” below), which happen once a year at best. As Gould (1974:30) points out, “The principal misuse of ethnographic evidence in making archaeological interpretations occurs when archaeologists fail to apply the same rigorous standards of empirical observation which they have developed in their own field to the evidence afforded by ethnography.” 2. One cannot blame this entirely on the students. After all, they are sometimes taught by teachers who relish comparison with talk show hosts and believe that one interpretation is as valid as another (Hopkins Lattin 1995:6). Clarity of perception concerning material under discussion in today’s classroom is often considered less important than one’s opinion of that material. To hold unsupported, divergent opinions in a highly emotional and subjective way is often the route to higher grades. 3. Using cameras for studying ethnographic detail is not necessarily the same as the production of an ethnographic or documentary film. In the former, one focuses the camera and lets it run through every aspect of a process, no matter how repetitive or boring. In the latter, a producer or director often edits the material to present effectively a particular message or point of view and to take into account the normal span of audience attention. See Conover (1997).

257

4. See the section on mud toys below. In later years, the change to plastic toys would be attributed solely to children’s preferences. This was even the reason given to me by a young man of eighteen who I had seen slapped as a child of seven for embarrassing his family by continuing to make toys out of mud. 5. Stanislawski (1974:15) sees this separation as extremely important for it enables the ethnoarchaeologist to produce more effective and less ethnocentric hypotheses for testing.

258

important research tools, but restrictions on their import and use in Iraq made them impractical. Still cameras, however, were easily acquired and shooting continuous snapshots of a process proved extremely useful. Clarity of vision is equally important in seeking to understand the cultural significance or impact of change. Sometimes one can see that things have changed but not readily understand why. Sometimes one cannot easily see, at first glance, any change in the way things appear, but beneath the surface of immediate visual response, it is clear that important changes with serious consequences have taken place. Sometimes dramatic changes that appear major turn out to be minor, and sometimes changes that appear minor have significant cultural impact. I feel certain, after my experiences at al-Hiba, that we must actually be present when changes take place if we are to be able to understand either their significance or their structure. It is in the actions and discussions that take place during the contemplation of change and during the process of change itself that real issues and factors are weighed and discussed. Shortly after the change has achieved a semipermanent status, reasons given for change are largely simplified and standardized and can sometimes take on all the characteristics of mythology.4 With perseverance, one is able to understand the significance of what one sees among the villagers, both individually and collectively. In ethnography, one deals with a living culture and can explore the actions and opinions of each member of the group. This is not possible for the archaeologist who must rely on those few artifacts preserved, their contexts, and whatever written documentation exists for his interpretations. Certainly in the complexity of results from ethnoarchaeological research there is a warning for archaeologists against overreliance on, or easy acceptance of, simple theoretical constructs, which are supposed to explain the nature, function, and significance of artifactual evidence. Long-term, intensive ethnoarchaeological research with accent on a kind of comprehensive clarity of vision during a process being witnessed or recorded on film can separate us, however reluctantly, from the outcomes we expect.5 It can also protect us from false, even comic ideas, which can result from one or two observations here and a few questions there, and it can provide us with enough detail to help us see the structure behind persistence and change. Long-term research aids us in another way. It gives you the opportunity to really get to know the people with whom you are working and it gives them a chance to really know you. Only long-term involvement with the people you are studying will win their respect and understanding, and without those, there is no personal commitment from them to deal with you in a straightforward and honest manner. The Setting

The site of al-Hiba is one of the largest, if not the largest, mounds in southern Iraq. It is more than two miles long and a mile wide. The findings of Ubaid and Jamdat Nasr artifacts indicate early occupation, but it was in the Sumerian times that the site grew in size and importance. The ancient name of the city was Lagash, the capital of the Sumerian Empire. By the Early Dynastic III period, the ancient city reached its greatest size and was probably the largest E d wa r d O c h s e n s c h l a g e r

early Sumerian city. At the end of Early Dynastic IIIB, or sometime during that period, occupation declined rapidly, and the Sumerian capital was apparently transferred to the nearby mound of Tello, ancient Girsu. Excavations at al-Hiba were begun in the fall and winter of 1968–1969 by an expedition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, with the collaboration of the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University and under the direction of Vaughn E. Crawford and Donald P. Hansen. The major effort of the first season was the excavation of the temple platform and precinct of the Ibgal of Inanna built by the king Enannatum I. In addition, there were several explorative 10 m squares, or soundings, dug in other areas in order to gain some idea of the nature of the mound.6 Both of the directors encouraged and supported the ethnoarchaeological project, which continued until political events forced a halt in 1990. The goal of the project was to determine the relevance, for excavated archaeological data, of ethnographic information drawn from the modern villages around al-Hiba. This project, which spanned over twenty years, focused on material aspects of locally available raw materials and the artifacts made from them. Al-Hiba, ancient Lagash, is located in the Mohafada (“District”) of Nassiriyah. It stands on the edge of the permanent marsh that lies below Shatra on the Shatt al Gharraf. The Gharraf River flows southwest from the Tigris at Kut in the direction of Nassiriyah. Contiguous areas of seasonal and temporary marsh surround the ancient mound on three sides. Melting snow in the mountains to the north causes the Gharraf to overflow its banks and flood these areas annually. The inundation reaches its height in May and begins to recede in June. By August the temporary marsh is covered with a growth of sedges and grass ready to welcome the nomadic Bedouin, who arrive with their herds of goats, sheep, and camels to take advantage of the pasturage afforded. The waters reach their lowest point in September and October. In November, the water level rises slightly, and, with the rainy season in late December or early January, sudden short floods may occur. The ancient site itself is completely surrounded by water, with marshes on three sides and a canal (Abu Simich, “Father of Fish”) on the fourth. Until the late 1980s, communication with the outside world was via a one- to two-hour motorboat trip up the canal to a road leading to Shatra, the nearest and most accessible town. The marshes are alive with the activity of wild birds, particularly in fall and winter: flocks of ducks, geese, waders, ibises, egrets, pelicans, herons, cranes, eagles, owls, kingfishers, swallows, grouse, and quail abound. The commonest fish found in the marsh is the carp. Other denizens of the marsh are not quite so pleasant. Several varieties of poisonous snake make their homes here, and the bites of some are said to be inevitably fatal. Equally dangerous, and perhaps even more feared, are the wild pigs that lurk among the reeds and are as likely to attack as to run if surprised by human beings. Wild boars can grow to 40 inches at the shoulder and sport formidable, razor-sharp tusks. Quite a few local inhabitants bear sizable scars, and many have died of their wounds. The Mi’dan, who harvest fodder for their water buffalo in the marshes, are especially vulnerable. Even when not looking, one can tell when a wild pig crosses the mound. Silence on such occasions is absolute. Birds stop singing and dogs slink into hiding without a sound. E th n oa r c h a eo lo gy at a l- H i b a

6. For information concerning the initial and succeeding seasons of archaeological investigations, see listed publications of Biggs, Crawford, and Hansen.

259

The early years of our excavation were times of unbelievable poverty for the people of al-Hiba. The ongoing removal of the sheikhs (local hereditary leaders) by the central government had left a void in the management of farmlands. The irrigation system in the area was often in disrepair and inadequately regulated. Money was beginning to replace trade in some commodities, and people in the villages, who had little opportunity to acquire cash, were at great disadvantage. In those days, one could often see women gathering grass and sedge from the edges of the marsh and the canals, not for fodder for their animals, but to be boiled and served as the main dish for their families’ dinners. Three different groups of people inhabited the area around al-Hiba up to the time of the Iraq-Iran war. The tents of the Bedouin dotted the seasonal marshlands from late August to late December. Seven villages of the Beni Hasan existed within walking or boating distance of the site. Five small villages of the Mi’dan, or Marsh Arabs, were found on the southern part of the mound, and on a narrow spit of land in the extreme southeast were three Mi’dan households, each isolated from the others. Other villages of the Beni Hasan existed on the margins of the marshes, and some Mi’dan villages were built in the marshes where they had created patches of dried land by alternating layers of mud quarried from the marsh bottom with reed mats. Bitumen-covered wooden boats that people moved through the water by using long poles could reach all these settlements. Of the permanent residents, the Beni Hasan kept mostly small herds of sheep and cattle and grew winter crops of barley and wheat on small plots of land; the Mi’dan kept herds of water buffalo. Both tribes tended flocks of chickens, caught fish in the marshes, and sowed rice in the seasonal marshlands flooded by the annual inundation.7 Goals and Research Plan

Our project focused on things made from locally available material resources that were also available to ancient people—namely, mud or clay, reeds, wood, cattle, and sheep. Bitumen was eventually added to the list because it appeared so often in conjunction with wood, reeds, and mud in the villages, as well as in the archaeological record. The ethnoarchaeological study was concerned with the problems inherent in the resources, the technology used for overcoming these problems and for making artifacts, and the kinds of artifacts made and how they 7. For further information concerning the general area and its people, see listed publications of Fernea, Fulanain, Maxwell, Salim, Thesiger, and Young and Wheeler. 8. For a brief review of the history and traditional utility of ethnoarchaeology, see Gould (1996:207– 208). For a more specialized review of ceramic ethnoarchaeology, see Longacre (1991). Over the years, there has been a continuing debate as to the utility of ethnoarchaeology. Some (Stanislawski 1974:16; Kramer 1982:272; and Longacre 1991:10) see it as an important tool for research. Others, such as Lamberg-Karlovsky (1989:961), believe that “its results have fallen short of its promises.” He says that in spite of the availability

260

of two excellent ethnoarchaeological studies of Iran (Kramer 1982 and Watson 1979a), “it remains extremely difficult to develop meaningful analogies or theoretical models in which these ethnoarchaeological studies are of direct relevance to the archaeology record.” One should point out that the development of analogies relevant to the past from observation of the present is not limited to social science. See, for example Tokarski (1997:25), where scientists seek to shed light on the behavior and habitat of the adapid primate group of 45 million years ago by tracing the manner in which certain lemurs move about in their natural habitat. Watson’s arguments (1979b:277–287) for the role of eth-

nographic analogues as a source of hypotheses for archaeological testing that does not rely on closeness of fit to an anticipated pattern in the archaeological record, and Whallon’s views (1994:10–11) on the analyses and use of relevant variables and their relationships in patterns have done much to increase the utility and promise of ethnoarchaeology. 9. Whallon (1994:11) believes that a partial way around the problems presented in using ethnoarchaeology for direct analogy in the classification of data lies in shifting one’s focus from global description and the identification of patterns in data to an effort to identify “relevant” variables, to measure them and

to define the nature of the interrelationships that hold among them. This allows an approach to any “new” data that is grounded not in general pattern recognition but in the measurement of identified variables, with any overall organizational characteristics of the situation defined by the values of these variables in that particular case and the known relationships that relate these variables to each other. The resultant specification of organizational characteristics therefore may be quite different from any specific organizational forms actually known from other available cases.

E d wa r d O c h s e n s c h l a g e r

were used.8 But it quickly became clear that attendant circumstance, attitude, beliefs, and the attitudes of others played a significant role in the manufacture and use of artifacts and that this evidence must be collected as well. In order to obviate confusion, it was decided that each resource would be investigated separately. For instance, only when I was finished collecting information about mud would I begin asking questions about reeds. As a result, a number of procedures—for example, the use of reeds in mud construction—would be studied twice. Each of these procedures was documented in notes and photographs: once when studying reeds and again when studying mud construction. Shortly after the project began, we became increasingly aware of the unpredictable nature of the changes taking place in the manufacture and use of artifacts in the modern villages. Since recognizing and understanding the significance of change in the archaeological record is crucial to our understanding of ancient civilizations, it seemed reasonable to make the anatomy9 of change one of the primary foci of our investigation. It was necessary that the research plan be simple and flexible, for no set time period could be allotted to these studies. Holidays, days when rain or mud made the site unworkable, and when evenings were available. From time to time, two or three consecutive days could be arranged. It was also possible to set aside a few days before the excavations began and after they were finished. Research Process

A typical investigation would proceed as follows. Accompanied by Mohammed al Dukkhan as guard and guide, I would visit a village or settlement. Inevitably, the villagers knew of my pending visit; often, it seemed, before I knew of it myself. As the laws of hospitality demanded, we would be invited for coffee, tea, or both in a mudhif (a large, arched building made entirely from reeds) maintained by the sheikh or his followers, in one or more village homes, or in one or more Bedouin tents. Inevitably, we were asked to stay for a meal. We tried very hard not to inconvenience anyone by accepting, but sometimes it was impossible to refuse the offer. Foreigners were unusual in these villages and tents, and the men who lived there would soon gather to drink tea, talk, and ask questions. This initial process could be very time-consuming, sometimes as much as three or four hours. It was always quicker in small villages than in larger ones, for it was essential to the honor of my hosts that they follow the rules of hospitality with precision. Only when every rule had been observed and every person present been given the opportunity to welcome me and ask their questions, could I ask mine. Everyone was eager to be helpful, and often arguments would break out over exactly how something I was inquiring about was done, how something was used, how much it cost, and so on. All information was collected, even that which was contradictory. When everyone had their say on the subject, I would try, with their help, to identify people in the village who actually made or used each item. Then I would attempt to make appointments to return and watch the process of manufacture and the artifact’s use, taking notes and photographs throughout the process. Often this meant returning to the same village several times while investigating a single class of objects because I tried E th n oa r c h a eo lo gy at a l- H i b a

261

Mi’dan man setting out food. When his guests arrive, he will leave, as it is considered bad manners to eat with one’s guests. With the host absent, guests are under no pressure and can eat as much or as little as they wish. (Photograph by Edward Ochsenschlager)

Figure 11.2.

to watch everyone regularly involved perform the process from beginning to end. Occasionally, it meant staying overnight. The practice of repeated and lengthy observations of a process performed by many different informants, I believe, gave me my most reliable information. S o m e R e s e a r c h P r o b l e m s t o b e Av o i d e d

As a result of my experience in the field, I have serious reservations about evidence based on interviews, questionnaires, or short observations. During my research, I was told, and sometimes shown, many things that were not true about artifact functions or manufacturing processes. Only by watching a process from beginning to end, performed by different people and in different villages, was I able to correct my sometimes mistaken first impressions. People in the villages were always pleasant and hospitable and would seek to please me in any way they could. If this included telling me what they thought I wanted to hear, so be it. I had to be as careful as possible not to influence or let Mohammed influence replies. Mohammed, of course, had heard what others said on the same subject, and he could as easily influence a reply as I could. Indeed, he was sometimes asked outright in the villages just what it was I wanted them to say or just how I wanted them to carry out a process. 262

E d wa r d O c h s e n s c h l a g e r

Replying according to what people think we want to hear, however, probably produces fewer errors than replying according to their notion of what makes a better impression, or even their notion of the ideal as opposed to reality (their notion of how things should be rather than the way they are). If this happens among people of goodwill, who are genuinely trying to help an interviewer they have known for years, think of the potential error in interviewing subjects who are strangers and do not care about you or your project. No amount of money paid to informants will guarantee reliable results.10 Nor can any amount of textbook behavior modification replace years of association in which the interviewer has proved both concern for and usefulness to the interviewees and their villages. Most ordinary people are not eager to be exploited by those wishing to learn the secrets of their livelihood but are more than willing to cooperate with people they have known for a long time and who have a track record of returning quid pro quo. Ethnoarchaeologists and ethnologists sometimes find this difficult to understand because of their own eagerness to see their names in the press or their faces on television. In our society, such publicity for academics increases their “fame” and “prestige” and can often be used as a bargaining tool in job or salary negotiations. A request to videotape one of the last weavers working in the Hadramut valley in Yemen brought this home to me. He said, “The Russians made a video of me and they say I am famous in Russia. People in Sana’a made another and said they would show it on television. No wonder I am the last weaver in the valley. People want to take my picture but no one pays me for my work so I go hungry.” (See below, “Winning People’s Respect and Cooperation by Being Helpful and Making Yourself Useful,” for some of our contributions to individuals and the community.) Equally dangerous as the informant’s giving wrong information is the informant’s hiding from you entire processes or products that they consider old-fashioned or embarrassing. For example, while watching a local Mi’dan burial from some distance, I happened to notice that the deceased was being buried with jewelry modeled out of mud to imitate the real jewelry that individual had worn in life. Even Mohammed, when I told him what I had seen, was reluctant to talk to me about the practice for, in some sense, it could be considered a violation of religious beliefs and was too bound up with the aura of death to be wholly safe. When I later took pictures of substitute jewelry being made for the adornment of a corpse, everyone who knew of it was convinced that I would die within the year. One must also take into account the all-too-human penchant for assigning new stimuli to previously established categories in which they do not wholly fit. Psychologically, such overly broad classification helps us be more efficient, but at the same time it robs us of appreciation for observations that otherwise would force us to make new categories and see “reality” more accurately (see Abramov, Farkas, and Ochsenschlager 2006). From time to time, I brought along people who were native speakers of Arabic in the hope that with their infinitely better language skills they would catch nuances that could expand my knowledge of a particular operation. It didn’t turn out that way at all. Villagers who had been voluble in their explanation of, for example, the use of dung patties when I was there by myself the day before, might suddenly deny that they used them when I brought along a translator educated in the city. If the translator was local, they would E th n oa r c h a eo lo gy at a l- H i b a

10. According to his obituary in the New York Times (January 31, 1997, B:7), Dr. Alfonso Ortiz liked to tell visitors about the time he showed his father and an uncle one of the classic works of northern New Mexico anthropology, Dr. John P. Harrington’s The Ethnogeography of the Tewa Indians, published in 1916. When Dr. Ortiz read aloud some of the names of mesas and arroyos supposedly used by the San Juan people, the two men howled with laughter. Dr. Harrington’s informants, confronted by a white man handing out money in return for geographical lore, had apparently improvised some of the information on the spot.

263

11. This can be a real problem for outsiders unaware of alternative methods of classification used in crafts or occupations. In the villages around al-Hiba, for instance, a functional and a scientific classification can occur together and can use the same terminology. Although every villager knows the difference among reeds, rushes, and grasses, he or she will refer to young reeds and sedges as “grass” when collecting animal fodder or to middle-sized reeds as “sedge” (the most widely used waterproofing material) when collecting material for waterproofing certain architectural elements. In class​ifying sheep according to age, the villagers use terms referring to lifethreatening crises the animals have survived more often than terms indicating their age in years, months, or weeks. The important question of Deetz (1971:42)—“Did the maker of this artifact see it as the archaeologist does?”—needs to be expanded in ethnoarchaeology. Did the maker of this modern artifact see it the same way as the ethnographer and his assistants?

264

try to impress him by increasing the number of dung patties required for an operation to show that they were well off and had no concern about the cost of things. Or, they would decrease the number to show how skilled they were in getting more for less. In understanding the language, these translators were infinitely superior, but they depended on language, rather than on observation, in seeking to understand a process. They were inevitably misled, either intentionally by the subject or through misunderstanding the meaning of a word or phrase as it was used in a craft context entirely foreign to them.11 There was also ample evidence of the typical embarrassment we all exhibit when we find we do not know what happens in detail in our surroundings. This is usually resolved in one of two ways: we borrow the current theory of the moment and make our observations fit, or we buy the first explanation from “an expert,” embracing it as our own understanding and holding on to it, in spite of our total ignorance, with great tenacity. What we see is given less credence than what we have been told so that, in effect, we are no longer able to see clearly. Many students, undergraduate and graduate alike, as well as some professionals are prone to this affliction. Their intellectual maturity probably begins when they look at something that was once explained to them by an “expert” or teacher and can no longer see a basis for that explanation. They may then return to the customs of early childhood, looking to see what is really there rather than looking to see how whatever might be there can be used to support a particular idea or theory. There is also the problem of people closely associated with the subjects but with a higher degree of sensitivity to what is and what is not at a particular time “considered proper” to hide what their education has taught them was unsavory from someone from another culture.12 Some Problems for a Being f r o m O u t e r S pac e

Curiosity about every aspect of my existence was flattering but also caused problems. In the countryside the problems were small and were sorted out without difficulty. Everyone wanted to know what America was like, what kind of work I did, and what my family was like. Good manners permitted these questions to be verbalized directly, and they could easily be answered. But simple answers could not always dispose of a question. Again and again, they would approach, with incredulity, the question of my not being married. I could never find an answer that satisfied them. To marry and raise children was, after all, the duty of every able-bodied man. The overwhelming impression I have of those excursions is the feeling of never being alone. Even a trip to answer the call of nature was accompanied by at least two people. If I was not feeling well, all my friends swarmed to keep me company and cheer me up with stories, songs, and laughter. If I had a headache, I never dared to reveal it: the ensuing cacophony of support made the headache even worse. Sometimes an individual had heard some strange rumor or had come up with an idea of his own invention concerning nonbelievers: if one stuck a pin into them, or threw salt on them, or said a holy phrase while holding them by the ear, foreigners would turn red, explode, pray to Allah, and so on. From time to time, therefore, I was the victim of a bizarre happening E d wa r d O c h s e n s c h l a g e r

in full view of the assembled guests, and I had to remain impassive, understanding that being stuck with a pin, sprinkled with salt, and the like, was merely the result of curiosity. Towns were quite different from villages. Our first visit to the town of Shabiah was a near disaster. Children saw our taradas (canoelike boats made of wood covered with bitumen for water proofing) coming through the marshes and lined the bank where we landed. They raced ahead of us as we walked toward the town and the townfolk came out in great numbers; they meant no harm but crowded so closely around us that we could not move. By this time, the police had been apprised of our arrival and came running to our assistance. Worried about our safety, they ripped off their belts and beat anyone within striking distance until we were safely ensconced in a local coffeehouse. This method of crowd control, an overreaction from a Western viewpoint, was more likely to occur in towns and cities than in the villages of the countryside, and it made interviewing in town difficult, if not impossible. On a visit to Shatra in 1970, I saw several ladies selling carpets in the souk, or marketplace. One carpet, especially interesting and unusual, featured rather large, Picasso-esque birds and animals set among the more traditional geometric forms. I was touring the market with the chief guard of the antiquities department in the region and the mayor of the town, both extremely pleasant fellows and very solicitous of my welfare, and we were followed by about 150 people. The officials took my interest in the woman weaver and her product as a desire to purchase the carpet. Before I could inform them otherwise, they asked the seller how much she wanted for the carpet, and when she named a figure, the crowd began to berate her for asking too much, overcharging a visitor, and so on. The poor woman dissolved in tears under this barrage, plucked her carpet from the ground, and ran in terror from the marketplace. Winning People’s Respect and C o o p e r at i o n b y B e i n g H e l p f u l a n d M a k i n g Yo u r s e l f U s e f u l

When women were involved in a particular task, it was sometimes difficult to persuade the men to let me watch and often impossible to persuade them to let me take photographs. The religion here is strictly aniconic—that is, without icons—and ideals of women’s honor hold them to a higher standard than men and prevent them from engaging in any behavior even remotely questionable. Two things helped hold the number of women’s refusals to cooperate to a minimum. I always offered to buy the object being made, for in those days money was in short supply in the villages. In addition, I always traveled with a first aid kit and was usually able to offer some medical assistance that helped establish my credentials as a person interested in other human beings.13 In almost all cases, I was eventually able to observe a process in which either men or women were involved. Requests to photograph these sessions were almost always granted where men were at work but in less than half of the cases where women were involved. As a compromise, a man would sometimes offer to repeat for the camera what his wife had illustrated. He would usually do this just outside a window or door from which his wife could give him instructions E th n oa r c h a eo lo gy at a l- H i b a

12. Some of these same problems surfaced at Brooklyn College when it was decided that in multicultural courses people “of a culture” could do a better job of teaching that culture. Indeed, being of the same ethnic or “culture” background seemed sometimes to be the sole criterion for choosing teachers. For the kind of thinking that led to this decision, see the papers collected by Judith Roof and R. Wiegman (1995), especially pages 1–70. Although one often winced for the students, it was incredibly amusing to hear someone from an “upper-” or “middle-” class urban environment, for instance, with no experience, interest, or serious study of farmers or farming, authoritatively interpret the life, ideas, and aspirations of the “peasant.” 13. There is a certain danger in this, of course, for it is always possible that you will be blamed for the death of someone you have treated and the goodwill you have engendered will go up in smoke. Fortunately, that never happened to me. Particularly poignant is the memory of the parents of a young boy who died when his skull was crushed in a fall. Every year they would bring me vegetables from their small garden as a thank you for “having cared enough to try and help.” Failures were held to a minimum by ordinary antibiotics. No one in these villages had been exposed to them before and, as a result, when they were used against infections the results were speedy and seemed almost miraculous. Individuals were, of course, thankful for individual cures, but entire villages came to rely on my supply of antibiotic powders to prevent infection in boys of eleven to sixteen, who were circumcised in the village square in a kind of public passage from the tears of childhood to the unflinching bravery of manhood.

265

14. In the early days, it was not easy to convince a villager to take a family member to the hospital in Shatra. They believed that people who went to the hospital died, and they often delayed so long in taking a sick relative that their convictions became a kind of selffulfilling prophecy. 15. They had seen a picture of my house, which has a creek behind it, and came to the conclusion that New York must be much like the area they lived in, with marshes and canals connecting everything and affording the principal routes of communication. 16. They knew about both because much of the curiosity they exhibited about me as a person centered on my family.

266

without exposing herself to the camera. It was interesting and sometimes hilariously funny to note how little a husband or son might know about something he watched his wife or mother do every day. He would often persist in erroneous procedures until the onlookers rolled on the ground with laughter. It was not easy for a person accustomed to performing a certain process or using a particular object to improvise a manufacturing procedure or to make a substitution, such as replacing dung patties with wood in the baking process. Manufacturing sessions were never private and the spectators quite voluble, as you saw above. A real innovation required substantial explanation from the maker or user before the omnipresent crowd accepted it. Added research controls were the many examples of comparative material gathered from several settlements (which were often socially at odds with, and thus isolated from, each other for one reason or another), as well as the visual evidence of what did and did not exist in the actual inventories of village homes. What little fakery or embellishment was attempted, such as adorning a utilitarian mugwar (a club made from a ball of bitumen attached to a reed stick) with brass thumbtacks, was never very successful. I believe there were several reasons why the local people were open with me. First was the quality of the al-Hiba excavation team’s relations with its workforce, all of whom came from surrounding villages. Our policies of hiring were based on village custom, and, from time to time, we provided jobs for members of destitute families who otherwise would be dependent on village alms for survival. Sometimes these individuals were not as capable as other workmen available, but our action was supported by the gratitude of the entire village. We looked after the minor injuries of the surrounding populace with iodine, bandages, aspirin, and antibiotics and sent serious cases to the doctors in Shatra at our own expense.14 Second, we tried very hard to respect the traditions and customs of the area and to live our own lives there accordingly. The local people came to know me socially as the only outsider who frequently visited their villages, and they accepted me as a person who was as interested as they were in the problems they encountered in converting the resources of the area into a living for their families. Finally, my enthusiasm for the enthoarchaeological project and my joy in discovering the smallest details of their crafts was real and that was apparent to them and, in a sense, flattering. They seemed to take pleasure in teaching me what they could—not, as I was to discover later, because they were concerned with my scholarly research, but because they knew I had been born and raised on a farm and assumed I was applying what I learned to improve my life and that of my family in rural America. My interest in refurbishing boats, they concluded, was in order that I might better repair my own boat that carried me by canal from my home to Brooklyn College.15 My curiosity about the details of spinning and weaving, they thought, was motivated by my desire to teach my mother and sister this necessary craft.16 Some Research Findings

Using a few examples from al-Hiba, I discuss below some implications of the research, specifically the ways that ethnoarchaeological evidence enriches conventional ideas of the relation between behavior and material remains, of the problems E d wa r d O c h s e n s c h l a g e r

it raises for the interpretation of materials in the archaeological record, and of both the process and nature of change. Brief examples underline the importance of identifying culturally significant criteria for artifact classifications and the complexity of determining gender roles from archaeological artifacts. Other examples help illustrate, in a simplified manner, the complex process of change and the difficulty for archaeologists in determining the cultural significance of change. The discussion includes an account of how ethnoarchaeology can help restore our knowledge of ancient manufacturing processes and help us assign a proper value to artifacts as a function of the craftsmen’s time and skill. This is followed by a brief treatment of the skill required for artifact use and a word or two concerning the social value and moral power of the crafts, two subjects that leave no trace in the archaeological strata. A query about how to classify broken artifacts found in cultural contexts where they have other functions as well as forms is followed by a cautionary illustration of the difficulty in using garbage pits to define the diets of the people who dug them. The last section deals briefly with the problems future archaeologists might encounter in determining political organization, social structure, and village plans for the period 1968 to 1990 in the villages surrounding al-Hiba. Some of this material may prove more useful in interpreting evidence at other ancient sites than at al-Hiba, and analysis of the interrelationships of structural variables in change and persistence can help unlock the meaning of phenomena in the archaeological record that have no direct analogical parallels in our experience or our understanding. Other parallels offer interpretive options that may otherwise be overlooked and unrecognized. Some ethnoarchaeological studies of practices without, or with no discernible, archaeological parallels demonstrate that the social role of material phenomena in the structure of everyday life in antiquity was far richer than many archaeological interpretations allow. All in all, my findings show the perils of blindly accepting traditional theories and methods of interpretation. Identifying Culturally Important Criteria

Archaeologists can be misled by the nature of artifacts and their archaeological context, or they can rely too much on the previous ideas of other archaeologists when interpreting their findings. Ethnoarchaeology can help avoid such errors. It can also help archaeologists to classify objects in new and better ways by distinguishing meaningful cultural criteria from those that are less revealing. For instance, the elaborate classifications of spindle whorls in many archaeological publications would be totally worthless if applied to objects from the villages around al-Hiba. The villagers arbitrarily use whatever is handy for a whorl, including a broken stick, a daub of mud, or an ancient toy chariot wheel found on the surface. What is important is not the shape or material of the spindle whorl, but where the spindle itself is notched. The position of the notch indicates which sex uses it, the type of spin put on the thread, and, if the thread or yarn is being spun for an immediate project, the function of the woven threads or yarn. Men use spindles notched on the short end in the drop-and-spin method to create a “Z” spin for making slings, gun belts, cord for binding, tethering, carrying, and so forth. Women use spindles notched on the long end by rubbing the spindle on the thigh to create an “S” spin in thread for sewing clothes and in E th n oa r c h a eo lo gy at a l- H i b a

267

17. Dr. Murray L. Eiland Jr., in a letter of September 30, 1994, says, “Throughout virtually the entire Near East, rugs are woven of Z-spun yarns, but in some areas—mostly those inhabited by Arabs or Arab related peoples—both Z and S-spun yarns are found. The rug enthusiasts have never come up with a satisfactory explanation for this. . . . Your account of the differences between the yarns produced by men and women is right to the point.” Clearly, the information from al-Hiba did not define practices in other parts of the Near East and North Africa, but it did suggest a possible theory for investigation. Ethnographic data can sometimes make possible a much broader understanding of practice than in the small village where it is originally observed. 18. Compare Thesiger (1964:58). He claims that women were not allowed to milk buffalo, but this may have applied only to the village Bu Mughaifat, or it may have reflected an earlier attitude toward women’s work than the one we discovered in 1968–1969.

268

yarn for embroidering blankets or weaving into such things as bags and pillows. Both women and men contribute to the household supply of yarn, which is used in carpet making if there is a weaver in their family and sold if there is not. Occasionally, spindles are notched at both ends and can be used by either sex. Study of these modern spindles and their products raises the important question of the difficulty of identifying gender roles in antiquity and stresses the necessity of reexamining basic assumptions. What evidence could a future archaeologist use to identify and separate gender roles in the spinning of thread and yarn in these villages? The spindle sticks, made of perishable material, would not survive. Even if they did, they would tell the archaeologist little unless she or he understood the significance of their notchings and the different ways in which they were used. And if all that information somehow survived intact, along with the material woven from the spun thread and yarn, knowledge of gender roles in spinning would explain neither gender roles in weaving nor the relationship between the two activities. Although yarn is usually spun for foreseeable family projects and used immediately for those purposes, many skeins woven by both men and women are put aside for sale because spun wool brings a higher price than a sheep’s fleece. Once all the season’s wool is spun, skeins are chosen from the storeroom for further projects without regard to who spun them, and they can be sold to both male (town and nomadic) and female (village) weavers. Thus, men’s weaving sometimes uses female-spun yarn, and some women’s weaving uses male-spun yarn. Some major projects, like carpets woven by women, usually have a proportion of male-spun thread, while others, like blankets woven by men, use some femalespun thread. Clearly, one cannot identify the gender of the weaver on the basis of the “Z” or “S” spin of the yarn used.17 Gender Roles

In other activities, such as all aspects of the care and milking of water buffalo, the particular job is assigned to only one gender or person in some households but is interchangeable in others. Imagine the errors in interpretation and the resulting confusion in an analysis of gender roles based on archaeological data that survived from only one or two households!18 Even when a gender role seems well established, it can change temporarily in individual households because of sickness, emergency, temporary absence, or crisis. As the expedition members learned in 1990, gender roles can change radically and permanently after the death of one partner in a marriage, during a war that saps the energy of the entire community. Many widowed women with children continued to live with their husbands’ families after the Iran-Iraq war. The resulting imbalance of available labor not only caused women to take over most roles that had been previously of ambiguous gender designation—such as the feeding of animals and the milking of water buffalo—but also to take on such duties as clearing the fishnets of trapped fish, which had previously been an unquestionably masculine role. Process and Nature of Change: Dramatic Change of Little Cultural Impact

Ethnoarchaeological evidence is especially important to bear in mind when interpreting the past in archaeological contexts that provide only a record of E d wa r d O c h s e n s c h l a g e r

change and not an understanding of the significance of such change, the reasons the change occurred, and the magnitude of its effects.19 In addition to enriching the understanding of change, examples from ethnoarchaeology can illustrate some problems in interpreting archaeological evidence. The potential for increased material advantage is a great impetus for change. For instance, in the villages around al-Hiba in 1968, local potters, all women, tried to hold market share against the wheel-thrown jars made by professional male potters in nearby towns. One maker of baked pottery added a new ingredient to her pottery in addition to the traditional temper (nonplastic additives mixed with clay to counteract shrinkage and facilitate uniform drying in the kiln). She claimed, to prospective buyers, that the new kind of temper made her pottery significantly better. Because she successfully attracted buyers, other village potters began adding something new and distinctive to their own tempers in a deliberate attempt to influence the market in favor of their products. They also began to make their wares with great variation in form and decoration. Although each variation was in one sense an expression of the potter’s individuality, it was also a deliberate attempt by the potter to make her jars attractive enough to hold market share against the encroachment of the wheel-thrown examples. None of these changes succeeded, and the local potters continued to lose ground against the town-made ware. Would a future archaeologist studying this modern pottery comprehend the reason for the first introduction of a new temper, much less the interpretation of the subsequent changes in village pottery and the appearance of town-made ware? If the producer can convince the buyer that the product is significantly better or more desirable, whether true or not, an old tradition may change or disappear entirely. Although such a change would be immediately obvious in the archaeological record, its effect on ancient peoples’ daily lives would have been as minimal as it was in the modern villages near al-Hiba. Clearly, change in pottery need not always imply massive change in a society. Town-made, wheel-thrown water jars, each of which looked exactly like the other, won out. There was no real effect on the general population, but an extreme effect on the village potters who lost both income and status. Important Changes that Leave Little Evidence in the Archaeological Record

Some changes, then, such as those in pottery, can be readily apparent in the archaeological record but not signify great cultural change. On the other hand, a change scarcely apparent in the archaeological record may have a great impact on a culture. Carpet Weaving and Meaning of Design

The explosion of imagination in unique forms and designs at al-Hiba not only illustrates the fact that change in form and design need not imply massive change in a society; it also raises questions about the exotic meaning and significance people all too often read in decoration. The same is true of the significance of the multitude of colorful basic patterns, with geometric forms predominating (see Figure 11.3), used in the weaving of E th n oa r c h a eo lo gy at a l- H i b a

19. Other criteria or factors played minor roles in most of the changes discussed below, but as they largely balanced each other out and had little impact on the final decisions, their exclusion will make the basic process clearer.

269

carpets and the embroidery of blankets at al-Hiba. A study I conducted in 1972–1973 shows that all weavers agree that these designs are mostly abstract adaptations from environmental subjects, but they interpreted the designs and design combinations only after persistent questioning, and weavers from adjoining villages offered different interpretations. Indeed, the same design was often assigned an entirely different significance by the same village weaver when she was questioned on two successive days. It is all too easy to overstress the meaning of the designs as well as the relationships of elements of carpet design to village culture. On the other hand, there are enough recurrent similarities in the carpet weavers’ expla-

life to almost any fantasy without criticism if he or she attributes it to the subconsciousness of the subjects of a culture.21 Water Buffalo and the Disappearance of the Mi’dan

From 1968 through the 1970s and early 1980s, the Mi’dan kept water buffalo and the Beni Hasan kept cattle. Unprompted, the Beni Hasan would say over and over that water buffalo were dirty and that the Mi’dan were disgusting for keeping them. No Beni Hasan would ever eat water buffalo meat or have anything to do with the animals or their owners. After the Iran-Iraq war, the Mi’dan were gone, but one could see as many water buffalo as before in

Two carpets with popular designs. The carpet in the foreground is a raised pile carpet; in the background, a flat woven example. (Photograph by Edward Ochsenschlager)

Figure 11.4. Beni Hasan drying their nets before setting them anew in the marshes. (Photograph by Edward Ochsenschlager)

Figure 11.3.

20. Erbek (1988, “Motifs” unnumbered pages at the beginning of the catalog); Hawley (1970:58–73); Landreau and Pickering (1969:9–11); and Schurmann (1962:20–23) deal with design in a very conservative manner. A more recent work (Valcarenghi 1994) argues that the symbols in kilims are derived from neolithic depictions of, for example, mother goddesses and doubleheaded axes.

270

nations to indicate that a more standard and focused identification of the meaning of design elements existed at al-Hiba in the past, although the motifs were not necessarily given the same meaning as similar rug motifs reported from elsewhere.20 In any case, to assume that a motif similar to an earlier or later documented counterpart has the same significance is probably a mistake. Meaning can change markedly in a short time, sometimes from the simple to the complex as most analysts of phenomena in the ancient world have thought, but at other times, as here at al-Hiba, from the complex (such as carpets in which every design had a meaning augmented by the meaning of every other design) to the simple (“We use these patterns because they are nice to look at,” as one weaver told me). It is also essential to try to trace the evolution of a design’s significance in the context of a given culture and its contacts and not to pick similar material helter-skelter from remote times and places when documenting the meaning of a particular decorative phenomenon—that is, if a researcher is interested in conscious aspects of culture. At the same time, a writer can give E d wa r d O c h s e n s c h l a g e r

the marshes. Surprisingly enough, the Beni Hasan now owned these animals. Those who had previously been most vocal in their condemnation recounted with extreme embarrassment the reason for this remarkable change in attitude. Because the Mi’dan had moved away, the Beni Hasan found themselves in de facto control of acres of sedge and reed, which only herds of water buffalo could productively harvest. The material benefits of filling this ecological niche proved stronger than generations of prejudice against the beast. Catching More Fish without Losing One’s Manliness

A similar difficult-to-detect change had taken place about fifteen years previously. The Mid’an, who were spear fishermen, despised the Beni Hasan for using fishnets (see Figure 11.4). When the Beni Hasan began to catch more fish than the Mi’dan, the Mi’dan started fishing with nets as well. They would drive fish into or trap them in their nets and then harvest them with their spears, thus, they believed, escaping the stigma of unmanliness they had previously attributed to net fishing. E th n oa r c h a eo lo gy at a l- H i b a

21. Labels for paintings in some art museums “identify” the meaning of gestures or expressions previously thought to be enigmatic. The meanings reveal the deepest, though usually undocumented, thoughts or feelings of the artist and his or her subjects. Even more amazing, regardless of the work’s date, it turns out to be politically and socially at home in the mainstream of the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries.

271

Changes like these would have left almost no distinguishing marks in the archaeological record. The Mi’dan held their perishable nets in place with equally perishable reed stakes. The fish spear is the only thing that would survive, and it remained unchanged. Water buffalo continued to exist in the area in about the same numbers. The Mi’dan seldom sold any of their buffalo as they considered the manure, from which they made dung patties (their main source of heat) and which they used as a sort of plaster for such things as repairing leaks and curing headaches, the most important product of the animal. The one noticeable change was that manure was less important to the Beni Hasan in the late 1980s and they sold more bull calves for meat, thus allowing more heifers and cows, which produced milk and cheese, to survive on the same resources. The calves were sold in the market towns. New owners of buffalo seldom ate them because of surviving prejudice and when the meat was sold in nearby towns it was usually labeled as beef. One would be hard pressed to find evidence for this change in artifacts that might survive in the immediate area of any of the villages. The effect of the water buffalo on the Beni Hasan, however, was widespread in terms of increased material benefits; it was also somewhat traumatic and required a radical attitude adjustment. Generations of scholars and explorers have considered the water buffalo in the marshes of southern Iraq as a kind of tribal marker signifying the presence of the Mid’an or Marsh Arabs.22 In a sudden change, the ownership and husbandry of these animals passed to a tribe that formerly despised them. This example serves to warn archaeologists against too easy acceptance of, and overreliance on, so-called cultural or tribal markers in their work. The Role of Moral Tradition

22. See Maxwell (1957:60–65); Thesiger (1964:61–62, 83, 161–162); and Young and Wheeler (1976:504, 1977a:37). Fernea (1969:67) tells us that the situation was different farther to the north. Several tribesmen in El Nahra owned water buffalo even though this caused them a serious loss of prestige. 23. Much the same code of honor and sexual behavior is found throughout the Mediterranean. It was brought to Spain by the Arab conquest and to Latin America by the Spanish.

272

Although material advantage should logically outweigh all other considerations in communities as poor as were these villages around al-Hiba in the early 1970s, material advantage was no match for village morality once the concept of “family honor” was introduced into the equation. The family is thought to have a collective honor. The ideology of honor comprises responsibility, especially in obedience to religious laws, a very strong work ethic, charity, chastity, and modesty. Every member of the family is responsible for the acts of every other member, and the dishonorable conduct of one member reflects upon the honor of all. Both men and women ideally live by such standards of conduct as generosity, sincerity, honesty, loyalty to friends, and vow-keeping. Parents, of course, are responsible for the nurture and education of their children so they will grow up to be good Muslims. In addition, men are expected to provide financial support, the stronger the better, and to protect the family against outside harm. Women must preserve their reputation for sexual morality through social sense, self-control, and modesty. If men fail in their obligations, their women lose honor. If women fail, men lose honor. All members are responsible for the honor of the entire family or household.23 In 1972, plastic toy figures of animals in vibrant colors replaced children’s handmade toys of mud, while colorful dining mats made of oilcloth replaced dining mats woven from reed and sedge. Initially, people claimed that the vibrant colors, attractive patterns, and durability of the new objects E d wa r d O c h s e n s c h l a g e r

attracted them; before long, almost everyone in the villages was using them. The villagers began to punish children for making their own toys from mud, and the one woman who persisted in weaving food mats had her loom broken apart and burned by her husband. To persist in using these traditional forms after the wide acceptance of the new became a sign of poverty: so popular had the new forms become that the overwhelming majority of villagers could find no reason to continue using the old forms short of lack of money. Indeed, the woman whose loom was destroyed could defend her traditional mats only by claiming that they were cheaper and that she enjoyed making them. Cheapness came to be considered the sole or most important criterion for continuing to use the old forms, and it affected the fathers’ “honor,” which depended in large part on their ability to provide adequately for their families. When the honor of one member of a household reflects on all the others, continued use of these old forms brings dishonor to an entire family. Without some knowledge of the role of honor and its requirement that men provide strong financial support to their families in these villages, what reasons would archaeologists give for the sudden and complete disappearance of mud toys and reed mats? Bold colors and increased durability seem the most reasonable, and, in part, logical answers; the villagers found these attributes attractive at first. But logic alone does not begin to explain why old forms disappeared completely and with such speed; the compelling power of color and durability must not be overestimated. In particular, children were a real problem. When they had only the few animal forms sold in the souk to play with, they sometimes had to be forcibly stopped from making additional toys of mud. They missed the freedom of playing any game they wished, with the forms of their toys limited only by their imaginations. Attractive colors and durability may have given the impetus for change, but honor was the policeman that brought about and enforced complete change in so short a time.

Figure 11.5. Young boy playing with toys made by his father. Most children made their own toys, but occasionally a father would make them for a very young child. (Photograph by Edward Ochsenschlager)

Burial Goods

Where material advantage is concerned, other behavior associated with persistence or change can be even more complex than that connected with the introduction of plastic toys and oilcloth mats. In the early 1970s, some Mi’dan E th n oa r c h a eo lo gy at a l- H i b a

273

families removed and retained the jewelry worn in life, and mud replicas of that jewelry were made for the corpse to wear in the grave. The oldest woman in the family was responsible for making each piece of mud jewelry as exactly like the original as she was able and for substituting it for the original jewelry. On one hand, this made economic sense because a woman’s jewelry was often a family’s total financial resource. On the other hand, other people in the area thought it very peculiar. I know of no other people in the Muslim world who decorate the corpse in this manner. It was made very clear to me by those who adorned the dead with mud jewelry that it was merely a replacement, just as the corpse replaced the living form, and had no religious or fertility or sexual significance of any kind.

requirements, possibilities, and limitations of the raw materials allows the restoration of specific details of the manufacturing process and the inference of others. For instance, comparing modern production to the ancient remains of burned roofing and reed mats and baskets shows that both old and new were usually made in the same fashion. The nature of reed has not changed, and the requirements for its use must have been the same in antiquity as they are today. Split reeds must be soaked to make wrapped coil baskets, or the reeds will break and fray. Although no evidence of soaking survives, the existence of impressions of ancient wrapped baskets implies a soaking process. Even in the building of a mudhif (a large dwelling or guest house made of reed mats over arches of reed bundles), for which only pictorial evidence remains from antiquity, mateFramework for a mudhif made of bundled reeds. More ribs will be added to the arch bundles and the structure will be covered by reed mats. In the background is an older, finished mudhif. (Photograph by Edward Ochsenschlager)

Figure 11.7.

Restoring Knowledge of Ancient Manufacturing Processes

Ethnoarchaeology can also be useful in helping to restore details of manufacturing processes of artifacts. The ancient sun-dried mud containers, like their modern counterparts, were usually carelessly smoothed, leaving significant details of their segmental construction, often preserving some impression of their makers’ fingers and, occasionally, the impression of the reed mats on which they were sometimes formed. In addition, accidental firings have preserved evidence of the nature of the ancient tempers, which are much the same as those used today (partially digested reeds, sedges, and grasses in manure; crumbled dried reeds and sedges; and reed pappus (the hairlike appendages A woman in the courtyard of her home making mud pottery that will be dried in the sun. She is working on a deep dish that will be used for many purposes. On either side are heating and cooking vessels, one with and one without feet. (Photograph by Edward Ochsenschlager)

Figure 11.6.

rial limitations and requirements of structural integrity suggest that the ancient structure was built very much like the modern one. In order to stand for more than a few days, for example, a mudhif must have a core of old reeds at the center of each arch bundle, or the arches will collapse under the weight of the mats. Artifact Value as a Function of Time and Technique

that give the reed seed its mobility). Because both the raw materials used and the method of manufacturing are the same in modern times, it is possible to reconstruct each step in the ancient manufacturing process from collection of materials to final product. Indeed, modern evidence makes it possible to restore details of manufacturing processes that have left no archaeological traces. Knowledge of the working 274

E d wa r d O c h s e n s c h l a g e r

In modern times, the value of a product is usually based on the cost of the raw materials, the cost of manufacturing, distribution costs, and a reasonable profit. Our studies of the properties and functions of individual raw materials—as well as detailed analyses of how craftsmen turn these raw materials into the same or similar useful objects as those used in antiquity—provide us with data for a similar formula. When material value equals the time and skill involved in collecting and modifying raw materials and in the manufacturing process, it is possible to roughly determine the artifact’s value to the people who made and used it. Artifacts missing in the archaeological context can often be inferred from what is present (e.g., spindle from whorl, sling from shot, net from sinkers). In some cases, both the nature and the composition of missing artifacts can be E th n oa r c h a eo lo gy at a l- H i b a

275

recaptured. For example, if so-called ancient fishnet sinkers are really sinkers, then fishnets of the Early Dynastic period were made of animal fiber and not of grasses: the terracotta sinkers would have been too light to hold grass nets underwater. Ethnoarchaeological studies can in some cases evaluate the time and skill required for the manufacture of an artifact, even in an industry that has left only indirect evidence of its existence. Only spindle whorls, impressions of two- and three-ply animal fiber cord, and impressions of two-ply cloth in mud jar sealings survive at al-Hiba. Information about the harvest and preparation of the fiber, as well as the looms and tools necessary for weaving, are unavailable. It is nevertheless possible to restore significant technological portions of the industry by supplementing archaeological evidence with visual ethnographic knowledge. Skill Required for Effective Artifact Use

An important and often-forgotten aspect of behavior when it comes to archaeological analyses is the skill involved in the actual use of artifacts. Few people appreciate the amount of coordination and training necessary to catch a bird or fish in a throw net or to hit a moving target forcefully and accurately with a mud ball shot. Ethnographic evidence recorded in photographs shows that not everyone can be trained to be expert. Those who excel are blessed with natural coordination; they usually practice long hours and rightfully attain a status in their community akin to Western athletic heroes. In 1972, the two villages just east of the mound, one Mi’dan and one Beni Hasan, each had a young man of exceptional ability with the sling (Bohan from Said Tahir, and Salah from Hagi Rachid). Although the boys were only fourteen and sixteen, they drank tea and coffee with the village elders in public. The elders accepted the boys as men, allowing them to speak in a sequence and manner that were the envy of other boys. Tabulating which of the two boys put the most food on the table on a particular day sparked a village rivalry. The winner was praised and congratulated, the loser urged on to greater efforts, and each day’s events analyzed again A young man making a sling from yarn spun from the wool of village sheep. Boys from the villages vied with one another to see who could kill the most birds or small animals for their families’ larders with shot made from balls of dried mud. In the early 1970s, when this photograph was taken, successful sons could keep their families from going hungry. (Photograph by Edward Ochsenschlager)

and again by the men over coffee. Both boys spent most of the day hunting for game or seeking to perfect their ability by experimenting with different lengths of string, width of pad, or material of construction for their slings, as well as with different weights and shapes for their mud shot. Other boys in the two villages strove daily to emulate their successful and popular brothers. Social Value of Crafts

The social value of crafts will probably always remain undetectable in the archaeological record, yet because social value affects the status of crafts and village morality in modern times, it is important to recognize that it may have had a similar impact in antiquity. Craftspeople play an astounding role in modern communities like the villages around al-Hiba. They provide a sense of security not only for themselves, but also for the village, through traditions passed from generation to generation. The songs they sing, both by rhythms and by words, reinforce the work ethic that is the village norm. In weaving, for instance, the rhythm of the song is punctuated by the passing of the shuttle. A weaving shelter with work in progress. A favorite place for village women to gather for discussion of village affairs and for gossip. (Photograph by Edward Ochsenschlager)

Figure 11.9.

Figure 11.8.

The content of the song varies from things like “Your efforts (work) are your means of dealing with good people the rest of your life” and “Oh beautiful woman! Your hard work makes your name a song on my lips” to “Don’t accept a lazy bastard even if he fasted and prayed all night/Lazy snakes cannot become good by praying” and “A man whose lazy father is garlic and lazy mother an onion will never be industrious and smell of incense.” Moral Value of Crafts

The giving and withholding of favors (i.e., a small bit of bitumen from the boat maker, a bit of dye from the weaver) are used as public occasions for verbally rewarding appropriate moral behavior and condemning behavior that is not 276

E d wa r d O c h s e n s c h l a g e r

E th n oa r c h a eo lo gy at a l- H i b a

277

up to village standards. For instance, itinerant boat repairmen arrive once a year to repair boats’ wooden frames, strip them of bitumen, and heat up the old bitumen with sufficient new to apply fresh coatings. For the village, it is an undeclared holiday. Both men and women gather around the craftsmen to ask for small quantities of bitumen for repairing holes, coating their mafkhara (mud-grinding discs for making flour), making new maces, molding the bottom of water jars for easier carrying, hafting tools, or waterproofing a small section of floor for the constantly sweating water and salt jars. The repairmen refer requests for bitumen to the owner of the boat on which they are working. If a petitioner has behaved badly during the preceding year, the owner will ask why he should give the petitioner anything. Neighbors join the discussion from the sidelines, sometimes defending the person, sometimes furnishing additional examples of his or her wrongdoing. After the issue has been Figure 11.10. Covering boats with bitumen. In the foreground, the prow of one boat and the stern of another are ready to be covered with new coats of bitumen. Behind the boats is a workman heating bitumen for the project with a woman standing nearby asking for a bit of bitumen to repair her water jar. (Photograph by Edward Ochsenschlager)

Analyses Based on Garbage Pits

thoroughly aired, the owner will say, “But far be it for me to act toward you the way you act toward others,” and give the bitumen requested. The virtuous petitioner will be given the bitumen instantly and rewarded with a recital of his or her virtues from the boat owner and the surrounding crowd. Because the petitioners’ relatives and neighbors, amongst whom they will live for the rest of their lives, compose the onlookers, these “plain truths” understandably have an enormous effect on an individual’s behavior.24 Function and Form in Broken Artifacts 24. A similar moral control is exercised by weavers (Ochsenschlager 1993b: 50–51 and 2004: 242–245).

278

context. Sometimes these artifacts are missing one or a very few pieces; at other times, only a sherd remains. In the modern villages around al-Hiba, for instance, jars missing most of their necks are still used for their original purposes. The villagers recycle seriously cracked pots, once used for liquids, as containers for dry materials and reuse broken sherds for feeding and watering poultry or for organizing small quantities of goods in the household. In one small courtyard, I observed a woman using seven broken pieces from her former water jar to feed and water chickens. Indeed, all broken artifacts have a surprising range of utility and are usually not thought of as broken pieces of a prior form. They take on a new name along with their new function or functions. If the past was anything like the present, excavation of a broken piece or several broken pieces of a pot does not necessarily indicate that the context has been disturbed, and trying to define the function and form of broken artifacts in undisturbed living contexts becomes a major consideration of the archaeologist.

Ethnoarchaeology is extremely helpful when interpreting the context of material remains at an ancient site. Archaeologists frequently find broken artifacts or pieces of artifacts in what appear to be undisturbed contexts. Occasionally, the broken pieces are themselves taken to reflect a disturbed E d wa r d O c h s e n s c h l a g e r

At the villages near al-Hiba, modern garbage pits are associated with each family’s housing complex. A single pit, serving an entire family, lies from ten to twenty-five meters outside the courtyard of a domestic structure. The pits are rather shallow holes about one meter deep and from two to three meters in diameter and are used for household refuse. When nearly full, they are covered over, and a new pit is dug close by. Study of two of these pits shows, surprisingly, that by the time a pit is buried, it contains less than 10 percent of the bone fragments that humans originally deposited in it. About 20 percent of the surviving fragments lie within a radius of twenty meters, but the remaining 70 percent have either disappeared or have been scattered about the village and its surroundings. Family dogs carry the bones to shady places for leisurely gnawing, and dogs from other households make successful forays and raids for them. Furthermore, some bones in and around a pit represent the results of dogs’ scavenging and hunting (rat and a kind of fox, for instance) or the disposal of small animals that have died of natural causes (cat and birds) and were never part of the human diet. Clearly, we must take into account the possibility of similar bone disbursement by animals in the study of ancient refuse pits. Political Organizations and Village Plans

Several aspects of social and political organization might be difficult for future archaeologists to determine were they to examine the remains of the villages near al-Hiba. Two villages of one tribe or, for that matter, of two different tribes can exist right next to each other with no more space between the villages than between houses or compounds within the villages. The space separating them can widen, but it can also move into the territory of one village or the other as population fluctuates and one village grows smaller while the other is enlarged. Abandonment of several houses in a village can leave a family seemingly isolated in no-man’s-land but structurally still a part of the village to which it was joined in the past. Boundaries between adjacent villages of E th n oa r c h a eo lo gy at a l- H i b a

279

the same tribe are impossible to define, and it is more and more difficult even to distinguish villages of different tribes when they are situated close together because the buildings are similar. Changes over time in village architecture—which are often seen as indications of changing tribal, social, and economic status at ancient sites—would be difficult for future scholars of al-Hiba to evaluate on the basis of the archaeological evidence alone. Fifteen years after most of the local sheikhs had fled, the most obvious sign of their power, the huge mudhifs in which they gave judgment and received their followers, still stood. The mudhifs were repaired and maintained by the sheikhs’ former followers as meeting places where they could talk over events and sip coffee or tea. From a kind of audience hall and seat of judgment, the mudhif changed to a democratic meeting place. Then too, styles of architecture that had allowed easy differentiation between Mi’dan and Beni Hasan households in 1968 became more and more alike until identifying a household as Mi’dan or Beni Hasan was often difficult without evidence of the animals they kept. Construction Materials as a Measure of Wealth and Status

In 1968, the cheapest constructions were of reed, the middle ranges were mud brick and mud, and the most expensive were brick or cement block. In 1990, with the drying up of the marshes, the cheapest construction material was cement block, and the most expensive was reed. Only the truly rich could now afford a mudhif, and new examples were built only in towns, usually incorporated into the design of their owners’ gardens as a sign of affluence. All these changes are extremely important and significant, but they would be puzzling to an archaeologist who excavated only a limited area dating, for example, to 1990 because major changes occurred so quickly and because the stratigraphy is largely parallel rather than horizontal. Archaeologists might describe the remains in terms of class structure, power hierarchy, and so on, with the more durable material of the nearby cement block headquarters of the al-Hiba excavations indicating the political center of the area. If, by some chance, the same archaeologists fully understood the value of building materials and cost of construction for the 1990s, they might be tempted to contrast the remarkably affluent villagers’ elegant reed and mud houses with the neighboring headquarters of the obviously impoverished al-Hiba excavations.

what we see when we see a thing, as long as we have clarity of vision, depends on what the thing we see is. But what we see the thing as depends on what we know about what we are seeing. Ethnoarchaeology cautions us, through comparisons with the riches of a living society, that antiquity was not as simple as uncritical adherence to our meager evidence might seem to indicate. It helps us understand that people of other cultures, past or present, were real people rather than the “primitive,” “fate-compelled,” “tradition-bound” beings of some museum diorama or archaeological fiction. It also provides enough examples of the unexpected to make us very careful in the conclusions we draw on the basis of material evidence. On the other hand, ethnoarchaeology creates problems in the interpretation of archaeological evidence. It sometimes seems to raise more questions than it answers, but that is not necessarily a fault. We cannot deal with questions we do not know exist. Problems have always been opportunities in disguise. The discussion above touches on some uses of the ethnoarchaeological evidence from al-Hiba. For a complete accounting of the project, see Edward Ochsenschlager’s Iraq’s Marsh Arabs in the Garden of Eden (2004).

Learning To See Details

Proje cts

Hold the object to be studied in one hand and look at it closely. Without taking your eyes from the object, draw it as accurately as you can with the other hand. Your drawing is likely to be terrible, but you will see more clearly the detail of your selected object. Testing the Reliability of What People Say They Do Ask a relative who bakes regularly to describe to you how he makes his favorite cake. Take careful note of what he says. Later watch him make it. Did he actually do what he said he did or was there some variation? Was making the cake more difficult or easier than he had previously told you? What do you think is more reliable, what people say or what people do? Understanding Change Ask someone who is retired to tell you about how things used to be as a carpenter, housewife, mechanic, lawyer, or whatever he or she did for a

Conclusion

living. Compare his or her account with that of someone pursuing the same

I have tried to stress the importance of the visual in recording and understanding ethnographic detail for archaeological use. Precision and clarity of vision are absolutely necessary to help us provide an accurate record, both in notes and pictorial evidence, of the details of the preparation of raw materials, manufacture of artifacts, and their use. Ethnoarchaeology can help the archaeologist to solve problems, to look at old material in new and different ways, and to discover new possibilities and methods of interpretation. It helps us directly interpret some ancient evidence and provides us with pieces of information that we can put together, like a jigsaw puzzle, to better understand both artifacts and their contexts. After all, 280

E d wa r d O c h s e n s c h l a g e r

career today. Try to evaluate the significance of the changes you discover to individuals pursuing the same careers today as well as to those pursuing very different interests. How does the very process of change in our society bring about additional change?

E th n oa r c h a eo lo gy at a l- H i b a

281

Bibliography Abramov, Israel, Ann Farkas, and Edward Ochsenschlager. 2006. A Study in Classification: Style and Visual Perception. Visual Anthropology 19: 255–274. Biggs, Robert D. 1973. Pre-Sargonic Riddles from Lagash. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 32(1&2): 26–33. Conover, Ted. 1997. The Film Makers and the Abuser. New York Times Magazine, March 30: 30–35, 52. Crawford, Vaughn. 1974. Lagash. Iraq 36: 29–35. Deetz, James. 1971. Man’s Imprint from the Past: Readings in the Methods of Archaeology. Boston: Little Brown. Erbek, Guran. 1988. Kilim, Catalogue No: 1. Istanbul: Selcuk A.S. Fernea, Elizabeth W. Guest of the Sheikh: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village. New York: Anchor Books. Fulanain (Stuart Edwin Hedgecock and Monica Grace Hedgecock). 1927. The Marsh Arab Haji Rikkan. Philadelphia: Lippincott. Gould, Richard A. 1974. Some Current Problems in Ethnoarchaeology. Ethnoarchaeology. C.  B. Donnand and C. W. Clewlow Jr., eds. Pp. 29–48. Monograph IV, Institute of Archaeology, University of California: 29–48. 1996. Ethnoarchaeology. The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. B. Fagan, ed. Pp. 207–208. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hansen, Donald P. 1970. Al-Hiba, 1968–1969, A Preliminary Report. Artibus Asiae 32: 243– 250. 1973. Al-Hiba, 1970–1971, A Preliminary Report. Artibus Asiae 35(1/2): 62–78. 1992. Royal Building Activity at Sumerian Lagash in the Early Dynastic Period. Biblical Archaeologist 55(4): 206–211. Hawley, Walter A. 1970. Oriental Rugs: Antique and Modern. New York: Dover. Hodges, Henry. 1964. Artifacts. London: John Baker. Hopkins Lattin, Patricia. 1995. Multicultural Teaching: A Higher Education Battle in the Culture War. Wolfe Institute Working Papers. Brooklyn College: 2–7. Kramer, Carol. 1982. Village Ethnoarchaeology: Rural Iran in Archaeological Perspective. New York: Academic Press. Lamberg-Karlovsky, Clifford C. 1989. Ethnoarchaeology: Legend, Observations and Critical Theory. In Archaeologia Iranica et Orientalis: Miscellanea in Honorem Louis Vanden Berghe. L. De Meyer and E. Haerinck, eds. Pp. 953–975. Gent: Peeters Presse. Landreau, Anthony N. and W. R. Pickering. 1969. From the Bosporus to Samarkand FlatWoven Rugs. Washington, D.C.: The Textile Museum. Longacre, William A., ed. 1991. Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Maxwell, Gavin. 1957. People of the Reeds. New York: Harper & Brothers. Ochsenschlager, Edward L. 1974a. Modern Sun-Dried Mud Objects from al-Hiba. Archaeology 27(3): 162–174. 1974b. Modern Potters at al-Hiba, with Some Reflections on the Excavated Early Dynastic Pottery. In Ethnoarchaeology. C. B. Donnan and C. W. Clewlow Jr., eds. Pp. 149–157. Monograph IV, Institute of Archaeology, University of California. 1992. Ethnographic Evidence for Wood, Boats, Bitumen and Reeds in Southern Iraq: Ethnoarchaeology at al-Hiba. Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture 6: 47–78. Cambridge University Press. 1993a. Sheep: Ethnoarchaeology at al-Hiba. BOSA 7: 33–42. 1993b. Village Weavers, Ethnoarchaeology at al-Hiba. BOSA 7: 43–62. 1995a. with Bonnie Gustav, Water Buffalo and Garbage Pits: Ethnoarchaeology at al-Hiba. BOSA 8: 1–9. 1995b. Carpets of the Beni-Hasan Village Weavers in Southern Iraq. Oriental Rug Review 15(5): 12–20. 1998. Viewing the Past: Ethnoarchaeology at al Hiba. Visual Anthropology 11(1–2): 103–143. 2004. Iraq’s Marsh Arabs in the Garden of Eden. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Oswalt, Wendell H. 1974. Ethnoarchaeology. In Ethnoarchaeology. C. B. Donnan and C. W. Clewlow Jr., eds. Pp. 3–11. Monograph IV, Institute of Archaeology, University of California. Pournelle, Jennifer. 2004. Marshland of Cities, Deltaic Landscapes and the Evolution of Early Mesopotamian Civilization, University of California, San Diego. A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology. 282

E d wa r d O c h s e n s c h l a g e r

Roof, Judith and R. Wiegman. 1995. Who Can Speak? Authority & Critical Identity. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Salim, S. M. 1962. Marsh Dwellers of the Euphrates Delta. London: Athlone. Schurmann, Ulrich. 1962. Caucasian Rugs. Munchen: Buchdruckerei Universal. Singer, C., E. J. Holmyard, and A. R. Hall. 1954. A History of Technology, vol. 1 (1954), vol. 2 (1956), vol. 3 (1957). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stanislawski, Michael B. 1974. The Relationships of Ethnoarchaeology, Traditional, and Systems Archaeology. In Ethnoarchaeology. C. B. Donnan and C. W. Clewlow Jr., eds. Pp. 15–26. Monograph IV, Institute of Archaeology, University of California. Thesiger, Wilfred. 1964. The Marsh Arabs. New York: E. P. Dutton. 1966. In the Marshes of Iraq. Aramco World, November-December: 8–19. 2001. A Vanished World. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company. Tokarski, C. 1997. Lemurs’ Lineage. Northwestern Perspective. Winter: 24–27. Valcarenghi, D. 1994. Kilim History and Symbols. Milano: Electra. Watson, Patty J. 1979a. Archaeological Ethnography in Western Iran. New York: Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology, Number 57, Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. 1979b. The Idea of Ethnoarchaeology. In Ethnoarchaeology: The Implications of Ethnography for Archaeology. C. Kramer. ed. Pp. 277–287. New York: Columbia University Press. Whallon, Robert. 1994. Reflections on Editing The Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. Anthropology Newsletter, 35(5): 9–11. Wulff, Hans E. 1966. The Traditional Crafts of Persia. Cambridge and London: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Young, Gavin and N. Wheeler. 1976. Water Dwellers in a Desert World. National Geographic 149(4): 502–523. 1977a. The Folk That Live in the Marshes. Observer Magazine, May 22: 30–43. 1977b. Return to the Marshes. London: William Collins.

E th n oa r c h a eo lo gy at a l- H i b a

283

Se ction IV R o ad s L e s s T rav e l e d : U n u s ual Sub f i e ld s

Part II M e di a B e yo n d C a m e r a W o r k

Some visual anthropologists make and/or study art forms distinct from photography and film. These three chapters show how painting (McLain and Strong) and architecture (Konz and Peacock) can form part of the field of visual anthropology. Of course, there are an endless list of other possibilities: for example, computer design, musical performance, television, LED advertising, theater, street parades, sculpture, urban planning, landscape architecture, topography, crafts, and geography, to name a few.

Kimowan McLain “In Search of Live Relics in Cold Lake”

Chapter 12.

Do you believe you could talk about a work of art you have made in a similar way to McLain? Think especially about something you have made that relates to your own identity on several levels. Adra and McLain are anthropologists of their own cultures. What do you think they can contribute that outsiders to their cultures cannot? By the same token, what can outsiders see that insiders may not perceive?

Kimowan McLain, a Native American painter, offers a prose poem. He feels that this is the most effective way to show how pictures and objects, in the company of words, emanate cultural meaning and spiritual power for him and his people. Only academic training “mediates” McLain’s account of cultural traditions and beliefs. This training makes his inner reality somewhat available to us as readers and viewers. More and more insiders from heretofore “exotic” and “remote” peoples become trained in the communicational idiom of fields like anthropology and the fine arts, as transnational/global peoples come together in cities and educational institutions. As this process moves forward, some of the ultimate goals of areas of inquiry like visual anthropology may be reached. McLain, like Najwa Adra, is also an insider/outsider. He is a Native American with training and background in fine arts painting. He teaches painting at a college. McLain speaks to us as a creative artist, asking us to switch off our scholarly selves and tune in totally with our perception and intuition to what he says. Then, he proceeds in poetic fashion to analyze, in many layers of considerable depth, the meaning in just one image he created. The image shows things about him, his family, his specific Native American background, Native Americans in general, and Native Americans in contrast to other Americans. McLain speaks of conflicts within all of these layers and identities and asks us to resolve them. C h a p t e r 1 3 . Mary Strong “Art and Mind: Working on Murals”

Mary Strong is an anthropologist and artist who is intrigued with the persistence of time-honored folk art forms in the neighborhoods of her city. Despite the universal presence of electronic media of all sorts, the gray streets of New York City’s ethnic enclaves pulsate with large and colorful painted murals. These art works express the traditions, values, and desires of ordinary people. Unlike camera-made imagery, which emphasizes external reality, hand-painted 284

pictures specialize in an interior mental realm made up of symbols, dreams, and fantasy worlds. Neither art galleries nor other formal institutions appreciate the messages in “folk” and “outsider” arts of this kind. Even anthropologists usually satisfy their curiosity only through interviews with artists about their finished work. Being a full collaborator or apprentice during the entire muralmaking process reveals a far richer comprehension of every stage of production, each with its multiple layers of sociocultural meaning. The chapter suggests ways to become a collaborator in community-made murals and similar art forms. Murals made by Hispanic/Latino peoples in New York City serve as examples. Strong has background and training in art and an advanced degree in anthropology. She likes to work with people who share her art skills or wish to teach them to her while she is doing anthropological research. She learns far more ethnographic detail in that way. Working collaboratively allows an especially close and time-extended look at cultural meanings and traditions.

Is there a group traditional arts project with which you could become involved? Look for one in which you already have some skill, but about which you would like to learn more. Choose a cultural group or groups about which you are somewhat familiar, but wish to understand in greater depth.

Louly Peacock Konz and James Peacock “Art History and Anthropology”

Chapter 14.

This chapter takes the form of a conversation between James Peacock, an anthropologist and former president of the American Anthropological Association, and his daughter, the art historian Louly Peacock Konz. They discuss sacred architectural spaces that they have photographed and studied in depth. Peacock takes the anthropological approach (content to form) when he begins an explanation of the religious and political meanings of several Indonesian monuments, particularly Borobudur in Java. He then goes on to analyze how this content takes form. Konz describes the meaning of the church La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain, by starting with external form, as art historians do. She then proceeds to explain the spiritual sociopolitical and historical content expressed by the forms she observes. The two authors conclude by comparing and contrasting the philosophical approaches taken by their respective disciplines and the techniques they use in teaching related subjects. Peacock and Konz give us a rare invitation to listen in on a father-daughter conversation about anthropology and/versus art. The subject matter is comparative religious architecture and sculpture in two very distant areas of the world. James Peacock is an anthropologist whose work in Indonesia spans many years. Louly Peacock Konz is a trained art historian just starting out in her career. Peacock’s encyclopedic background knowledge about his area of interest plays off against the multicolored imaginative flights in his daughter’s narrative. Both talk about architecture, the “made” world that surrounds us and to which few, except architects, give enough attention.

Could you present a study of a religious architectural space, first looking at it from an anthropological perspective, and then as art? Could you make the two viewpoints come together? How?

285

Chapter 12

In Search of Live Relics in Cold Lake Kim owan Mc L ain

I

’m going to tell you about a picture. The picture is a photograph I made called Cold Lake. The top half of the image is filled with a yellowish pink sky. The bottom half is a large body of water. There appear to be six shirtless figures wading in the lake. Two figures are standing near the center of the image. The rest recede into the distance. If you look closely, some figures seem to be holding fishing rods. There are no obvious landforms, just the blue plane of the water that spans back to a faraway horizon. Looking closer, the structure of the actual photograph seems to be composed of

numerous rectangles and squares of paper simply taped together. Faintly written in the sky are the words “Cold Lake” and some alien symbols below that text. Taken in sum, Cold Lake functions as a kind of visual poem. While I can appreciate its poetry, I want to also represent this image as a cultural document laden with specific, but not so obvious, meanings.

I call these “hidden meanings” live relics. They are relics because they are like trace elements from memory, history, and culture. They are alive because they continue to transmit influence to this day. It is not easy to see live relics because they seem to exist outside the scope of awareness, especially those live relics that refer to culture. Their subtlety goes unseen by both cultural insiders and outsiders for two different reasons. Insiders are too bound to their own worldviews to catch the significance of their own subtle acts. Conversely, outsiders notice big gestures but miss the subtlety of live relics. Live relics are too fine for coarse observation. And yet, live relics are always there in full view. This image, Cold Lake, is rich with live relics. An art object like Cold Lake is meant to reside in a gallery. In that kind of poetic encounter, meaning and beauty are left to the eye of the beholder. Personal interpretations are part of the rules of engagement. This image, Cold Lake, could prompt any number of imaginative stories, thoughts, or memory associations, as many versions as there are viewers. It could also provoke nothing. All responses are fair. Cold Lake is simply an element in a four-part spectral transaction among the artist, the art object, the viewer, and the context for delivery. As the maker of the image, I have done my best to grab the attention of the viewer with graphic flourish. Rich layers of visual detail hold the curious eye. Lured, then held by the image, the viewer can begin to contemplate its meaning. This book can be imagined as a kind of gallery in miniature. Only instead of white walls, there is the white page. Look again at Cold Lake. You might have ideas or feelings about the image. The image might remind you of something you have seen before. You might wonder if the photograph is symbolic. Is it a snapshot? Where is this place? Who are these people? How old is the image? Is it important 287

Figure 12.1.

288

K i m o wa n M c L a i n

I n S e a r c h o f Li v e R e l i c s i n Co l d La k e

Cold Lake by Kimowan McLain 289

to know these answers? By asking these questions, you are beginning to construct meaning for yourself. This is the nature of the poetic encounter. Poetry is a type of communication where ambiguity can appropriately exist as mystery. However, meaning could easily go awry. The failure to communicate meaning is an inherent risk of poetry. For the maker of the poetic object, the delivery of meaning is a calculated risk. Gallery curators who tend objects know this risk. They would prefer art to be encountered on its own merit, but not at the expense of meaning and vice versa. So, curators offer discreet didactic texts to assist meaning for the viewer. They provide just enough context to suggest meaning without impinging on the mystery and beauty of the object. They would hope art would speak for itself. Originally, I made Cold Lake to fit within the context of the gallery. I can safely expect the work to be hung on a white wall, be well lit, and be accompanied by a brief text label that lists the title, size, medium, and date of the work. These basic gallery components provide a site for viewing. I have long been a fan of this kind of aesthetic transaction simply because I love to look at art. I want to try something else here in this book. I want to set poetry aside. I want to use this book as a primary context for this image Cold Lake. I want to say more about this image than its title, medium, size, and date. As I said earlier, under the protocol of the poetic encounter, your personal interpretations of Cold Lake are fair, correct, and valid. However, Cold Lake is loaded with references that would not seem so obvious to you, the viewer. These below-the-surface meanings are unknown to you for several reasons. Some references are personal. How could you know those? Others require knowledge of obscure histories of art. Most importantly, some meanings require understanding of cultures different from your own. Remember that Cold Lake was first made for the gallery setting as a kind of visual poem. But now I want to consider Cold Lake not as an object of poetry, where meaning is felt, but as a cultural object from where we can excavate specific meanings. By now, you have deduced that I am a contemporary artist. I should tell you that I originally come from an Indian reservation in the Canadian West, east of the Rocky Mountains, where the Great Plains meet the northern forests. My current dwelling is a one-storey duplex in a small town in North Carolina. I am an art professor and also your narrator. On the surface, Indian country today looks a lot like the rest of North America. Indians drive the same roadways, shop the same chain stores, and watch the same television shows and movies. We read the same magazines, newspapers, and books. We share the same modern world as you. And yet, there are deep cultural differences. I am intrigued by those differences, especially those that live beneath the thin skin of modern appearance. Beneath that skin live relics thrive. My status as a cultural insider makes me blind to the very thing I seek to see. If I want to recognize live relics, I need to step outside my own culture, if that is possible. I straddle a cultural borderline. I move freely back and forth across that boundary. I feel lucky about that. I would hate to be stuck on only one side of the line. So, I make art in a kind of waking dream, tripping back and forth from the dream to the analysis of the dream. I am the dreamer and the interpreter of the dreams, the observer and the observed. My studio has 290

K i m o wa n M c L a i n

been a laboratory where I have conducted an archeology of the self. I work this way to accidentally produce live relics only to be purposefully found later. We have already encountered the first live relic. This two-pronged method of telling—image and word—is itself a type of live relic. Image and oration seem to go hand-in-hand in Indian North America. I’ve seen this type of telling in various formal cultural settings, but it also happens in everyday life. I was having tea one afternoon with a Metis artist named Morris Cardinal. We were later joined by an Ojibway artist named Roy Thomas. Roy is an artist who works in the Woodland School style of painting with graceful curves of black line and color like stained glass windows. Typical subjects include landscapes ripe with plants and animals. Roy told us he had a new painting in the back of his car. We told him to bring it inside. We wanted to see. He returned with a large rolled canvas under his arm. We moved the coffee table aside and he unrolled the painting on the living room floor. Using a yardstick as a pointer, Roy thoroughly explained the iconography. His oratory was no less than a grand story about the cosmology of the universe. Here is another little story about how image and word work in tandem. I was sitting on the ground outside a sweatlodge with some friends and an OjibwayCree elder. It was a hot, lazy summer day and we had time to pass. I was looking at the old man’s pipebag. It had a beaded image of a turtle. Offhandedly I asked about the design. Over the next two hours, the elder explained, in detail, one element at a time, the various meanings of that turtle icon. His dense description revealed how those beads were analogies for sacred Indian architecture, geography, and history. Over the years, I have been privileged to witness many of those kinds of orations, those that combine image and word. This kind of art and telling, from my experience, seems very Indian. It is a kind of live relic. Now it is time for me to list the live relics I have found within Cold Lake. Some of these live relics have roots in personal experience, others from family and community relations. Some refer to histories, others to Indian culture. To note briefly, by “Indian culture,” I refer here to social forces that are not simply Cree, or Dine, but intercultural mechanisms that seem to operate across tribal boundaries, including Ojibway, Metis, Algonquin, Lakota, Blackfoot and Navajo, to mention only a few. Nor do I mean a culture of only the past, but a culture that is alive now even as it feeds from the past. In essence, I mean live relics. Here they are, in no particular order of importance, except to list tobacco first: 1 Each piece of paper in Cold Lake has been dipped in water colored by tobacco. Tobacco is a sacred substance that is a part of nearly all ceremonies and prayer, especially among people in the Great Plains, Great Lakes, and many territories between. Tobacco is a handshake. It signals honesty and honorable intention. Cold Lake is a kind of prayer. 2 The photograph has been baptized. The dipping is a ritual act. The making of Cold Lake is largely ritualized. The tendency to ritualize the creative process is a kind of live relic. 3 There appear to be six figures. Really, there are two. The three figures to the left are my cousin Conrad. I am the three figures to the right. Cold Lake I n S e a r c h o f Li v e R e l i c s i n Co l d La k e

291

is actually composed from five different snapshots. My mother took the

community events that spans several decades. The pictures spiral clockwise

photographs as she stood on the shore of this lake. My mother, Conrad, the

around the center. The main point is that the central vortex is reinforced

lake, and I are bound together in this image. The image affirms familial ties.

in the moment of telling as people sit around the flatly laid storyhide. The

It is a record of family love. The lake and the sky are included as part of the

viewers’ circular formation echoes the composition of the storyhide. There

family. They are all my relations.

are two live relics at work here. Firstly, the center needs to be respected. Secondly, we are all equally near to the center. You will see this arrangement

4 Conrad and I were fishing. Conrad accidentally snagged a fishing hook in his hair. I walked over and unhooked the lure. The action unfolds in a series of

in abstract designs, flower designs, beaded medallions, but also in sundances, sweatlodges, and powwows.

small events, like a film. This photograph is not a frozen moment. Instead, it 12  The horizon line in Cold Lake runs across the heart of the viewer. The viewer

depicts time passing.

“wears” the piece like a blanket. Some stories are meant to be told on the 5 The image is a photograph, but behaves as a painting. It has the aura of

ground, others are meant to embrace, like blankets or buffalo hides. In this

photographic documentation, but also contains the poetry of painting. Fact

case, the object is off the ground, hung around the shoulders of the wearer.

intertwines with fiction.

The circular, wraparound structure of the blanket robe is like a standing cocoon. The center here is located at the heart of the wearer.

6 It is patched together without much regard for artistic aesthetic. The artistic value arrives, in part, as a function, the need to make a rectangular image

13  The dry hide of an animal is the residue of a live being. It is an animate

from distinct parts. The parts create a whole. The sutures are left visible

substance. I think the same about wood and paper. Cold Lake is comprised

with the understanding that they do not take away from the clarity of the

of that kind of animate material.

statement. Beauty arrives after function and only by chance. 14  There are bits and pieces of account ledger paper in Cold Lake. The ledger 7 In real life, Cold Lake is a large object, 50x100 inches. It folds to a smaller

paper is a historical reference to ledger art. Ledger art is the name given to

object, small enough to carry under my arm. It weighs little. This makes

countless drawings made by various Indian prisoners of war during the late

it easy to transport or store. I can’t help but think that there is a live relic

1800s. Many Indians were shipped by train from locations in the American

here that has roots in a nomadic lifestyle. Folded, Cold Lake looks like a

West to a prison in Fort Marion, Florida. Ledger drawings illustrate memory,

Plains Indian parfleche. A parfleche is a folded rawhide bundle used for

fantasy, and desire. I use ledger paper as an homage to those ancestral

storage, an Indian suitcase.

artists. They teach me how to persist with beauty and resist with grace.

8 Unfolded, the image takes on a large presence. It can transform a space quickly and efficiently. I am reminded of Indian architecture: lodges of

15  Cold Lake shows real people in a real place. This image affirms the connection between our people and the land. It depicts complete homeland.

various kinds, especially tipis and tents. 16  Those curious symbols in the center of the sky are Cree syllabics. They 9 The photograph attempts to exist in the world without much fuss. It is

translate to atakamew-sakihikan, Cree for “cold lake.” This photograph is

portable. It is light. It does not cost much to move. It moves lightly through

also a flag. Among Indian nations, flags are everywhere. Flags announce

the world. That is a live relic. Are you beginning to get the idea?

membership in families, clans, societies, and nations. My reservation is called Cold Lake First Nations.

10 The sky and water are equal. The photograph is divided horizontally between sky and the watered earth. This refers to a four-part elemental arrangement

17  The people are emerging out of the water, under the sky. This is a kind of

that assigns equal importance among air, water, earth, and fire. Other

creation story. This story has aspects found in many tribal recounts of origin,

configurations are possible, like the equilibrium among insects, water animals,

but also in the Christian Bible. Cold Lake mixes symbols from Indian culture

plants, four-legged creatures, people, and those beings that live in the air.

with Christianity. Contemporary Indians hold worldviews that can effectively integrate vastly different systems of thought. This ability to reconcile

11 Cold Lake “wraps” the viewer in that specific place. The viewer occupies the same cosmological space as that depicted in the photograph. Indian

difference is a mark of adaptability. It also helps with peaceful diplomacy. The skill to adapt to constant change is a live relic. It powers the drive to survive.

designs are often maps that locate the viewer in concordance with metaphoric arrangements of space. Take, for example, a storyhide. A

292

18  Cold Lake has multiple layers of meaning. Like many Indian documents, it

storyhide is a series of small images drawn on the surface of an animal

blends the sacred with the profane in endless variations. This is why Indian

hide. The storyhide could illustrate a simple dream or be a grand record of

culture is so difficult to define. It is not art, religion, or history alone.

K i m o wa n M c L a i n

I n S e a r c h o f Li v e R e l i c s i n Co l d La k e

293

19  Me, the artist, telling you about this image within these intimate pages, with enough time to deliver a complete thought, is a good way. You, reading and understanding more about this image, have been a part of this small ritual of telling. This is a live relic.

So you see, objects have many stories. What you see in museums is only half the story, if that. Galleries usually say even less. If you have read this chapter from beginning to now, I feel as though we have gone on a little walk together, looking at Cold Lake and finding live relics. I thank you for your time and your attention. It is a rare opportunity to be able to say so much about one image. My central aim has been to show you how ancient cultural mechanisms continue to operate in Indian cultures today. Cold Lake is a location from where I can extract and describe live relics. You might wonder how I came to the idea of live relics. In part, this line of thought came from an old conversation I had with Floyd Favel, a Cree playwright and theater director. Floyd was contemplating what a true Indian theater might look like. He suggested that it would need to employ aspects essential to Indian culture. What makes Indian people Indian? That got me going. In a way, my studio practice since then has been an attempt to answer his question about authenticity. Where he pursues live relics in the discipline of the theater, I choose art as my field of inquiry. Cold Lake is my contribution to that dialogue. To ask where is the live relic is really to ask “why?” Here is a simple and familiar example: Why moccasins? A correct, but dry, explanation might simply say moccasins are a technology to keep feet warm and protected. I think moccasins could also be described in other terms. One day as I was walking through the forest, I came to rest on a bed of moss. Tiny flowers had sprouted everywhere. I recalled how an elder woman told me that plants were like the hair of Mother Earth. Green and soft, the moss is proof of her kindness. I thought how Cree moccasins are so often adorned with colorful floral designs. I realized then that moccasins gift people with flowers on their feet. In this way, people can always walk in beauty and be reminded of kindness. This is the true reason for beaded moccasins. Let me end with a secret about the photograph Cold Lake. It appears to be composed of many pieces of paper taped together. This is an actual fact. However, some sutures are really photographic images of paper taped together. It is nearly impossible to distinguish reality from representation. Although I would not call this a live relic, this shifty relationship between actuality and representation is a primary reason I seek live relics. It is a method to more closely observe cultural behaviors and artifacts. The search for live relics is an attempt to push through surface representations in order to recognize subversive mechanisms and unseen agendas. I believe live relics affect behavior and steer momentum. I hope we can live those relics that favor kindness toward one another and harmony with the earth. The world is rich with live relics. I encourage you to seek them out for yourself. You can find them in your own surroundings, your everyday life. Look for ancient mechanisms that persist within your personal environment and society at large. Notice how the past shapes the present and ask to what end. Resist obvious descriptions and repeated reasoning. This is how you can find live relics. 294

K i m o wa n M c L a i n

Chapter 13

Art and Mind

Working on Murals Mary St rong

A

rt produced by nonmechanical means shows what is inside individual and group minds in a very direct way. One reason for this is that such work extends directly from the body itself. Artists are thus freed from the mediation of technology and external reality, so their work can express fantasy, fable, abstract and religious ideas, alternate worlds. One of the most useful ways to gain access to these mental cosmologies is

to work with a group in the process of art making. Perhaps the best role for a researcher is that of an apprentice who learns the craft from an expert or master of a genre. This chapter explores ways in which ethnographer/artists learn about one of these many art forms: the mural. Murals are large paintings on walls; the term derives from the Latin murus, or wall.

One of the most remarkable aspects of street mural making by Hispanic/ Latino groups in New York City is the extreme multivalency and flexibility embedded in the visual message. Muralists communicate with multiple audiences at once by using ambiguous qualities in imagery along with effective design principles. In these ways, they often humorously play with basic notions such as ethnic identity, philosophical point of view, and perspective regarding social issues. The writer learned how these and other processes operate by working as an assistant with street mural crews on a day-to-day basis. This chapter emphasizes the writer’s experience with street mural making in New York City among primarily Hispanic/Latino peoples.1 The often imposing size of murals places them in the category known as “public” art, or art for the general population. The opposite category, “private” art, refers to work artists may make for themselves or for select audiences. Because they are so big and they reside in nonspecialized spaces where daily life takes place, murals must receive public approval. In this way, most murals resemble “folk” or “primitive” arts in that the muralists’ individual or group creativity must subjugate itself to the expectations of a very broad and general audience. Mural audiences can learn about new things and ideas but most often want to do so by means of very familiar and comfortable iconography and design. Educational systems, religious traditions, and other honored institutions employ murals as “books of the people,” but murals also have a colorful history in their role as supporters of social action, reform movements, and even revolutions.

1. The writer has worked with CITYarts Workshop for twenty years as a volunteer in various capacities. CITYarts is a nonprofit organization dedicated to producing murals that promote ethnic identity, human rights, and educational opportunities, particularly for economically poor children in the New York metropolitan area. CITY-

297

arts helped to organize many of the murals described in the text. Other works received support from local community organizations, schools, and businesses. Human Support, Wall of Respect for Women, God Bless our Home, Plaza Cultural, Crear una Sociedad Nueva, and Puerto Rican Heritage are CITYarts murals. The CITYarts mission statement is: CITYarts empowers children and youth by bringing them together with professional artists to create public art that addresses civic and social issues, impacts their lives and transforms their communities. The Web site for the organization is www. cityarts.org. It should be noted that many of the murals in this chapter no longer exist. Like Navajo sand paintings, it is the nature of street murals to serve their purpose and then disappear to be replaced by new murals. The writer has also worked with other groups and organizations to produce murals in North and South American and Caribbean rural and urban communities.

298

Murals often feature political and social content. Art and social action blend in mural making, as do group demands and traditions on the one hand with the idea of individual creativity on the other. Without the approval of often economically impoverished surrounding communities, New York City mural crews cannot lift a brush. Yet, powerful and wealthy patrons do not want their privileged positions criticized in the artwork they may be supporting financially. Immigrant Hispanic muralists in this urban milieu, for example, must dance simultaneously to these different tunes while still expressing both cherished cultural roots and recently learned transnational and global realities. A well-executed street mural meets multiple and seemingly contradictory demands all at once while at the same time igniting new ideas and social movements among viewers.

not only allow these painters to express who they are in terms of their past, but also give them a forum for declaring their rights as human beings. Their sense of justice challenges the idea that economic inequalities of the world should ever create a hierarchy in which some human beings have more and others less of what it takes to survive. Murals continue to thrive even though, supposedly, writing and modern telecommunications forms seem much more efficient means of sending and receiving messages. Murals speak directly from the heart and flow from the hand. Viewers immediately feel an emotional, mental, tactile response. Murals move people in a way unmatched by tinny electronic voices and flickering digital screens. History of Mural Making

Anthropologists and Murals

Most anthropologists who have studied murals specialize in archeology. They analyze the art that they find at ancient sites, but, of course, they have no direct access to the artists. A small number of cultural anthropologists have studied the arts of living people, which involves an understanding of both art and artists. A few of these anthropologists have taken on the apprentice role in order to learn to make the arts they studied. Among these researchers are Bill Holm and Ruth Bunzel. These anthropologists had direct access to art makers as well as to art works. The writer finds that studying murals by making them provides the most comprehensive picture of these visual art forms and the cultural meanings behind them. In this, the writer joins a very large group of specialists with training in the fine arts who have done similar studies. By means of this chapter, readers are invited to learn this skill as anthropologists. The mural as a genre provides a relatively pristine field of endeavor for artists/ ethnographers working with living peoples. The role of learner in the mural-making process reveals aspects of culture and creativity that the standard “ethnographer” role does not. Some ethnographers approach their task from the perspective of a superior outsider to the culture under study. This chapter shows the advantage of taking on a more humble student or learner role. The writer discovered in this way, for example, how it is that Hispanic artists shift their concept of ethnic identity depending on the kinds of messages they wish to send and to whom. Sometimes they direct imagery to very specific audiences, for example, Mexicans from Puebla. At other times, they may include all immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries, or Hispanics and African Americans or all women, or even the entire human race. These different populations may even be addressed within the same mural. This kind of complex messaging derives from the artful use of ambiguity, metaphor, size, color, design grid, and other time-honored as well as innovative aspects of the painter’s craft. Only by working day by gritty sun-blasted day with the team, hearing them talk about the meaning of images, seeing them laugh as they work, listening to the delight and criticisms of passersby can one arrive at a true picture of the humor, flexibility, and mental complexity that produces this work. The artists are transnationals, existing on the edges of several cultures, aware of all the trends that characterize our globalized existence. Yet, at the same time, they are steeped in their particular and very own rich past with colors and sounds to be found nowhere else. Murals Mary Strong

What follows in this section by no means covers the entire history of mural making on the globe. A few highlights from prehistoric and historic times give some background for the tradition in the United States and, more specifically, among Hispanic immigrant populations in the city of New York. Some of the earliest surviving art made by human beings consists in large images on walls. Murals still dominate streets, highways, buildings, and personal spaces of the twenty-first century. Prehistory

The peoples of the late Pleistocene (40,000–35,000 years ago) began to paint on cave walls. The Solutrean and Magdalenean cultures brought these customs to a level of high art in the caves of Lascaux, France, and Altamira, Spain, during the upper Paleolithic era, which ended around 10,000–15,000 years ago. The painters mixed natural pigments such as wood ash, red and yellow ochre, and mica with liquefiers and binders. Among techniques they may have used was spitting the pigment on the wall to achieve an effect similar to the spray can wall art of today. Artists skillfully used the uneven surface of the cave walls to give their bison, horses, and other figures a third sculptural dimension.2 There are cave paintings and wall engravings of great age in several areas of the world.3 Archeologists and art historians assert that these art works of antiquity had both religious and practical significance. They aided hunters in finding food, educated the living, and honored the dead. These wall paintings form part of the material remains constituting the only legacy left by many prehistoric cultures to their contemporary descendants. The paintings of Altamira pertain to a prehistoric (before written records) time along with wall arts made by preliterate peoples in all of the continents. However, people continued to make large wall art even after the invention of writing. Historical Period

Major institutions of society generally support the making of large public works, and one of the most, if not the most, powerful institutions is that of religion. The great cathedrals of medieval and Renaissance Europe abound in large representations of religious themes. Similarly, the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs, the walls of Tibetan monasteries, the interior of Mayan temples, and the rocks lining greater Antillean shores depict awe-inspiring religious imagery on a grand scale. A rt a n d M ind : Wo r k ing o n M u r a ls

2. The painters of the Altamira caves used iron oxide for red, or hematite, a form of red ochre. They made black from manganese dioxide or juniper wood ash, white from kaolin zinc oxides or mica, yellow from yellow ochre, and brown from earth or possibly tannins. Artists ground the powders with mortars and pestles, mixed them with cave water (which contains calcium), and added vegetable or animal oils as a binder. They used primitive brushes, blowpipes, their own mouths, or handmade crayons to apply the color. The artists worked lying down, standing up, and even made scaffolding to produce the largest figures. Archeologists have found holes in cave walls where early artists inserted scaffolding supports. 3. A few of these ancient murals include, for example, a wall painting at the palace of Mari on the Euphrates River. It measures 2.5 x 1.75 meters and is known by the name of Paradiso Fresco. It was made about 4,000 years ago. The earliest murals of Chavin de Huantar in Callejon de Huaylas in Peru, some of the painted monastic walls of Tibet and Nepal, and the famous South African rock art hunting scenes were also made during incipient periods of human existence.

299

Economics, a basic driving force in human society, also promotes mural production. Some analysts of the Altamira cave paintings feel, for example, that the depicted animals are mystical stand-ins for real meat-providing prey. Therefore, the paintings helped people to find food. In modern life throughout the world, advertising in the form of billboards, neon signs, and large electronic displays—such as those in the Ginza, Tokyo, or in Times Square, New York—promote economic consumption. Murals come to the aid of politics. Lenin, Mao Tse-tung, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and many other powerful world leaders of all persuasions appeared on walls in the form of gigantic portraits of themselves and representations of their programs and policies. In addition, murals also fueled extreme political and economic change. They figure strongly in all of the world’s major social revolutions, for example, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the Mexican Revolution of 1910 (see below). Murals also meet the needs of educational systems and influence family traditions. For example, large images serve to educate the public as to ways in which they can avoid pandemics such as the devastation caused by polio in the midtwentieth century and the contemporary AIDS crisis. China made much use of large murals and posters to promote its one-child campaign. Murals promote literacy, job training, fidelity to spouse and family, the rejection of illegal substances, and other social benefits. By the same token, murals can promote crime, dangerous behavior, and environmental abuse. Murals still have functions in areas of the world not served by modern telecommunications forms. However, odd though it may seem, murals continue to exist alongside modern media long after these new technologies make their appearance. The contemporary mural movement in New York City is a case in point. In order to understand how and why this should be so, a short history of how murals came to New York City follows. Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries in New York City: Classical and Modern Influences

Greek friezes, Roman statuary, and Egyptian decorative elements formed an important part of the architectural history of the city of New York. The neoclassical buildings of the nineteenth century contain Greek and Roman wall paintings. The late nineteenth century and early twentieth century in New York saw the arrival of the Modernist, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco movements. All of these influenced the city’s architecture and the decorative elements that adorn buildings constructed during that period. For example, the Rockefeller Center contains sculptures, murals, and architectural details reflecting the Art Deco period. Simplified forms, Egyptian motifs, and geometric design grids stamp the buildings in the complex as exemplary of this style. Since that time, the city has both added and subtracted buildings and public arts made in the image of succeeding trends and modes. Murals in museums and other public spaces also tend to reflect European styles and trends. The American Museum of Natural History, for example, has a large number of wall murals, among them those of the painter Charles R. Knight. Knight put flesh on the bones of dinosaurs and late Pleistocene mammals. His large and beautifully painted impressionistic images became the basis for the conception not only of the general public but also of the 300

Mary Strong

scientific community of how these animals and the early human beings looked. Other artists copied him, including those who helped to make recent animated films such as Jurassic Park and Ice Age.4 Theaters, restaurants, and workplaces abound in murals like these following European styles. The Mexican Mural Movement

While one flow of tradition forming New York murals came from Europe and Africa, another flowed north from Mexico and Latin America. Muralism is a strong tradition in Latin America and it has roots in the region’s Indigenous, African, and European cultures. The murals and muralists of Mexico had particularly strong influence in the United States. The Revolution of 1910 in Mexico was, idealistically speaking, a great attempt to improve the well-being of and justice toward the nation’s peoples. This sort of grand and sweeping movement tends to spawn murals, and this was certainly the case for our neighbor to the south. Known in Mexico as “Los Tres Grandes” (the Three Great Ones), Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco painted revolutionary themes on a heroic scale well into the middle of the twentieth century. The Rockefeller family commissioned Rivera to paint a mural in Rockefeller Center, which they destroyed when they discovered that he had included images that criticized the capitalist system and even the Rockefellers themselves. The florid, dynamically designed, highly colorful, and front-lighted bas-relief effects cultivated by the Mexican painters influenced North American muralists. The WPA, Works Progress Administration

The Great Depression of the 1930s had among its governmental antidotes the creation of the Works Progress Administration, or WPA. The WPA provided employment at minimum wage on public projects, and among WPA workers were artists. Many of these WPA artists painted murals in schools, post offices, courthouses, and other government buildings. Their style mixed European and Mexican traditions. Mexican traditions seeped upward into the Southwest and West and then proceeded east, where they met and mixed with traditions from Europe. Two muralists who painted for the WPA were Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood. Their imagery included rural scenes and industrial landscapes. As with the Mexican style, the common farmer and laborer took on statuesque heroic proportions. The technology of the time inhabited futuristic landscapes full of rejoicing people. The Mexican muralists shared these ideas of ode to the common man, equality, prosperity for all, and faith in a better future with their North American counterparts. Murals in New York City combine all of these historical contributions. The constant entry of new people from all corners of the world, as well as the extremely strong influence of telecommunications media, add ever-changing waves of new ideas to what has gone before. Characteristics of Murals Introduction

People of all ethnic backgrounds and social classes make murals in New York City. This writer’s experience has primarily been with low-income Hispanic A rt a n d M ind : Wo r k ing o n M u r a ls

4. Charles R. Knight’s illustrations and murals show dinosaurs with heavy tails being dragged about, lizardlike, behind the animals. This idea held sway for much of the twentieth century until dinosaur experts began to posit that tails were probably raised off the ground much of the time. This birdlike way of standing went along, as well, with the late twentieth-century notion that birds are the contemporary descendants of dinosaurs. The influence of Knight’s imagination was so great that many old ideas like tail position and the enormous reptiles’ possibly bright and varied skin color died hard even in the scientific community. Knight’s depictions of lumbering cavemen dragging clubs and spearing woolly mammoths had a similar long-term effect. This is one of many examples of ways in which artists’ creative conceptions have helped to form public and even scientific perceptions of reality.

301

5. The terms “Latino” and “Hispanic” are both used to refer to peoples now living in the United States, but who have family ties or ancestry in Latin America, the Caribbean, or Spain. There is tremendous phenotypic and ethnic variety in these huge regions and subregions. For example, in the United States, some Hispanics label themselves as “Black,” “White,” “Native American,” or “Other,” rather than “Hispanic” on government forms. For some Hispanics, Spanish is a second or third language. The term “Hispanic” rankles some groups because it recalls the Spanish Empire period, so they use the word “Latino.” Others say that Latino means little to them except perhaps some reference to ancient Romans. While being cognizant of all these issues, the author uses the terms “Hispanic” and “Latino” interchangeably in this chapter. If there is a preference for Hispanic, it is because street muralists refer to themselves as “los Hispanos.”

302

mural teams. In the 1970s, these painters hailed from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic primarily. Today, people from Mexico, Guatemala, and the Andean countries of Ecuador and Peru predominate as new Spanish-speaking immigrants.5 Hispanic/Latino newcomers find themselves living in neighborhoods and sharing life ways of other groups in a similar sociocultural position as themselves, for example, African Americans and Asians. Cultural and social mixture characterizes both mural messages and mural art teams. When it is in their interest to do so, several ethnic groups may coalesce in making a mural and struggling over an issue. However, painters also have complete flexibility in communicating with their own exclusive in-group or with the entire city population. At times, murals express themselves simultaneously at all of these levels. Mural makers, then, have the capacity to expand or contract the audiences to whom they send messages. Perhaps most interesting to anthropologists is that along with this flexibility in terms of audience goes a constantly changing idea of cultural or ethnic identity. Urban murals provide a wide screen upon which viewers see the drama of transnationalism and globalization being enacted. This drama reflects world realities as much as those of the neighborhood. Murals abound in economically poor neighborhoods inhabited by ethnic minorities and recent immigrants. Hand-painted commercial signs, gypsy cabs and vans, street carts selling the traditional foods and goods of resident cultures, street singers, preachers, musicians, and the like also characterize these areas. The “poor” areas of the city seem most rich in evidence of a burgeoning creativity in the various arts. Wealthy and powerful members of society rarely enter these neighborhoods, and almost never on foot. This fact is important to keep in mind in terms of how and why muralists paint as they do. Whoever or whatever entity giving funds or support to a mural is the mural’s “patron.” Patronage has a great influence on the mural’s imagery and design as well as on whether or not the artist(s) involved sign their work. A very important patron like a city or federal government may not tolerate criticism of political policy, for example. A radical mural might best be painted on the wall of an abandoned building at night and be left unsigned. However, artists must pay their bills through creative work and thus most often choose more subtle ways of pleasing patrons while at the same time expressing their true thoughts to other audiences. In this way, painters can sign their work, though some choose to indicate a mural painting organization in lieu of their own names. Twenty-first-century New York City has within it several different categories of murals. Two elements determine these categories: who makes the mural and who or what entity funds the mural. Individuals make some murals, and groups of people make others. These artists may or may not sign their work. Some murals result from formal contracts in which a muralist or mural crew is hired to produce a work on a wall provided by the donor. Pope Julius II hired Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, for example. Other murals come into being in a more spontaneous way. A community group might seek a grant of donated materials to produce a mural on the wall of a public structure by means of permission from the city government. Just as often, muralists are young people with spray cans who work quickly at night without permission on walls or the sides of a subway car. Most of the murals in this chapter are of the more spontaneous group or community-made type. Mary Strong

Following are a few examples of how imagery, design, and symbolism create compositions pleasing to multiple audiences of viewers, and finally, a short look at the idea of the mural within its larger environment or context. Imagery

“Imagery” here includes pictures and words because both together integrate to form the message in many murals. Murals communicate primarily through images. The great scale of the paintings and relative lack of materials demand that the final drawing be relatively simple. Neither extreme abstraction nor extreme realism is the rule. Simplified cartoon realism is most common. However, painters use very sophisticated and current design modes. Some of these are derived from computer games and video productions like MTV, as well as from Internet sites such as YouTube and MySpace. Individual images portray ethnic traditions and familiar aspects of urban life. The great scale of many murals (10 x 20 feet to 100 x 100 feet) allows painters to make use of three dimensions and the wall itself in interesting ways. Differing size ranges and picture field depths give free rein to the artist’s imagination. Some examples of major themes in imagery of today’s murals—cultural archetypes, natural surroundings, stock heroines and heroes, in memoriam, escape, and the media—show how ethnic identity shifts encompassment of populations with regard to subject matter. Pictures a. Cultural Archetypes. The murals often contain images relating to the contributing or “root” cultures within Hispanic ethnic traditions. The figure of the Native American is an important symbol in street murals. The actual appearance of this symbol among Puerto Rican painters is usually a mixture of island Arawak (most commonly the cultural reference intended) with Mesoamerican and North American Eastern woodland or Plains visual elements. For example, island Arawak or Caribbean groups are often shown with single eagle feathers inserted in headbands, their hair worn loose or in braids. They wear breechclouts, fringed buckskins, and moccasins. These generalized and somewhat stereotypic North American images belie the probable looks of Caribbean groups, who wore their hair in topknots (males) and little clothing. Females of a certain status wore, for example, a small apron. The key to understanding these representations is not historical accuracy, but rather what the Native American image means for painters and viewers. Native Americans form one of the important ancestral ethnicities for the people of the Caribbean in general. There are few, if any, of these Indigenes, however, now living in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, or Cuba, the three largest of the Hispanic Antilles. Most Taino, Ciboney, and other Arawak groups succumbed to disease, warfare, and forced labor, twenty years after first European contact. The Carib retreated to other areas at about the same time. Lacking living models and having little training in ethnography and archeology, painters use the images they have at hand in the North American context. The image of the Native American stands for the protection of unspoiled nature, honesty, steadfastness, righteousness, and similar values. Indigenes A rt a n d M ind : Wo r k ing o n M u r a ls

303

often appear in the foreground upright as poles staring out at viewers with

The idea of cultural archetypes relates to the fact that many murals

utmost strength and humanity. Others, in postures of angular defense,

in New York exhibit the origin countries and immigrant histories of one

protect nature, downtrodden people, and the values of the past in general

or more resident ethnic groups in a given neighborhood. Some of these

from evil forces such as urbanism, pollution, and oppression. Others

historical works contain narrations about social problems within them, but

escape successfully from servitude at the hands of Spaniards or North

there is also a subtype devoted to social problems as such. These murals

Americans. All of these scenes resonate through time by contradicting

portray difficulties experienced by the poor in their struggle for the basic

ideas that Latinos are a passive or constantly enslaved people and by

human needs of housing, food, education, and employment.

supporting traditional values often derived from painters’ rural and small community backgrounds. As more and more painters hail from Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, and other mainland countries in the twenty-first

American, Mesoamerican, Amazonian, and Caribbean native animals are

century, representations of Indigenes gain ethnographic accuracy. The

freely integrated. Certain animals and plants appear often, such as the coquí,

new immigrant painters have observed or are themselves Indigenes from

a special whistling frog from Puerto Rico. However, these animals and plants

countries containing large percentages of living Native Americans in the

may take on an outward appearance totally alien to the Antillean environment.

population. These images, however, exhibit North American admixture,

For example, the coquí, a tiny (ball-of-thumb size) and delicate

producing Aztec/Iroquois and Maya/Sioux. The mixed images derive

brownish-green land frog that lives in and around many Puerto Ricans’

from immigrants’ complex heritage, but also allow non-Hispanics and

homes, appears as a large bullfrog sitting on a lily pad in a pond in a

nonspecialists to understand their message.

number of murals. The coquí is one of the national symbols of Puerto

The African holds a place similar to that of the Native American as

Rico and its clear whistles accompany each nightfall much the same as

defender of basic values, seeker of freedom, and warrior for what is right.

crickets in the North American summer. Here again, second-generation

Africans, for example, may include Egyptian pharaohs, Ethiopians, and

painters insert images they have seen in school textbooks, often not

others not well represented in New World African populations. Ancient

knowing of coquís firsthand.

Egyptians demonstrate that there existed a great and complex civilization

Unbeknownst to muralists, but recognized by elite Anglo-American

in Latinos’ past. African heritage, shared by Caribbean Latinos and African

viewers, is the fact that the frog is one of the mine canaries of the world

Americans, allows these groups to coalesce around issues that affect them

ecosystem. The symbol carries power both inside and outside the artists’

both. Collaborative murals of this sort promote solidarity in the face of

intent. The nature theme, and issues related to it, draws some of the

discrimination. Poor human services and lack of education, among other

broadest ethnic coalitions. Hispanics/Latinos, African Americans, Asians,

problems, are perpetrated against both groups by the larger society. The

and other ethnic groups—even those populated by the powerful in North

fact that North and South Americans actually derive their African heritage

American society—rally around the idea of protecting nature. This is

primarily from West Africa is not important here. Egyptians and Egyptian

particularly poignant in an urban environment almost devoid of it. Muralists

symbols win the day when it comes to promoting African pride and serving

delight in depicting seasons of which they only see shadows: flowering

as a springboard for social action.

springs, riotously colored autumns, and winters blanketed in snow, deep

Peninsular Spanish heritage sometimes appears in paintings, which

and white. Children’s murals show bridges and pathways leading out of the

show armored conquistadors, dancing women from Seville, guitar playing,

skyscrapers and into a pristine world of animals and woods and pastures.

and other standard scenes. Heritage in contemporary traditions such

Nature murals serve as backdrops for community garden projects where

as Santo carving, the religion of Santería, or the masked Vejigantes

neighbors grow herbs and flowers and keep bees and fish. These gardens

dancers of Puerto Rico are often mistakenly attributed to Africa alone in

host local theater productions, children’s craft projects, concerts, and

the murals. In actuality, they are African/European (and/or Indigenous)

festivities. Ironically, the gardens and nature murals are the most conducive

syncretic forms. The rationale here appears to be the promotion of the

to the gentrification of poor neighborhoods by the rich, who are attracted

non-European aspects of painters’ heritage, especially when painters

to the beauty of the gardens.

gloss Spaniards of the past with North Americans of the present. This is often, though not always, the case.

Animals from widely disparate environments may be placed in the same jungle or savannah. In this way, both the North American and non-Latino

Native Americans and Africans are found in murals that promote Hispanic

304

b. Natural Surroundings. Nature is a common theme in street murals. North

viewer audience recognize their symbolic import. As more migrants from,

solidarity, often of several ethnic groups or Hispanic/African American

for example, Amazonia and the Lacandon areas of Mexico and Guatemala

coalitions. In this case, muralists wish to make statements of praise about the

arrive in the city, certain animals and plants have become more accurate

greatness of their shared non-European heritage in historical murals. They

in representation. For example, generalized jungle cats become jaguars

also criticize a social system that benefits people of European descent and

covered with characteristic open “spots” and generalized birds become

discriminates against people of color in paintings whose major themes are

macaws that sport accurate color markings. At the same time, North

social issues like poor housing or lack of access to health care and education.

American intruders-on-the-scene, such as bald eagles, remain the same in

Mary Strong

A rt a n d M ind : Wo r k ing o n M u r a ls

305

figures because of their separation from servitude as an idea and their selfsufficiency. Jíbaro independence probably meant survival at a bare-bones Detail from mural by Chico, New York City, 2001. Photograph by Mary Strong. Figure 13.1.

appearance (Figure 13.1). Muralists here try, with success, to communicate

level, though their ecologically and nutritionally sound intensive gardening

with the widest possible audience on the issue of environmental protection,

and husbandry of multiple crops and animals is held up as part of the ideal.

often using the media popularity of the rainforest crisis. The idea of specific

The muralists promote in-group intraethnic but specifically Puerto Rican

ethnic background, in the traditional sense, is of almost no consequence. In

solidarity and criticize slavery and abuse both past and present when

this way, both homogenized North American and an amalgam of Hispanic-

they paint African Jíbaros cutting cane. The Cuban Guajiro, the Dominican

Latino viewer audiences recognize the symbolic import of these murals.

country person, and similar figures from other lands are sometimes seen by viewers from other islands when they observe a painted Jíbaro.

c. Stock Heroines and Heroes. Stock heroines and heroes are of two types.

figure (Figure 13.3). The woman’s head covering, earrings, clothing, and

group. Others are of a more generalized nature, which allows a number of

nondescript coloring identify her with many Caribbean and circum-

ethnic groups to rally behind a common idea. An example of a specific hero

Caribbean populations. She is accompanied by florid graffiti-style texts

type is the Puerto Rican Jíbaro.

in Spanish, Spanglish, and Black English, thus incorporating U.S.-born

The Jíbaro/a is a proud, hard-working, and independent country person

Hispanics and African Americans. The writing in English refers to the idea

from Puerto Rico. Jíbaros/as have distinctive clothes, notably the pava, or

of motherhood and in this way also pulls in a more generalized English

large straw hat, for the man (Figure 13.2). Jíbaros/as are sometimes shown

readership that might venture into this economically poor area and that also

cutting sugar cane, though historically they may rarely have done so, and

appreciates the idea of motherhood. The dancer, then, makes pan-Caribbean,

as African, though many were primarily of European descent. The Jíbaro

Mesoamerican, Amazonian, and other references simultaneously.

was historically a very small-scale land-owning peasant. Jíbaros lived in

306

At the other extreme are figures like the mixed-descent dancing woman

Some of these derive from the specific ethnohistory of a particular cultural

Representations of figures like the Puerto Rican Jíbaro are most

the hilly interior of the island and were not dependent on the sugar-based

often specific to a single nationality. Multiple ethnic references in the

monocrop/plantation slave economy of the coast. They became hero

representation of this and similar figures limit themselves to the tremendous

Mary Strong

Top: Figure 13.2. Full shot of mural Plaza Cultural, 1976. Muralists: Alfredo Hernández and crew from CITYarts Workshop and Lower East Side (LES) community. Jíbaro figure is in upper corner wearing a straw hat. Photograph by and courtesy of CITYarts Workshop. Location: Tenth Street and Avenue C, New York City. Bottom: Figure 13.3. Detail from mural: Every Day is Mother’s Day. Anonymous, New York City. Photograph by Mary Strong, 2001.

A rt a n d M ind : Wo r k ing o n M u r a ls

307

subethnic variety within even one of the Hispanic/Latino cultures when

Escape paintings show new, better, and easier-to-understand worlds

viewed close at hand. Figures like the dancing woman, on the other hand,

than the one in which painters live. Faces of divine powers float in misty

send out generalized signals that welcome a broad and multiethnic audience.

skies. Evildoers suffer the smitings of lightning bolts from the heavens. Magical beings appear and disappear, influencing lives for better and

d. In Memoriam. Like the theme of nature, the new “In Memoriam” murals

for worse. A mural in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn

help to bring together multiple ethnic groups around a commonly

called Peace was meant to foster its title value among two violently

experienced urban theme.

opposed groups of local youths: Hasidic Jews and African Americans. The walls, sidewalks, and parks of New York

The mural took the “escape” route by depicting a melange of religions

City are covered with small and large altars to

and natural images characteristic of both populations (Figure 13.5).

the fallen (Figure 13.4). Many of these young

Analysts of the escape genre could categorize it easily alongside a view

heroes died of AIDS, violence, or drugs. Portraits

of culture as an ever-changing and creative phenomenon. Murals show

of the deceased, religious imagery, candles,

mental worlds primarily, not actual ones. In this view, we see differing

flowers, prayers, and songs are included in

degrees of the artist’s desire to edit reality in the various kinds of ideas

murals or placed in three-dimensional art works

that murals express.

nearby. Family members, friends, neighbors,

Escape murals can provide a virtual world within which idealized

and strangers make bilingual contributions.

scenarios can be enacted. They usually promote ethnic coalition, though

This type of altar is a strong and old tradition

this can be of varying degrees since they exclude populations unprepared

in Mesoamerica. Especially evident in Latino

to decode meaning that is age- or ethnicity-specific.

Detail from mural: Peace, 1992. Muralists: Mary Strong and Mayra Brown with crew from Crown Heights Youth Collective, Brooklyn, N.Y. This image shows the uneven wall that was the muralists’ work surface. Notice the distorted lion’s head, half hidden from this perspective because of an indentation in the wall. From the passersby’s perspective (higher than this view), however, the lion appears as normal. The pitted surface of the masonry contributes to a fuzzy resolution at close range and more clarity at a distance. Photograph by Mary Strong, 1992. Figure 13.5.

neighborhoods of all ethnic mixes, the altar blends seamlessly with recent trends of this type at war memorials such as the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., and other scenes of tragedy in North America, such as the area Mural: In Memoriam of Cesar. Anonymous, New York City. Photograph by Mary Strong, 2001. Figure 13.4.

around the destroyed World Trade Center buildings. Recently, there has been a proliferation of memorial murals in Hispanic neighborhoods. The healing power of community mourning in these very difficult times seems a necessity. The tragedy of senseless violent death, particularly of the young, is a major theme expressed in both pictures and writing. The marginalization of the poor to neighborhoods where, for example, revenge shootings from drug lords can hit the innocent promotes ethnic coalitions, specifically of Hispanic, Asian American, and African American groups. The overarching attempt to come to terms with grief and bereavement makes the memoriam murals, objects accompanying them, and people’s behavior around them very similar to the more well-known sites. Despite the existence of numerous paintings of this type, the larger society rarely sees paintings in honor of Hector who died of addiction or little Sara who was hit by a stray bullet. They are there, however, totally understandable to outsiders, a plea for help from the larger society in solving very serious urban problems. e. Escape. The theme of escape is a dominant one. The distinctly non-urban

308

nature scenes described above are an example. Child muralists and murals

f. Media Influence. Television, computer software, the Internet, film, radio, and,

made for children include fairy tale fantasies, computer game worlds, outer

to a lesser extent, print media have a profound influence on street art. The

space, comic book superheroes, Disney characters, Japanese anime, and

innovative visuals found in these media serve as models for mural artists.

other images derived from the media. Adults also produce such murals

The use of the diagonal as a design grid, highly exaggerated perspective,

but include depictions of music, dance, and nostalgic scenes from the

dramatic lighting, intense colors, and other contemporary conventions

past in their repertoire. Scenes from the past also contain important stock

have their origin in the popular media. Street muralists, especially young

characters and traditional folk heroes.

ones, express the latest ways of perceiving in their work. Visual stereotypes Mary Strong

A rt a n d M ind : Wo r k ing o n M u r a ls

309

and clichés also have media origin. Superheroes and heroines, as well

impervious to marks. Building owners often use a deep shade of terra cotta

as villains, and characters recognizable from other art forms appear in

or similar dark paint to repeatedly cover marks. Many of the city’s paintable

murals. Types of influences range from the obvious—as in the case of a

surfaces constitute a constant back-and-forth movement of marks being

recognizable superhero, such as Spiderman—to subtle, as in the use of very

made and marks being covered over.

contemporary models for color, design, or perspective. In these murals, the young communicate across ethnic boundaries. The old, with the exception of those attuned to contemporary media, are excluded.

b. Artists’ Group Names. Though many murals are anonymous, others include the artist’s or organization’s name somewhere in the work. For this reason, some pictorial murals constitute very large gang markers. Neighborhood

Words

organizations and schools have taken up this tradition and have used

Words alone can make up a mural. Words sometimes appear in pictorial murals. Some relate to authorship, others to ideas that the visual parts of murals are meant to convey.

murals effectively to delineate their sphere of influence. A good example of the relation between clubs and murals is the case of “Atom” and a mural called Human Support. Atom is the leader of the local neighborhood club of “homeboys,” or “homies.” A team of muralists who wished to paint in the

a. Gang, Turf, and Individual Marks and Signs. These marks, sometimes

neighborhood negotiated with Atom. He and his group marked the site of

known as “tags,” are generally very compact and stylized. Rather than

the mural, indicating their support and intent to defend the painting from

being complete words, many consist of a few representative letters with

marking by other clubs. They assisted with production and continued to

some pictorial elements. Gang marks represent “clubs” made up of teenage

defend the painting once it was complete. The approval and cooperation of

youth—usually, though not always, boys—who come from a particular

Atom was a totally necessary prerequisite to completion of the mural and its

neighborhood. These clubs can be strictly social in nature, though many form

long-term survival once finished.

to defend their excessively violent home neighborhoods from other clubs, drug rings, criminals, and similar dangerous elements. At times, clubs derive

Design

income from criminal activity, such as the sale of illegal drugs and firearms.

Elements of design include use of space, placement, and pictorial factors. These are abstract principles, which muralists use to edit the meaning of images. Abstract principles in murals operate on most viewers in a subconscious or only partially conscious way since viewers relate most easily to recognizable images. Totally abstract murals are most often defaced unless the representation has ethnic significance. For this reason, it is probably abstract principles and the way in which they edit pictorial or realistic images that underlie the kind of open-endedness in mural symbolism that leads to slippages in ethnic identity, degree of breadth in intended audience, dimensions within the messaging, and other communicational qualities of murals. In other words, embedded design principles operate on the edge of conscious awareness. By using recognizable images, design accounts for a good deal of a mural’s success in projecting multiple messages that reach diverse audiences simultaneously.

Club members decry the fact that to the world outside the low-income neighborhoods of the city, criminal clubs—mistakenly called “gangs”—have come to stand for all youth clubs. Many young people’s groups of today, however, are forced into violent behavior and feel constrained to carry firearms for defense. The activity of heavily armed drug rings and other criminal groups in their families’ neighborhoods accounts for this. A club’s home turf or neighborhood boundaries are often marked by the club’s symbol or sign. This is a warning to outside groups entering club territory. The principle is similar to animals marking their territory with scratchings or bodily secretions, or human organizations and institutions enclosing their property with fences and defending boundaries with guards and gates. Especially at certain times in the history of New York City, youth groups went far beyond their home territory to leave their marks. During the 1970s, for example, a city budget downswing corresponded to an explosion

Use of Two- and Three-Dimensional Space

of “marking.” Entire subway cars were covered with exuberant club and

The mural is physically applied to a two-dimensional space, the wall. However, this surface has infinite possibilities for use of the third dimension. Employing traditional or innovative perspective conventions, the muralist can make almost unending scenes within scenes. Painters locate these scenes anywhere on the wall surface and employ varying dimensions. In this way, a mural is like an Internet site with multiple links or an interactive computer game or DVD. A particular area of a mural in Lower Manhattan, for example, contains historical imagery about Chinese immigration history in the United States. (The Chinese are a very large immigrant group in New York. Some Chinese are also Hispanic. Murals sometimes address one or the other of these identities, or both together.) The muralist comments on that history by going back into space within the area assigned to the late 1800s and highlighting a small race riot scene. These riots were common at the

individual names in rainbow colors and artful designs. Youngsters worked all night in railroad yards and remote neighborhoods. They used spray paint and extra-large permanent markers for their pieces. Some city residents praised this art as vibrant and original, others criticized it as graffiti, or defacement of public property. Since the 1990s, efficient municipal cleanup crews and a change in fashion have much reduced extraterritorial marking. However, whenever “foreign” marks appear in a neighborhood, they are cause for concern because they portend an actual invasion as strongly as would an international declaration of war. In the twenty-first century, many marks or tags appear in the form of scratchings on subway windows. Subway cars now have a covering of paint 310

Mary Strong

A rt a n d M ind : Wo r k ing o n M u r a ls

311

time. They arose in part because of interethnic competition for certain categories of jobs during a general economic depression. European rioters perceived their plight in terms of fear and hatred of the Chinese. Many Chinese were injured or killed during such riots. On the other hand, the muralist may choose to comment on a particular part of a mural with large, imposing figures that extend outward in space from the flat surface. The large size of murals enhances the optical effects of such use of space. Huge figures smile down upon housing reform projects, urban gardens, and similar positive scenes in a number of murals. Muralists also use two-dimensional space alone in interesting ways. They can divide the painting surface in a “dynamic” or “static” manner, depending on the emotion or state of mind they wish to evoke in viewers. Dynamic murals use diagonal divisions across the picture plane as well as numerous explorations forward and back through several picture planes or “grounds.” Dynamic design is unsettling, disturbing, and attention-getting. Typically, dynamic designs speak only to the poor or ethnic coalitions of the economically poor. Static designs use horizontal/vertical divisions across the picture plane and minimal explorations in terms of depth perspective. Static designs are peaceful, tranquil, comfortable. Muralists use static designs to indicate the ideal, for example, an ideal future. They may mix static and dynamic designs, the former aimed at the wealthy and powerful and the latter aimed at the different coalitions of the poor (see discussions of ambiguity and multiple audiences below). Placement

Mural artists place images and groups of associated images in certain ways for communication purposes. Imagery at the bottom or top, right or left, foreground or background is understood more specifically by viewers because of its placement.

to right as they read English. True to form, according to the literature, negative and critical imagery is characteristically on the left in murals. The right contains positive and praiseworthy images. Left-hand images represent the problematics of the present, while right-hand images state hopes for the future (Figures 13.6a and 13.6b). c. Foreground and Background. The foreground refers to the pictorial space closest to the viewer. Background or grounds (middle grounds are sometimes called “the middle distance”) occupy planes behind the surface of the painting. Foreground imagery states general principles and is often relatively benign in nature. Background imagery can be very specific commentaries on general principles. Background scenes are more characteristically critical, disturbing, and unsettling than are foregrounds in murals dealing with social issues. Muralists use placement to speak to multiple audiences. Large, toplocated images with a static design mollify the elites and at the same time indicate a secure future for coalitions of ethnic minority viewers. Small, bottom, or left-hand-located images speak to more specific audiences on the ethnic/socioeconomic continuum.

Figure 13.6a and 13.6b. Mural: Crear una Sociedad Nueva, 1976. Muralist: Tomie Arai and crew from CITYarts Workshop and LES community. Negative images are on the left in the dark colors, and triumphal positive images are on the right in bright colors. Photograph by and courtesy of CITYarts Workshop. Location: Houston and Second Street, New York City.

Pictorial Factors

Pictorial factors refer to qualities assigned to images and grounds. Size, color, presence or absence of light, and the mass and dimension or depth of images all have meaning. The interaction among images in a grouping communicates a particular effect as well.

a. Top and Bottom. Viewers “read” murals in a particular order. Artists’ skills in planning the mural design encourage the order of this reading. Many murals

a. Size. Size often indicates importance, large

of the historical type (ethnic or gender history, for example) are meant

figures being more important than small

to be read from bottom to top. This is a natural order for viewers of large

figures. This principle is an ancient one.

murals because they are located at the base of the painting. In addition,

Egyptian wall paintings show the pharaohs

the painters employ a symbol or metaphor that promotes such reading.

as giants, while their retainers have Lilliputian

For example, the mural Wall of Respect for Women uses a tree to organize

dimensions. New York muralists use size in

its basic design. The roots of the tree contain images that narrate distant

this way as well. The large and happy figures

history. The middle levels of the trunk show recent history. New shoots at

that dominate the upper third of many

the top of the tree show the present and future. The tree is at the same time

murals express a dominant theme of triumph

a design principle and a woman, complete with womb and fetus, hands,

over adversity and hope for the future.

and a head. Other murals of a historical nature associate early history with

It is not so much an identifiable individual

the darker bottom of the mural and present-future times with the strongly

whose size and importance is coterminous

lighted top. Mural reading is opposite in movement to the reading of English

as an idea, or set of ideas. Muralists often say

language texts. This, however, appears not to be a problem for viewers.

that although murals portray difficult issues, they should be in the main positive. The

b. Right and Left. There is a wide anthropological literature on the

312

urban environment itself is difficult enough.

intercultural significance of right versus left. The custom of eating or

A mural that only recreates reality makes no

shaking hands only with the right hand and expressions like “righteous”

contribution to its neighborhood. The mural

attest to the positive valuation given to the right. The left is similarly

as instigator of coalition and change must

negative as viewers read problem- or issue-oriented murals from left

promote positive emotion, pride, faith, and

Mary Strong

A rt a n d M ind : Wo r k ing o n M u r a ls

313

other encouragements. In this way, neighborhood people will sally forth and

future scenes, deceased heroes and heroines, and divine beings. Often

solve problems with zeal and energy.

the muralist encases all of this visual narrative into a typical landscape

There are other factors also at work here. The truly critical scenes in murals of any sort are most often small in size and close to eye level for

construct, the earth being at the bottom and the sky and astral bodies being at the top.

the pedestrian walking by. Such scenes contain negative opinions about powerful elements in society, including the wealthy, the government, the

d. Mass and Depth. Mass is the visual weight of images or groups of images

forces of law and order, and the ethnic and gender majorities, for example.

in a mural. Large size, high relief, great contrast, and other representational

Local residents view and appreciate such small imagery from the sidewalk

techniques contribute to mass. Massive imagery is what impresses viewers

at their leisure. Viewers from other neighborhoods, as mentioned above,

most. Images with little mass have less importance and tend to recede into

most often sweep by in cars. Their eyes catch only the smiling large

the background. The most massive images may be the most important, but

images. These drive-by viewers totally miss small imagery that is more than

as they often present a benign appearance, other processes may be at work.

likely not flattering to them. In this way, muralists keep patronage funds

Depth refers to the three-dimensional qualities of images and of the mural

and permissions flowing in their direction while at the same time satisfying

as a whole. The muralist can use depth to advantage in order to create an

local neighborhood audiences.

entire range of actual or imaginary worlds. These worlds reside in the many visual planes that the painters create. Contiguity with certain areas of the

b. Color. The bright colors in murals stand out from the drab city buildings like

mural allows a scene from a background plane, for example, to “edit” or

birds of paradise in a flock of sparrows. They are a visual celebration often

comment upon something going on in the foreground. Some newspaper

greeted with involuntary smiles on the part of passersby. While making the

cartoonists achieve the same end by having tiny insects, birds, or homunculi

mural Peace (see Figure 13.5) in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the painters were

making comments on the main scene.

urged by passersby to intensify the colors. The entire mural was recolored

Use of space, placement, and pictorial factors facilitate the mural’s

three times to meet audience demand for the ultimate vibrancy possible

capacity to create the kind of flux in viewers’ minds that will allow them

using the paints available. Passersby, especially neighborhood residents,

to reflect and to change, even in terms of the comprehensiveness of their

have an important say in the type and quality of imagery and the design

notion of ethnic identity, and hopefully, even, to act as a result.

of street murals. If muralists wish their work to remain intact, they must respond to the editorial comments of passersby.

Symbolism, Metaphor, Ambiguity

Color tone associated with varying amounts of light and darkness portrays emotion and degree of positive or negative reaction to a particular scene. Like all painters, muralists use color to establish different degrees of distance or depth within the painting. Skillful use of intensity and contrast also draws attention toward or away from particular parts of the painting. c. Light and Darkness. Muralists establish a source of light and its contrasting shadow. These qualities also contribute to the tones of colors. The two contrasting states can simply indicate day or night. Artists use some or all of these functions of light and darkness also to emphasize meaning, in terms of positive or negative emotion and ideological approval versus disapproval. Problem-oriented murals (those dealing with controversial or

As more and more murals began to appear on the walls of New York City buildings, muralists took up and elaborated on traditions they observed. These visual traditions are images that have come to have a core of common meaning. As such, they are symbols. What lies beyond the core of common meaning is the realm of metaphor. It is here through the skillful use of visual ambiguity that innovation and reinterpretations take place. Some symbols have become so common that they are almost universally understood in a very specific way. These are signs. Some of these mural conventions have to do with the order in which elements of the mural should be read. The Mexican muralists have contributed enormously to this. Other conventions are particular images, colors, or tones of light and shadow. All have significance and will be dealt with below.

important issues) are most often read from left to right. The “problem”—for example, run-down housing or crime—is stated in the left side or lower left

Symbols

quadrant of the mural. This left side is in shadow. The right side, in bright

The development of symbols and symbol systems over time in murals has a number of explanations. These causal factors include the history of muralism in the United States, the process by which minorities rediscovered their ethnic roots, and other media. As noted, New York murals of today have two parent traditions with particularly strong influence: the Mexican murals and their offspring in the American Southwest, and the WPA murals of the 1930s. These parent mural movements have created canons in terms of design, color, and specific imagery that appear in New York murals today. For example, the bottom-to-top spiral organization

light, presents the solution or resolution of the issue. Negative characters are most often in deep tones (skin color being the exception) and positive characters in bright tones. Historical or factual murals are deep-toned at their base and gradually brighten as the eye moves upward. This encourages viewers to read the mural from bottom to top. Its chronological presentation is so ordered. The deep-toned portions of historical murals also contain imagery showing problematic scenes from past history. The top of the mural includes hopeful 314

Mary Strong

A rt a n d M ind : Wo r k ing o n M u r a ls

315

in mural design can be found in both root movements. Wealthy classes symbolized by top-hatted fat men and the relentless industrial exploitation of workers counterbalanced by syndicalist and revolutionary movements is Mexican in origin. Few rich men regularly wear top hats or carry canes in the twenty-first century, yet these figures continue to appear in murals. In the WPA murals, by contrast, factory and farm labor is a heroic enterprise. While Mexicans showed the entrapment of workers in machines, in Charlie Chaplin fashion, WPA painters showed machines as extensions of human power and domination. Both concepts of industry appear often in New York murals of today. Ethnic groups develop their own set of symbols through time. For Latinos, the sun, palm trees, tropical fruits, parrots, frogs, and other elements of nature symbolize their country of origin. Africans and Native Americans have a similar symbolic function. These figures defend nature against industry and urbanism, which muralists associate with the United States. African Americans show Africans, particularly Egyptians, as their forebears. Africans in a free state, close to nature, on their home continent contrast greatly with Africans enslaved in the United States. Asians show dragons, religious figures, and aspects of traditional Chinese dress, such as pigtails, to refer to the old country. “Multicultural” symbols like rainbows are used by Latinos to denote their great phenotypic variety. The same rainbow can denote solidarity among African Americans, Asians, Europeans, and others. Within each of these ethnic groups, the symbols have a commonly understood, yet open-ended meaning. Symbols from the media—for example, cartoon superheroes—can have a pan-ethnic meaning. Some symbols, such as the Egyptian ankh, a symbol of hope, are well on their way to becoming signs, perhaps even clichés. The ankh appears in murals by African Americans referring to their Egyptian forbears. Roman Catholic Latinos identify with the cross at the base of the symbol. In addition, Latinos of dark complexion identify strongly with African Americans. By way of regional comparison, the dark-skinned Indigenous Virgin of Guadalupe, portrayed in the Southwest U.S. and Mexican murals, stands for her Mexican American constituency. She is often shown outwitting God, a white male divinity. Symbols and signs of other origins include the yellow circle with a smiling face within it and the circle with a line through it. The first was commercial in origin, and the second was created for public service signage. These are examples of signs that have become clichés. Symbols can standardize to the point of becoming clichés, remain relatively static though multivalent, constitute part of a constant cycle of change, or be true innovations. As symbols and signs in murals become more and more standardized, they acquire the status of stereotype or cliché. Stereotypes convey a limited and pedestrian meaning to the public in general. In a tradition like that of the United States, which values constant change, stereotypes and clichés soon go out of fashion. A long-term observer, however, will actually see that today’s stereotype will eventually become tomorrow’s innovation and vice versa. Like hairstyles, hemlines, and other aspects of popular culture, visual stereotypes only die to be born again at some future time. Examples of stereotypes/clichés in murals include peace signs, smiling circles, raised fists, and “number one” hand figures. Young persons, especially those who are members of minority groups, value codes of communication exclusive to their own culture. This exclusivity requires 316

Mary Strong

constant change. “Neat,” “cool,” which becomes “awesome,” which becomes “fresh,” and then “cool” slips back in again. When mural imagery is too commonly understood, muralists seek innovative approaches in order to maintain a sense of membership in the in-group. In this way, they can keep the mural message pointed at the more ethnically exclusive end of the continuum. The use of imagery understood by a limited group also protects that group’s ability to communicate freely to its own members. Puerto Rican muralists use the littleknown image of the Puerto Rican Independence Flag to speak to a particular subgroup. Young muralists from a number of ethnic groups use details of clothing and posture in painted figures. These are soon taken up by the larger society and so must constantly change. A baseball-type cap worn bill-backwards, for example, once had a specific message. Now, children of many groups wear their hats in this way. At the time of this writing, “cool” young people wear their caps pulled down over their eyebrows with the bill forward. Rather than curling the corners of the bill downward, as was the case in recent fashion, these youths leave it as flat as they found it in the store. This mode too shall change as soon as it becomes uncomfortably widespread in the general population. There are many examples of new symbols in wall art that only gradually reached the general public. One of these is the inverted pink triangle with the enigmatic phrase “silence=death.” It took members outside the nonheterosexual community a great deal of time to decipher this epigram’s meaning with respect to AIDS research. The folded red ribbon (solidarity with AIDS patients) and the yellow ribbon (support of U.S. troops overseas) are both new symbols and signs. These appear in murals along with peace doves, black armbands, scales of justice, wise owls, and other symbols and signs that are relatively universal and unchanging. The Function of Ambiguity/Metaphor

Ambiguity of representation in murals functions to communicate with multiple audiences. Artists use size, color, location, design, and other techniques to accomplish this. At times, murals draw different audiences’ attention to distinct parts of the painting. Other works employ an image, design element, or symbol that appears meaningless or bland to most viewers, but is highly charged for the focus group(s). Ambiguity in murals contributes to metaphoric meaning for viewers who understand the paintings’ implications, especially for those who comprehend the different and sometimes opposing messages simultaneously intended. a. Historical Precedents. Artists, like many other intellectuals, feel compelled to criticize their world and suggest ways of improving on the present version. At the same time, most artists must make at least part of their usually meager living from art making. Those who support art production are often the wealthiest, most powerful, and most conservative elements in society. Goya solved this dilemma by painting bland color portraits of rotund nobles on rearing steeds for a living and searing black-and-white prints of ghouls, firing squads, and dire poverty for himself. Muralists’ work is large and public. The possibility of continued patronage for murals or, at the very least, existence of murals demands special tactics. Michelangelo and Rivera A rt a n d M ind : Wo r k ing o n M u r a ls

317

got in trouble with their patrons (Pope Julius II and Nelson Rockefeller,

Ricans, far from being a historically enslaved people, are, in fact, self-

respectively) when they incorporated too specifically critical imagery into

determining and powerful (Figure 13.7).

their work. Murals have been whitewashed, grafittied, and sprayed with mud

Figure 13.7. Detail from mural: Puerto Rican Heritage, 1975. Muralist: Alfredo Hernández and crew from CITYarts Workshop and LES community. Bayo’an and companions drown a Spaniard. Photograph by and courtesy of CITYarts Workshop. Location: Madison Avenue and Jefferson Street, New York City.

and other materials if their message offended. Of all the mural’s multiple audiences, that of the patron(s) or the powerful is most important to the continued ability of painters to practice their craft. b. Necessity of Multiple Messages. Muralists employ the principle of visual ambiguity to satisfy all of their audiences. Michelangelo painted his own distorted face in hell for the pope. Some might see this in terms of the artist’s self-criticism. Others observe that the muralist is suffering hell in this life because of his patron’s behavior. Muralists in New York use image size, light, and bland-positive human facial expressions to please the wealthy. They reserve the small, dark images near the sidewalk to please their neighborhood constituencies. Ambiguity of representation, then, allows the muralist to speak to many audiences at once. The message allows one set of viewers to infer clear intent while at the same time not offending viewers of different or even opposite persuasion. Muralists who use images of historical figures appear to the uninitiated as merely narrating the past. To members of ethnic

Ambiguity allows murals to communicate at the same time to both

minorities, these historical figures and scenes make clear comments on the

specific and generalized ethnic audiences. It is the soul of flux, and when

contemporary scene.

combined with the echo power inherent in metaphor, shows how visual

The Jíbaro or Native American portrayed as a large, smiling, welllighted, and “quaint” figure delights patrons. It is typical of patrons to feel

art can both illustrate and foment cultural coalitions of varying extent and culture change simultaneously.

comfortable with populations that have either actually (as in the case of many groups of Native Americans) or historically (as in the case of Jíbaros)

Murals in Context

disappeared. The muralist has spoken to two audiences. The mural, with its

The mural as an isolated painting is a study in itself. A slightly broader context is the uneven canvas of the mural wall’s building. However, the mural needs to be seen in the environment of surrounding buildings, the street, and the neighborhood. The mural is a colorful backdrop for the neighborhood as stage set. Different populations of actors encounter the mural each day.

ambiguous island peasant figure, is a success. African American painters are similarly successful in their use of generalized figures that contain elements from disparate parts of the African continent. It is not important that these hero and heroine figures are not ethnographically traceable. Their importance lies in what they represent: Africans living a life of dignity and

Trick of the Eye

control over their own destiny. An example of an image that is bland to most audiences is a small scene within a large mural showing several Taino Indians drowning a sixteenthcentury Spaniard whose doublet and stockinged feet alone show above the water line. This scene is totally mysterious to almost all viewers but Puerto Ricans. The scene depicts an actual historical event in which a young Indigenous Taino chief, Bayo’an, convinced some companions to try drowning a Spaniard. Up until that time, the Tainos, bound in servitude to the new colonialists, thought of them as gods. Bayo’an and company held their victim down for six hours. Upon noting the fact that the Spaniard was dead, the first major Native American revolts began in Puerto Rico. This historical scene honors Bayo’an, but it is more than a fact from the past. Metaphorically, the scene echoes through time and makes comments about the Puerto Rican people today. Painting this scene (it is dark, relatively, and in the middle ground) located between a large figure of a conquistador in armor (foreground) and a slave trader (background) shows that Puerto 318

Mary Strong

Walls used for murals contain windows, chimneys, walkways, fire escapes, and other intrusions on the painting surface. Walls are rarely merely square or rectangular. They have odd extensions, holes, bites, and other geometric and organic qualities. Walls abut sidewalks, fences, archways, bridges, gates, and other walls. Mural surfaces are rarely smooth, but have lumps and crevices. Some of these are quite extensive, as in the case of heating units, ducts, and other attached machinery. Clever muralists use the unique characters of walls, incorporating them into the mural or extending the mural concepts into surrounding space. The mural God Bless Our Home meets a busy sidewalk. Painted pedestrians blend with real ones passing by. Painted doors and windows accompany the genuine article. Both private and public housing organizations have borrowed this principle from muralists. Abandoned buildings that await renovation often have their windows covered with metal plates. The plates are painted with figures of potted plants, people, pets, and the other scenes typically appearing in urban A rt a n d M ind : Wo r k ing o n M u r a ls

319

windows. This imagery is said to protect the building from vandals, who might otherwise think that no one cares for the property. 6. See a full theoretical discussion of ideas presented here in “Big Pictures” by Mary Strong, 1998. This article was published under the auspices of Routledge of the Taylor & Francis Group in the journal Visual Anthropology (www.informaworld. com). The version presented in this book contains partial material from the original article and is presented here with the publisher’s permission. See also Castells (1998), Freidman (1994), and Wagner (1975) on processes of globalization and ethnic identity. 7. The advent of computer software, which allows for the manipulation of photographic and handmade imagery, is only an outgrowth of long-standing techniques used by photographic and film artists of the past. The computer user can make a photograph or moving image look like a painting and insert faces, backgrounds, and other details, and change colors (among other possibilities), employing an almost infinite array of options. Artists who use these techniques certainly resemble those who create in a totally manual way by coordinating eye and hand. In this sense, there is no great difference in the end products of some machine-made and handmade art in terms of the degree of “reality” or “imaginative fantasy” represented. However, the doing or making process is distinct. The manual artist draws images and forms from his brain directly and coordinates eye and hand to achieve that internal landscape. The mechanical artist changes an image outside of herself, often one made by someone else, with a click of a recording tool. The handmade process is interior, intuitive, and reflective, while the machinemade process is exterior and analytical.

320

Mural Context

The stage set is an apt metaphor. The mural is a backdrop for human activity. The mirroring that takes place between what the mural shows and street behavior makes everyday life into theater. Neighborhood residents can then view their lives as they never have before. They can reflect on the meaning of what they do and what is done to them. New ideas about improved daily life can arise in their minds. In the context of the neighborhood, murals are especially colorful props. Neighbors tend to sweep the sidewalk in front of them, pick up debris, defend the space against loiterers. Murals that accompany gardens encourage people to put potted plants on the fire escapes and windows. Street muralists make these observations in their diaries, though no full-scale research on this phenomenon of the effect of murals has appeared. Through a typical day, many different populations interact with the mural and its surroundings. The various modes of transport promote different viewing experiences. People travel by foot, on bicycles, motorbikes, cars, subways, and helicopters. One enterprising muralist painted a sequence that became animated for the riders of a particular subway on the support columns for the subway shaft. For a typical mural on the Lower East Side of New York City, delivery people, bakers, teachers, and construction workers occupy the early morning niche. Next come the mass of commuters during the 7am–9am rush. Midday can be full of viewers taking lunch or almost a deserted landscape, depending on the neighborhood. These cycles continue through the day and evening until the denizens of the night see the mural dimly lit at wee hours. In this way, many groups claim the mural as their own, though for neighborhood residents, it is theirs in a special way. The mural is a backdrop for the stage of neighborhood life. It influences locals and passersby both consciously and subliminally. In this way, new ideas form and actions follow.6

forces behind points of view and behaviors that might otherwise be beyond their grasp. Here, creativity, ambiguity, and humor play with being there and not, saying it, but not really. The unspeakable, ineffable, unthinkable, and improbable dance before our eyes in these very big paintings. The mind’s mysterious interior has its cargo hold wide open. Finally, murals very often send messages that ask people to act. Murals portray poverty, injustice, lack of access to health care and learning, ethnic discrimination, and many other ills. Making and viewing a mural in itself is active. This, and the subsequent actions that hopefully lead to improvements in peoples’ lives that murals suggest has a name: “Praxis.” Praxis means reflective practice or thoughtful and ethical activity to those in the Marxian scholarly tradition. Art and its making leads to innovative thoughts and ideas; this creative process leads to attempts to resolve human difficulties and enhance positive aspects of our existence. These are compelling reasons for anthropologists to become involved in making murals. Suggested Projects

Although the following suggestions focus on murals, the approaches described can adapt to the collaborative study and production of other traditional, folk, and outsider art forms.

Background research. Get in touch with a mural-making organization or

Project 1

contact a potential one, such as an association or club attached to a school,

Make a Mural with a Community

church, neighborhood, or town council. Learn as much as possible about the group with whom you are working in terms of ethnic origins, past and present social position within the larger society, and problems, issues, and traditional concepts/images of importance. Seek information from libraries, the Internet, photo and film archives, and other sources. Carry a notebook, drawing supplies, and/or sound recorder and still or motion camera and begin recording all stages of this process. Be sure to ask permission before doing any kind of recording. If people are uncomfortable, wait until you go home

Conclusion

and make drawings and notes in diary form while your memory is fresh. A

Most anthropologists of art satisfy themselves and their colleagues by looking at finished products, interviewing art makers, and analyzing this field material against a backdrop of general ethnographic expertise they have previously mastered. This method, tried and true, provides some understanding. However, actually producing work alongside experts in a craft yields a comprehension of much greater magnitude. This collaborative approach reveals the many layers of symbolism behind each detail produced over time and space as artists create and talk. Looking at and making art without the aid of machines, like cameras and computers, has a special place. Handmade art flows from the mind and body in such a direct way that fantasies, myths, ideals, folk traditions, stereotypes, religious concepts, and other ideas not available in the world we call the “real” one take visible form.7 The multiple spatial depths, color, design, and imagery in murals provide a stage for this fantastic landscape inside the mind. Here, viewers see the driving Mary Strong

chronological diary also helps you to remember and reflect on the significance of data recorded in other forms. Helpful collaborative attitudes. Meet with your group and discuss ideas with them. Realize that if this group decides to give you the gift of their time, patience, and skill by conversing with you, teaching you, or otherwise helping you carry on your research, they are doing you a very big favor. Because you are a polite and sensitive human being, as well as being an anthropologist aware of the rules of reciprocity, it is most important that you provide favors in return. At the very least, these favors can include expressions of thanks on your part. Your coworkers might appreciate their own set of your documentary photographs of the mural process, an invitation to lunch, some tutoring in academic skills, or similar gifts of your time and knowledge. Economically poor individuals and groups often remain so because they lack access to A rt a n d M ind : Wo r k ing o n M u r a ls

321

information your university education provides. Your ability to pass on

to the larger community for final approval. The necessity for assurances of

knowledge about how, for example, to apply for certain jobs; how to complain

approval distinguishes public art from other forms and makes it somewhat

about an abusive landlord; or how to obtain legal advice can make a great

similar to “traditional” forms, which give less credence to individual

difference in peoples’ lives. Be sure to commit yourself to working with your

creativity and more to meeting public expectations.

team as an equal. This often means following their suggestions and taking orders from them rather than assuming the pose of a better educated or otherwise superior visitor to their way of life.

d. Finding a wall, obtaining supplies, preparing the wall. Public institutions such as schools, libraries, hospitals, and post offices may donate a wall for your mural. These organizations will also want to approve of the design.

a. Choosing a theme. If your group has an important issue or theme about

Businesses such as food stores, pharmacies, pet stores, and professional

which they would like to make a mural, they need to think, talk, and draw

offices may donate a wall in exchange for imagery and/or text that

about this theme. In the process, everyone has to listen to opposing views

advertises the business. You can paint on abandoned buildings and other

and make compromises. In this way, cultural traditions, social issues, local

apparently disregarded surfaces without permission. However, these places

problems, and solutions are passed through the gauntlet of group opinion.

do often have an owner who may suddenly appear and cause you problems.

Somehow, all points of view must fit into a harmoniously designed visual

Make sure to finalize official paperwork and permissions, but do not forget

piece. Making this big picture creates a panorama of ideas and actions

key unofficial, and just as much needed, approvals, such as that of the local

for possible experimentation in the day-to-day sociocultural realm of life

youth club or religious leader.

inspired by the mural-making process. Trust in the group’s talent and ability.

Building suppliers and construction companies often donate or lend

People we call “ordinary” are able to analyze their own reality, communicate

supplies such as paint, brushes, scaffolding, or ladders in exchange for

this reality to others, celebrate and value the beauty of their own traditions,

advertising—for example, in the form of a sign indicating thanks to the

and construct solutions to problems they observe among themselves. Mural

donating company. Urban masonry walls often need cleaning, leveling,

making allows them and you to escape the clamor of everyday life just

and sealing before work can begin. They may be obscured by trash and

enough to permit the mental reflection that can facilitate the flowering of

debris that must be cleared away. Making the mural on large panels is

these inborn abilities.

another option that allows muralists to preserve their work if the building changes hands. A wall tall enough to require scaffolding involves much

b. Introducing ideas to the larger community. Since murals are large public

more complication and sometimes expense than a mural possible to make

works, the communities where they will be placed must give them prior

with the help of stepladders. Mural teams often prefer long low walls for this

approval. Neighbors often deface and destroy art for which they have not

reason. Industrial white paint suitable for the surface mixed with color tints

given permission, so this first step is a vital one. Members of the mural group

available in hardware stores is an inexpensive source of color.

must find ways of talking to the surrounding community about the project they have in mind. This may mean attending neighborhood meetings, making

e. Execution. When the mural team finishes

proposals, and presenting ideas visually and verbally. Sometimes it is useful

cleaning the wall, and after applying sealant

to go from house to house asking neighbors for input or even calling local

and a base coat of paint, usually white, they

meetings yourselves. Look for a site for your mural at this time. Realize that

make a small full-color mock-up of the mural

the best scheduling for making a mural is during the warm, dry months of

on paper (Figure 13.8). The mock-up shows the design in detail on

the year. Rain and snow can destroy a painting in process.

the wall with all of its idiosyncrasies, such as c. The mural team. The mural team usually consists of two groups: “core” and

322

indentations, ventilation ducts, windows, and

“peripheral.” The core group includes regular reliable workers with some

the like. The mock-up is graphed, and so is

liking for or talent in art. The peripheral group includes people who may

the wall, to scale. Muralists often use stones

help with the project for a temporary period of time or offer other kinds

as plumb lines for the verticals, attaching

of services, such as searching for supplies or bringing drinking water to

them to chalk-covered strings that they snap

the work crew. Many members of the peripheral team will appear at first

over the white background paint, producing

as sidewalk passersby. The core group helps with community relations

lines. Two people with lengths of chalk-

and assists with design and execution of the mural during all stages

covered string can make the horizontals in

of production. The mural director or team leader takes the initiative in

similar fashion. The team uses chalk to draft in the sketch, or “cartoon” as it

coordinating ideas into the overall design and making all parts of the

is called in mural tradition. Shortly thereafter, they cover the chalk lines with

work fit together into an interesting whole, both in terms of imagery and

permanent paint to avoid the possibility of having the sketch washed away

content. The core team now produces a preliminary design and brings this

by rain (Figure 13.9).

Mary Strong

A rt a n d M ind : Wo r k ing o n M u r a ls

Mock-up of Women of the World, 1995. Muralist: Mary Strong. Photograph by Mary Strong. 1995.

Figure 13.8.

323

After making a collaborative mural with a “social problems” theme, try to help

Project 3

your mural crew actually solve one of the problems, at least to a small degree.

From Art to Action

This is a way in which visual anthropology and applied anthropology come together. Making a painting about such topics as danger in the neighborhood, the need for better schools, ethnic discrimination, lack of jobs with a living wage, and the need for basic food and shelter is a dress rehearsal for taking real action. Putting the imagery into a coherent design that uplifts viewers requires thinking about practical means to solutions. With spirits raised, you can now take the next step to action.

References

Above Right: Figure 13.9. Mural crew member painting sketch while standing on scaffold, 1985. Photograph by and courtesy of CITYarts Workshop. Above Left: Figure 13.10. Demonstration of shadow technique using a slide and actors for making the sketch, 1978. Photograph by and courtesy of CITYarts Workshop.

The mural crew now adds color, using the mock-up as a guide. It is when color first appears that passersby realize the muralists are not working on ordinary construction, but on a painting. They begin to make comments about the work, and it behooves the project team to respond to these comments by making at least small changes in the piece if many people express the same opinions. After all the finishing touches satisfy the painters, they apply a coat of finishing sealant to protect the painting to a degree from the weather, especially from water damage (Figure 13.10). f. Celebration. When the mural reaches completion, a celebration makes your gift to the community complete. Local private businesses and public institutions often sponsor the festivities. Politicians like to make speeches and bring television crews to such events, restaurants or homemakers might provide refreshments, neighborhood musicians and dancers may donate entertainment. The real celebration will come after all the music stops. More murals will spring up in the neighborhood, and, at least in small ways, the lives of people will begin to change for the better because your mural is there.

Project 2

Study existing murals in a neighborhood. Observe murals in a defined area.

A Study of Symbols in Murals

Photograph or make drawings of them. If possible, try to find the muralists and interview them about their work. Write up an illustrated report or plan

Castells, Manuel. 1998. “Info Tech Project. Information, Technology, Globalization and Social Development.” Conference paper prepared for UNRISD Conference on Information Technologies and Social Development. Geneva: Palais des Nations, June, pp. 22–24. Freidman, Johannes. 1994. Cultural Identity and Global Process. London: SAGE Publications. Strong, Mary. 1998. “Big Pictures: Ethnic Identity as a Mutable Concept in New York City Street Murals.” In Mary Strong, guest ed., Paul Hockings, ed., “Culture Recreated,” special issue of Visual Anthropology, II, 1–2: 9–54. Wagner, Roy. 1975. The Invention of Culture. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.

Further Reading Barnett, Allen W. 1984. Community Murals: The Peoples’ Art. Philadelphia: Art Alliance Press. Cockcroft, Eva Sperling and Holly Barnet-Sanchez. 1993. Signs from the Heart: California Chicano Murals. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Cockcroft, Eva, John Pittman Weber, James Cockcroft. 1977. Toward a People’s Art. New York: E. P. Dutton. Morrison, P. R. 1976. Silhouette Murals. New York: Public Arts Workshop. Peterson, Jeanette Favrot. 1993. The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco: Utopia and Empire in Sixteenth-Century Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press. Rogovin, Mark and Marie Burton. 1975. Mural Manual: How to Paint Murals for the Classroom, Community Center and Street Corner. Boston: Beacon Press. Saura Ramos, Pedro A. 1999. The Cave of Altamira. New York: Harry N. Abrams. Strong, Mary. 1987. “Murales de Nueva York: Una Historia Perdida” (“New York Murals: A Lost History”). In Revista de Historia. University of Puerto Rico, nos. 5 and 6, January–December: 189–207. 1988. “Reacción de Culturas Dominadas en un Conflicto Cultural” (“Reaction of the Dominated in Culture Conflict”). In Cuadernos de ALDEEU, Journal of the Organization of Spanish Professionals in America, vol. 4, no. 2, November: 187–207. 1991. “The Puerto Rican Mural: An Alternative System of Education.” In Proceedings of the Encuentro International Quinto Centenario de ALDEEU. University of Madrid: National Association for 500-Year Celebration. 1995. “Anthropologist at Work.” In D. Hicks and M. A. Gwynne, Cultural Anthropology. New York: Harper Collins, pp. 350–351.

an exhibit that focuses on the cultural and social meaning of imagery or the significance of certain design elements. Pay particular attention to images and designs you see repeated in several murals because these are likely to be more important. Ask passersby and building owners with murals on their walls what they think of these works. Prepare a written and illustrated or verbal and visual presentation about your findings.

324

Mary Strong

A rt a n d M ind : Wo r k ing o n M u r a ls

325

Chapter 14

Art History and Anthropology Lou ly P e acoc k Konz a nd Jame s P e acoc k

A

rt history and anthropology offer complementary perspectives on visual forms. Art history moves from form to context, anthropology from context to form, broadly speaking. (Archaeology resembles art history in that it begins with forms and found artifacts and traces chronologies of styles, but it also approaches social and cultural anthropology in its wider focus, which is to analyze lifestyles as aspects of

historical forces. Archaeology, visual anthropology, museum anthropology, and symbolic anthropology all share with art history a concern with forms and ways of depicting.) We explore, then, relations between art history and visual anthropology.

As daughter and art historian, father and anthropologist, we thought we might explore relations between these two visually oriented fields in the form of a daughter/father dialogue. We tell our story in turns. The sections marked “LPK” are Louly’s words. Those marked “JP” are Jim’s. I, James, will start with an anecdote. When Louly was about nine years old, she said she wanted to be an anthropologist. Margaret Mead was speaking in a town an hour or two away, so I took Louly to the talk. Afterward, we met Mead, and Louly asked her what she should do to prepare to be an anthropologist. Margaret replied, “Take pictures.” Louly did and became an art historian. Visual representation as a way of knowing human experience is common to art history and anthropology. Alfred Kroeber’s “swan song” at the 1958 meetings of the American Anthropological Association honored the sensed form. In his speech, he characterized anthropologists as collecting artifacts, recording sounds, and photographing scenes or actions, and he saw that focus as distinguishing anthropologists from other social scientists. We want to see, hear, touch, smell, declared Kroeber—as I remember vividly from hearing the talk as an undergraduate. I was a psychology major working in a laboratory and inspired, by just the visual sense that Kroeber noted, to move to anthropology. Such a sense doubtless motivated Kroeber to include Meyer Shapiro, an art historian writing about style, in Anthropology Today in 1953. Before that, in 1942, Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead’s Balinese Character pioneered in analytical use of photography to reveal contours of culture and psychology. Mead and Bateson extended their Bali work into cinematography, creating classics such as Trance and Dance in Bali, and they were instrumental in the art history of Bali as well, working with the artists Walter Spies and Miguel Covarrubias to stimulate the resurgence of visual art by Balinese 327

artists. Bateson and Mead’s collection of art was curated and analyzed by Hildred Geertz in much the same way that they had treated photographs and film: to express themes of culture and psychology. Here, in their arts, the Balinese themselves were the representers. Obliquely descended from the perspectives of Bateson, Mead, and Kroeber, my 1968 Rites of Modernization (dedicated, by the way, to the coauthor of this chapter) relied on visual expression, including my photographs and drawings, only a fraction of which are in the book. (Photographs from this and other fieldwork stints are in the Smithsonian archives for anthropology. An Indonesian translation of the book has prompted a discussion about the work in Indonesia’s Time magazine, Tempo (Kali, 2006). In 1999, I wrote a short essay, “Eye to Ear and Mouth to Hand,” reminding us of the visual emphasis in the founding of anthropology. This emphasis was expressed in photography, but also in collecting and exhibiting, which later gave way to a verbal focus without, however, losing the visual, as represented by Visual Anthropology (Collier and Collier 1986). All of this is just to signal visual streams in anthropology that intersected, sometimes, with art history. Just as anthropology, then, has connected to art history through visual foci, so has art history to anthropology via its analyses of culture. A recent example is Griselda Pollock’s Vision and Difference, which explores feminist perspectives on visual representation, both in art and photography. Pollock’s book strikes a deep chord, as I have found in a course I teach on symbols. In a final examination I gave recently, more than fifty of the sixty undergraduate students chose to write about Pollock’s analysis of how women are fetishized by art and photography, an idea expressed also in such films as Killing Us Softly and Famine Within, which treat anorexia and the fashion industry, respectively. “Objectification of consciousness” is Ernst Cassirer’s definition of symbols, arrived at after three volumes of searching. This points to sensed form, including visually sensed form, as a locus of meaning. While visual anthropology and art history differ in approach (the one explicating seen objects and events, the other representations), this locus is their common objective. In more detail, art history and visual anthropology may be conceptualized along a spectrum. At one pole is the artist and the photographer, both encountering experience as seen and distilling it through visual representations. At that same pole is the ethnographer, who distills experience into verbal representation, perhaps supplemented by visual representation, photographic or cinematographic. All of these move also toward a conceptual level, not merely representing but also interpreting. Thus, the nonrepresentational artist can be seen, as Claude Lévi-Strauss once put it, defining the rules by which the artist would paint a picture “if by chance he were to paint any.” (Such statements prompted artist Gina Gilmour’s painting entitled Love Letter to Lévi-Strauss, which seems to add substance to form, placing parrots on lined paper.) Likewise, the photographer who moves from documentary to artistic and symbolic may also shift away from the seen toward presentation of compositional patterns. Values or messages may similarly be emphasized by artists or photographers, with representation as a medium to express such. The art historian and the anthropologist continue to share the task of interpretation. The art historian addresses all such forms, seeking to interpret them 328

L o u ly P e a c o c k K o n z a n d J a m e s P e a c o c k

through context. The anthropologist addresses forms in this way, too, but the forms in question differ sometimes; they may be art forms, such as artifacts for the archaeologist or anthropologist of art, but they may also be fieldnotes reporting events seen, comments heard, and “native” representations—paintings, songs, poems, slogans—that may be art as conventionally considered but may be forms not conventionally categorized as art, though they resemble it in many ways. From this repertoire of distillations, both the art historian and the anthropologist construct interpretations—what do these people mean, and what is the context (historical, cultural, social) of that meaning? Although differing in materials and approaches, then, art history and anthropology are also alike, and both contrast to a more abstracted approach, conceptualizing life through ideas and theories. Both prefer to ground interpretation in the seen or otherwise experienced, as represented symbolically. This chapter, then, contributes to this common search by exploring the seen—temples in Indonesia, a cathedral in Spain—as sensed forms, the meanings of which must derive from relations of form to context, with context including history and culture. Photography is a tool of this search, but the emphasis is on the form itself—seen, depicted—and the mission here, as in visual anthropology, is to move from the seen and depicted toward meaning. The contribution is to explore convergences in approaches of two disciplines toward this end. In these two journeys, in Spain and in Java, emphases from art history are apparent: concern with the materials, the creative process, and the artist. So are emphases from anthropology: concern with the context, cultural or otherwise. La Sagrada Familia is the creation of a known individual artist, Antoni Gaudí, that, however, has taken on a collective meaning, as a great cathedral in a Spanish Catholic context; the interpretation of the cathedral began and remains primarily a project of the art historian. (Figure 14.1) In the case of Borobudur and the other monuments in Java, the artists or architects and their creative processes are largely obscure, thereby encouraging an emphasis on cultural context, including the cosmology of divine kingship. Both the anthropologist and the art historian, however, went together on both journeys and attempted to learn from each other, while diverging again in their contexts of teaching. Their joint efforts illustrate a common theme of interpretation, eliciting meaning from seen forms, symbols. That effort, in turn, resonates with visual anthropology, the larger mission of which is also to elicit meaning from seen forms, symbols. The approaches to doing so illustrated here hopefully enrich the larger perspective through exhibiting varied approaches to a common mission. A rt H i sto ry a n d A n t h r o p o lo gy

Figure 14.1. Antoni Gaudí, La Sagrada Familia Cathedral, 1882–1926, Barcelona, Spain. Photographed by Louly Peacock Konz, March 2004.

329

Figure 14.2. Antoni Gaudí, original architect. This interior was under construction in 2004 by Jordi Bonet Armengol, current director of the project. Photographed by Louly Peacock Konz, March 2004, Barcelona, Spain.

Art Historian and Anthropologist: A Dialogue lpk: I address this question of what visual anthropology and art history share by asking: How does anthropology fit or not fit into my art history classes? An anthropological perspective often influences how I view art works and architecture in a conscious and subconscious fashion. I believe that my experience growing up as the daughter of an anthropologist has influenced not only my interest in art as representative of human history and thought but also how I approach art. Instead of seeing art as solely an object or a form, I see what is behind the piece. For example, Botticelli’s Venus may appear to be just a painting of a beautiful blonde Venus; however, I and other art historians also recognize that it represents Botticelli’s view of Venus from mythology as incorporating the carnal and spiritual aspects of love. These ideas may have derived from Botticelli’s involvement in the Neoplatonic Academy led by Cosimo de Medici in his villa outside quattrocento Florence, Italy. In Neoplatonic thought, the carnal and spiritual were unified, and mythology and Christianity were unified. Thus, what appears to be just a form has a lot more to it. Symbolic anthropology, which is a favorite of my father’s, also informs how I look for various symbols in the piece, such as the union shown of Zephyr and Chloris, which supports the idea of unifying the carnal and the spiritual. In view of the architectural works studied, anthropology encourages me to see beyond the stones of Borobudur and the cement and stones of La Sagrada Familia. To many visiting the site of Borobudur, it would appear to be a mountain of stone with beautiful images of the life of the Buddha along the way. For my father and me, however, these images have a function: not only to show the stages of the Buddha’s life but also to guide the visitor around the monument and up each level to Nirvana, or Enlightenment. I think that the function of an architectural monument is an aspect of anthropology. When studying the form of a building—its supports, its relief sculptures, for example—one can easily ignore its function, especially with buildings that are ancient, such as Borobudur. It is easy to think of such buildings only as objects. Anthropology moves us beyond the object and gives it life. That is, with a little imagination, we can look into the past and think of how people interacted with the building. Although this may seem obvious, art historians can forget this part of the life of the building when they become blinded by its beautiful parts. Indeed, so many objects, such as the Parthenon sculptures, have been moved to museums. Out of their original context, one loses a sense of their role in the building (didactic, directing the eye along a prescribed path, and so forth). La Sagrada Familia may seem more contemporary, but with the death of Gaudí, his plans for the monument were lost, and it too became mysterious. (Figure 14.2) We are not quite sure how to interact with the building. And during Gaudí’s lifetime, it was not a functioning church, since only the crypt and one façade were completed. I like to believe that Gaudí worshipped in the building-in-progress. I also think that without climbing up into the building, using features like the spiral staircase that ascends one of Gaudí’s towers, one does not experience the building as it was intended to be experienced. This staircase looks like the 330

L o u ly P e a c o c k K o n z a n d J a m e s P e a c o c k

inside of a conch shell when you look down. Gaudí loved to teach about nature in this way, its infinity and organization. Coming now to photography: seeking function or context is important here, too. Scholars, journalists, and laypeople tend to treat photographs as simply documents recording events or persons, forgetting the context of their creation, including the strong connection that these images have with a time past and the symbolism that still resides within them. Scholars also will often forget the staged qualities of photographs. Art history and anthropology can intersect in terms of photography through works such as Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida, in which Barthes discusses how a photograph is an image of “what has been” and therefore what is past. He says that this is the case even with people who are still around, because the moment and time of their lives will always be past. His view of photography adds a certain poignancy to all of the images that he discusses, especially the one of his mother in the winter garden of her childhood, which to him captures her essence the most. Similarly, when I show photographs of Borobudur and La Sagrada Familia to my students, the emotion of the event is heightened for them and for me by my including shots of the monuments with myself and my friends and family in the foreground. The students gain a sense not only of the scale but also of how it made us feel at the time of our visit and how we related to the architecture. In particular, a photograph of my baby daughter, Flora, being held in front of the portal to La Sagrada Familia with the Holy Family (featuring a very lifelike baby) right above our heads has this effect. Not only is this officially the Nativity Façade, but also Flora resembles the baby. Another author who discusses Lévi-Strauss and Barthes’ Camera Lucida is Christian Metz, who extends Barthes’ ideas to explain photographs as something to be held, to be fetishized. These objects send you back to a time past and help you to relive that time, but they also bring home the fact that the time is past, so evoke a sense of sadness, perhaps. Metz likes to compare the idea of these fetishes to those discussed by Lévi-Strauss that were part of tribal life in Lévi-Strauss’ Triste au Tropiques. Only by making supposedly documentary A rt H i sto ry a n d A n t h r o p o lo gy

331

1. Treatment of photographs reminds us of fetishes. I (LPK) consider the fetish in art to be an object that represents the person. For example, I have written about a late-nineteenth-century Ukrainian artist and writer, Marie Bashkirtseff (1858–1884) (Peacock Konz 2005). Marie died from tuberculosis at the young age of twenty-six. After her death, her mother preserved the memory of her daughter as an artist by creating a chapel in Marie’s very large tomb. The chapel was a recreation of her studio. This is a fetish on a large scale, replete with her palette. I see a fetish as having some physical connection to the person, whether it is a palette that the person used, a piece of clothing, a painting that he or she touched with the brush, or even a photograph of him or her. One important aspect for Mme. Bashkirtseff of fetishizing her daughter was that it allowed her to preserve a period of their lives. As a mother, I have better learned to understand the significance of the photograph as fetish, which preserves an image of the child at a certain period in his or her life. As Roland Barthes says in his book Camera Lucida, these photographs represent “what has been.” And yet the idea of a photograph as fetish can be quite different from the touch of the person so closely connected with many fetish objects. Unlike the palette, which is touched by the artist, a photograph of a person may or may not have been touched by him or her except when he or she was looking at it. Instead, the touch of the person occurs with the representation of his or her body.

332

photographs emotionally relevant do they truly interest some of the students, especially those who are not accustomed to studying art history.1 As for the staged aspect of supposedly documentary photographs, Barthes discusses how the subjects are similar to players on a stage, whose makeup hides that they are from the past. That is, as in a film, they look contemporary and yet are not. Perhaps this idea can also be connected with my father’s book, Rites of Modernization, which was dedicated to me when I was an infant. I tell my students about my father’s studies and describe the photographs (or see them myself), which also are poignant in being from the past. Indeed, much of anthropology rests on preserving aspects of culture that will be gone soon. Rites of Modernization addresses, among other things, the ludruk theater productions; when we recently visited a stage mentioned in the book, it was sadly deserted. At the time of my father’s original research, ludruk was the most popular pastime of the working class, and it frightened the officials who saw it and (correctly, I suppose) believed it to be undermining the regime, though in a very veiled sense. And yet now it was silent. So, too, I look at the photographs from these productions and from my parents’ time spent in Indonesia not long before my birth and think about how different my parents were then—in their twenties, with no children. I enjoy seeing how they looked and using these images as a starting point for hearing more of their stories from this time. Dad taking Mom from her home in Georgia to live on the other side of the world. Ironically, I also show photographs from my return visit to the sites where my parents once lived—I was in my twenties at that time, with no husband, no children—and I see a very young-looking girl, myself, who wore white Mary Janes to walk around the fields of Bali! So there are some examples of how art and anthropology have meshed in my work. jp:

Illustrating these approaches, we focus on two trips that we took together. We describe, first, the experience of seeing (and photographing) a form, a monument or monumental work of art; second, the act of placing the monument in context according to the very different practices of our two disciplines; third, the way in which we each incorporated that form and an interpretation of it in our classroom teaching; and, fourth, how we believe our habits of observation, interpretation, and pedagogy have changed through exposure to each other’s ways of seeing, reflecting, and instructing. The two trips were to Java and Bali in 1988 and to Spain in 2004. The courses were Art History I: Ancient to Medieval Art History, which Louly teaches at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina, and Consciousness and Symbols, which I teach at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. lpk: A common focus of the two trips was sacred spaces. In Spain, Christianity was the context for the space we studied; in Java, the spaces reflected Hindu, Buddhist, and animist traditions. In the one, we consider a great cathedral; in the other, monuments, temples, and palaces. In both, we seek meanings in forms. In 2004, I chose to return to Barcelona and to revisit Antoni Gaudí’s La Sagrada Familia after an absence of fifteen years. With my baby and my parents in tow, I studied the recent additions to the church and finished this study by ascending Gaudí’s original façade for the first time. Leaving my baby at L o u ly P e a c o c k K o n z a n d J a m e s P e a c o c k

the hotel with my parents, I raced over to the cathedral in a taxi at around five o’clock and ascended the spiral staircase of the spires in the golden light of the setting sun. During the ascension, I experienced views from an assortment of porches that dot the upward climb of the staircase, which looks like a conch shell from below and for Gaudí symbolized the spiral movement of life. An important part of the experience of the climb, as I describe it to my class, is to stand on these porches and look closely at the heavy and undulating sculpture as it appears in the light (in my case, the golden light of sunset) (Figure 14.3). I stress to the class that Gaudí was foremost a sculptor and second an architect. I find that his buildings resemble overgrown, undulating sculpture. Continuing with my climb, I reached the highest level possible in a spire, then I crossed a bridge from the right two spires reaching over to the other two spires of Gaudí’s façade. In the middle of the bridge, I looked upward to examine the sculpture of a green tree covered with sculpted white doves. This tree is the centerpiece, pointing upward between the four higher spires. It represents the tree of life (Figure 14.4). After this experience, I looked down at the courtyard and then carefully descended the darkening staircase to the safety of the gardens across the street, where I saw a street angel posed before me. I present this story of ascension and a truly enlightened experience to my class as I show them the images of the church. And this, I say, is why I returned to La Sagrada Familia—to experience the church in a different way, one that I had not been able to have when I only briefly stood before the undulating façade of masonry at night on a quick student visit.

Figure 14.3. Spire of the original Sagrada Familia Cathedral, 1882–1926 by Antoni Gaudí. Photographed by Louly Peacock Konz, March 2004.

Cross and doves atop bridge between the spires. Sagrada Familia Cathedral by Antoni Gaudí 1882–1926. Photographed by Louly Peacock Konz, March 2004.

Figure 14.4.

jp:

It is interesting that where you as an art historian begin, in telling your story here as well as when teaching your class, is by describing your experience of the cathedral. (Your climb reminds me of our climbs up Borobudur years before and even before that of how you, as a college student, would dive off the top of stairs, do a somersault in the air, and land on your feet at the bottom.) I know that you go on to place the form you have described in context. It seems to me that what I teach in my classes is, first and foremost, context. When I tell the story of our trip to Java, I begin not with what we saw but with history. Java is the most populous island of Indonesia, the fourth most populous nation of the world, and home to approximately half of the country’s two hundred million residents. Indonesia is often termed the world’s largest Muslim nation. In fact, it encompasses several religious and cultural traditions, each of which entered the island at different points in its history and each of which

A rt H i sto ry a n d A n t h r o p o lo gy

333

is represented today not only by daily practices but also by preserved monuments and other material forms. The earliest and most pervasive cultural stream can be summarized as “animistic,” in that spiritual forces are felt to animate a variety of places, objects, and actions. On a mountain, for example, one finds a grove where spirits are said to dwell, and in the city of Yogyakarta there is a statue where people leave flowers to appease a certain spirit. Rituals, such as slametan, include such spirits in communal feasts. Objects, such as sacral daggers (kris), embody spirits. One figure representing this stream is Semar, the clown-god, who will enter our discussion later. After the time of Christ, Java came in contact with India, hence with Hindu and Buddhist perspectives. This Indian influence brought with it the Sanskrit language, still evident in names and terminologies; Hinduist epics, such as the Mahabharata and Ramayana, popular even today in puppet and human theater; and cosmologies that saw earthly and celestial orders as parallel and intertwined. Such a cosmology will be evident in concepts of divine kingship embodied in palaces and temples. Buddhist influences are reflected in practices such as meditation and are embodied in monuments like Borobudur, which are designed to represent a journey from earthly to spiritual realms. Such monuments were built beginning in the seventh century AD. Islam began spreading into Southeast Asia as early as the thirteenth century AD and overran Hinduist kingdoms in Java by the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Islam brought monotheism and, in its puritanical forms, taught scorn for the ornate varieties of animism, Hinduism, and Buddhism pervading Java. But the Islam that entered Java also included Sufist, that is, mystical, elements that resonated with meditation and magical Java, resulting in a synthesis. One result was new kingdoms, such as Mataram, which combined Islam and the earlier traditions. The Dutch dropped anchor in Java in 1596, signaling the arrival of Western influence. Java became a Dutch colony, part of the Netherlands East Indies, and it remained so until Indonesia won its independence following World War II. The national “personality” pays homage to all of the cultural streams that have shaped this nation. An example is the Kingdom of the Sultan in Yogyakarta, which represents the old empire of Mataram but is headed by a living ruler of considerable influence. This kingdom still manifests, for many, notions of divine kingship within a nation that is constitutionally secular. The theme on which we shall focus, then, for Java, is divine kingship, the notion that king and kingdom manifest godlike spiritual forces. Our focus, further, is on the architectural forms representing this concept. lpk: It’s true, I begin with the form and then move outward from it to describe its context. Once I tell the class my own story about visiting the cathedral, I provide background material about Antoni Gaudí himself. He was known in the early years of his career as something of a madman. Although his architecture was popular among a certain clientele, other people were frightened by its unusual qualities. For example, his apartment house, Casa Milá, has no angles throughout. Next, I describe to the students Gaudí’s later years as the visionary architect of the Park Güell and of La Sagrada Familia, which was 334

L o u ly P e a c o c k K o n z a n d J a m e s P e a c o c k

really his last commission. Park Güell was intended to be a wealthy neighborhood outside Barcelona, and the emphasis was upon combining nature with the architecture. The final project, La Sagrada Familia, overwhelmed Gaudí. (Indeed, it is still unfinished and is projected to be completed in 2025.) The cathedral was built for the very conservative Catholic movement of the Holy Family, which focused on Joseph’s role in the Bible. Gaudí lived in the crypt of the church and died in 1926 after being run over by a trolley while he was apparently lost in thought about his building. Hence, Gaudí completed only a part of the church. I conclude by explaining that after Gaudí’s death, the best record of his plans for the completion of the church was lost when his models (he did not use drawn plans) were destroyed during the Spanish Revolution. jp: A few minutes into your lecture on La Sagrada Familia, you’ve shown pictures of it to your students and told them how it feels to be present at it. If I were making this presentation as a lecture, at that point I would be just getting started on the background. In Southeast Asia, king and kingdom are often perceived as manifesting on earth a sacred cosmos as conceived by Hinduism and Buddhism. Whether as a bodhisattva in kingdoms such as Pagan in Burma and Angor Wat in Cambodia or as an incarnation of Siva or Vishnu in Hinduist kingdoms like Majapahit on Java, the king was seen as divine in the sense that he embodied in his person and his status the highest spiritual powers of the universe. That divinity extended beyond the king into the material and social organization of the kingdom; architecture, administration, and things were (and are) believed to possess magical powers emanating from kingship. These themes have been elaborated in numerous essays, including the classic ones by Robert Heine-Geldern of the Kulturkreislehre school in Vienna and by B. Schrieke, recent conceptualizations by Clifford Geertz and Benedict Anderson, and studies of particular kingdoms, such as those by Theodore Pigeaud and Soemarsaid Moertono of Majapahit and Mataram, respectively. In Indonesia, the mightiest of the divine kings and kingdoms are those of Java. Important kings and kingdoms certainly have existed outside Java, including, historically, Srivijaya in South Sumatra and, currently, the kingdoms of Bali, South Sulawesi, and the Moluccas. My focus here will be on Java. One of the aspects that I shall highlight is the meditational and mystical base of Javanese kingship. I shall indicate also the pervasiveness of this theme, distilled in kingship, in the wider Javanese civilization. While traveling in Java in summer 1988, we visited the sites of the most renowned kingdoms. Relevant themes can be shown by a sort of travelogue proceeding chronologically. On the Dieng Plateau and on Mount Ungaran high on volcanic peaks between Semarang and Yogyakarta are found chandi (temples) built by a line of kings descended from Sanjaya, who ruled a Hinduized Javanese kingdom, the old Mataram, dating probably from the eighth century AD. The temples at Dieng are small ones, now named for figures in the wayang kulit shadow plays. They display statues of Hindu deities and mythological creatures, such as Ganesha and Siva, who were presumably seen as incarnated in the kings. The Dieng Plateau, misty, cool, surrounded by volcanic lakes and alpine forest, A rt H i sto ry a n d A n t h r o p o lo gy

335

contains many sites for meditation around and about the temple ruins; one of these is Gua Semar, the Semar cave, named for the Javanese clown-god, brother of Batara Guru. Here is one of many indications of an association in Javanese thinking between kingship and mysticism. (Figure 14.5) Borobudur, in the shadow of Mount Merapi and near Yogyakarta (also called by the nicknames “Yogya” and “Jogja”), was left by the Shailendra dynasty, who imposed their rule over the Sanjayas in the mid-eighth century and ruled central Java until the middle of the ninth, when they were ousted

Borobudur, Middle Section. Photographed by James Peacock, August 1988.

Figure 14.5.

336

by a descendant of Sanjaya. As is well known, Borobudur is a Buddhist monument, allegedly the largest in the world, built by an estimated thirty thousand stonecutters and sculptors and fifteen thousand carriers, who represented at least a tenth of Java’s estimated population of one million during the twenty to seventy-five years required to build the monument. Borobudur may represent the pinnacle of power and devotion mobilized by Javanese kings, but it is also a symbol of meditation. From the air, Borobudur is a mandala, a geometric aid for meditation, and from a distance it is a stupa, a sacred architectural form, that traces the Buddhist ascent from the lower levels, which move from pleasures of the flesh (khamadhatu, the longer spheres of human life in terms of Mahayana Buddhism) through progressively more spiritual levels (showing the life of Prince Siddharta on his way to becoming the Gautama Buddha, scenes from the Jataka folktales about his previous incarnations, and the life of the bodhisattva Sudhana interspersed with scenes of ancient Java). At the top are three circular terraces where all figures disappear except that of the meditating Buddha himself, encased in small stupas, and the tenth and highest level, the realm of formlessness and total abstraction. This realm is embodied in a huge crowning stupa, which is arupadhatu, the higher L o u ly P e a c o c k K o n z a n d J a m e s P e a c o c k

sphere of detachment from the world. Borobudur, then, was at once a glorification of the Ultimate Reality and a textbook illustrating the Buddhist path to that reality. Possibly it is also a massive mausoleum containing remains of a Buddhist ruler or saint, and certainly it is a monument to the power of divine kingship. (Figure 14.6) lpk: To me, these monuments both symbolize a religious quest. Borobudur is an ascension through the complexities of life up to Nirvana with a study of Buddha along the way, while La Sagrada Familia allows the study of the Nativity (hence the name “La Sagrada Familia”) on the ground floor, followed by an ascension up Gaudí’s towers to doves on a tree between spirals—a heaven of sorts. I teach these monuments in two very different courses, one more about ancient and Asian art, the other more about modern and Western Christian monuments. Despite the different times and courses, my reasons for visiting and ascending each monument on a personal level were similar: to search for and feel the emotional experience of the architecture and its purpose, and even to perform my own spiritual exploration. In the past, art history—and perhaps also anthropology—was supposed to be experienced at an emotional distance, but students from my courses respect my discussion more when I can explain why I have chosen to focus on certain monuments. Within the context of art history as a discipline, this approach is more acceptable than it once was, perhaps because postmodernism justifies voices from outside the omnipotent patriarchal voice, and, as a woman’s, mine qualifies.

Figure 14.6. Borobudur, showing Buddha in a stupa. Photographed by James Peacock, August 1988.

jp:

I suppose mine qualifies as a patriarch’s voice? You know, there is not time to teach all of this background in my classes. What I hope I am teaching my students is the necessity of piecing the context together in order to make sense of the form, or, rather, that the forms help us understand something much larger even than Borobudur: the culture that produced the monument and lives on in Java today. To the east of Yogyakarta is the complex of Prambanan, completed later than Borobudur, in the mid-ninth century AD, to commemorate the victory of Sanjaya’s Sivaitic descendant, Rakai Pikatan, over the last Sailendran ruler of Central Java, Balaputra. Prambanan is Hinduistic, a complex of sharply upward-thrusting temples enclosing shrines to Hindu deities. A central Siva temple is flanked by shrines to Vishnu and Brahma, with smaller temples containing the vehicle of each god: Siva’s bull, Brahma’s gander, and Vishnu’s sun-bird (garuda). Also in Siva’s temple is the famous slender maiden— a local princess in the form of Siva’s consort, Durga—and Siva’s elephant,

A rt H i sto ry a n d A n t h r o p o lo gy

337

Prambanan. Photographed by James Peacock, August 1988.

Figure 14.7.

Figure 14.8. Figures on Prambanan. Photographed by James Peacock, August 1988.

338

ganesa. Panels show the Ramayana and scenes from the Indian dance manual, Natyasastra. (Figures 14.7 and 14.8) Farther east, almost to the city of Surabaya but in the highlands before descending to the coast, was the greatest Hinduized Javanese kingdom of all, Majapahit, which succeeded and surpassed the Sanjaya and Shailendra dynasties of central Java. Majapahit originated around the middle of the tenth century and reached its apex in the fourteenth, after which it declined but endured until the coming of Islam followed by the Europeans in the sixteenth century. The creator of the east Javanese kingdoms that gave rise to Majapahit was Airlangga, who, after restoring these kingdoms to prosperity, changed his name and became an ascetic meditating in the forest. Monuments in Majapahit were built of mud and brick, rather than stone. The few remaining are in Trowalan, near Mojokerto. But Majapahit gave us perhaps the best literary documentation of divine kingship, the poem “Nagarakertanagara,” which was composed by Prapantja in praise of the king as a god. “Shiva-Buddha is He, material immaterial by nature,” states Prapantja. “He is surely Ruler over the rulers of the world” (Pigeaud, 2:c, canto 1, stanza 1). The poet gives a vivid sense of kingship during the period in descriptions, mythologized though they may be, of ceremonial actions. For instance, he describes a tour of the kingdom to harmonize it. Rising in his royal cortege, the poet recounts, the king outshone everyone through the blinding radiance of his jewels and metallic umbrella. Coming upon a complex of floating ocean pavilions, he ritually bathed with a company of women in the sea in order to join in symbolic marriage the kingdom and the natural order, represented by the goddess of the South Seas (the Indian Ocean). In the performance of such rites, enthuses Prapantja, no one is so perfect as the king (Pigeaud, 2:c, canto 1, stanza 1). Of Airlangga, it is said he was an incarnation of Vishnu (Airlangga is represented by a famous statue showing him as Vishnu riding the garuda) and also incarnated as Siva, an event celebrated by a volcanic eruption at his birth. A later ruler, Ken Agrok, is said to be Vishnu incarnated but also the adopted child of Shiva. To assure that he exuded the divine light and heat of royalty (wahju), he was married, it is said, to a woman with a flaming womb (Schrieke, 1957:12). After Majapahit was conquered by the Islamic sultanate Demak toward the end of the fifteenth century, Hindu-Javanese empires were essentially ended in Java, surviving only in a variant form on Bali. However, an Islamized Hindu-Javanese form of divine kingship continued to flourish, and still continues to survive, in central Java, with smaller variants in North Java. L o u ly P e a c o c k K o n z a n d J a m e s P e a c o c k

The surviving sultanates are at Yogyakarta, Surakarta, and Ceribon. Central Java is the site of the last great Javanese kingdom, the second Mataram, founded around 1584 near Yogyakarta by Panembahan Senapati and achieving its greatest territorial expanse under his grandson, Sultan Agung, in the seventeenth century. Since 1755, Mataram has been divided into the courts at Yogyakarta and Surakarta, and each of these is divided into a central palace complex and a secondary one (Figure 14.9). Mataram is ruled in its Yogyakarta branch by Hamengku Buwono X. The kratons (palaces) at Jogja and Solo are similar in layout. Each is a vast walled complex with an inner palace, the public face of which is a set of open porches or pavilions (pendapa). Composed of marble floors and teak ceilings covered by a sloping, decorated roof supported by four massive columns in a style seen throughout Indonesia and the Austronesian world (even in Japan), the pendapa is a symbol of the center of the world, Mount Meru. On the pendapa, gamelan orchestras play, court dances and ceremonies are performed, and the sultan would hold audience with his ministers and subjects. Even the commercialized guidebook to Yogyakarta notes the meditational aspect of this place, stating this about the spot where the sultan sits: “Sitting here facing to the north the reigning sultan can see the volcano Merapi which helps him to concentrate and meditate. For this reason it’s still forbidden in Malioboro Street to place billboards that obstruct the sultan’s view of Merapi” (Yogya Sights, 24). The guidebook also notes that the kraton is enclosed by white walls, around which people, including members of the sultan’s family, walk on Kliwon night; “They meditate in absolute silence.… It is believed that the mystical power of the Kraton can be obtained in this way” (24). Within the kraton walls, but outside the palace itself, live servants and descendants of the royal family, and here is located a royal mosque. Each kraton has a structure to permit the union of the sultan with the goddess of the South Seas, to whom all Mataram rulers were promised in marriage by the dynasty’s founder and from whom they are believed to derive their mystical power. At Jogja, a sunken atrium reached by an underground/ underwater tunnel from the so-called water palace (swimming pools and a trysting chamber where the sultan could gambol with his harem) is the site where the sultan could physically meet the goddess. In Solo, the meeting place is a tower where the sultan could meditate in order to telepathically contact her. Solo and Yogya converge in the royal mausoleum at Imogiri to the south of Yogja. (Figure 14.10) Here, the kings of Solo are buried to one side, those of Yogya to the other side, and the Mataram kings in the middle. The tombs are reached by climbing 545 steps to a ridge within sight of the sea. On the night A rt H i sto ry a n d A n t h r o p o lo gy

Figure 14.9. Manikins in kraton (palace) at Yogyakarta showing traditional guards and servants. Photographed by James Peacock, August 1988.

339

Figure 14.10. Imogiri, entrance. Photographed by James Peacock, August 1988.

of Kliwon, Imogiri is a favorite spot for meditation; people sleep on the royal graves in order to imbibe the powers of the royal ancestors. The palaces at Ceribon are a smaller version of those at Yogya and Solo, reflecting the smaller scope of this sultanate, which was one of several established along the North Coast as Islam swept down in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Kraton Kesepuhan (palace of the older brother) was built in 1678 upon the site of the fifteenth-century Pakungwati palace of Ceribon’s earlier Hindu rulers, and one of the pavilions bears the date 1425. The palace fuses Javanese, Hindu, Islamic, Persian, Greek, and Chinese mythological and architectural elements. The Javanese pendopo (the Indonesian spelling is “pendapa”) is furnished with French period pieces, the walls inlaid with Delft tiles exhibiting biblical scenes. Here are a few of the symbolic associations noted on the photocopied handout given by the guide at Kesepuhan Palace: It faces north, as do all palaces in Java, so as “to face the world magnet in the hope that the king of the Kingdom can get strength.” A certain pavilion has five pillars to symbolize the five rules of Islam; this is a place the “king guards.” Another pavilion has two pillars to symbolize the two Islamic syahadat (sentences: Allah is the one god and Muhammed his prophet); this is the place for Muslim leaders or the king’s advisors. In the east part is a building for a judge deciding a death sentence for a person considered to be guilty by the public prosecutor. In the south is a stone symbolizing Adam and Eve. At Sitinggil is planted a Tanjung tree, a symbol of the king’s understanding of the people’s sadness. In the front of Sitinggil is planted a Sawo-kecik tree, which means that human beings are supposed to have correct manners. In a circle are the Nandhi (the buffalo, a Hindu symbol—Siva’s ox), a table from stone, and small tiger statues, signifying that Ceribon government is an extension of the Kingdom Pajajaran. In a circle of pots of flowers is a tower symbolizing the Muslim belief in one god. 340

L o u ly P e a c o c k K o n z a n d J a m e s P e a c o c k

Associated with the stronger Islamic (and weaker Hinduistic) impetus of these North Coast kingdoms, the functional analogue to Imogiri, the royal gravesite, at Ceribon, is the shrine of Sunan Gunung Jati. He was both a sultan and a saint, a sixteenth-century ruler of Ceribon and one of the nine saints (wali songo) credited with introducing Islam (and associated cultural inventions, such as the shadow plays) to Java. People meditate at this tomb and sleep on the graves there, too. The Javanese kratons all serve as museums as well as palaces; they are repositories for Javanese traditional culture. Jogja, Solo, and Ceribon all display the paraphernalia that represent the so-called agama jawa: shadow puppets, gamelan, sacred kris (that of the king being huge), and so forth. At Solo and Jogja, the palaces have real ethnological museums with tableaus arranged to show ceremonies and artifacts like those reported in a compendium such as Geertz’s Religion of Java. Ceribon’s museum is not so well known or well organized, but it too has a display of Javanese artifacts, which are not just artifacts but pusaka: heirlooms having sacred power. Here are a few, as described in the photocopied tourist information handed out by the guide at Kesepuhan Palace: Gamelan (orchestra) instruments that duplicate the Degung Pusaka Pajajaran, when Queen Kawunganten binti Ki Gede Kawungcaang married Sunan Gunung Sjati. A gamelan said to be used in the era of the nine saints to influence Hindus to become Muslim. A ceramic from the Mongols in the Ming Dynasty era brought by Queen Ong Tini when she met Sunan Gunung Sjati in Java in 1424 M (Muslim calendar). Debus from Banten in 1552. (Ceribon has its special Islamic flavor represented by large daggers weighted with big balls that are plunged into the faithful while in trance following chanting of the dikhr.) A bamboo frame and five-runged ladder used to celebrate T^edak sitin: the celebration of the baby first touching the ground at seven months. (This is one of the slametans that ordinary Javanese celebrate as part of the cycle of ushering in birth and childhood. Its presence here links the palace with the ordinary person’s life cycle, which is part of a cosmic cycle. The guide notes: “This celebration was to symbolize that children must respect their parents.”) The handout also describes an extraordinary carriage on display as follows: a “pusaka” carriage, it’s called “kereta Singa-barong.” Kereta-carriage, Siknga lion, lion called his nail barong, the original word of barong is barung—mixer. 1. Tanduk liong (horns of liong) = sign for buddhist Chinese relationship. 2. Belali (trunk) = relationship between India and Hindu. 3. Bersayap (wing) = sign for relationship of Mesir S (Egypt). Note: in Islam there is a story that Burok is the animal which brought the prophet Muhammad from Haram Mosque to Aqsa Mosque. Burok has wings like that. Three religions unified to be one A rt H i sto ry a n d A n t h r o p o lo gy

341

namely Trisula which is placed (Oput) on the truk. ~ Tri—three, sula sharp, so Trisula means three sharp thinking of man: Cipta = concentration, raqsa—feel, Karsa—= wish (According to Javanese letters = Javanese saying) “witing guna saka kawruh dayane satuhu” = Asal bijaksana dari pengetahuan jalankan secara mantap (or, translated: originally wisdom comes from knowledge by a method . . .). This carriage was belonged to King Pakungwati, and used for the Kirap, the walk around the city on the first of Muharam, one of the Islamic days) and was pulled by four white cows. All of the kratons have on display the elaborate, sometimes European-made carriages of the royalty, which represent a Europeanized pomp and circumstance. All of them also display cosmopolitan items representing the influence of the courts and connections outside: vases from China at Solo, given as tribute; paintings by German friends of a sultan at Ceribon; and items from Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagnie (VOC), the Dutch East Indies company that existed until the nineteenth century. lpk: As you say, context is also important in art history. In my lecture on Gaudí, I describe his other works as leading up to La Sagrada Familia, the culmination of his oeuvre. In particular, I focus on monuments in Barcelona. I begin with Gaudí’s Park Güell and its sculptural roof. This large townhouse was created for the industrialist Eusebi Güell and located in a thenunfashionable part of Barcelona near the busy boulevard Las Ramblas. The lower floors have a heavy, almost medieval castle feel to them, in accord with Güell’s preferred style. Gaudí does not literally and figuratively surmount this style until one attains the roof, which is a sculptural garden of beautifully decorated mini-spires, highlighted with ceramic tiles (mostly thanks to Gaudí’s inspired assistant, Josep Maria Jujol). Each of these spires has a function for ventilation and the like, and the central “hut” on the roof functions as a skylike dome. (It is studded with holes that make the viewer see from beneath “stars” and even a “moon.”) Following this work, I like to move my students through the Casa Batlló, which was renovated by Gaudí in his youthful years to more closely resemble the sea and dragons, with a roof of bright tiles (again by Jujol) and with tiles covering the front façade. The façade also reminds one of a bunch of bones. The third building that I cover, farther down the major thoroughfare, is Casa Milá, which is an apartment complex of great size resembling shifting sands in color. This is monochrome, as opposed to the Casa Batlló, and was built from the ground up with no angles at all, making it difficult to find furniture for the rooms in the apartments. The roof is a symphony of curved forms like the top of a sandcastle and stark white forms made from ceramic tile. This is due in part to the fact that the complex is unfinished because Gaudí argued with his patroness, Señora Milá, about the purpose of the apartments. It is rumored that he planned to make the roof a base for a large sculpture of the Virgin looking out over the main thoroughfare. Finally, we go through the Park Güell, a visionary natural world of houses and sculptural forms mixed with nature. (Figure 14.11) I culminate with La Sagrada 342

L o u ly P e a c o c k K o n z a n d J a m e s P e a c o c k

Familia, the construction of which began seventeen years before that of the Park Güell and which resembles a sea castle of sand poured through one’s fingers. I seek throughout to stress not only the visionary qualities of these symbolic edifices but also how they function. For example, the roof of Casa Milá has amazing sculptural turrets, but these are not just a base for an envisioned sculpture of the Virgin: they also differ according to function. The turrets that look like soldiers’ heads were outlets for smoke. The twisting turrets were outlets for air. jp: Anthropologists, of course, are concerned about function as well. Since the context I am presenting has a different scale—the culture of an island awash with several waves of religion over hundreds of years—what interests me is how the forms I am describing function symbolically. I have described the Javanese sites, at least some of them, as they display externally their clues about the beliefs that surround them. Let us draw together some of these. In the Hindu-Javanese conception, the terrestrial order mirrored and embodied the celestial. The king incarnated divinity. The kingdom, as well as the king, was designed to replicate and order the cosmos. The capital was oriented to the four points on the compass, as was the cosmos. The temple or the palace symbolized the holy center of that cosmos, representing Mount Meru or some other holy pivot. Ceremonies, which included tantric Buddhism, enacted the union of mundane and divine. With the coming of Islam, the conception of the god-king was challenged, in that Allah was transcendent and unitary so that earthly creatures could not claim divinity. Nevertheless, king and kingship continued to claim multiple sources of sacrality, building on Hinduistic and Javanist origins but adding Islamic legitimation. Sultan Agung of Mataram sent ambassadors to Mecca, who returned in 1641 with a document that confirmed his Islamic title of sultan. Yet he also claimed legitimate succession from the Majapahit king, Hajam Wuruk, and continuation of the policies of Majapahit’s great minister, Gadjah Mada, and he assumed the indigenous title of Susuhunan. He further sought legitimation from Sunan Kalijaga, one of the nine saints of Javanese Islam, and made Kalijaga’s tomb a shrine and source of magical power for the kingdom of Mataram (Moertono, 1963; Hasyim). Especially in the early centuries of Indonesian Islam, then, kingship was seen in a Persianized fashion rather compatible with the Hindu Buddhist conception of kingship endowed with divine authority. Early Indonesian Islam was heavily Sufist, providing a mystical source of charisma somewhat resonant with earlier Buddhist, yoga, and tantric streams. Later, Islamic law would become more prominent A rt H i sto ry a n d A n t h r o p o lo gy

Benches in foreground with trencadi mosaics and the house of the bad witch at the entry to the Park Güell, Barcelona, Spain, by Antoni Gaudí and ceramicist Josep Maria Jujol. Photographed by Louly Peacock Konz, 2004.

Figure 14.11.

343

and kingship more suspect as Indonesian (and Malay) Islam came under the influence of the Middle Eastern reform movements: Wahhabi in the eighteenth century, modernism in the twentieth. Under Islam, the king was no longer a god, but he was kalipatullah, successor of Mohammad, the apostle of Allah, God’s representative on earth. He still possesses this title, as well as many others legally recognized by the Republic of Indonesia in 1945 (Selosoemardjan, 1962:16). He still exuded the holy light (wahju) in the form of seven moons, and his divine fragrance wafted through the country, providing security. He should meditate, like Sunan Kalijaga, in the hope that his body would be penetrated by the divine light in the form of a “child as small as a kris handle, shining like the sun” (Moertono, 1963:57). He should sustain harmony between state and cosmos, culture and nature, through contact with the goddess of the South Seas. The late sultan of Yogyakarta was an enlightened secular ruler, a leader of the revolution, secretary of finance, and vice president of the nation, but he was also a sacral figure whose title, Hamengku Buwono, means “He who holds the world on his lap.” The kingdom continued to manifest the cosmic order not only in its careful and symbolically rich spatial and architectural ordering—a hint of which we see even in the provincial sultanate of Ceribon—but also in its administration. For example, in Mataram the chief minister was centered between four subdistrict officers, two of the left side and two of the right. Four plus one made five—the four cardinal points plus a center—a sacred number and design found throughout Hindu Southeast Asia. The kingdom of Mataram was conceived as four concentric circles: the court, capital city, kingdom, and the territories administered by the kingdom, with the sultan the center from which all power emanated. The sultan lived in the inner circle, the palace, with his queens and harem, officials, royal dancers, and a corps of female guards who protected his person from human touch. The spiritual power of the sultan extended to the sacred objects in his palace: the pusakas, such as spears, daggers, and flags, which are believed even now to have magical powers that support the rule of the sultanate. Valued possessions of the peasants were given the prefix raja, which means “king,” indicating that they emanate from the king (Selosoemardjan, 1962:20). Court ceremonies were held on sacred days, Friday Kliwon and Tuesday Kliwon, when the pusakas had to be cleansed; on the occasion of the sultan’s birthday, celebrated every five weeks; at the end of the Islamic fasting months; and on special occasions, such as marriage or circumcision in the sultan’s family. It was believed that neglecting these ceremonies would anger the royal ancestors, the goddess of the Indian Ocean, the heavenly guardians of the mountains, and the pusakas, all of whom would cause misfortune for the people. The ceremonies, called garabegs, were to maintain unity of subject and king, which also means unity of man and God (Selosoemardjan, 1962:50). The themes of micro-macro cosmos and centrism continued, then, in Islamized/syncretized Javanese kingship, even as in Hindu-Buddhized Javanese kingship. To assert this continuity is not to deny that Islam made a difference. Space does not permit an account of the persistent challenges to the syncretized courtly hierarchy by the independent teachers and rebels under the banner of Islam. In the Yogyakarta sultanate, for example, one can trace a history from 344

L o u ly P e a c o c k K o n z a n d J a m e s P e a c o c k

Prince Diponegoro to K. H. A. Dahlan of persons connected to the court who, through puritanical Islamic impulses, rebelled against it. The Kauman—the puritanical Islamic neighborhood adjoining the Yogya kraton—stands in the shadow of the palace but on occasion has been a thorn in its side, as in the time of Dahlan, when he challenged the spatial orientation of the royal mosque and otherwise criticized the royalty. But Dahlan, while founding the reformist movement Muhammadijah, nevertheless remained essentially within the hierarchy of the court. Indicative of his attitude and position is an anecdote that recounts that, following one of Dahlan’s protests against the court, the sultan offered to give him an audience—at midnight so that Dahlan would not be blinded by the ruler’s divine light. Other Islamic leaders have been more independent and radical than Dahlan, but none has overcome the syncretic hierarchical culture that continues to be the dominant force in Javanese civilization. Islam is not, however, the sole or even major force that has opposed and corroded, though sometimes bolstered, the sacred power of Javanese kingship. Mataram gradually lost its independence to the VOC, the Dutch East Indies Company with which it had made trade agreements by 1705. Despite a series of rebellions by Mataram against the Dutch, the VOC and later the Netherlands Indies government gradually absorbed Mataram’s political and military power while leaving the court free to elaborate its aesthetic and religious culture. But during World War II and in the revolution following, the sultan of Yogyakarta voluntarily gave up much of his traditional power and status while gaining political prominence within the new nation. The reverse was true for the Pakubuwono and Mangkunegaran of Surakarta, who involuntarily lost their traditional power while failing to gain modern status. In Surakarta, the last “powerful” ruler is said to have been the current one’s grandfather, who died shortly before the Japanese occupation, and only the pusakas still retain power (Siegel, 1986:35). The changes in the sultanate of Yogya have been well described by Selosoemardjan up to 1962. I have had little direct contact with the court circles but can note a few impressions (Figure 14.12). In 1962, my wife and I accompanied a family with whom we were living to visit their cousin, a prince of the Yogyakarta court; in 1988, my daughter and I accompanied the son and grandson of this family to visit the daughter of this prince, who had since died. The first visit was carried out in high Javanese language, with special honorifics and gestures of respect; the second, in a mixture of high Javanese and Indonesian language, which is virtually without honorifics. The grandson did not know the name of his royal ancestor, a photograph of whom was prominently displayed in his grandmother’s parlor. Against such indications of decline of courtly culture are other signs of its endurance. The court ceremonies, such as sekaten in Yogyakarta, which had been fallow during the revolution and Sukarno era, were revived in 1970—in part for the tourists, asserts Koentjaraningrat (1985:369). But having been present at the 1970 sekaten, I can attest to the pressing mobs of Javanese who attended, surging forward to glimpse the procession carrying the sacred gamelan, Kiai Sekati, from the Great Mosque to the palace (and to attend carnival sideshows featuring such spectacles as decapitation). Also, against the decline of exclusivistic sacrality of the courts should be weighed the diffusion of court dances and other culture through such means as the Taman Siswa schools (307). A rt H i sto ry a n d A n t h r o p o lo gy

345

lpk: When I teach about La Sagrada Familia and Borobudur, I seek to provide a sense of their symbolism, both as it was apparent to the architects and as it is viewed today. I also show how the works of architecture touched me and in turn may touch all viewers. Both buildings are studied because of their great size, their success at teaching the viewer (that is, their didacticism), their forms representing religious ideas, and their originality. Borobudur bleaches in the bright sun of Java, and La Sagrada Familia appears as an undulating façade when seen at sunset, almost like a sand castle. These monuments show students why I, as an art historian, am passionate about my research, why learning about architecture matters, and how it also taught, moved, and affected people in the past much as it does today. Figure 14.12. Yogyakarta princess, family, and friends, 1996. Photographed by James Peacock.

When I show images of Gaudí’s part of La Sagrada Familia, I commence by presenting the church as a whole (including the new section). Then I move to Gaudí’s façade, concluding with a focus on the Nativity scene itself (the tympanum of Gaudí’s façade, actually created by another sculptor, Etro Sassto). I explain about the original intent of the Holy Family movement for the church, which was to reintegrate conservative Catholic values into what they viewed as the decadent society of Barcelona. I culminate my talk with images of going upward in the spires of the church and explain how Gaudí, on seeing the second tower erected not long before his death, called it a spear connecting heaven and earth. I have presented this church as a part of modern early twentieth-century architecture in Europe, but since my second visit, moved by the depth and vision of this work, I have made La Sagrada Familia the culminating presentation in a lecture on Gaudí’s Barcelona. (Figure 14.13) Through the study of La Sagrada Familia, I seek to provide a sense of its art history and a biography for the architect Gaudí. We also focus on the sculptural details and the symbolic meaning of the whole and the details. Gaudí created works that were great in their overall conception and in the minute details: despite seeming to be all about themes such as the ocean or the Holy Family, Gaudí’s works always functioned spatially. 346

L o u ly P e a c o c k K o n z a n d J a m e s P e a c o c k

jp:

We come now to the question of the meaning of divine kingship in Javanese civilization and culture. Here I refer not to the undoubted political and economic significance of divine kingship in mobilizing and integrating populations but to the place of divine kingship in Javanese thinking and experience. Perhaps the key theme is the Javanese sense of a relationship between inner and outer power and harmony, insofar as both are associated with social hierarchy and status. Consider these images from Javanese theater and dance depicting the Mahabharata myths of Prince Arjuna. Popular dance scenes show Arjuna or another from the warrior caste, ksatriya, defeating the monster, the raksasa, representing passion and raw might. Arjuna, representing royalty, remains still, in an almost meditative position, effortlessly repelling the actively attacking monster. Arjuna in the Bhavagita scene is confronted with the dilemma that he must fight and kill his cousins, the Kurawas, who are former playmates and mentors. Krishna advises him that he is obliged to do this, owing to the code of his warrior caste, but recommends that he act in the world while sustaining inner tranquility; this is the posture he adopts in fighting with the raksasa—a meditative one, of detachment and calm. To remain tranquil while acting in the world is a value pervasive in Java, especially among the aristocrats and those who treasure the aristocratic ideal, and it is achieved through the practice of meditation. As one meditation cult, Sumarah, phrases it, one maintains this tranquility in the midst of action not only through special meditational practice (meditasi chusus) but also through meditasi harian—constantly acting as though in a meditative state even while participating in daily life. In this way, harmony is sustained between the inner and outer worlds. In India, it is said, the Brahmin is most salient, but in Indonesia it is the ksatriya, represented by the divine king. The warrior/ruler, rather than the priest, is given priority in Indonesia. But this ranking is misleading, for in Indonesia, the king is also a priest: a meditator and a mediator between the divine and the temporal. As we have seen, the king himself is supposed to meditate; this is one way of gaining wisdom and of mustering spiritual powers to order and sustain his realm. Furthermore, the people meditate to absorb the powers and wisdom of the king: councilors traditionally sat in a meditative posture and mood as the sultan addressed them, perhaps singing moral songs (majapat), and people meditate and sleep on the graves of royalty and put themselves in meditative states as they imbibe the tales of royalty dramatized by the shadow plays and court dances (Mangkunegaran, 1957). It is no accident that divine kingship, meditational cults (whether Hinduistic or Sufist), and the classical arts are associated, all finding their highest Javanese development in the court centers. But the relationship among divine kingship, Javanese civilization, and meditation is much broader than this. These elements share a common pattern; they are mutually reinforcing. The basic theme, again, is harmony between inner and outer worlds. The king who meditates as part of the work of uniting micro and macro cosmos is a model for the ordinary Javanese—or the aristocrat—who meditates to contribute to the same end. With varying degrees of explicitness, meditation societies profess a duty, which is everyone’s duty, to live and think in such a way that these spheres are harmonized, and meditation is part of this work. Accordingly, people who show great spiritual power in this way are accorded

A rt H i sto ry a n d A n t h r o p o lo gy

Figure 14.13. Angel figure on the Sagrada Familia cathedral. Photographed by Louly Peacock Konz, 2004.

347

considerable respect and even treated as having sacral status—if not as a king by birth, then as a kind of spiritual king, a guru. Conversely, those who exaggerate temporal power, whether through economic striving or political maneuvering, without harmonizing their efforts to the cosmic order are mistrusted and disrespected. One has to acquire a hint of divinity in order to become a bit of a king. It has also been said that in India what is salient is theology, while in Indonesia, it is performance—dance and drama. Whether or not this is true, certainly there is a strong aesthetic aspect to Javanese kingship: the court is a salon, the king a patron and even a creator in a way matched only in isolated instances in European kingship. The bedowo and serimpi court dances, the kinanti and majapat songs, the gamelan, and the wayang wong (a form of dance drama in which people imitate puppets) have been invented or sustained or both in the courts while diffusing through Javanese culture (see Koentjaraningrat, 1985). So Java exhibits both an external and an internal, an aesthetic and a spiritual aspect that is featured in the court and involves metaphors of courtly culture but also underlies a highly developed aesthetic culture generally. Closely associated with the aesthetic emphasis is an emphasis on manners. Originating in Javanese courtly circles during the Hindu era and elaborated to rococo levels during the Islamic and colonial period is a remarkably refined system of linguistic etiquette. The Javanese language is a set of languages hierarchized from low to high—ngoko to krama—with super-high levels for use in the court. Nonlinguistic manners are correlated: as underlings raise the level of their language to honor those of higher status, they lower the level of their bodies, squatting on the floor in the courts and while serving aristocrats outside the courts. This outer refinement is, as Geertz (1960) has suggested, associated with inner harmony: by refined language and manner, one shields the other and the self from shock, sustaining the harmony of the world. Given the emphasis on harmony of inner and outer, self and cosmos, king and culture to which Javanese civilization, including the courtly core, strive, what place is given to the individual personality of kings? Their genealogical positioning is certainly recognized; the court at Solo, for example, has a genealogical chart of the dynasty, and people know the names and dates of rulers probably as well as the British know the Tudors and Stuarts. But the personal lives of royalty do not seem to interest Javanese after the fashion of our fascination with Prince Charles and Princess Diana. The biography section of the Indonesian bookstore I visited—which admittedly was in Bandung, outside the courtly center—had biographies of the nationalist leaders, such as Suharto, Hatta, and Sukarno, but nothing about the lives of the sultans. Oral tradition, including dramas such as Ketoprak, tell of the exploits of ancient royalty: Sultan Agung brought a stone from Mecca to Imogiri, or a princess conjured up a prince by meditating in a cave, or Ken Agrok married a woman with a flaming womb. But these representations are highly legendary and symbolic. They do not dwell on everyday actions of historical or contemporary personalities. We are accustomed to correlate charisma with individual personality. An election of academics to university committees and offices is (at least in my experience) based on ballots that give a name only, with no personal information at all, presumably reflecting the bureaucratic rather than the charismatic emphasis. In contrast, the election of a president in the United States calls out the most 348

L o u ly P e a c o c k K o n z a n d J a m e s P e a c o c k

probing inquiries into the biography and character of the candidates (as in the case of the unfortunate Dan Quayle), presumably reflecting the connection we see between the charismatic qualities of the presidency and the personality and biography of the incumbent. In Javanese kingship, the personality of the king is subordinated to mythologized history, ritualized manners, aesthetic performance, and cosmic harmony sustained through meditation and architecture. Divinity is thus located in kingship rather than in the king. lpk: Of course, it is important to situate a work of art in history and in the society in which it was created. jp: Spain has one similarity to Java: penetration by Islam. However, unlike in Java, the Muslims were ousted. The struggle doubtless intensified the piety and rigidity of the church. The Inquisition is an example. lpk: Yes. It is also interesting that when one views Gaudí’s work, it is easy to forget that he was a part of an art movement. This explains why he was often commissioned to create important structures in Barcelona. Antoni Gaudí was a part of the movement in Barcelona called “modernisme.” This movement is considered to be the “art nouveau” movement in Barcelona (rather than in Paris). The dates for the movement are considered to be from 1888, when it was presented at the Universal Exposition, on into the first decade of the twentieth century. However, Gaudí continued to work beyond this period and, I would say, cannot only be confined to this movement due to the incredible individuality of his structures. Modernisme was an intentional rebellion against the straight lines, solid forms, and clear organization of the more realistic style that came before. Modernisme also rejected historicism in architecture by trying to be original. This was especially true in the work of Henry van de Velde in Belgium, who actually wrote about seeking originality in architecture versus the boring historicism and eclecticism of the past. Modernisme was known, however, to bring in some aspects of northern Gothic architecture, so it was a little different from the style of the Belgian and French art nouveau. Other significant architects involved in this movement were Josep Puig y Cadalfach and Lluís Domenech y Montaner (who also liked to bring in Moorish architecture). The work of all of these architects can be seen on the Passeig dei Gracia Block of Discord, where right next to each other are three apartment buildings or townhouses, one designed by each of these architects. It is interesting that Cadalfach and Montaner were seen as the most outgoing and were closely involved in city politics, while Gaudí, despite the immense creativity of his work, was reclusive and an intensely religious Catholic. How does modernisme fit into art nouveau as an overarching European movement at the turn of the century? Gaudí may have been influenced indirectly by art nouveau, but his new vision was entirely his own, not quotations from other styles. Well, art nouveau can be identified through curvilinear lines intended to convey nature. Indeed, Gaudí was fascinated by nature and used it as a source of inspiration on many an occasion. For example, the façades of La Sagrada Familia and Casa Milá resemble structures made of sand. The A rt H i sto ry a n d A n t h r o p o lo gy

349

façade of Casa Batlló, with its ceramic glazed tiles, recalls the scales of a fish. The crypt of La Sagrada Familia also has interlocking supports that seem to spring from the ground like plants. It is also important to remember, however, that despite the popularity of Gaudí’s eccentric architecture among the upper classes in Barcelona, it was still shocking to everyday people. Still, Gaudí was commissioned to create public places such as La Sagrada Familia. I tell my students that his work still surprises us because it lacks sharp angles. I ask my students where they would place Gaudí’s work chronologically. Most see it as more akin to the style of the first few decades of the twentieth century, when surrealism was significant. This dating makes sense, because Salvador Dalí was from Catalonia. He was surely influenced by Gaudí’s work during his time as a student in Barcelona. jp: Commonalities are apparent. Both of us encounter and present certain forms in context, striving to make sense of them in communication with students. Differences are of emphasis and may stem as much from us and the particular courses as from our disciplines. lpk: The

courses themselves are fairly different.

jp: Here are descriptions of the two courses in which each of us discuss these forms from Java or Barcelona.

Anthropology Course: Consciousness and Symbols jp: I first created a course on the anthropology of symbols at Princeton University in 1966, then continued the course at the University of North Carolina in 1967, where I have taught some version of it ever since. While at Prince­ ton, I joined David Crabb in creating a book series, Symbolic Anthropology (a term we coined, we think), published by the University of Chicago Press. The first volume was my Rites of Modernization in 1968, a study of workingclass theater in Indonesia at the height of the Communist period prior to the “year of living dangerously,” when the alleged Communists were massacred. In that first course at Princeton was anthropologist James Boon, and at the University of North Carolina were Travis Venters, Robin Moyer, Terry Rushin, Richard Gatling, and others who have pursued literature, photography, and crafts. Over the years, many creative persons in a range of fields have taken the course, including some anthropologists, most recently David Camp, Jun Wang, and Jennie Smith. I cherish all of them! What does the course do? Although readings and themes vary, the objective has remained to study symbols as a way to understand experience and social forces. Art history shares that general goal, but my approach differs from the historical survey described above. I start with theory and move through several perspectives, illustrating them through a variety of forms, including those students choose for their own projects. (The class tends to be large—as many as a hundred students—and primarily undergraduates from many majors, including humanities, sciences, and arts.) The first reading is Emile Durkheim’s 350

L o u ly P e a c o c k K o n z a n d J a m e s P e a c o c k

Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Students find him turgid, but he serves to counter their tendency to emphasize the individual. Later, we read Carl Jung. Most prefer Jung, who bridges self and collective culture, of a sort. A final reading, lately, has been Griselda Pollock, Vision and Difference. She was suggested by Louly, and she proves essential to complement the perspective of the old men founders—Durkheim, Jung, and others—because she provides at once a feminist view and a focus on forms as opposed to concepts and beliefs. lpk: My course, unlike my presentation of La Sagrada Familia, is chronologically structured.

Art History Course: A n c i e n t t o M e d i e va l A r t H i s t o r y lpk: This survey covers the period from prehistory to the Middle Ages and compares Western and non-Western art. One goal is to contrast architecture from the two cultures—realizing, of course, that the distinction is arbitrary; nonetheless, making it is useful in order to bridge it. Why do this? To counter a tendency in art history to view so-called Western architecture as solely within Western culture, which isolates the structures from the rest of the world and prevents us from seeing similarities between so-called Western and nonWestern forms, rituals, and contexts. To show this, for example, I enjoy showing slides of the procession up the side of Hindu monuments in Indonesia juxtaposed to the Parthenon in Greece. A second goal is to explain to students who are caught up in their own era the pasts that prefigure them. Many of these students consider themselves to be artists who may not (according to them) recognize their ancient or recent forebears; to me, the history of material things is essential, and the students discover they are not as original as they hope, so they learn a sense of their smallness in the world. Pascal said in Les Pensées that we are a species in the infinite spaces of the universe. A third focus of the class is to learn how close we are to ancient cultures. Why is this useful? Twenty-first century students often feel removed from what they study, which distances them mentally from art. I enjoy shocking the students by showing how close they are to the mind-set of ancient artists. For example, Greek vase painting of the Classic period, say 520 BC, can seem dull until you see the center of Kalyx craters (vessels for drinking wine), which depict scenes of everyday life: a nude servant girl bathing, men relaxing on chaise lounges after drinking, or even someone vomiting. Context enters when we compare governments, democratic or otherwise, and societies. A final concept is patterns across cultures. Western art is often divided into periods, such as archaic moving toward a more realistic style, followed by a classical renaissance realistic style and finally a decadent style, or denouement baroque. Is this true of non-Western art, too, or are these fabrications of our Western mind-set? Perhaps as parallels in Hinduism and Christianity, for example, the monuments can be compared on the same plane. This type of thing is more common in art history today, though students still often prefer realism. In this manner, a non-Western form can inform Western art in its A rt H i sto ry a n d A n t h r o p o lo gy

351

often Christian-based biases. Here enters the notion of time line, of rise and fall versus cyclical movement. In sum, the course should teach a chronology, but also unsettle us by showing our small place in that story, then build us back up by giving us new possibilities as creators, especially for student artists, writers, and others. They and we should become more open, informed, and inspired by broadening our knowledge. jp:

How do you teach Borobudur?

lpk:

I teach about Borobudur as part of Art History I: Ancient to Medieval Art History. We have a section of the course focusing on non-Western art in particular, especially ancient Indian and Indonesian architecture. The discussion about Borobudur is a part of my narrative about the architecture of Indonesia as I studied it during a visit with my father in 1988. Important to understanding Borobudur is that it is not a unique monument. It is important to see this sacred site in the context of the geography, history, and religious tradition that shaped it. It is a wonder of the world (due to its immense size) and isolated by its being a Buddhist monument in Indonesia (since Buddhism was so short-lived there). Following the order in which topics are introduced in the class textbook, we first look in detail at the most ancient Indian Buddhist monuments, especially the Great Stupa at Sanchi, India, ca. 100 AD, which was one of the first Buddhist monuments built. In simple form, I explain to the class that a stupa represents Buddha and the world surmounted by heavenly spires. The stupa is not hollow, but rather is full of gravel and Buddhist relics. The purpose of the stupa in general was not only to symbolize Buddha and Buddhism but also to provide a reflection of the world and heaven (Nirvana) so that monks (in this case) could practice the path to enlightenment in a physical sense. It is similar to the Christian maze that appears on the floors of medieval cathedrals. The Buddhist monks would have to walk through the four gates or Toranas, upon which are sculptural reliefs of figures to be overcome, such as a voluptuous Yakshi. Once these have been passed, or surpassed, the monk climbs a stair up one level and circumnavigates the stupa, looking up continually at the spiral pointing toward Nirvana. With this earlier monumental stupa in mind, I then focus the course on the study of Borobudur, which is an extension of the ideas structuring the Great Stupa at Sanchi. In the Sanchi stupa and that of Borobudur, one sees an echo of the world, but one can also see things like a flower floating on the water or a space surrounding an image of the Buddha like a mandala. Adhering to the formalist tradition of art history, I begin my discussion of Borobudur by describing its size, 123 X 123 meters and about 34.5 meters high (after restoration); how it was built by a Hindu prince, Sanmaratungga, in the eighth century AD; and its location on a plain in view of mountains near Yogyakarta in Central Java. Furthermore, I provide a bit of the history—how Buddhism came to the island of Java and dominated in a religious sense for about one hundred years. The great stupa of Borobudur was a center for Buddhist pilgrimage and worship. Once other religions, such as Hinduism and Islam, became more prominent, Buddhism fell out of prominence, and the power base moved to Eastern Java. The stupa became neglected and eventually covered up with dirt. It was not unearthed until 1814, when Sir Thomas Stanford Raffles headed up efforts to reveal it. 352

L o u ly P e a c o c k K o n z a n d J a m e s P e a c o c k

Subsequent to contextualizing Borobudur historically and artistically, I present images of it. I show the overall monument to give a sense of scale. One favorite image of mine was taken from below looking upward and thus provides a sense of its height and the great distance one must climb to attain the top. Here is where I also stress the importance of a site visit to a better understanding of how one interacts with and experiences the monument. As with any pilgrim, the experience is a big part of appreciating the entire structure and immersing oneself in the religious experience. In art history, we do not believe in an armchair approach, but rather like to try to relive for the students the impact of architecture through discussion and projected images. In order to compare Borobudur in Java to other Buddhist monuments, I must look to India for examples. So, I teach students about the Indian site known as the Great Stupa at Sanchi. After looking at the overall structure, I take the students up through the different levels. The primary six rectangular levels are in the form of a stepped pyramid and contain relief sculpture depicting Buddha’s life in multiple facets. One then reaches the three higher, circular levels. On these are seventy-two small bodhisattva statues, each in its own perforated stupa; some, however, have been partially opened or are completely missing. (To bring the students into the experience with me, I often show an image of myself touching the Buddha’s hand for good luck.) Having climbed through the circular levels, one reaches the top of the stupa. This level consists solely of a dome, similar to that at the Sanchi stupa in India. As with the Sanchi stupa, Borobudur is thought to have once contained a relic of the Buddha. I show a silly but relevant slide of myself sitting just beneath the dome in a Buddha-like posture, supposedly free of earthly concerns. The irony of this image is a part of learning about the religious approach of another culture, but it also emphasizes the role of the monument to the students. Questions from the students are often about what is inside the stupa—supposedly rubble and relics—and how it compares with places like the Great Pyramids in Egypt, which are tombs. jp: When I teach Consciousness and Symbols, I refer to several themes noted above regarding the Java forms, including the Buddhist/Hinduist background and the mystical relation of king and kingdom to cosmos, which leads to a contrast to Islamic fundamentalism, which suppresses this perspective. (That suppression was expressed by the bombing of Borobudur by Sanusi of Muhammadiyah, for example.) This contrast is introduced in relation to Max Weber, whose synthesis of the sociology of religion compared Hindu and Chinese mirroring of cosmic and social orders as mutually reinforcing the so-called Protestant ethic, which reforms the social order in light of the higher vision of the kingdom of God. The Islamic fundamentalism of Muhammadiyah follows a similar ethic. lpk:

Could you teach La Sagrada Familia in this class?

jp: Concerning Gaudí, I might suggest how his architectural work could be treated in a Jungian and Durkheimian context: as building/bildung, creating forms as one creates a life, part of individuation (Jung). Pollock’s discussion of feminist art history may illuminate. A rt H i sto ry a n d A n t h r o p o lo gy

353

lpk:

How has what I’ve told you about art history over the years influenced the course? jp: The Consciousness and Symbols course is designed to survey and engage students in a general perspective on symbols. Beginning with William RobertsonSmith, followed by Durkheim, a predominant anthropological emphasis has been on the social context and function of symbols. Beginning with James Frazer and Edward Tylor, followed by Max Weber, a second emphasis has been on the cultural meaning of symbols. Beginning with Sigmund Freud, followed by Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, a third emphasis has been on the psychological meanings of symbols. I introduce all of these perspectives, weaving them into interpretations of specific symbolic phenomena: religious ceremonies, political ideologies and events, dreams, myths, rituals. I then ask about symbols as such, shifting from emphasis on context to forms and from theories to cases, many of which the students themselves introduce. These sometimes include art, photography, and videography that they create and interpret from perspectives that often go beyond the classical theories we start with into feminist and other approaches. Sometimes I include my own materials, such as those from Java, which I show them without much explicit connection to the theories; I have never, for example, noted how the Borobudur form may reflect and reinforce the surrounding society in the way Durk­ heim suggests. Someday, maybe soon, I will weave in La Sagrada Familia in a similar way. By now, the students have the theories in mind as background and can keep them in mind as useful or not while moving beyond them as they encounter the forms themselves. Where does art history enter? Now, here, as we encounter the forms. Also, at this point we read the art historian Griselda Pollock and deal with both art objects and photography—sensed objects—and a feminist perspective. The two join together because the gaze—that is, a detached yet also voyeuristic way of looking—is treated by Pollock as especially present in male views of women as objects of art and of beauty and desire. Vision and Difference was suggested by Louly, and I have found no better substitute. The coincidence of a feminist critique and an art historical perspective that emphasizes the form as such, seen as art object, detached from context, works to reinforce both perspectives. Art objects, especially portraits or other representations of women fetishized in a male-dominated culture, may tap only one type of form, but the general orientation to form is well expressed through art history. In the end, I suggest that the students may find an “interpretivist stance,” one of many useful in making sense out of the plethora of forms as part of life experience. Even though they discuss and write about the materials and approaches to them, I don’t know exactly what perspective, if any, they take away with them. Over the years, I see some of them again, a few in fields such as photography or filmmaking, but who can say what influences their work? lpk: In my classroom, I seek to make art and architecture come alive for the students. Often in the study of art history, the flat images on the screen seem nothing more than dull, lifeless objects meant to lull students to sleep in a dark classroom, but at Warren Wilson College, our goal as an experiential school 354

L o u ly P e a c o c k K o n z a n d J a m e s P e a c o c k

is to make all learning more active. I have found that by bringing in a more anthropological perspective, one that relies on reading symbols and seeing works as functional objects, I literally awaken my students to the aliveness of the art and architecture. Aspects of anthropology that appear in art history can include cultural relativity, in-depth examination of objects to show the influence of culture, and cross-cultural examination. All three of these methods are used in my classes, though I rarely acknowledge my methods. Rather, I prefer to let them appear through lecture and students’ insights. That way, the approach is less overt and studied, more natural. My approach of using anthropology and art history works well at Warren Wilson because our school stresses the effects of politics, location, and culture in all areas. The students are very socially active and love to work the land. They have a strong alternative culture and are often called hippies by people from the nearby towns of Asheville and Black Mountain. So if I overemphasize the role of art in museums, as art literally on a pedestal, the students might revolt! They might see the work as nothing but elitist. Hence, I tread a tricky path (since a lot of “great” art was commissioned by people with money). Still, I convince the students of the value of the art work with anthropology by stressing that art shows how people think or how one person thinks at a certain moment, and that this artifact from the moment represents many other aspects of the society within which the artifact was created. An eighteenth-century painting by the French artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard called The Swing (1766), for example, depicts a beautiful young woman being pushed in a swing by a gnarled old man. Hidden beneath the swing in the bushes is a handsome young man, her lover. He looks up her skirts while she kicks her shoe to him. Most of my students detest Rococo art, but when I explain the symbols involved—effusive nature (sex) and the shoe (a sex organ), which were well-known signs at that time—the students become more interested in the painting. Also in anthropological mode, I describe the salon society of eighteenth-century France, where romantic intrigues were common and considered amusing. I might even sing a line from a Rococo aria to reflect the lightness of the approach to life and to art. And to cap off my explanation of the painting, I will wear a colorful Rococostyle dress with pink shoes and kick off one of the shoes while explaining the role of the shoe symbolically. (This action was also known, in the context of a painting, to symbolically represent losing one’s virginity. Of course, I catch the shoe myself.) So, voilà, art comes alive to the students using some anthropological methods (and a bit of performance art!). At a place that thrives on nature and interaction like Warren Wilson, I have to show how these are not lifeless boring objects, but representations of fascinating aspects of the artists and their societies. This approach surely reflects the trend in art history toward bringing in many other fields to better teach our foundations, which are the objects and the lives of the artists. I could not even imagine not using an anthropological approach. My students thrive on seeing art as physical, functional, and, above all, fun and frolicky! jp: What does our dialogue have to do with visual anthropology? Engaging the visual is a way of engaging life: this is an aim of visual anthropology. As such, it transcends any single discipline and unites many, including art history A rt H i sto ry a n d A n t h r o p o lo gy

355

and anthropology, the similarities of which were once emphasized. (See Alfred Kroeber, 1953. Kroeber, in his 1958 “swan song” speech mentioned above, described anthropology as distinct from other social sciences in its focus on museums, artifacts, art, and other sensed forms.) What about photography? Still or moving, it is a focus of visual anthropology. For us, it is a means to represent the forms and context. The photographs are not, as such, the focus of study but are necessary for it. Dual representation is at work here by the architects and artists first, by the photographers (us) second. The point of representing these representations is to show their meanings, interpreted in context. This is our shared aim: to grasp human experience and enhance appreciation and awareness of representations of that experience.

356

L o u ly P e a c o c k K o n z a n d J a m e s P e a c o c k

References Ackerman, Susan E., and Raymond L. M. Lee. Heaven in Transition: Non-Muslim Religious Innovation and Ethnic Identity in Malaysia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988. Anderson, Benedict R. O’G. “The Idea of Power in Javanese Culture.” In Culture and Politics in Indonesia. C. Holt, B. Anderson, and J. Siegel, eds. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1972. 1–69. Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida. Richard Howard, trans. New York: Noonday Press, 1981. Bateson, Gregory, and Margaret Mead. Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis. New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1942. Benjamin, Geoffrey. “Between Isthmus and Islands: Reflections on Malayan Palaeo-Sociology.” Working paper 71, Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, 1986. Cassirer, Ernst. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. 3 vols. Ralph Mannheim, trans. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944. Collier, John, and Malcolm Collier. Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986. Geertz, Clifford. Religion of Java. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960. Hasyim, Umar. Sunan Kalijaga. Kudus, Indonesia: Menara, n.d. Heine-Geldern, Robert. Conceptions of State and Kingship in Southeast Asia. Data paper no. 18, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1956. Kali, Nurdin. “Reform Through Ludruk: This Intelligent Book Analyzes the Role of Ludruk in Reforming Javanese Culture.” Arts and Culture, Tempo (January 23, 2006): 32. Koentjaraningrat, R. M. Javanese Culture. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1985. Kroeber, Alfred. Anthropology Today: An Encyclopedic Inventory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953. Lacan, Jacques. Ecrits: A Selection. Alan Sheridan, trans. 1977. Rev. ed., Bruce Fink, trans. New York: Norton, 2002. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. The Savage Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963. Mangkujnegara VII of Surakarta, K.G.P.A.A. The Wajang Kulit (Purwa) and Its Symbolic and Mystical Elements. Claire Holt, trans. Ithaca, N.Y.: Modern Indonesia Project, Cornell University, 1957. Metz, Christian. “Photography and Fetish.” October 34 (Fall 1985): 81–91. Moertono, Soemarsaid. State and Statecraft in Old Java: A Study of the Later Mataram Period, 16th to 19th Centuries. Ithaca, N.Y.: Modern Indonesia Project, Cornell University, 1963. Peacock, James. Rites of Modernization: Symbolic and Social Aspects of Indonesian Proletarian Drama. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968. ———. “Eye to Ear and Mouth to Hand.” Anthropology News, March 2000. Peacock Konz, Louly. Marie Bashkirtseff’s Life in Self-Portraits, 1858–1884: Woman as Artist in 19th Century France. New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2005. Pigeaud, Theodore. Java in the Fourteenth Century: A Study in Cultural History. 5 vols. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1960–1963. Pollock, Griselda. Vision and Difference. London: Routledge, 2005. Schrieke, B. Indonesian Sociological Studies, Part II: Ruler and Realm in Early Java. The Hague: Van Hoeve, 1957. Selosoemardjan. Social Changes in Jogjakarta. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1962. Siegel, James T. Solo in the New Order: Language and Hierarchy in an Indonesian City. Prince­ ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986. Wheatley, Paul. Impressions of the Malay Peninsula in Ancient Times. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 1964.

A rt H i sto ry a n d A n t h r o p o lo gy

357

section v

Epilogue

Se cti on V E p i lo g u e

Peter Biella “Elementary Forms of the Digital Media: Tools for Applied Action Collaboration and Research in Visual Anthropology”

Chapter 15.

The title of this chapter is an homage to Emile Durkheim’s Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, a major work in the anthropological literature that was especially important in the formation of the French theoretical school of thought in anthropology. In this chapter, Peter Biella speaks about the practical uses of various forms of digital software and hardware available to researchers and presenters of audiovisual media at the time of this writing. The technical part of this chapter will require constant updating, given the speed of extant technological innovation. However, Biella’s advice about respectful joint effort with friends and colleagues in the field is timeless and reflects the collaborative perspective found throughout the previous chapters.

360

361

Chapter 15

Elementary Forms of the Digital Media Tools for Applied Action Collaboration and Research in Visual Anthropology Pet e r B i e l l a

T

his chapter explores digital media and computer software that contribute to anthropological research and exposition. Its goal is to describe how social scientists can use these media to collaborate with community partners. The collaborations described take place in the field, as face-to-face individuals share media and work together with computers. Since this chapter focuses on elementary forms of media, it only takes a quick glance at online collabo-

rations between distant allies.

Because of the Internet, interactive media have become ubiquitous, but few anthropologists use it in their research or publications. Personal and transpersonal factors account for this: the first group of factors includes the difficulties of mastering digital media and the necessity for a visual anthropologist to have both artistic and social scientific skills; the second includes the paucity of graduate programs, the lack of professional venues, and the skepticism of academia toward all media except text. Until recently, the criteria used by departmental committees for hiring, retention, and tenure in anthropology had rarely included the production of nonprint and digital media as significant professional contributions. In 2002, however, official acknowledgment of that significance was published by the Executive Board of the AAA (American Anthropological Association 2002), and the development has helped many individuals advance their careers. Nevertheless, many disincentives to media production still exist and make most time-stretched academics fearful of taking the digital plunge. Yet, with encouragement from the Society for Visual Anthropology, the Commission on Visual Anthropology, the Nordic Anthropological Film Association and related organizations around the world, many social scientists now do engage in digital visual production. Those who practice applied and action research, who work with nonliterate peoples, and who use media in social justice campaigns understand the importance of communicating with the public, and they take the digital revolution seriously (Pink 2006). In the following, I introduce software that can be used by visual anthropologists for community action research. I do not discuss interactive media, that in which user input accesses text, graphics, and movies as a part of designed instruction. My concern is software that brings digital media up only to the 363

first stage of interactivity. The software I discuss creates subtitles and attaches them to digital media, allows the media to be edited and reviewed, and facilitates qualitative and statistical research. Media that are studied and enriched with elementary software can later become part of complex interactive learning environments (Biella 2007, this volume). In the following, I evaluate ten software applications (Table 15.1). Eight of them are available for both Macintosh and Windows computer platforms. The two Mac-only programs, iMovie and Final Cut Pro, are used to edit digital video, and they have close equivalents in Windows.1 Seven of the applications (Word, QuickTime, InqScribe, iMovie, Final Cut Pro, Magpie Pro, and Transana) are particularly useful in the creation of synchronous transcriptions, translations, subtitles, and annotations. Five (Octopz, Final Cut Pro, FileMaker Pro, Transana, and HyperResearch) facilitate the description and coding of audiovisuals and the inclusion of digital media in archives and databases.

In Figure 15.1, a Microsoft Word document is open next to Apple’s QuickTime Player. With the Word file and movie player side by side, a transcriber (or translator or annotator) may skip back and forth between the two, listening, typing, and listening again. In this process, the video timecode should be typed in often so that the audio track and transcribed words can frequently be synchronized.

Cost of Software

Ten software applications and six attributes discussed in this essay.

Table 15.1.

1. Movie Maker is the Windows equivalent of iMovie. RealPlayer performs many of the tasks in Windows that QuickTime performs in Mac. Premier and Avid, available for Windows and Mac, are roughly commensurate with the Maconly Final Cut Pro. In this chapter, I discuss only a few of the many options available to digital anthropologists. Although most of the applications I consider are available in Windows versions, the chapter reflects my own Mac-based experience and the fact that Mac has historically dominated the academic market for graphics and video production software.

364

I evaluate the ten applications in terms of six attributes: cost of software, learning curve, ease of use, types of research facilitated, special advantages, and special disadvantages. I conclude the chapter with some philosophical reflections on the impact of digital media on research, teaching, and collaboration in visual anthropology.

Academics own word processing software, and computers are bundled with QuickTime Player or its Windows equivalent. The simple transcription technique proposed here therefore adds no cost to the budget. Nevertheless, this and the other techniques I describe for field collaboration are most feasible with a laptop computer, which cost as much as $3,000. They also require electricity. When a power grid is not available, a truck battery can be made to run a computer.

Figure 15.1. Word and QuickTime Player used together in transcribing a digital video: the transcriber has inserted timecode numbers, accurate to the second, before each phrase.

Learning Curve/Ease of Use

Word and QuickTime Player do not require special training, but their use in the creation of subtitles is not ideal. To type, stop the video, type again, and play the video again. The transcriber’s fingers must constantly lose and find their place on the keyboard whenever a mouse click is needed to Play or Pause the video. This movement is fatiguing, and it slows down the work.

Microsoft Word: S o f t wa r e f o r T r a n s c r i p t i o n , T r a n s l at i o n , a n d A n n o tat i o n

Research in visual anthropology is enhanced by the synchronization of textbased and time-based media. Good transcriptions are essential for anthropological collaborations, linguistic research, and language preservation. They improve the accuracy of translations and are also needed by film editors. Translations in the form of movie subtitles are invaluable for working drafts and finished films. Digital transcriptions can be created in many ways, but the simplest is to juxtapose two applications, a word processor and a movie player, on a single computer screen. Peter Biella

Types of Research Facilitated

Many groups benefit from transcriptions and translations: collaborators in filmmaking, focus groups that discuss applied film strategies, and anthropologists who research and annotate films. A printed transcript with timecode provides rapid nonlinear access to information about a film, lets everyone “stay on the same page,” and offers the surface of the page for ideas to be jotted down as aides mémoire. Depending on the type or stage of the research, transcribers will want to vary the accuracy of their work. Some jobs do not require frame accuracy, E le m e n ta ry Fo r m s o f t h e D i g i ta l M e d i a

365

perfect timecodes, or verbatim transcriptions. In early periods of fieldwork, a rapidly completed, rough translation (like a “slop track” in an early version of a film) or a macro-level, first-pass job of data-coding may be all that collaborators require. When research goals are ultimately clarified, though, precise translations and frame-accurate coding are often needed.

last few words of the audio that was just played and transcribed. Solutions to these three problems are provided by other software options such as InqScribe and Transana, described below. QuickTime Pro: B a s i c D i g i ta l V i d e o S o f t wa r e

Special Advantages

Figure 15.2. A presentation created in Microsoft Word, including image, transcript, timecode, and data-codes. To test software for this chapter, I conducted a microanalysis of glances from a tongue-in-cheek video interview I filmed at a wedding. I gave the eye movement “events” code names such as GT (“George and Tom glance at each other”) and TF (“Tom stares at the filmmaker”).

The Word-QuickTime Player technique for transcription has no learning curve and the software it requires is essentially free. Once timecode, transcription, translation, and data-codes have been typed, they can be exported to XML or printed out in a multicolumn table. I have found the design of the table in Figure 15.2 particularly useful. Its still images were produced with QuickTime Pro (using the “Export > Movie to Picture” option), and the table itself was made with Word’s “Insert > Table” option. A hard copy transcript, whether or not as complex as that shown in Figure 15.2, is invaluable to film collaborators. Transcripts typed in Word are also valuable because they can be converted into digital subtitles.

This movie-manipulating application is part of the Macintosh operating system and is the foundation of Apple’s digital media. A version of the free QuickTime Player is also available for Windows. Apple suggests a technique by which QuickTime Pro can be used to insert subtitles into digital movies. It is not a good technique, but I discuss it because if I didn’t, people would wonder why I didn’t, and because I want to show why another option, InqScribe, is better. Cost of Software

Although QuickTime Player comes with the Macintosh operating system, QuickTime Pro, an upgrade that is necessary for the techniques described here, costs under $50.2 Only the Pro version can create movie subtitles and export to still images and other file types. Apple has arranged matters so that each time QuickTime Player is upgraded for free, the new version of QuickTime Pro must be purchased. Learning Curve

To master this technique, I needed several hours of trial and error and had to make repeated references to Apple’s QuickTime 7 User’s Guide (2005). Ease of Use

QuickTime Pro creates subtitles in a prohibitively difficult way. Subtitle text files must be moved several times between Word and QuickTime, and the accuracy of the timecode numbers typed into the text can only be achieved through guesswork, trial, and error. The possibility of making typographical errors is great, too, because the timecode numbers that must be changed are embedded within other incomprehensible data (Figure 15.3). Types of Research Facilitated

Special Disadvantages

One disadvantage of the Word-QuickTime Player technique of transcription is that the player displays a timecode that is only accurate to the second. Many kinds of visual coding, including professional subtitling, must be accurate to 1 /30 of a second, a single video frame. A second disadvantage of this technique is that it requires the typist’s fingers constantly to lose their place. Moreover, this technique does not offer the transcriber an auto-backwind function. Backwind increases accuracy by allowing the typist to hear for a second time the 366

Peter Biella

Just as printed transcripts are valuable for collaborators, subtitled translations benefit a video project team or focus group when members do not all speak the language on the tape. Subtitles need not be translations. Movies can be annotated in other ways to sensitize viewers to nonverbal movements or provide synchronous counterpoint to the action. Subtitled movies, originally made for an applied purpose, often end up in other research contexts, in the classroom, or on TV. Special Advantages/Special Disadvantages

QuickTime Pro is a necessary complement to the visual anthropologist’s tool kit because it is the foundation of Mac-based multimedia. It can perform basic editing tasks, export video and video stills, and translate file formats. It is not a good choice for making subtitles. E le m e n ta ry Fo r m s o f t h e D i g i ta l M e d i a

2. To purchase or acquire evaluation copies of the applications discussed in this essay, see “Electronic References Cited” below. Prices and software descriptions reflect the state-of-the-art in May 2007. Up-to-date information about Mac and Windows applications is available at the VersionTracker Web site.

367

buttons. InqScribe’s playback speed can be set to match typing speed, and the duration of the Backwind can also be set to preference. As shown in Figure 15.4, the “Snippets” keyboard shortcuts can either be clicked or activated with a keystroke to load speakers’ names, data-codes, and keywords into the transcript.

Figure 15.3. The insertion of subtitles using Word and QuickTime Pro: at the stage of the process represented here, the Word file displays a confusing excess of computer code.

I n qSc r i b e : S o f t w a r e f o r D i g i t a l T r a n s c r i p t i o n a n d A n n o tat i o n

The most elegant software I have found for making transcripts and transforming them into subtitles is InqScribe. I have a special affinity for this program because my own work with digital media required me to create an application that did the same job, and I’ve used mine diligently for ten years. InqScribe, though, is simpler and more versatile than the program I created. Cost of Software

Available for a free one-month trial, InqScribe has an academic price of less than $100, and less than $50 for students. It requires QuickTime Pro, approximately $30. I also recommend the optional foot pedal. Sylvan Software sells one for less than $100. Types of Research Facilitated Learning Curve

The basic technique of InqScribe requires only an hour to learn: the user loads the digital movie, listens to it a phrase at a time, types each phrase, and, in the process, breaks the transcript up into subtitles with in- and out-point timecodes. The process is intuitive. The application, however, also includes many valuable nonintuitive keyboard shortcuts and options. A second hour with the manual is therefore advisable. Ease of Use

Accurate transcription is tedious under the best conditions, but InqScribe makes it tolerable. Use of the foot pedal or the tab key causes the video to Pause, Start, and Backwind while allowing the transcriber’s fingers to keep their places on the keyboard. Accurate assignment of subtitles is made possible by inching the video forward and back, a frame at a time. Like Fast Forward and Rewind, frameby-frame movement may be controlled with keyboard commands or on-screen 368

Peter Biella

InqScribe can benefit collaborative research and filmmaking projects, focus groups, and any other screening venues that need transcripts, subtitled translations, or the synchronization of annotations with audio or video. Special Advantages

The InqScribe interface with a timecoded transcript: at the right of the screen are “Snippets” and “Shortcuts,” codes and keywords that may be inserted into the transcript with a keystroke or mouse click; overlaid at the bottom of the screen is a QuickTime movie window displaying an InqScribe subtitle.

Figure 15.4.

A simple keystroke gives the InqScribe subtitles their in- and out-point timecodes (Figure 15.4). Once a timecode number appears in the transcript, it becomes hot text, which, when clicked, causes the video to begin playback at the numbered frame. This feedback and the frame-accurate video controls help correct the timing and accuracy of subtitles. Accuracy can also be checked in drafts of the subtitled QuickTime movie (see bottom of Figure 15.4) effortlessly generated by InqScribe. Occasionally, new sections of video need to be inserted into footage that has already been transcribed. In order to correct for the fact that the inserted media will displace the timecode numbers of subtitled media subsequent to it,

E le m e n ta ry Fo r m s o f t h e D i g i ta l M e d i a

369

InqScribe has a feature that adjusts all timecodes subsequent to the insertion point by the required amount. Transcript data may be searched within the InqScribe application. They may also be exported in a number of formats, including HTML and XML, standard for statistical applications. Of particular convenience to filmmakers, InqScribe’s subtitles are also exportable in a format ready to use by Final Cut Pro. Special Disadvantages

I have not found anything in InqScribe that I don’t like or find unnecessary. The program would be even more useful if it had a playback mode in which lines of the transcript were highlighted sequentially as the audio played back. InqScribe would also be more useful if it had a waveform timeline. It is easier to place the first frame of a subtitle in synchrony with the image of a sound than with sound itself. Transana has these two features and they help to ensure the accuracy of a transcript and the best placement of subtitles. i M o v i e : S o f t wa r e f o r B a s i c D i g i t i z i n g , Editing, and Subtitling

iMovie and its no-frills Windows equivalents offer simple video editing and playback and satisfy many collaborative needs. Because these programs are easy to learn and relatively foolproof, they can easily be taught to research associates. iMovie would certainly have thrilled Robert Flaherty, the first visual ethnographer who in the 1920s so valued feedback from his Inuit collaborators that he hand-developed his own 35mm movie film in the Arctic (Calder-Marshall 1966). Cost of Software

Since iMovie comes with the Mac operating system, and Windows’ Movie Maker may be downloaded for free, they do not add expense to a project. Digital video editing, though, does require other costly peripherals—at minimum, a video player or camera (from $500 to many thousands of dollars) and an external hard drive ($100 and up).

Special Advantages

Whereas movie film is physically cut in the editing process, digital editing is “nondestructive”: this means that the original video files always remain whole and intact on the hard drive regardless of how much they have been digitally edited. iMovie is easy to learn and its nondestructive editing allows alternative versions to be produced by different members of a team. For that reason, it nurtures rich discussion of filmmaking strategies and encourages the focus on emic perspectives. As I suggest later, this fact has important philosophical and practical implications. iMovie has several export options. It can create movie files that are small enough for the Web or sharp (hence big) enough for DVDs.

The iMovie screen in the Edit mode: clips at the bottom of the screen have been given subtitles.

Figure 15.5.

Special Disadvantages Learning Curve/Ease of Use

iMovie is made for beginning filmmakers and is easily mastered. In its Record mode, iMovie accepts digital input from a camcorder and can control the camera’s playback with on-screen buttons for Pause, Stop, and Fast wind. iMovie can also capture VHS and DVD video input, though less conveniently. Using iMovie’s Edit mode, beginners can learn to cut picture and sound in only a few hours (Figure 15.5). Creating subtitles from scratch is complicated, but mastery of iMovie’s technique took me no more than an hour. (InqScribe’s technique is superior, however.) Types of Research Facilitated

Consumer-grade software like iMovie is useful in the field because it can trim down lengths of raw footage into short, representative clips. iMovie’s simple edits are useful, too, in planning collaborative video projects, since even rough edits give collaborators a good idea of project achievements and future needs. 370

Peter Biella

No-frills digital editing programs do not allow frame-accurate cutting or complex sound mixes. (This is no doubt intended to encourage consumers to buy expensive software.) Moreover, in editing, these applications have only one opportunity for “undo.” This means that a keyboard or mouse decision must immediately be reversed before the next decision makes the previous one permanent. (Cuts and undos pertain to iMovie timelines only: they do not alter the original video files, because only copies of them exist in the timeline. Final Cut Pro offers up to ninetynine levels of “undo.”) Low-end programs also lack an exportable edit decision list (EDL), the foundation of professional-grade Final Cut, Avid, and Premier editing. F i n a l C u t P r o : S o f t wa r e f o r P r o f e s s i o n a l D i g i ta l V i d e o E d i t i n g

This Macintosh-only professional video editing program is probably used by the majority of shallow-pocketed independent filmmakers. Final Cut Pro (FCP) E le m e n ta ry Fo r m s o f t h e D i g i ta l M e d i a

371

allows frame-accurate editing and subtitle placement, multiple audio tracks, audio sweetening, sophisticated color correction, and enough tools, options, effects, and tricks to fill a 720-page manual (Brenneis 2007). Cost of Software

The academic price for the Final Cut Studio suite of applications, with tutorials and manual, is under $600. I add the reminder that the laptop Macintosh computer needed to run this application to its best advantage has a price near $3,000. Like iMovie, Final Cut and its competitors, Premier and Avid, require an external hard drive; a terabyte of hard drive storage, now the expected amount, costs about $400.3 Back-up copies of the edit decision list should be stored not only on an external drive but also on a second removable medium such as a Flash key ($10 and up) or CD (25¢). Learning Curve

When I started to learn FCP, I had ten years’ experience in film and analog video editing, but I only began to feel at ease with the digital controls after several weeks of practice. Even experienced editors keep the manual nearby. A friend told me that he is still learning shortcuts after several years of using the program every day. Unlike iMovie, Final Cut offers many complexities, and it permits many editing styles. Heavy with icons, folders, and options, Final Cut accepts media in a dozen digital formats, accepts many input sources and compressions, and can export video to many different file types. Little mistakes cause big problems in Final Cut, and Final Cut offers many chances to make little mistakes.4 Ease of Use 3. When the edit decision list and digitized media are kept on an external drive, crashes in Final Cut—which do occur—are ordinarily little more than annoying. When the program crashes and media are stored internally, in the same drive and partition as the application itself, major problems can result: the digitized media and the EDL may be corrupted or lost. An external drive should therefore always be used. 4. Final Cut Express, Apple’s midpriced alternative to Final Cut Pro, is easier to learn but lacks many features. I do not include it here because I assume that my readers will either want all of FCP’s professional features or will be happy with iMovie’s great simplicity.

372

At least three different ways can be found to do anything in Final Cut Pro. This embarras de richesse is confusing to beginners and useful for advanced editors. The design of the application, like that of the first digital editing program, Avid, allows digital editors to think like—but work more conveniently than—the film and analog video editors who preceded them. The lower half of the FCP interface, as laid out in Figure 15.6, is dedicated to a Timeline with a waveform sound track across the very bottom and two video timelines above it. The Browser, in the upper left, stores icons for sequences, bins, and media clips. To its right are two video editing windows. This two-window configuration is the grandchild of two-screen flatbed editing machines that have been used to cut film for more than eighty years. The design is therefore intuitive to earlier generations of film editors. Types of Research Facilitated

Anything iMovie does, Final Cut can do better. The kinds of research facilitated by iMovie’s roughly hewn productions are also achievable, with more elegance, in FCP. Special Advantages

The learning curve is steep, but mastery of a professional editing program offers many advantages to digital visual anthropologists. Its frame-accurate, nondestructive editing tools—Slip, Slide, Ripple, and Roll—arouse speechless Peter Biella

admiration in those of us who still sometimes wake up sweating from the memory of destructive splicing tape and analog edits. Among its other wonders, Final Cut has the capacity to magnify and isolate small portions of the video screen for special emphasis. It can create slow and fast motion, useful for certain kinds of empirical research. Final Cut can throw portions of the moving image out of focus, allowing anonymity that can circumvent some ethical difficulties. In the blink of an eye, it creates the subtitles for which 16mm film editors once paid a fortune and waited a week or more to discover were out of sync. The most recent release of Final Cut Pro offers subtle color correction and state-of-the-art audio manipulation.5 Multiple versions of the same scene or scenes can be stored as different “sequences” in the Browser. Final Cut can also export its edit decision list to other computers, allowing collaborators to edit similar but different versions. The exportable EDL also allows an almost-finished movie to be tweaked to perfection in an online editing house. Finally, like database applications described below (and in some ways better than those applications), Final Cut can tag film clips with keywords. The clips may then be searched, and the icons of the found clips are presented together E le m e n ta ry Fo r m s o f t h e D i g i ta l M e d i a

Figure 15.6. Final Cut, with Browser and the Viewer and Canvas windows across the top of the screen; the Timeline and Tools fill the bottom.

5. Avid Pro Tools (Mac and Windows) and Sound Forge (Windows only) also offer state-of-the-art audio editing.

373

in the Browser. This is very convenient for editing, though it does oblige editors to be somewhat scrupulous when keywording. It also gives viewers a convenient means to review editing options, as when members of a focus group wish to see several alternate takes of the same shot. Special Disadvantages

Final Cut comes at a price—at several prices. The software is expensive and is difficult to learn. Recent versions are not backwards compatible: timelines created on the new software cannot be used on the old. This obsolescence, obviously planned by Apple, is inconvenient for the user and exhibits avarice on the part of the manufacturer. One might say, too, that Final Cut Pro is habitforming. Each new version, marginally differentiated from the last, offers new features that consumption-bewitched filmmakers are persuaded they must own. Academics, who ought to be saving their modest discretionary incomes for retirement, instead drop them on “HD” or “Studio” or “USB” or “OSX” or whatever costly new gadget Apple whispers to them is wonderful and then ultimately forces them to buy. M a g p i e P r o : S o f t wa r e U s e f u l i n t h e A n a ly s i s O f S y n c h r o n o u s V e r b a l a n d N o n v e r b a l C o mm u n i c a t i o n

One application stands out as best for research in kinesics and other multicorrelate phenomena; it is particularly appropriate for research that needs statistical analysis. Magpie Pro software, sold by Third Wish (not to be confused with MAGpie freeware, distributed by WGBH), allows each frame of image to be synchronized against its waveform sound track as well as its text data-codes (Figure 15.7). Magpie Pro facilitates the type of animation called rotoscope that was used in Disney classics. In the rotoscope technique, an animator begins with a syncsound live-action movie and then traces or draws each frame of picture. Magpie provides the platform for tracing. It thus not only serves animators but also provides social scientists with an excellent platform for the study of synchronized gesture and speech. Cost of Software

Magpie Pro’s single-user license is $250. Educational institutions are eligible for a 50 percent discount on volume licenses.

each one to house a different kind of data. In Figure 15.7, the transcription of the Eyecontact interview appears in the first timeline pane beneath the waveform. Below that is a second pane for eye-movement codes: GA (“George Looks Away”), TP (“Tom Looks at His Pal”), and the rest. Another pane could be created to track different features, perhaps using symbols for Labanotation. MagPie creates exportable XML tables of its data panes correlated against frame numbers. This permits analysis in statistical applications.

The Magpie Pro interface: a timeline synchronizes each syllable of the transcript with the image, waveform, transcript, and data-codes.

Figure 15.7.

Special Advantages Learning Curve/Ease of Use

Many of this software’s subtleties are irrelevant for the gesture research suggested here. Still, gaining a rudimentary understanding of the application (which necessitates learning which subtleties to ignore) took me several hours with constant references to the manual. Types of Research Facilitated

Magpie Pro’s digital synchronization of sound waveform with image frame makes gestural research much easier and more precise than was possible with the use of analog video or film. The researcher can create multiple “panes” in the Timeline, 374

Peter Biella

Magpie Pro supports many formats of audio and video. All can be viewed at different magnifications. Though video playback is ordinarily limited to 30 images per second, temporal distinctions of less than 1/300 of a second can be seen in the waveform audio track. Magpie Pro includes two features that increase the accuracy of perception and coding. A loop playback button permits a short selection of sound to be heard repeatedly. Also, a selection of synchronous image and sound can be opened in a small window for looped viewing. Not only can Magpie Pro export data-codes to Excel and statistics programs, it can also export, as a PDF file, an animation “exposure sheet” that E le m e n ta ry Fo r m s o f t h e D i g i ta l M e d i a

375

synchronizes the waveform with timecode and text data. This document can be used to increase accuracy and to cross-check the work of multiple coders. Special Disadvantages

Although members of the Magpie Pro user group discuss many problems, almost all of the problems are so specific to animation that they are irrelevant to the research purposes suggested here. A few may be relevant. One user complained about poor performance in audio playback when she used the left and right arrow keys to scroll through the waveform; another had trouble magnifying single audio frames from a lengthy clip. In my limited experience with Magpie Pro, I did not encounter such difficulties. Oc t o p z : S o f t w a r e f o r O n l i n e C o l l a b o r at i o n i n S o u n d , V i d e o , Graphics, and Text

Because my focus in this chapter is software used in face-to-face collaboration, Octopz is the only application I discuss that is designed exclusively for Internet use. As an example of developments in Web 2.0, it deserves mention. Online collaborations—whether large-scale, like Wikipedia, or more modest, like e-mail, instant messaging, and video conferencing—represent an important trend in globalized fieldwork and the future of collective action. Octopz allows virtual collaborators to work simultaneously with digital media. Multiple partners meet together in a private, online “conference room” to subject graphics, text, video, and audio files to collective scrutiny and annotation. Graphic images alone can be permanently altered online. The other media available in Octopz—audio, video, text, and spreadsheets—can be discussed and annotated, but alterations must be made off-line and the revised files uploaded anew. Real-time communication may take place through Webcams and microphones, through graphic markup tools (Pencil, Lines, Shapes, and Text), through text messages saved in a permanent string, and through alterable sticky notes. New uploads, and new versions of altered graphics, are automatically added to the menu at the left of the Octopz screen (Figure 15.8) and are available there for later study.

Proficiency in the Web site’s features and tools can be gained in less than an hour. The tasks required by the group’s administrator—to pay the rent, create “conference rooms,” and invite participants—are also simple.

Octopz is valuable when immediate collaborative feedback is useful, when collaborators are far apart, and when they all have access to computers linked to the Internet. Distant stakeholders in digital media may need to see or to select from alternative graphics or edited versions of a film. Octopz is convenient because it allows collaborators to work together online or visit their “rooms” in offhours to see what has been done in their absence. The frame-accuracy of Octopz’ handling of sync-sound video makes it possible to collaborate for hours at a time with a translator who is halfway around the world. This scheme, if absurd, is less absurd than traveling halfway around the world to tie up a few loose ends. Most action research takes place through the medium of face-to-face communication. Yet, in the future, many collective actions and struggles will involve disparate indigenous groups that are partners and stakeholders in the success of collaborative digital media. Such groups will benefit from Octopz-like software. The potential is great for globalized visual anthropology.

Types of Research Facilitated

Special Disadvantages

Octopz’ promotional video shows an international team of furniture designers collectively deciding to remove the feet from the drawing of an over-stuffed sofa. Yet more important decisions of many kinds can be facilitated in virtual collaborations, just as they are from the nonvirtual collaborations I discuss above.

Notwithstanding the price and the requirement that Octopz collaborators need online computers, the application performs its task well. Only one person may use the markup tools at a time, but this can be accepted as a way to encourage polite sharing.

Cost of Software

Access to Octopz “conference rooms” costs about $100 per month. A month’s free trial is available. Learning Curve/Ease of Use

376

Special Advantages

Peter Biella

E le m e n ta ry Fo r m s o f t h e D i g i ta l M e d i a

Figure 15.8. An Octopz “conference room”: collaborators use several online communication options to discuss the significance of a single frame of the uploaded Eyecontact video.

377

The most serious drawback of Octopz’ markup options is that only graphic files can be altered permanently online. Text files are not machine-readable online; neither can movies be edited. Octopz participants can discuss online how they want to revise these file types, but the actual revisions have to be performed offline. The revised files must then be uploaded again, giving partners the opportunity to evaluate the new results.6

Data entry occurs in the Browse mode. The coder can use the tab key to advance from field to field. Look-up fields save unnecessary coding, and pulldown menus (Figure 15.9, lower right) speed the data entry process and prevent typographical errors.

F i l e M a k e r P r o : M e d i a - F r i e n d ly D a t a b a s e

6. Although Octopz does not permit online, machine-readable revisions to be made in Word, Excel, and similar documents, that ability is offered free on the Web site Google Docs and Spreadsheets. The collective authorship of such texts, however, can be better achieved in another way. The Microsoft Word application includes a “Tools > Track changes” menu option that provides collaborators a simple means to recognize revisions as such and identify their authors. Revised documents can be e-mailed to group members. Revision, in this method, does not occur online, before the watching eyes of other collaborators. Given the amount of time that is often needed for a good revision, however, few people would want to sit around and watch. 7. The example presented in Figure 15.9 does depict the coding of a digital video using FileMaker, but for such work I recommend HyperResearch. A second software tool that, like FileMaker, is useful for working with large sets of digital still photographs is iView MediaPro. Like FileMaker, it automatically produces a thumbnail for each image and allows the entry of descriptive data for each record. iView’s thumbnails are hyperlinked to the originals and its tables may be copied and pasted as tab-separated text.

378

FileMaker Pro (FMP) is a useful database for still images and texts; it is less useful for archiving and analyzing videos and audio tracks. When a digital document is stored in a database, it is not altered. Archiving in a program like FileMaker, though, does help people find documents, make sense of them, and present them in useful ways on-screen and on paper. The accessibility of digital media through databases has become an essential part of repatriation, cultural resource management, and indigenous control of audiovisual archives (Hennessy 2005). Media databases are valuable in collaborative and applied visual anthropology projects because they allow many people to research them independently and generate independent analyses. A collection of FileMaker records may be saved as HTML and hosted on the Web where they can be made to function as they did on a single computer. Cost of Software

The educational price of FileMaker Pro is approximately $150. An advanced version, with more sophisticated reporting, better debugging and menu tools, and additional options costs about $250. Learning Curve

A major advantage of FMP is that the user creates a new layout appropriate to each job. Layout design is particularly important to coders because it affects the efficiency of data entry. The characteristics of an efficient design, however, are not intuitive, and even experts improve their designs through trial and error. Learning to make strong FileMaker layouts requires considerable experience. A well-designed layout involves appropriate selection from among various types of fields. Look-up fields are useful for the automatic entry of data, which is the same throughout a single coding session (such as the coder’s name and the date of coding); pull-down menu fields save typing and prevent errors; Calculation and Summary fields perform mathematical functions.

Like other database programs, FileMaker includes a labor-saving option with which large files of data may be imported in bulk. (FileMaker automatically creates as many records as the data require.) It can bulk import, for example, XML-coded subtitles produced in InqScribe or tab-separated entries created in Word. (Cautiousness is needed during bulk entry since a minor error can spoil many records.) Images, too, may be imported in bulk, with FileMaker automatically creating a thumbnail for each one to keep file size low and access time rapid. Representative film stills, created in QuickTime Pro or Final Cut Pro, can also be loaded into the database. FileMaker’s Boolean and hierarchical Find tools are very useful.

Ease of Use

Types of Research Facilitated

FileMaker’s Layout mode is illustrated, on the left of Figure 15.9, at a point near completion of the design of a record for the Eyecontact video. (A “record” is the entity that stores all data correlated with a single event, such as a glance.) Tools along the left edge of the screen, and menu selections across the top, provide color, font, field type, and many other options for the design of records. In Figure 15.9, small squares at each corner of the rectangular “Glance Code” field indicate that it is selected and may be moved about the layout. With some practice, good graphic effects are not difficult to achieve in FileMaker.

FileMaker Pro is excellent as a digital photo archive, but it is not the best application for the analysis of videotaped events.7 The most common research that is likely to be conducted in photo archives concerns content. Users search for photographs of people, activities, locations, and objects. Dates, photographers, compositions, and genres may also be coded and searched. A FileMaker archive may also be explored with Boolean searches and used to export data for statistical research. Databases help people find what they are looking for, but a well-designed database is open-ended: it will not restrict

Peter Biella

E le m e n ta ry Fo r m s o f t h e D i g i ta l M e d i a

Figure 15.9. FileMaker Pro in its Layout mode for design (left) and Browse mode for data entry (right). Third and fourth modes, Find and Preview, are not shown.

379

discoveries only to answers that have been anticipated by the user or the designer (Biella 2007). Special Advantages

Data for each FMP record need only be posted once, but alternate layouts for the same record can easily be made to display different combinations of fields. The alternates encourage multiple perspectives on research and permit the most efficient use of space in printouts. FileMaker does not have the statistical power of programs like SPSS, but, through its export options, works in conjunction with them. Its strength is to sort textual, numeric, and audio/visual data in user-determined ways. FileMaker can provide rapid access to specific types of images from a huge collection. By juxtaposing photos sorted on the basis of known criteria, Filemaker facilitates the discovery of unanticipated results. Its capacity to be exported into XML serves statistical ends. When exported to HTML, it gives distant users access to its information.

Transana is reasonably adapted to transcribing audio and synchronizing it with a sound track as timecode-accurate subtitles. To transcribe, the coder types a keystroke to enter a sync-point marker, hits the Play keystroke to hear a phrase of audio, hits the Pause keystroke, types the phrase, enters a new marker, hits the Play keystroke and begins the process again (Figure 15.10). The accuracy of the transcriptions is enhanced by Transana’s automatic Backwind feature.

Special Disadvantages

FileMaker is very good at what it does. I have only minor criticisms. Design work in the Layout mode is rather awkward. Search engine performance slows when FMP is loaded with large files, such as digital movies: these cannot be transformed into thumbnails. Movies, too, always revert to the first frame when their record is closed. This is annoying if a different frame is of greater interest. T r a n s a n a : S o f t wa r e for Video Transcription

An important group of applications is designed especially for the coding of digital video. In the following, I describe two such applications, Transana and HyperResearch, but ignore their major competitors, Observer and EthoVision (Windows only) and Atlas-ti (Windows and Mac). Transana, good for transcription, is weak for coding. HyperResearch is efficient at coding but unsuited for transcription. Unlike InqScribe, the Transana group of applications has search engines that find video clips according to specified criteria. These applications can also subject coded data to elementary statistical analysis. Cost of Software

Transana costs $50 for the single-user and $500 for the multi-user version. Learning Curve

Considerable documentation exists for Transana, but the manual is difficult. It seems to have been written for someone who already understands what beginners are trying to learn. I struggled with the manual for half a day before I could grasp the basic ideas. Ease of Use

Transana is useful for visual anthropology only if two conditions are met: 1. it is used only for the transcription of audio (with or without synchronous image); 2. it is not used for coding data (even though it is designed for coding data). 380

Peter Biella

In contrast to Transana’s utility for transcription, its procedure for coding data is prohibitively tedious. The user scrubs through the video to find the first frame of the event to be coded, enters the sync-point marker in the transcript field, types a code for the event into the transcript, opens the coding window, selects the appropriate data-code, closes the window, scrubs the video forward to find the timecode of the event’s last frame, and enters a new marker. Two keyboard and five mouse actions are thus required to code each entry. Only three mouse actions are required by HyperResearch to accomplish the same task. Transana exports tables of its data in a format that does not meet the requirements of XML. Users must therefore either restrict themselves to the weak statistical calculations available in Transana or (perhaps manually) alter each line of data output to conform with XML. Only then will Transana’s data be comprehensible within more powerful statistical programs like SPSS, SAS, and STATA.

Figure 15.10. The Transana work screen: waveform, digital video, and a phrase highlighted in the transcript are all cued to the same moment.

Types of Research Facilitated

Particularly because of its Backwind function, Transana can be used efficiently in transcription. Its ability to highlight parsed sections of the transcript in synchrony with audio playback increases the accuracy of transcription. This playback feature can also be used in language training. Transana’s promotional literature claims that it is capable of searching thousands of hours of coded video. Because no one can remember so much material, E le m e n ta ry Fo r m s o f t h e D i g i ta l M e d i a

381

this aspect of the software would be valuable if coding were reasonably easy, but it is not. In any case, once transcripts are coded, the application can perform simple statistical calculations. Special Advantages

Transana is free, and it has the advantage of being written in open source code. Programmers may thus redesign the application to suit their own needs. Like InqScribe, Transana allows subtitles to be created. Also like InqScribe and Dictaphone machines, Transana has the Backwind feature. Apart from its waveform, the utility of which is seriously compromised by the absence of frame-accurate video controls, the significant advantage of Transana over InqScribe is that its playback of video causes sequential phrases in the transcript field to be highlighted as if they were subtitles. This way of representing verbal discourse on-screen is superior, for some purposes, to subtitles. In my text- and audio-centric Maasai Interactive, for example, I prefer to see an entire page of text remain on-screen, while consecutive phrases of transcription (or translation) within it are highlighted in sync with the audio. Special Disadvantages

8. In May 2007, a member of HyperResearch’s support team told me that they consider the incorporation and synchronization of transcript with video playback to be a high priority for their next release. (I’m sorry to report that a year before their most current release, they also told me the same thing.) The delay may be due to the fact that the parent company, ResearchWare, offers HyperTranscribe to meet the need; unfortunately, that application does not insert timecodes or provide phrase-byphrase playback of synchronized text and audio.

382

Transana has several debilitating qualities. Its tools for coding are inefficient in general and particularly inefficient for coding transient, nonverbal data. (Magpie Pro is far better for that purpose.) The Transana application requires frequent saves that are annoyingly slow. Further, the export tables generated by Transana are not standard XML. When Transana’s in- and out-points are placed in the transcript, they are not represented with visible timecode. Rather, each point is identified with a small, red ship’s steering wheel icon (Figure 15.10). Although the visual presence of timecode in a transcript might seem intrusive, to filmmakers, timecode is useful and ship steering wheels, usually, are not. Transana is particularly difficult to use on Macintosh computers because it demands extra work in preparing video files for analysis. Both on Mac and Windows, Transana only accepts video files that are comparatively low in resolution, and thus not best for visual coding.

Ease of Use

Once I got the idea, though, I found that the HyperResearch strategies to import video, create data-codes, and conduct data entry were very efficient. In this application, it is as easy to code brief nonverbal events as it is to code long verbal transcripts. No special confusion arises in HyperResearch from coding more than one kind of data at a time. As is true of InqScribe, but not of Transana, all of the features necessary for coding in HyperResearch are always copresent on the screen (Figure 15.11). This reduces effort because it requires the transcriber to make fewer keystrokes and mouse moves. Type of Research Facilitated

In its Video mode, HyperResearch has no transcript field and is unsuited for transcription.8 It serves media research in a number of other ways. In the first place, it is very efficient for coding audio and video. It also has Boolean search tools, strong statistical tools to test hypotheses, and it outputs data as properlyformatted XML. It achieves for video what FileMaker achieves for photographs. Finally, HyperResearch, alone among the software described here, permits the coding of still photographs, with x and y axis points posted along with the data-codes. The HyperResearch application also includes an efficient Text mode, not shown in Figure 15.11, which is used for coding existing transcripts, field notes, and other text documents. Special Advantages

If data entry and not transcription is desired, the convenience of HyperResearch is so great that its price is justified by the hours of work it saves. In HyperResearch, data entry is simple and fast. Moreover, HyperResearch

The HyperResearch data entry workflow: here, a section of video is selected and, with two mouse clicks, its in- and out-points and datacode are entered.

Figure 15.11.

H y p e r R e s e a r c h : S o f t wa r e f o r V i d e o C o d i n g A n d A n a ly s i s

HyperResearch software permits data to be coded rapidly. It also can find and display found sets of video clips on the basis of coded criteria and can subject data records to statistical analysis. Cost of Software

HyperResearch costs $370. Like most of the applications described in this chapter, a free trial version may be downloaded for a month’s evaluation. Learning Curve

HyperResearch is difficult to master. I had to pour over the manual for half a day before I began to understand it. Peter Biella

E le m e n ta ry Fo r m s o f t h e D i g i ta l M e d i a

383

can play back high resolution video formats. This feature makes it easier to identify subtle visual data. In addition, HyperResearch has a Text mode that is made particularly valuable by its “auto-coding” feature. Through its use, all instances of a word can automatically be assigned data-codes. Special Disadvantages

In Transana, transcription is efficient and may be incrementally highlighted in synchrony with sound. In HyperResearch, video and transcripts must be coded and studied independently of one another. This fact makes research into image/ spoken word correlations prohibitively difficult. HyperResearch has no waveform, a feature that is particularly valuable in Magpie Pro. Like Transana, HyperResearch lacks frame-accurate video control, reducing the precision of coding. Conclusion

Although in recent years ideas about teaching and exposition have flourished in visual anthropology, the discipline has taken hardly one step in the direction of developing tools for empirical analysis. Anthropology’s resistance to film research results in part from its valid critique of ivory-tower positivist bias and less valid suspicions about the intellectual accessibility of the empirical. This resistance is unfortunate. The worst dangers of positivist sterility and the most egregious biases that affect empirical analysis are, I believe, both mollified when collaborative film projects include an action component in the real world and when they are shaped fundamentally by the emic understandings and aspirations of indigenous collaborators. The material world is (thankfully) allowed to rematerialize in visual anthropology’s commitment to applied action research and indigenous aspirations. Anthropology’s resistance to empirical film analysis also results from serious technological constraints that, in the era of linear media, hobbled textual scholarship about film (Biella 1993:144–149). To put it bluntly, it was really hard to research movies in the past because they kept moving. Moreover, when 16mm and video were the only available media, anyone who wanted to include film in a scholarly exposition met a further panoply of technological constraints. It used to be a major undertaking just to project several film clips onto the wall of a classroom; it was almost impossible to make the clips play back slowly or often enough for an audience to understand them. Now, the qualities that make digital media so easy to study and edit also make them simple to use in teaching. New mediataming software has collapsed the distinction between text-based and timebased information and lifted the technological constraints that held back film research and classroom exposition. The change brought by digital media has not only affected visual anthropologists’ ability to teach their students but has also transformed their relationship with indigenous research participants. In the same decade that visual anthropology voluntarily sought the strictures of local accountability, the digital revolution forged tools to aid community input and scrutiny. Tools for the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of media have increasingly allowed 384

Peter Biella

visual anthropology’s collaborators to share in decisions and produce autonomous works. In the days of the lone auteur ethnographic filmmaker, such evaluation was extremely rare and often impossible. Now it is not. As our researcher colleagues learn forms of digital media, they add their own answers to questions that collaborating visual anthropologists might never think to ask. In whatever way collaborators’ answers may arise, though, they must ultimately be linked to material interventions. After all, the point of applied action research in visual anthropology is not merely to research the world, but also to change it. If digital media make theory and practice more intelligible to everyone involved, they also make it easier for all of us, working together, to do a good job. Ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s

I am grateful to Kate Hennessy, who invited me to join her collaborative Web site and video project with elders and youth of the Dane-Zaa Nation in northern British Columbia (Hennessy 2005). Kate’s work introduced me to several of the digital collaboration strategies that I describe here. Thanks to Joan Biella for proofing this chapter, making its voice more active, and convincing me it needed another week. Thanks also to Mike Walsh for suggesting Octopz and Google Docs as important tools for Web 2.0 collaboration. Chris Bettinger deserves special thanks for helping me understand what Transana and HyperResearch have to offer visual anthropology, for allowing me to make a video of his wedding, and, instead of insisting that I just edit the video and turn it over, permitting me to use one of its interviews as this essay’s nonverbal research exemplar. Finally, thanks and best wishes to Tom and George, the interviewees, whose entertaining fictions and digitized rapid eye movements we gaze upon here.

E le m e n ta ry Fo r m s o f t h e D i g i ta l M e d i a

385

S t u dy Q u e s t i o n s

Electronic References Cited

1 Video transcriptions can be created with different degrees of care. What factors should influence the choice of producing a transcription that is merely acceptable or one that is very accurate? 2 How can access to digital video improve the quality of translations? 3 In what ways can collaborative research on digital video improve the quality of ethnographic fieldwork? 4 What negative or positive consequences might arise if different research participants on an ethnographic video project were asked to produce their own edited versions of the same film? 5 Describe a possible scenario in which Octopz was used to host longdistance conversations between communities that share a common interest in an applied media project. 6 Filmmaking skills and the understanding of computer applications require years of commitment. Given the fact that mastery of concepts in anthropology is also very difficult, is it worth the effort to become a digital visual anthropologist?

Information about the software packages mentioned in this essay may be found in the following Web sites: Atlas-ti. http://www.atlasti.com/index.php Avid Pro Tools. http://www.avid.com/products/xpressStudio/proToolsLE/index.asp EthoVision. http://www.noldus.com/site/doc200403002 Excel. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/ Final Cut Express. http://www.apple.com/finalcutexpress/ Final Cut Pro. http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/finalcutpro/ Google Docs and Spreadsheets. http://docs.google.com HyperResearch. http://www.researchware.com/ HyperTranscribe. http://www.researchware.com/ht iMovie. http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/ InqScribe. http://www.inqscribe.com/ iView MediaPro. http://www.iview-multimedia.com/ Magpie Pro (Third Wish Software). http://www.thirdwishsoftware.com/magpiepro.html MAGpie (WGBH). http://ncam.wgbh.org/webaccess/magpie/ Microsoft Word. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word Movie Maker. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/updates/moviemaker2.mspx Observer. http://www.noldus.com/site/doc200401012 Octopz. http://www.octopz.com/ Premier. http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/ QuickTime Player and QuickTime Pro. http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mac.html RealPlayer. http://www.realplayerlive.com/ Sound Forge. http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/ SAS. http://www.sas.com/ SPSS. http://www.spss.com/ STATA. http://www.stata.com/ Transana. http://www.transana.org/ VersionTracker. http://www.versiontracker.com Wikipedia. http://www.wikipedia.org/ Word. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word WordPerfect. http://www.corel.com/

References Cited American Anthropological Association. 2002. Statement on ethnographic visual media. American Anthropologist 104(1):303–306. Apple Computer. 2005. QuickTime 7 User’s Guide. http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/Quick Time7UserGuide.pdf (accessed May 13, 2007). Biella, Peter. 1993. Beyond Ethnographic Film: Hypermedia and Scholarship. In Anthropological Film and Video in the 1990s. Jack R. Rollwagen, ed. Pp. 131–176. Brockport, N.Y.: The Institute. 2007. Coherent Labyrinths. Occasional Electronic Papers: Beyond e-Text. http://www.jmu.edu/BeyondEtext/Biella2007.html (not yet online, May 28, 2007). Brenneis, Lisa. 2007. Final Cut Pro 6: Visual QuickPro Guide. Berkeley: Peachpit Press. Calder-Marshall, Arthur. 1966. The Innocent Eye: The Life of Robert J. Flaherty. New York: Harcourt Brace and World. Hennessy, Kate. 2005. Repatriating cultural resources and negotiating representation: the Dane-Zaa and the Virtual Museum of Canada. Paper presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association. Washington, D.C., December 3. Pink, Sarah. 2006. The Future of Visual Anthropology: Engaging the Senses. London and New York: Routledge.

386

Peter Biella

E le m e n ta ry Fo r m s o f t h e D i g i ta l M e d i a

387

Glo ssary T e r ms affective. Film as an affective medium engages the emotions. Algonquins. An aboriginal North American people speaking

Algonquin, an Anishinaabe language. Culturally and linguistically, they are closely related to the Odawa and Ojibway, with whom they form the larger Anicinàpe grouping. See also Ojibway amicus brief (amicus curiae). A Latin phrase, literally translated as “friend of the court.” The term refers to someone, not a party to a case, who volunteers to offer information to assist the court in deciding a matter before it. The information may be a legal opinion in the form of a brief—testimony that has not been solicited by any of the parties—or a learned treatise on a matter that bears on the case. angrez. The term sometimes used to refer to British people. It derives from the French Anglais. Among South Asians, angrez often has the more general meaning of “white foreigner,” although its more specific meaning is Englishman, or angrezan for an English woman. This is mostly seen as an ethnic, rather than a territorial, term and applied specifically to people of Anglo-Saxon origin, so people of South Asian origin living in England do not usually refer to themselves as angrez or angrezan. aperture. The opening that controls the light that reaches a digital camera sensor or film camera. An aperture acts like the pupil of an eye that opens wider as light decreases to let in more available light. Similarly, as available light increases, the pupil gets smaller. The diameter of the aperture is measured in f-stops. The smaller f-stop numbers—for example, f2.8—let in more light when making photographs at dusk; the higher numbers—for example, f16—let in less light when making photographs at high noon. Arawak. Amerindians of the Greater Antilles and South America. The Arawaks were the first peoples encountered by Christopher Columbus. Among Arawak groups are the Taino, who occupied the Greater Antilles, the Bahamas, and Bimini Florida; the Nepoya and Suppoyo of Trinidad; and the Igneri, who were supposed to have preceded the Caribs in the Lesser Antilles; together with related groups (including the Lokono) that lived along the eastern coast of South America as far south as what is now Brazil. See also Caribs; Taino Art Deco. A popular international design movement involving a mix of modern decorative art styles. Lasting from approximately 1925 until 1939 and characterized by geometric designs and bold colors, Art Deco drew on aspects of many different styles and movements of the early twentieth century, including Constructivism, Cubism, Modernism, Bauhaus, Art Nouveau, and Futurism. See also Art Nouveau artifact. An object made by human beings. Art Nouveau (French for “new art”). A turn-of-the-century (1890–1905) international movement and style of art, architecture, and design. It is characterized particularly by the depiction of leaves and flowers in highly stylized, sinuous designs.   388

B-Boys and B-Girls. A term referring to young people who

aspire to the values or lifestyle of hip-hop culture. Beni Hasan. A contemporary small-scale society that lives along the banks of the marshes and canals near al-Hiba in southern Iraq. big man. Within the context of anthropology, this term refers to the most influential man in a small-scale society. His power is achieved through recognition (by skill, wisdom, or material possessions) and is not inherited. He lacks coercive authority and his position is informal and often unstable. bodhisattva. In the Buddhist context, “enlightened (bodhi) existence (sattva)”; in Sanskrit, “enlightenment-being.” Another translation is “wisdom-being.” The various divisions of Buddhism understand the term differently. In Mahayana Buddhism, it mainly refers to a being who compassionately refrains from entering nirvana in order to save others. See also Mahayana Borobudur. A world-famous ninth-century Mahayana Buddhist monument in Central Java, Indonesia. Borobudur is built in three tiers: a pyramidal base with five concentric square terraces, the trunk of a cone with three circular platforms and, at the top, a monumental stupa. Around the platforms are seventy-two openwork stupas, each containing a statue of the Buddha. Brahma. The Hindu creator god, part of the triad that includes Vishnu and Shiva. Not to be confused with the infinite spirit in Hindu Vedanta philosophy known as Brahman, Brahma is often identified with Prajapati, a Vedic deity. See also Shiva; Vishnu Burusho or Hunzakuts (Hunza people). An ethnic group indigenous to the Hunza Valley, Karakorum Mountains, Northern Pakistan. Predominantly Ismaili Muslims, they speak Burushaski. Some linguists, however, have postulated that the Burushaski language is a member of the hypothetical Dené-Caucasian family. Bushmen. Indigenous people of southern Africa. Traditionally hunters and foragers, they are part of the Khoisan group and are related to the traditionally pastoral Khoikhoi.   cabinet card photographs. A mounted 61/2" x 41/4" photograph. An offshoot of carte de visite in popularity, these photographs often appeared on decorated mounts that advertised the photography studio. Made on glass plate negatives, they were produced and collected from the mid-1860s through about 1900. See also carte de visite Carib or Kalinago. Amerindian people who lived in the Lesser Antilles and parts of the South American coast at the time of the Spanish conquest. The word “Caribbean” is taken from their name. carte de visite. Patented in 1854, a photographic format that allowed eight small photographs to be taken on and printed from the same glass plate negative. The sitter thus could economically purchase small photos, 4 1/2" x 2 1/2", mounted on card stock that was the same size as calling cards, which were fashionable in the Victorian era. Such card photos were easily exchanged, collected, and placed in albums. Ceribon. A city on the north coast of Java, once part of the Sunda kingdom. Chavin de Huantar. An archaeological site containing ruins and artifacts from the Chavin, an agricultural society that Viewpoints

developed around 900 BC on a steep slope of the Andes. The site is located north of Lima, Peru, at an elevation of 3,150 m. Some of the Chavin reliefs from this site are on display in the Museo de la Nación in Lima. Cheyenne. A Great Plains Native American nation. The Cheyenne were primarily buffalo hunters. The nation is composed of three united peoples: the Masikota, the Sutai, and the Tsitsistas, which translates to “LikeHearted People.” Ciboney. An extinct Amerindian people of the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. At the time of Columbus’ arrival in 1492, there were twenty-nine principal Cacique (chieftain) territories in Cuba, the largest Ciboney population being found in the chiefdom of Habana. The name is an Arawak term for “cave dweller.” They were historical neighbors of the Guanajatabeys and Tainos. See also Arawak; Tainos CinemaScope. A wide-screen film format. Anamorphic lenses projected film up to a 2.66:1 aspect ratio, twice as wide as the conventional format of 1.33:1. CinemaScope was a short-lived sensation, lasting only from 1953 to 1967. Although it was made obsolete by new technological developments, the anamorphic presentation of films initiated by CinemaScope continues to this day. cinema verité. A filmmaking style that uses nonactors in unrehearsed situations to convey candid realism. The films of Jean Rouch, for example, mostly belonged to the cinema verité school. See also Jean Rouch close-up. A camera perspective in which the principal subject dominates the picture. In film and television, a close-up tightly frames a person, usually a face, or object. Closeups are often used to distinguish main characters and as cutaways from a more distant shot to show detail. See also cutaways constant/variable components. Terms used in participantobservation research. Laboratory scientists work with independent variables, which are factors that can be manipulated, and dependent variables, or those that do not change. In research with primates or humans that is participant-observational, rather than taking place in an experimental laboratory, constant components are those that do not change, such as biological inheritance or physical environment. Variable components refer to aspects of behavior that do change depending on transformations in specific contexts or situations, such as the presence or absence of danger. See also participant-observation cutaway. A brief shot that interrupts the main action of a film. It is usually, though not always, followed by a cutback to the first shot.   daguerreotype. An early photographic process, invented by Louis Daguerre. The image is made on a light-sensitive, silver halide–coated metallic plate. Bromine and chlorine vapors were later used, resulting in shorter exposure times. The daguerreotype was the first successful form of photography. Dane-zaa, or the Dunneza. A First Nation of the Athapaskan language group, often called Beaver by Europeans. Although their traditional territory is around the Peace River in Alberta, groups of Dane-zaa live in British G lossa ry

Columbia within other First Nation communities.

Dani (also Ndani). A Papuan society in the central highlands of

Western New Guinea. An egalitarian society, they are one of the most populous ethnic groups from that region, as well as one of the best known, due to the tourist trade in the Baliem Valley area where the Dani predominate. Dasa’. The enemies of the Aryans as identified in the Rigveda, the ancient Indian collection of Sanskrit hymns. Dead Birds. An ethnographic documentary film about the Dani people of New Guinea. The 1964 film by Robert Gardner was produced as part of the Harvard-Peabody Expedition to study the highlands of New Guinea, at that time one of the only remaining areas in the world uncolonized by Europeans. See also Dani; Gardner, Robert depth of field (DOF). Describes the range in a photograph, from near to far, that appears to be in focus. diachronic. An approach in linguistics that examines how language, as well as other aspects of culture, change over time, sometimes over centuries, and provides a strong theoretical foundation for the study of language and sociocultural change. The term can also refer to activities or events taking place over a span of time (as opposed to “synchronic” or taking place at a certain point in time). dialogic. Related to or characterized by dialogue. Ethnographic data is largely built on a dialogue between the researcher and her subjects. Giving space in one’s ethnography to these voices and conversations is referred to as “dialogic.” digital media. A multi-use term. Digital media assist visual anthropologists in three ways. First, they allow the creation of expository works in which textual analyses are juxtaposed with flowing audio and video, allowing users new pedagogical opportunities. Second, they increase the speed and sensitivity of original research on both text- and time-based media through, for example, field note and field media analysis tools. Third, they break new ground for collaboration. The low-cost duplication of media resources, combined with the ease with which they can be distributed electronically, allows media anthropologists new opportunities to collaborate. See also interactive media dissolve. In film editing, to fade out of one scene into another. This gradual transition is created by controlled double exposure from frame to frame, moving from the end of one clip to the beginning of another. Durga. In Sanskrit: “the inaccessible” or “the invincible.” Maa Durga (Mother Durga) is a destroyer of demons. A form of Devi, the supreme goddess, Durga is also believed by Hindus to be the fiercer form of Shiva’s wife, the goddess Parvati.   EDL (Edit Decision List). A way of representing a film or video edit. It contains an ordered list of reel and timecode data indicating where each video clip can be obtained in order to construct the final cut. EDLs are created by off-line editing systems, or they can be paper documents constructed by hand. emic and etic. Terms used by some in the social sciences and the behavioral sciences to refer to two different kinds of data concerning human behavior. An “emic” account is a description of behavior or a belief in terms meaningful 389

(consciously or unconsciously) to the actor; that is, an emic account is culturally specific. An “etic” account is a description of a behavior or belief by an observer in terms that can be applied to other cultures; that is, an etic account is ideally culturally neutral. At times, “etic” means behavior described from an outsider’s point of view. empirical knowledge. Based on evidence. endogamous. The practice of marrying within one’s group. Esquimaux (or Eskimos). A general term for a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Alaska, Greenland, and Canada. Until fairly recent times, there has been a remarkable homogeneity in the culture, which has traditionally relied on fish, marine mammals, and land animals for food, pets, transport, heat, light, clothing, tools, and shelter. The Inuit language is grouped under EskimoAleut languages. ethnoarchaeology. A method that tries to use the lives and activities of modern people to cast light on the lives of ancient people. ethology. A branch of zoology that studies animal behavior in the natural habitat. Ethology combines laboratory and field science. Ethologists are typically interested in a behavioral process rather than in a particular animal group and often study one type of behavior (e.g., aggression) in a number of unrelated animals. etic. See emic   fieldwork. A general term for the gathering of raw data through interview and observation. The term is mainly used in natural and social science studies. Fieldwork contrasts with laboratory or experimental research, which is conducted in a quasi-controlled environment. See also participant-observation film cut. One scene followed instantly by the next. First Amendment. Part of the Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution. It guarantees the right of free expression by prohibiting the United States Congress from making laws that establish a religion, that prohibit free exercise of religion, that infringe the freedom of speech or the freedom of the press, or that limit the right to assemble peaceably or the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Fisher’s exact test. A modification of a chi square used when sample numbers are small to increase accuracy in a test of statistical significance. FPS (frames per second). Used for measuring the frame speed in a moving image.   gamelan. A type of Indonesian musical ensemble. Tuned percussion instruments are central to a gamelan, which can consist of metallophones, xylophones, drums, gongs, bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings, and, sometimes, vocalists. The term refers more to the set of instruments than to the players. The instruments of a gamelan form a distinct entity, built and tuned to stay together. Ganesha (also Ganesa or Ganesh, Ganapati, Vinayaka, Pillaiyar). The Hindu god of success and destroyer of obstacles. One of the most recognizable and popular deities in the Hindu pantheon, Ganesha has a pot-bellied human form but an elephant’s head. He is honored not only by all Hindu sects, but also by Jains and Buddhists. Garuda. In both Hindu and Buddhist mythology, a large bird or 390

birdlike creature. Garuda is usually the mount of the god Vishnu. Garuda is depicted wearing a crown and having a white face, red wings, eagle’s beak, and a man’s body. Gibraltar. A British territory located near the southern tip of Spain overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar. Gibraltar is strategically important because it can control the passage of ships into the Mediterranean and historically important as a base for the British armed forces. The sovereignty of the territory is a major issue of contention in Anglo-Spanish relations. Spain requests the return of sovereignty, ceded by Spain in perpetuity in 1713 under the Treaty of Utrecht. Girsu. A principal city of ancient Sumer. Located some 25 km northwest of Lagash, Girsu was the capital of the Lagash kingdom during the rule of Gudea (2144–2124 BC), which was a period of artistic renaissance. Nineteenthcentury excavations at this site revealed several large hard stone sculptures of this ruler. Girsu continued to be a religious center after political power shifted to Lagash. See also Lagash Guajiro. A small-scale farmer in Cuba, or a Cuban from the countryside. The term also refers to an Amerindian ethnic group of the La Guajira Peninsula in northern Colombia and northwest Venezuela.   Haida. An Indigenous nation of the west coast of North America, mainly the islands of British Columbia and Alaska. The Haida territories comprise an archipelago called Haida Gwaii, or, as commonly known, the Queen Charlotte Islands. The Haida are commonly referred to in Canada as being a small, First Nations autonomous group. Their ancestral language is the Haida language, which has never been adequately classified by linguists because of its uniqueness. Hunza Valley. A remote, mountainous valley near Gilgit in the Northern Areas of Pakistan. This locale may have been the inspiration for the Shangri-La of James Hilton’s novel, Lost Horizons. The main town, Karimabad (formerly called Baltit), is a popular tourist destination in Pakistan because of the spectacular scenery of the surrounding mountains. See also Hilton, James hypermedia. See digital media and interactive media   Ibgal of Inanna. Temple complex of the goddess Inanna discovered at al-Hiba. See also Inanna ideological knowledge. Assumed from common sense, or knowledge based primarily on ideas rather than empirical data. Ilparakuyo. Pastoral Maasai in Tanzania and Kenya, also called Parakuyo. Kwavi is the dialect of Maasai spoken by the Kwavi or Parakuyo subtribe of the Maasai in Tanzania. It was formerly listed as “unclassified” by the Ethnologue: Languages of the World, which corrected this mistake in the fifteenth edition by incorporating it into Maasai. Inanna. The Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare. A prominent figure in various myths of ancient Mesopotamia, she was also known as “Ishtar” to the Akkadians. Portrayed as fickle, Inanna attracted men only to reject them. Despite her association with mating and fertility, she was not a mother goddess and is rarely associated with childbirth. indexical sign. That which draws attention to the thing to which it refers. For example, moving hair signifies wind. indexicality. A behavior or statement that symbolically points to Viewpoints

(or indicates) some state of affairs. For example, “I” refers to the speaker and “here” refers to the place of the speaker. Social indexicality includes any sign (clothing, accent, table manners) that points to and helps create identity. interactive media. Computer-borne communications that can involve the single-screen juxtaposition of textbased communication (print, graphic imagery) with time-based communication (audio, video, time-based graphic analyses). The capacity for text- and time-based communicative formats to be hyperlinked facilitates earlier analytical strategies for the scholarly analysis of media and makes new ones possible. Part of the strength achieved in media scholarship through interactive media comes from instant random access to media files, as well as from search engines that can speed media scholarship. Because interactive media allow the flow of audio and video to be halted and reviewed at will repeatedly, they help the user to see and hear more closely than was possible in the predigital age of linear media. Interactivity thus improves the effectiveness of media analysis. intersubjective relationship. An essential of ethnographic study. Ethnographic data is built upon the researcher’s relationship with members of the community she is studying. The members’ views of their culture are subjective, as are the researcher’s interpretations and analysis. This meeting of the minds, the intersubjective relationship, forms the foundation of ethnographic knowledge. intimacy. A characteristic of mature adult relationships in which both parties are sufficiently confident in and trustful of one another to reveal their weaknesses. Visual anthropology can present intimate revelations about people whom the audience might otherwise never know and be prejudiced against. This virtual intimacy thus can contribute to the fight against racism, gender prejudice, and the militarism that flows from them. It can help to circumvent the fact that prejudiced people are rarely exposed to intimacies concerning those against whom they are prejudiced and to whom they would not reveal their own weaknesses. Inuit. See Esquimaux   Jataka Tales. A voluminous body of folklore-like literature concerning the previous births (jati) of the Buddha. jump cut. In film editing, a radical transition between two camera shots. The middle section of a continuous shot is removed, and the beginning and end of the shot are then joined together, breaking continuity. The technique produces a startling, even disorienting, effect. Jungian. See Carl Jung   Kalahari Family series. Films documenting the Ju'hoansi of southern Africa, beginning with their experiences as independent, self-sufficient hunter-gatherers, continuing through the wrenching changes of dispossession and militarization, and culminating with their attempts to establish viable farming settlements. The five-part series represents a lifetime of documentation, research, and personal contact with the Ju'hoansi by filmmaker John Marshall. See also Marshall, John Kansa (or the Kaw or Kanza). A Native American people of the central Midwest. It is from this name that “Kansas” is derived. The Kaw are closely related to the Omaha, Quapaw, Ponca, and Osage. Ketoprak. A traditional comedic form popular in East G lossa ry

Java. The most well-regarded form of stage comedy in Indonesia is troupes improvising skits or sketches, usually following a simple story line. Among the elements involved are banters, physical humor, crossdressing, and sociopolitical commentary. Kliwon. A particular day in the Javanese week. Kurawa (or Korawa). The antagonists in the epic Sanskrit work, the Mahabharata. The resentful Kurawa usurp the throne of the rightful heirs, the Pandawa. See also

Mahabharata Kwakiutl (or Kwakiutal). A group of closely related Native

North Americans inhabiting North Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia. Until the 1980s, the term usually applied to all of the various First Nations peoples in the northern parts of these areas, as well as Queen Charlotte Strait and the Johnstone Strait. The traditional Wakashan language of these peoples was Kwak’wala.  

Laban Movement Analysis (LMA). A system and language

devised by Rudolf Laban to observe, describe, and document movement. One of the most widely used systems of human movement analysis, LMA can be used to describe and interpret every movement from the simple wave of a hand to a complex ballet step. As such, it provides a tool for dancers, athletes, and physical therapists. See also Laban, Rudolf Labanotation. A standardized system for analyzing and recording any human motion. Invented by Rudolf Laban, it is one of the two main systems of movement notation used in Western culture. Labanotation uses abstract symbols to define the direction of the movement, the part of the body doing the movement, the level of the movement, and the length of time it takes to accomplish. It is of particular use in archiving dance. Lacandon. A small group of Mayan peoples who live in the rainforests of the Mexican state of Chiapas, near the southern border with Guatemala. They refer to themselves as the Hach Winik. Their homeland, the Lacandon jungle, lies along the Mexican side of the Usumacinta River and its tributaries. Lagash. A major Sumerian city-state and one of the oldest cities of Sumer and later Babylonia. Lagash was located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in southeast Mesopotamia. Nearby Ngirsu, which is modern Telloh, was the religious center of the Lagash state. See also Ngirsu Lakota (also Teton, Tetonwan). The westernmost and largest of the three Sioux groups. Part of an alliance of seven related Sioux tribes (the Oceti Sakowin or seven council fires), they live in North and South Dakota and speak Lakota, one of the three major dialects of the Sioux language. lantern slide. A transparent image on glass. Lantern slides predated photography. The process is attributed to the French inventor Niepce de St. Victor, who discovered a way to adhere light-sensitive solution onto glass for the creation of a negative. The Langenheim brothers of Philadelphia used that negative to print onto another piece of glass to create an image suitable for projection. See also Langenheim Las Ramblas. The most famous street in Barcelona, known for its street theater, cafés, and market stalls. Iconic Las Ramblas is a 1.2-km-long, tree-lined pedestrian mall in the Barri Gòtic. It connects Plaça Catalunya in the center with the Christopher Columbus monument at Port Vell. 391

392

Les Pensées (literally, “thoughts”). A seventeenth-century

Marsh Arabs. The inhabitants of the marshy lowlands of

defense of the Christian religion. Philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal devoted his life to religious activities after experiencing a profound conversion. The Pensées became, in many ways, his life’s work, although it remained unfinished at the time of his death. The Pensées is, in fact, a name given posthumously to his fragments, which he had been preparing for an Apology of Christian Religion, which was never completed. live action. A reference to filmed works that use human actors, as opposed to animation. long-tail macaque (Macaca fascicularis umbrosa, popularly known as the Nicobar Monkey). A subspecies of the crab-eating macaque, endemic to the Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal. long take. An uninterrupted shot that lasts much longer— usually several minutes—than the conventional editing pace. A long take can comprise one shot within a scene, the entirety of the scene, or even an entire film and can be used for dramatic and narrative effect. The term “long take” avoids the ambiguous meanings of “long shot,” which can refer to the framing of a shot, and “long cut,” which can refer to either a complete version of a film or the general editing pacing of the film.   macaques. Any of the several monkeys of the genus Macaca of Southeast Asia, Japan, Gibraltar, and northern Africa. Aside from humans (genus Homo), the macaques are the most widespread primate genus. Twenty-two macaque species are currently recognized, and they include some of the monkeys best known to non-zoologists, such as the Rhesus macaque, Macaca mulatta, and the Barbary macaque, a colony of which lives on the Rock of Gibraltar. Although several species lack tails, and their common names therefore refer to them as apes, these are true monkeys. Magdalenean (also spelled Magdalénien). Final cultural phase (c. 16,000 BC–10,000 BC) of the Upper Palaeolithic in western Europe. It is named after the type site of La Madeleine, a rock shelter located in the Vézère valley in France. Mahabharata. One of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and, with more than 90,000 verses, one of the longest epic poems in the world. Major texts of Hinduism, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata exert great cultural influence throughout India and Southeast Asia. The Mahabharata attempts to explain the relationship of the individual to society and the world (the nature of the “Self”) and the workings of karma. See also Ramayana Maharaja (also spelled maharajah). A Sanskrit term for “great king”; also used as a title. The term “maharaja” is common to many modern languages. It is primarily used for Hindu potentates. The female equivalent title “maharani” (or maharanee) denotes either the wife of a maharaja or, in states where that was customary, a woman ruling in her own right. Mahayana. A classification of Buddhism that includes, among others, Zen Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. The most common use of the term, found in English dictionaries, is as one of two major branches of Buddhism existing today, the other being Theravada. Mahayana focuses on the bodhisattva as a model of the ideal. See also bodhisattva Maring. A subgroup of the Kuki ethnic group of northeast India.

southern Iraq. A seminomadic people, the Marsh Arabs have lived in the area for thousands of years. The marshes are created by the annual flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The area was once considered a refuge for Shia rebels persecuted by the government of Saddam Hussein and, in centuries past, for escaped slaves and serfs. media competence. A broad concept, the features of which include the capacity to create intelligible and effective messages and the capacity to interpret intended and unintended meanings of media messages with accuracy and originality (also called media literacy). In the age of digital media, media competence has come to include facility with computer software. media literacy. See media competence Mesoamerica (Spanish: Mesoamérica). A region defined as a geographical and cultural entity, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished. Mesoamerica is situated in the mid-latitudes of the Americas, extending south and east from central Mexico to include parts of Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and Nicaragua. This region included some of the most complex and advanced cultures of the Americas, including the Olmec, Teotihuacan, the Maya, and the Aztec. meta-communicative competence. The ability to mediate difficult communications and to correct problems by using different methods of practical communication. The term can also mean those aspects of communication that express the relationship between language and culture. Metis. Descendants of seventeenth-century marriages of Cree, Ojibway, Saulteaux, and Menominee aboriginals to French Canadian, Scottish, and English fur traders. Their mixed traditions and command of both European and Indian languages made the Metis the logical intermediaries in the commercial relationship between two civilizations. The Metis are one of three recognized Aboriginal peoples in Canada, along with the First Nations (Indians) and Inuit (Esquimaux). See also Esquimaux; Inuit microanalysis of media. A method of studying the media, championed in the early history of visual anthropology by Ray Birdwhistell and John Collier Jr. Microanalysis of media often entails the creation of visual and acoustic coded databases with which time-based records can be juxtaposed, compared, and statistically explored. Media microanalysis has become more accurate and more precise empirically through the advent of digital media. Mi’dan. See Marsh Arabs mise-en-scène. An expression used in theater and film to describe the design aspects of a production. In French, mise-en-scène means “put in the scene.” When applied to the cinema, the term refers to everything that appears before the camera—for example, sets, props, placement of actors, costumes, movement of characters and camera, and lighting—and its arrangement; in other words, how the shot is framed and what is in the frame. modeling. In art, the posing of a human subject as an aid in creating a portrait or other work of art. The term is also used in social scientific “action research.” The professional researcher models, or demonstrates, procedures to practitioners for use in the research project. modernisme. A Catalan turn-of-the-century cultural movement. Dating roughly from 1888 to 1911, the modernisme movement was centered in the city Viewpoints

of Barcelona, where intellectuals sought to update Catalan culture and ideas. The best-known exponent of modernisme was the architect Antoni Gaudí. See also

Gaudí, Antoni montage (literally, “putting together”). Most often refers to

collage, including photomontage and sound collage. In film, montage can refer to a series of short shots edited into a coherent sequence, presenting a great deal of narrative information in a short period of time. Muhammadiyah (from Arabic, “followers of Muhammad”). A modernist Islamic organization in Indonesia. Founded in 1912 in the city of Yogyakarta, the socioreligious organization aimed to adapt Islam to modern Indonesian life, advocating ijtihad, or the individual interpretation of Quran, as opposed to taqlid, the acceptance of traditional interpretations. Muhammadiyah is the second largest Islamic organization in Indonesia, with 29 million members. Although its leaders and members are often actively involved in shaping the politics in Indonesia, Muhammadiyah primarily focuses on social and educational activities. multimedia. See digital media and interactive media My Lai Massacre. The mass murder by U.S. Army forces of several hundred unarmed South Vietnamese villagers. Members of Charlie Company, 11th Brigade entered the villages of My Lai and My Khe on March 16, 1968, and massacred mostly civilians, the majority of them women and children. The incident prompted widespread outrage around the world and further reduced U.S. support at home for the Vietnam War.   N!ai, the Story of a ¡Kung Woman. A film by ethnographic filmmaker John Marshall. N!ai traces the life of one woman and, in the process, of her society over the course of thirty years. The film was first broadcast in 1980 as part of the Odyssey series on PBS. See also Marshall, John Nanook of the North. A 1922 silent documentary film by Robert J. Flaherty. Flaherty chronicles the survival struggles of the Inuit Nanook and his family in the harsh Canadian arctic. Enormously popular when it was released, the film is a milestone, cited by most film historians as the first feature-length documentary. Flaherty, however, has also been criticized for staging several sequences and thereby distorting the reality of his subjects’ lives. See also Flaherty, Robert J. Natyasastra (Science of the Theater). The principal Sanskrit work of dramatic theory in classical India. Of great significance for Indian poetics, drama, and fine arts, the treatise is attributed to the muni (sage) Bharata and is believed to have been written during the period between 200 BC and 200 AD. The Natyasastra is a comprehensive study, covering virtually every aspect of stagecraft. Navajo. The second largest Native American nation in the United States. As of the 2000 U.S. census, nearly 300,000 people claimed to be full or partial Navajo, and their reservation is the largest in North America, covering more than 16 million acres across the Four Corners region of the Southwest. The Navajo refer to themselves as Diné, which means “the People.” New World. One of the names used for the non-Eurasian/ non-African parts of the globe, specifically the Americas. Europeans coined the term in the late fifteenth century to refer to the lands they were discovering in the Western Hemisphere. They had previously thought of G lossa ry

the world as consisting only of Europe, Asia, and Africa (collectively, the “Old World”). noddy. A term used to describe the making of, for example, television news interviews. The interviewer and interviewee are filmed separately, including sequences in which they gesture and nod their heads. The illusion of an actual face-to-face interview is created in the editing room in which sequences of narration are interspersed with gestures, such as nodding head movements. NTSC (National Television System Committee). The organization responsible for developing a set of standard protocol for television (TV) broadcast transmission and reception in the United States. The first black-and-white NTSC standard for broadcast was developed prior to World War II. The standard called for 525 lines of picture information in each frame, and 30 frames per second. In 1953 a second standard was issued, allowing color broadcasting to be compatible with the existing stock of black-and-white receivers, while maintaining the broadcast channel bandwidth already in use. Nuer. A confederation of pastoral groups located in the marshes and savannas of Southern Sudan. Numbering nearly one million people, the Nuer—who call themselves “Naath,” meaning “human beings”— form one of the largest ethnic groups in East Africa. They rely on cattle products for almost every aspect of their daily lives. Cattle also play an important part in Nuer ritual and religion. They are one of the very few African groups that successfully fended off colonial powers in the early 1900s. Their traditional political organization, detailed in the ethnographic work of E. E. Evans-Pritchard, has become a classic example of an indigenous heterarchical political structure without a single leader or leader group. See also Evans-Pritchard, E. E.   Oglala. One of the subdivisions of the Teton Sioux. See also

Lakota Ojibway (Anishinabe). A woodland group of Native

Americans–First Nations of northeastern North America. The Ojibway population is divided between the United States and Canada. The French, who made the first European recorded contact with the Ojibway in Sault Ste. Marie in the early seventeenth century, referred to them as “Saulteurs.”  

Paiute. Either of two distinctive groups living in the

Southwest United States. The northern Paiute are more closely related to the Shoshone; the southern, to the Ute. Both groups spoke languages belonging to the Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan family of Native American languages and were primarily food gatherers. PAL (Phase Alternating Line). An encoding system used in broadcast television systems. Other common analog television systems are SECAM (Sequential Couleur Avec Memoire, or Sequential Color with Memory) and NTSC. See also NTSC parfleche. A Native American rawhide. The term can refer to bags, typically used for holding dried meats and pemmican (a concentrated dried mixture of fat and protein). Parfleche derives from the French “parer” meaning “parry” or “defend” and “flèche” meaning “arrow” because battle shields could be made from this tough hide as well. participant-observation. A set of research strategies and 393

methods that describe and explain people’s behavior in their everyday lives. Designed to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals, participant-observation requires a researcher to immerse him/herself in a new culture, usually over a long period of time. In this way, the researcher gains a good overview of how and why a group functions and can collect data for meaningful analysis. The method, considered the foundation of cultural anthropology research, originated in the fieldwork of social anthropologists, especially Bronislaw Malinowski and his students in Great Britain and the students of Franz Boas in the United States. See Boas, Franz; Malinowski, Bronislaw pendopo (in Indonesian, pendapa). A traditional Javanese open-air pavilion built on columns with a double-pitched roof. A pendopo provides shelter from the elements, but allows breezes and indirect light. Pendopos are common ritual spaces primarily intended for ceremony, but are also used as work spaces and, by the wealthy, as places to receive guests and entertain. phoneme. The smallest phonetic unit in a language that is capable of conveying a distinction in meaning. Phonemes are not the physical segments, but, in theoretical terms, cognitive abstractions or categorizations of them. For example, the sound p in “tap” separates that word from “tab,” “tag,” and “tan.” Plains Indians. Any of the Native American peoples inhabiting the Great Plains region of the United States and Canada. This group includes the Sioux, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Comanche, and Pawnees. Many of these cultures were nomadic and heavily dependent on bison for food, clothing, and shelter. See also Lakota powwow. A gathering of North American Native groups. Modern powwows are social events, which often include competitive dancing. Powwows vary in length from a few hours to major assemblies lasting up to a week. Prambanan. The largest Hindu temple compound in Indonesia, located approximately 18 km east of Yogyakarta. The compound—with three main temples— was built around 850 CE and reconstructed in the twentieth century. The tall, pointed features typify Hindu temple architecture. Prambanan is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. primatology. The interdisciplinary study of primates. Evolutionary biologists and anthropologists analyze primate physiology, genetics, and behavior to gain insights into early human development. Psychologists study social, parenting, and other behaviors. Primatologists also include zoologists, ethologists, conservators, educators, veterinarians, and medical researchers. Modern primatology ranges from anatomical studies of primate ancestors to field studies of primates in their natural habitats. prosumer. A word formed by contracting “producer” (or “professional”) with “consumer.” One is a type of consumer involved in the design and manufacture of products, so they can be made to individual specification. The other is a buyer of technical equipment who wants products of a higher quality than consumer goods, but who cannot afford professional equipment. The business sector sees the prosumer (professional–consumer) as a market segment, whereas economists see the prosumer (producer–consumer) as having greater independence from the mainstream economy. 394

 

Raja. Among Hindus, a king or princely ruler. It can also be used

as a name for nonroyal Indians. In the Rigveda, the ancient Hindu sacred text, the head of a clan is called the “raja.” Ramayana. An ancient Sanskrit epic attributed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and an important part of the Hindu canon. Originating in India more than 2,500 years ago, Ramayana consists of 24,000 verses in seven cantos and tells the story of Rama, whose wife Sita is abducted by the demon king Ravana. The narrative explores themes of human existence and the concept of dharma. The epic has had a profound impact on art and culture in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. reflexive. Refers to the moment in an ethnography or film when the creator (ethnographer or filmmaker) allows his/her presence to be known or felt. This represents an honest approach to knowledge production, allowing the viewer/reader to determine how trusting the relationship between the ethnographer/filmmaker and his/her subjects will be and how much of the author’s analysis to believe. Self-reflexivity allows the researcher or filmmaker to make his ideological position and method of production clear to the viewer or reader. rotoscoping. The rotated projection of a sequence, usually of photographed action image frames, so that the artist can trace from the frame or create an image to superimpose on it. Originally, prerecorded live-action film images were projected onto a frosted glass panel and redrawn by an animator. This projection equipment is called a rotoscope, which has been replaced by computers. In the visual effects industry, the term rotoscoping refers to the technique of manually creating a matte for an element on a live-action plate so it may be composited over another background.   Sailendra. An ancient dynasty in maritime Southeast Asia, especially in Java and Sumatra. The Hindu dynasty appeared in central Java in the seventh century and had consolidated its position by the eighth century. By the end of the ninth century the Hindu kings of the Sailendra had adopted Buddhism and built a magnificent Buddhist stupa. See also Borobudur Sanchi. A small village and historic site in India, located 46 km northeast of Bhopal. The best preserved group of Buddhist monuments, dating from the third century BCE to the twelfth century CE, are in Sanchi. Most notable is the Great Stupa, the oldest stone structure in India originally commissioned by the emperor Ashoka the Great in the third century BCE. Santería. An Afro-Caribbean religious tradition still widely practiced in the Caribbean. From the Spanish word “santo” (saint), Santería originated when the Yoruba of Nigeria were brought to the Caribbean as slaves and forced to adopt Catholicism. Gradually, they began to see what they believed were the incarnations of their gods in the Catholic saints and syncretized the two faiths. Sekaten. An annual ceremonial gamelan from central Java. Traditionally Sekaten begins with royal servants bringing two sets of royal gamelan from the palace courtyard to the Grand Mosque to mark the occasion of Mawlid, Muhammad’s birthday. See also gamelan semasiology. A discipline within linguistics. The philosophical and scientific study of meaning. The term is one of a group of English words (including semantics and semiotics) formed from the various derivatives of the Greek semasia. Viewpoints

Shangri-la. A fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost

Horizon by James Hilton, and based on the concept of Shambhala, a mystical city in Tibetan Buddhist tradition. In the book, Shangri-la is a peaceful, mystical, harmonious valley, where illness and poverty are unknown. It is not only paradise, but a mythical Himalayan utopia apart from the outside world, the inhabitants of which are almost immortal. See also

Hilton, James sherd. A historic or prehistoric fragment of pottery found at an

archaeological site. The term is also occasionally used to refer to fragments of stone pottery and glass vessels. Shia Islam (from the Arabic phrase Shi’at Ali, meaning “Party of Ali.”). The second largest denomination of Islam after Sunni Islam. Shia Muslims believe that, following the death of the Prophet Muhammad, leadership should have passed directly to his cousin/son-in-law, Ali. Therefore, Shia Muslims, unlike Sunni, do not recognize the authority of elected Muslim leaders, choosing instead to follow a line of Imams they believe have been appointed by the Prophet Muhammad or God Himself. See also Sunni Islam Shiva. One of the three principal deities of Hinduism. The followers of Shiva are called Shaivites or Shaivas. Shaivism, which stresses asceticism and meditation, is an important part of the Hindu tradition, particularly in South India. Shiva is considered the destroyer of evil, but also is regarded as a reproductive power. single-lens reflex (SLR). A type of camera in which the light reflects from an automatic roving mirror and is taken through the eyepiece to the eye of the photographer. The photographer therefore sees exactly what will be captured by the film or digital imaging system. In contrast, what is captured on film in non-SLR cameras can be significantly different from the view through the viewfinder. Siva. See Shiva slametan. A Javanese ritual. A celebratory feast, the slametan symbolizes the social unity of the participants. sleep-kraals. An enclosure for sheep. Kraal can also mean a corral or enclosure to shelter cattle, goats, or other herd animals from predators at night. social or human geography. A branch of geography that emphasizes the relationship between identity and space/ place. The discipline focuses on the study of patterns and processes that shape human understanding, use, and alteration of the environment. This includes human, political, cultural, social, and economic aspects of social sciences and the use of diverse methodologies, both qualitative and quantitative. Solutrean. A relatively advanced flint tool-making style of an Upper Paleolithic culture of Europe, characterized by large bifacially retouched blades and delicate flint points. Named after the site of Solutré in eastern France, the culture appeared around 19,000 BCE. Solutrean tool-making is notable for fine workmanship, employing techniques not seen before and not rediscovered for millennia. souk (Arabic: suq). A commercial quarter, often an open-air market, in an Arab city. In Modern Standard Arabic, the term refers to markets in both the physical and abstract economic sense. Spanglish. A blend of English and Spanish. A dialect of Spanish that contains many English words and phrases, Spanglish grew out of close border contact and interactions of large bilingual communities along the United States–Mexico border and in large U.S. cities, particularly New York, Los G lossa ry

Angeles, and other cities with large Spanish-speaking populations. It is common in Panama, where nearly one hundred years of U.S. control of the Panama Canal (1903– 1999) influenced much of local society. spindle. A rod of wood or reed used in hand spinning to twist fibers into thread and thread into yarn. spindle whorl. A weight at one end of the rod, or spindle, that allows craftspeople to spin the spindle. Standing Rock Indian Reservation. A reservation located in North Dakota and South Dakota. The people of Standing Rock, often called Sioux, are members of the Lakota and Dakota nations. Organized in 1868 and reduced in 1910 to its present size of 1.3 million acres, it is the sixth largest U.S. reservation in land area and comprises all of Sioux County, North Dakota, and all of Corson County, South Dakota, plus small parts of two other South Dakota counties. See also Lakota stereoscope. An optical device for viewing stereographic prints. stereographic prints. Two similar photographs taken from a slightly different vantage point by a specially equipped camera using glass plate negatives. Mounted side by side on card stock and then viewed through a stereoscope, the photos appear as a single three-dimensional image. Viewing stereographic prints was a popular form of entertainment from the 1850s through the 1920s. Stone Town. The old section of Zanzibar City, the capital of the island of Zanzibar, a part of Tanzania. A historic Swahili coastal trading town, Stone Town was built on a triangular peninsula of land overlooking Zanzibar Channel and is notable for its blending of Arab, Indian, and European architectures. stupa. The most sacred monument in Buddhism. The moundlike structures house Buddhist relics—typically, the remains of a Buddha or saint. A symbol of enlightenment, the shape of the stupa represents the Buddha, crowned and sitting in meditation posture on a lion throne. The components of the stupa are identified with the five elements—earth, water, fire, air, and space—believed to constitute the fabric of manifest existence. Sudhana. The young protagonist in the longest chapter of the Avatamsaka Sutra, Buddhist scripture depicting the path of the bodhisattva. The youth Sudhana, seeking enlightenment, goes on a quest, visiting fifty-three spiritual advisors and ultimately attaining the Supreme Wisdom. See also bodhisattva Sufism. A mystical extension of Islam. A Sufi’s goal is to obtain a closer connection to God and higher knowledge. This is gained through communal ceremonies, where trance is widely used. Claiming fewer than 5 million adherents, Sufism’s strongest footholds are in Egypt and Sudan. Sumarah. A philosophy and form of meditation that originated in Java. The word “Sumarah” means “total surrender”: a surrender of the partial ego to the universal self. Sumer. One of the earliest known civilizations. A Mesopotamian culture, it lasted from 3500 BCE until 2000 BCE and provided the foundation for other civilizations that followed (e.g., Babylonian). The first culture to use bronze, the Sumerians were therefore able to develop better instruments than theretofore possible. They also developed the first pictographic writing system, which after a few hundred years developed into the writing style that we now call cuneiform. Sunni Islam. The largest denomination of Islam. The word 395

Sunni comes from the word “Sunnah,” which means the words and actions or example of the Prophet Muhammad. In contrast to Shia Islam, Sunni Islam accepts the legitimacy of the first four caliphs (successors to the Prophet Muhammad). See also Shia Islam Super-8. A motion picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak. Super-8 mm film was seen as an improvement of the older 8 mm home movie format, which had a reputation for instability. The Super-8 format was very popular for home moviemaking in the 1960s and 1970s. suspension of disbelief. The temporary acceptance of characters and/or events as believable that would ordinarily be viewed as incredible. In film and literature, the viewer/reader willingly suspends disbelief in exchange for entertainment. Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the term in 1817 in his book Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions. sweatlodge (also called sweat house, medicine lodge, or medicine house). A ceremonial sauna central to most North American First Nations or Native American cultures. Stones are typically heated in an exterior fire and then placed in a central pit in the ground. There are several styles of sweatlodges—including a domed or oblong hut similar to a wickiup, a teepee, or even a simple hole dug into the ground and covered with planks or tree trunks—but common to all traditions is the idea of spiritual cleansing. synchronic structure. A multidisciplinary method. Structuralism began in linguistics with the work of Ferdinand de Saussure. The model was soon modified and applied to other fields, such as anthropology, psychoanalysis, and literary theory. As a method, the basics of structuralism consist of analyzing social events (speech, familial identity, and recounts of history, for example) to discover the synchronic structures that both underlie them and make them possible (language, kinship, and narrative structure, respectively), which are then typically broken down into, for example, units, codes, and rules of combination. sync sound (synchronized sound recording). Refers to video and audio of the same thing at the same time. Sync sound is sound recorded at the time of filming and has been widely used in U.S. movies since the advent of sound movies. Synchronous sound recording was perfected in the 1960s when sound and picture could be recorded simultaneously.   Tainos. A seafaring, pre-Columbian culture found in the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. It is believed that the Tainos had developed the most highly developed Caribbean culture at the time of Columbus’ arrival in the New World. They were relatives of the Arawakan people of South America. Their language is a member of the Maipurean linguistic family, which ranges from South America across the Caribbean. See also Arawak Torana. In Sanskrit, an arch or an arched doorway. Toranas are a type of gateway seen in Hindu and Buddhist architecture. They are associated with stupas, such as the Great Stupa at Sanchi. See also Sanchi; stupa transnationalism. Extending beyond borders. Transnationalism is a social movement grown out of the heightened interconnectivity among people and the loosening of boundaries between countries. The term also 396

refers to living in more than one culture and maintaining connections to both. The writer Randolph Bourne coined the term in the early twentieth century to describe a new way of thinking about relationships between cultures. Proponents of transnationalism seek to facilitate the flow of people, ideas, and goods among regions. tripartite viewing. Refers to the three factors involved in every film viewing: the filmmaker, the finished film, and the viewer. trishula. The three-pronged ceremonial weapon of the Hindu diety, Shiva. The trishula is said to have been used to sever the original head of the Hindu god, Ganesha. The three points have various meanings and significance, and are commonly said to represent various trinities—for example, creation, maintenance, and destruction, or past, present, and future—or the three powers: will, action, and wisdom. Although more common in Hindu tradition, the trident is also considered magical in Tibetan Buddhism. See also Ganesha; Shiva Turkana. A nomadic pastoral people living in the arid northwestern expanse of Kenya. They inhabit the Turkana District, which borders Lake Turkana in the east, and speak an Eastern Nilotic language of the NiloSaharan language family. Twelver. The largest group, by far, within Shia Islam. Twelvers constitute 90 percent of the population of Iran and 55–60 percent of the Iraqi population. The term “Twelver” is derived from their belief in twelve divinely ordained leaders, or imams. See also Shia Islam   Utes. An American Indian group now living primarily in Utah and Colorado. One of the Shoshonean language groups, the Utes live on three tribal reservations: Uintah-Ouray in northeastern Utah; Southern Ute in Colorado; and Ute Mountain, primarily in Colorado, but extending to Utah and New Mexico. The Utes are known for their traditional tribal dances, the Sundance being the most famous.   vejigante. A colorful, clownlike character introduced into Puerto Rican carnival celebrations hundreds of years ago. The vejigantes’ costume—bright colors with batlike wings and ornate papier mâché masks—are designed to ward off evil spirits. The term derives from the custom of blowing up and painting a bladder, or vejiga, to scare small children. The vejigante is an example of the blending of Spanish, African, and Caribbean influences in Puerto Rican culture. vervet monkey. The common name of the species Chlorocebus pygerythrus. The most widespread of African monkeys, inhabiting large parts of sub-Saharan Africa. In South Africa, they are considered vermin and can be killed without a permit. They are also among the most used primates in biomedical research because they are small, easily handled and bred in captivity, closely related to humans, and nonendangered. Virgin of Guadalupe (Spanish: Virgen de Guadalupe), also known as Our Lady of Guadalupe (Spanish: Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe). A sixteenth-century Roman Catholic icon depicting an apparition of the Virgin Mary. The Virgin of Guadalupe holds a special place in the religious and cultural life of Mexico, where she is known as “La Virgen Morena,” or brown-skinned Virgin. Her feast day is celebrated on December 12, commemorating the account of her appearances to Saint Juan Diego on the hill of Tepeyac near Mexico City in 1531. Viewpoints

and epistemology. The term refers to a comprehensive perception of the world from a particular viewpoint, that is, the framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world and interacts in it. The German word for this concept, “weltanschauung,” is in wide use in English.

Vishnu. One of the Hindu trinity, the Trimurti, the other

two being Brahma and Shiva. Vishnu is considered the preserver, one who supports, sustains, and governs the universe and originates and develops all elements within. Vishnu is also described in the Bhagavad Gita as having a “universal form” beyond the ordinary limits of human sense perception. See also Brahma; Shiva voiceover. The voice of an unseen narrator. In this production technique, a disembodied voice is broadcast live or prerecorded in radio, television, film, and theater. It also refers to the voice of a visible character expressing unspoken thoughts. Voiceover is commonly referred to as “off-camera” commentary.   Wahhabism. The dominant faith of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and parts of Somalia, Algeria, and Mauritania. The name derives from the conservative eighteenth-century reformist, Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab, known for advocating a return to practices of the first three generations of Islamic history. An austere form of Islam, Wahhabism insists on a literal translation of the Quran. Members do not use the term “Wahhabism,” but rather refer to themselves as “Muwahhidun.” waveform. A representation of how alternating current varies with time. An oscilloscope can be used to represent the wave as a repeating image on a CRT or LCD screen. Some film editing software made for use on personal computers shows the waveform, for example, of the sound track. Wayang kulit. A traditional theater form that combines a puppet show with a shadow play. This theater uses puppets made of perforated, elaborately painted leather. Wayang kulit has a documented existence of at least three hundred years in the Indonesian archipelago. Wayang wong. A type of dramatic dance drama with themes taken from the Ramayana. Originally, wayang wong was performed only as an aristocratic entertainment in four palaces of Yogyakarta and Surakarta, but eventually developed into a popular and folk form as well. The players’ masks and acting style makes this form resemble puppet theater. See also Ramayana Wazirs or Waziris. A Pashtun tribe settled in the NorthWest Frontier province of Pakistan, which borders Afghanistan. North Waziristan is inhabited by farming Wazir tribes; South Waziristan, by Mahsuds. There are also sizeable communities of Waziri established in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, and Rawalpindi. Web 2.0. The term given to describe a second generation of the World Wide Web that is focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share information online. These concepts have led to the development and evolution of Web-based communities and hosted services, such as social networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies. White Caucasian. Relating to a broad division of peoples from Europe, Western Asia, parts of the Indian subcontinent, and parts of North Africa. The concept originated in attempts, chiefly by nineteenth-century European thinkers, to develop a method of racial classification. This typological method was discredited, and this term is no longer in use in scientific work related to humans. However, it survives, along with the similar classification “white,” on many sociological studies, most of which require respondents to choose their “race” from a list of terms. worldview. A concept fundamental to German philosophy G lossa ry

 

XML (Extensible Markup Language). A general purpose

specification for creating custom markup languages. XML was designed to export and store data. It is classified as an extensible language because it allows users to define their own elements.  

Yakshinis. Benevolent mythical beings of Hindu, Buddhist,

and Jain mythology. The yakshini (female) and yaksha (male) are attendants of Lord Kubera, the Hindu god of wealth who rules in the mythical Himalayan kingdom of Alaka. Yankton Sioux. A division of the Sioux people formerly residing in the Minnesota River area, but now living mostly in the eastern Dakotas. They are often referred to as the Yankton or Nakota. Yogyakarta (also Jogjakarta, Jogja, and Yogya). The smallest province of Indonesia (excluding Jakarta) and a cultural center of Java. It is the only province in Indonesia that is still formally governed by a precolonial sultanate, the Sultanate of Ngayogyakarta Hadiningrat. Yup’ik. An Eskimo people of western and southwestern Alaska and the coastal region of northeastern Siberia. They are the most numerous of Alaska’s Inuit groups. Names Adair, Peter (1943–1996). Filmmaker and artist, best known

for codirecting Word Is Out (1978), the pioneering documentary about the lives of gays and lesbians. Adair first gained critical attention with his 1967 documentary Holy Ghost People, a film record of a Pentecostal snake handler worship service in the Appalachians. Apted, Michael (1941–). Critically acclaimed English director, producer, and writer, spans feature films, television, and documentaries. One of the most prolific British film directors of his generation, he continues to direct the seminal Up series, which has followed the lives of fourteen British schoolchildren from 7Up (1964) through the most recent addition, 49Up (2005). Agrok, Ken (Ken Angrok). Founder and first ruler of the Singhasari Kingdom, an ancient Hindu-Buddhist kingdom in the East Java area of Indonesia. From humble beginnings, he became the most powerful ruler in Java, founding a new kingdom and starting a new dynasty called the Rajasa Dynasty. To legitimate his ascension, he claimed to be a son of Shiva. Asch, Tim (1932–1994). Noted anthropologist, photographer, and ethnographic filmmaker. While a student at Columbia, he served as a teaching assistant for Margaret Mead, who encouraged his work in visual anthropology, and, along with John Marshall and Robert Gardner, Asch played an important role in the development of the discipline. He and Marshall founded the nonprofit Documentary Educational Resources Inc. to produce, distribute, and promote the use of ethnographic and documentary films. He is particularly known for his film

397

The Ax Fight. He taught at New York University, Brandeis University, and Harvard University before joining the University of Southern California in 1982, where he was the director of the Center for Visual Anthropology from 1983 until his death in 1994. See also Gardner, Robert; Marshall, John

 

Bartenieff, Irmgard (1890–1981). Dancer, choreographer,

and dance therapist. She trained with Rudolf Laban and developed Bartenieff Fundamentals, an extension of Laban Movement Analysis. Bartenieff Fundamentals are a set of concepts, principles, and exercises that apply Laban’s movement theory to the physical/kinesiological functioning of the human body. See also Laban, Rudolf Barthelmess, Christian (1854–1906). Served in the United States Army during the Indian Wars and the SpanishAmerican War as a musician and photographer, 1876– 1903. His photographs captured the landscapes of the American West, particularly Montana, New Mexico, and Colorado, and the soldiers and civilian populations who inhabited it. Bashkirtseff, Marie (1858–1884). Ukrainian-born Russian diarist, painter, and sculptor. She produced a remarkable body of work in her short lifetime, the most famous being the depiction of Paris slum children, The Meeting (1884), and a portrait of her fellow artists, In the Studio (1881). Under the name “Pauline Orrel,” she wrote several articles for the feminist newspaper, La Citoyenne. Bateson, Gregory (1904–1980). British anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, philosopher, and cyberneticist whose work intersected with that of many other fields. Some of his most noted writings are to be found in the classic anthology, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972). Bazin, André (1918–1958). Influential French film critic and theorist, who popularized the auteur theory of filmmaking. A cofounder of the film magazine Cahiers du Cinéma in 1951 and the author of What is Cinema? vols. 1 and 2, Bazin was a major force in post–World War II film studies and criticism. Becker, Howard (1928–). American sociologist. As an undergraduate and later a graduate student at the University of Chicago, he worked as a professional jazz pianist. His influential book, Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (1966) is the foundation of labeling theory. Becker coined the phrase “hierarchy of credibility,” which states that people in socially responsible positions have more power to define what is true than others. Thus, a large portion of the public is likely to believe a prestigious, well-known “expert” who offers an idea or theory contrary to the latest research, basing their trust solely on his or her reputation. Becker argues that it is the scholar’s responsibility to create evidence that supports the claims of society’s least privileged. Benton, Thomas Hart (1889–1975). American muralist and painter associated with the Regionalist school of the 1930s. Benton’s work captures everyday scenes of Midwestern life, especially bucolic images of preindustrial farmlands. One of his most famous murals, A Social History of the State of Missouri (1936), can be seen in that state’s capitol building. Berger, John (1926–). English art critic, novelist, painter, and author. Berger’s writings span a wide variety of genres, his best-known works being the novel G., winner of the 1972 Booker Prize, and the introductory essay on art 398

criticism, Ways of Seeing (1972). The essay, written as an accompaniment to a significant BBC series of the same name, is often used as a college text. Blakeley, Pamela, and Thomas D. Noted visual anthropologists and Africanists who have published in both fields. Thomas Blakeley organizes the yearly Research Conference for the Society for Visual Anthropology. Boas, Franz (1858–1942). German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the father of American anthropology. Like many pioneers, he trained in other disciplines: he received his doctorate in physics and did post-doctoral work in geography. Boas is credited with giving modern anthropology its rigorous scientific methodology, patterned after the natural sciences, and with originating the notion of “culture” as learned behaviors. His emphasis on research first, followed by generalizations, stood in marked contrast to the then-prevailing school of anthropology that emphasized the formulation of grand theories around anecdotal knowledge. Botticelli, Sandro (1445–1510). Italian painter of the Florentine school of the early Renaissance. Less than a hundred years later, this period, known as “quattrocento,” was characterized as a golden age. Botticelli’s work, under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici, is considered representative of the linear grace of early Renaissance painting, and two of his paintings, The Birth of Venus (c. 1485) and Primavera (1477), rank now among the most familiar masterpieces of Florentine art. Brady, Mathew B. (1823–1896) Nineteenth-century American photographer credited with being the father of photojournalism, Brady organized a corps of photographers to document the carnage of the Civil War. Among his most famous images are his portraits of Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, and Ulysses S. Grant. Brecht, Bertolt (1898–1956). German poet, playwright, director, and theatrical reformer. Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production. Influenced by Marxism, Brecht developed his theory of “epic theater,” which was designed to create a politically conscious distance between the spectator and the stage and provoke social change. One of his most famous works, The Three Penny Opera, written in 1928 with music by Kurt Weill, represents Brecht’s Marxist social views.   Camus, Albert (1913–1960). French-Algerian author, philosopher, playwright, and journalist, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957. His best-known works are The Stranger (1942), The Plague (1947), The Rebel (1951), and The Myth of Sisyphus (1943). Chomsky, Noam (1928–). American linguist, philosopher, educator, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has taught since 1955. Chomsky is credited with the creation of the theory of generative (sometimes called transformational) grammar that revolutionized the scientific study of language and is considered one of the most significant contributions to the field of linguistics in the twentieth century. Collier, John Jr. (1913–1992). Founder of and one of the most significant contributors to the field of visual anthropology. In the early 1940s, he worked as a government photographer, documenting many areas Viewpoints

around the eastern United States and northern New Mexico. In 1946, he completed an independent photographic project of the indigenous people of Otavalo, Ecuador, in collaboration with the anthropologist Anibal Buitron. From there, he began work with the Cornell University anthropology department on various fieldwork projects and workshops in photography and research methods, including a complete visual ethnography of Vicos, Peru, in 1954. One of the recurrent themes of Collier’s work is the use of photography and film in the analysis of educational processes, a subject on which he has contributed many publications, including Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method (1986), coauthored with his son, Malcolm Collier. Covarrubias, José Miguel (1904–1957). Mexican painter, caricaturist, ethnologist, and professor of art history at the Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico City. His incisive caricatures graced the pages of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker in the 1920s, brought him international acclaim, and proved influential in the work of other caricaturists. Covarrubias is also known for his analysis of the pre-Colombian art of Mesoamerica, particularly that of the Olmec culture, and his theory of Mexican cultural diffusion to the north. Curtis, Edward Sheriff (1868–1952). Pioneer of visual anthropology, was a photographer of the American West and Native American peoples. In 1906 J. P. Morgan offered Curtis $75,000 to produce a series of photographs of Indigenous Americans. In what was to be a thirty-year project, Curtis documented the lives of more than eighty Native American tribal groups in the twenty-volume masterwork, The North American Indian.   Dahlan, Kyai Haji Ahmad (1868–1923). Indonesian Islamic revivalist. In 1912, he founded Muhammadiyah in Java. The educational organization actively pursued a range of socioreligious activities as a means of realizing Dahlan’s reformist ideals. In 1917 a women’s section, Aisyiyah, was added, which played a significant role in modernizing the lives of Indonesian women. See also

Muhammadiyah Dalí, Salvador (1904–1989). Spanish surrealist painter. Dalí

was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work, which depicts everyday objects in unexpected forms. His artistic repertoire also included film, sculpture, and photography. Densmore, Frances (1867–1957). American ethnographer and ethnomusicologist. She specialized in Native American music and culture. Densmore learned to appreciate music as a child by listening to the singing and drumming of the nearby Sioux. As a young music teacher, she learned and transcribed the music of Native Americans, documenting its use in their culture and collecting related information and artifacts. In 1907, she began officially recording music—much of it on wax cylinders—for the Smithsonian Institution’s Bureau of American Ethnology. Dine, Jim (1935–). American pop artist. He first earned respect in the art world with his “Happenings.” Pioneered with artists Claes Oldenburg and Allan Kaprow, in conjunction with musician John Cage, the chaotic performance art of the Happenings contrasted starkly with the more somber mood of the expressionists’ art popular in New York in the late 1950s. In the 1960s, Dine became closely associated with G lossa ry

the development of pop art, affixing everyday objects— such as shoes, rope, neckties—to his canvases. Domenech i Montaner, Lluís (1850–1923). Spanish architect who was highly influential in the Catalan Art Nouveau movement. His most famous buildings, the Hospital de Sant Pau and Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, have been collectively designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Duke, David (1950–). Former Republican member of the Louisiana House of Representatives and former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Duke is a selfstyled “white nationalist,” but his critics commonly refer to him as a white supremacist. Durkheim, Emile (1858–1917). French sociologist and philosopher was one of the most influential figures in the development of sociology. As editor of the first journal of sociology, L’Année Sociologique, he helped establish the field within academia as an accepted social science. He lectured and published numerous sociological studies on subjects as varied as education, crime, religion, and suicide.   Eastman, George (1854–1932). American inventor, philanthropist, and the founder of the Eastman Kodak Company. He patented the first film in roll form in 1884, thus helping to bring photography to the mainstream. The roll film was also the basis for the invention of the motion picture film in 1888 by Louis Le Prince. Edwards, Elizabeth. Editor of Anthropology and Photography, 1860–1920 who has written and curated extensively on the relationship among photography, anthropology, and history, especially in the Pacific; on cross-cultural visual histories; on photographs as material culture; and on the history of collecting and institutional practices. Evans, Walker (1903–1975). American photographer, best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA), documenting the effects of the Great Depression, and for his collaboration with writer James Agee on Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), a groundbreaking account of rural poverty. Evans-Pritchard, Edward Evan (E. E.) (1902–1973). British anthropologist and professor. Evans-Pritchard was instrumental in the development of social anthropology. His pioneering research into the social structure, history, and religion of African and Arab peoples led to several classic works, including Witchcraft: Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (1937) and The Nuer (1940).   Flaherty, Robert Joseph (1884–1951). Filmmaker and explorer. Flaherty directed and produced the 1922 silent film Nanook of the North, the first commercially successful feature-length documentary film. He was married to writer Frances H. Flaherty, who collaborated on several of Flaherty’s films. Along with Dziga Vertov, Flaherty is considered as one of the pioneers of documentary film. See also Nanook of the North;

Vertov, Dziga Fragonard, Jean-Honore (1732–1806). French painter and

printmaker. The exuberance and hedonism that mark his work are representative of Rococo style. Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings (not counting drawings and etchings). Among his most noted works are the panel paintings commissioned by Madame du Barry, Louis XV’s official mistress. 399

Frank, Robert (1924–). Swiss-born photographer whose

most notable work, the 1958 photographic book The Americans, offered a skeptical outsider’s view of American society. One of the most influential photographers of the mid-twentieth century, Frank later expanded into film and video and experimented with compositing and manipulating photographs. Freire, Paulo (1921–1997). Brazilian educator and an influential theorist of education. His best-known work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968), argues in favor of a pedagogy that raises individuals’ consciousness of how the powerful in society place limitations on the poor and marginalized and how to overcome these limitations. Freud, Sigmund (1856–1939). Czech-Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. Freud is best known for developing many of the concepts that were later included in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis, including the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression. Among his most important works is The Interpretation of Dreams (1899).   Gardner, Alexander (1821–1882). Photographer who was born in Scotland and emigrated to the United States in 1856. There he went to work for Mathew Brady. Gardner was an expert in the new collodian (wet plate) process that was replacing the daguerreotype. He joined the corps of photographers dispatched to the battlefields of the Civil War. Among his most famous photographs is “President Lincoln on the Battlefield of Antietam” (1862). See also Brady, Mathew Gardner, Robert (1925–). American filmmaker, author, and founder and former director of the Film Study Center at Harvard University (1957–1997). He is known for his work in the field of visual anthropology. His films include Dances of the Kwakiutl (1951) and the 1964 Dead Birds. See also Dances of the Kwakiutl; Dead Birds Gaudí, Antoni (1852–1926). Spanish architect who is identified with the Catalan modernisme movement. Renowned for his unique style and highly individualistic architecture, Gaudí designed many of Barcelona’s most famous landmarks, including Park Güell and Casa Batlló. He was an ardent Catholic, and in his later years abandoned secular work to devote his life to his religion and the building of his most important work, Sagrada Familia cathedral. See also modernisme Gautama Buddha (Sanskrit: Siddhartha Gautama). Spiritual teacher and the founder of Buddhism. Born in the sixth century BC in what is now Nepal, he is generally recognized as the Supreme Buddha, or “Enlightened One.” The precise nature of such a being—whether human or transcendental—is differently construed in the two major branches of Buddhism: Theravada and Mahayana. See also Mahayana Geertz, Clifford James (1926–2006). American cultural anthropologist. His work focused on the interpretation of the symbols that he believed gave meaning and order to people’s lives. He conducted extensive ethnographical research in Southeast Asia and North Africa. He also contributed to social and cultural theory. His research varied widely, from religion, most particularly Islam, to bazaar trade, economic development, and village and family life. At the time of his death, he was working on the general question of ethnic diversity and its 400

implications in the modern world. His best-known work is The Interpretation of Cultures (1973). Geertz, Hildred. American anthropologist and author of several books, including Images of Power: Balinese Paintings Made for Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead (1994) and Kinship in Bali (1975) with Clifford Geertz. Gill, De Lancey (1859–1940). Traveled and sketched extensively in Indian Territory. Many of his portraits of Native Americans are included in the archives of the Smithsonian Institution, where he worked as a photographer. Godard, Jean-Luc (1930–). French-Swiss filmmaker and one of the most influential members of the French New Wave. Godard revolutionized filmmaking by rewriting the rules of narrative, continuity, and camera work. He also rose to the top ranks of French film criticism during his tenure at Cahiers du Cinema, the influential film magazine. His body of work includes Breathless (1959), My Life to Live (1962), Weekend (1967), and Every Man for Himself (1980). Goya y Lucientes, Francisco José de (1746–1828). Aragonese painter and printmaker, considered the most important Spanish artist of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Named “First Painter to the King,” Goya was court painter to three Spanish monarchs. The subversive and subjective element in his art, as well as his bold handling of paint, provided a model for the work of later generations of artists, notably Manet and Picasso. Güell, Eusebi (1846–1918). Industrialist who profited greatly from the industrial revolution in Spain in the late nineteenth century. An art lover and champion of Barcelona, he is best known as a patron to architect Antoni Gaudí. He commissioned Gaudí to design several projects, among them Park Güell, a landmark outside Barcelona. See also Gaudí, Antoni   Harper, Douglas. Photographer, sociologist, professor and the founding editor of the Journal of Visual Sociology. His publications include Good Company (1982), which features his photographs portraying the circumstances and experiences of tramp life. Heider, Karl G. (1935–). Major figure in the field of visual anthropology. A specialist in the Dani of New Guinea, he is also a filmmaker, teacher, and writer. Some of his major publications, particularly Seeing Anthropology: Cultural Anthropology Through Film (4th ed., 2006) and Ethnographic Film (2nd ed., 2006), are devoted to teaching through film. See also Dani Hill, Cynthia. Independent filmmaker who lives in Durham, North Carolina. She coproduced February One, a documentary about the 1960 Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins, which premiered on PBS in 2005, and her first independent documentary, Tobacco Money Feeds My Family, is currently on the festival circuit. She and Charles Thompson made the documentary The Guestworker, detailed in Chapter 8 of this book. Hillers, John K. (1843–1925). American government photographer whose body of work represents one of the most striking visual records of the nineteenth-century American West. He was originally hired as a boatman for a geographical survey expedition led by John Wesley Powell in 1871 and became the expedition photographer in 1872. He continued to work for Powell for nearly thirty years, exploring and photographing the West, eventually focusing on ethnology. Viewpoints

Hilton, James (1900–1954). Popular English novelist, whose

Pope Julius II (1443–1513), born Giuliano della Rovere, was

best sellers included the 1933 Lost Horizon (which popularized the mythical Shangri-la) and Goodbye Mr. Chips (1934). These books and another of his novels, Random House (1941), were adapted for film. Hine, Lewis Wicks (1874–1940). American photographer and social reformer. His career began in 1904 when he began photographing thousands of immigrants passing through Ellis Island. He became the photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) in 1908, and for the next decade, Hine documented child labor in American industry, helping NCLC’s efforts to end the practice. Hockings, Paul (1935–). Visual anthropologist and filmmaker. He has done fieldwork in India, Ireland, and China and has published widely on Indian tribal societies, as well as on visual anthropology. He is editor of the journal Visual Anthropology, the Encyclopedia of Asia, and past editor of Encyclopedia of World Cultures. He wrote the landmark Principles of Visual Anthropology (1995), now in its second edition. Holm, Bill (1925–). U.S. artist, author, and art historian, who is recognized as an expert in the visual arts of Northwest Coast Native Americans. His book, Northwest Coast Indian Art, An Analysis of Form (1965) is in its seventeenth printing. He is professor emeritus of art history and curator emeritus of Northwest Coast Indian Art at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. Jackson, William Henry (1843–1942). American painter, photographer, and explorer best known as the first person to photograph the wonders of Yellowstone Park. He joined the Hayden geological and geographical expedition to the Western territories. The publication of his photographs of Wyoming geysers and waterfalls captured the public’s interest and eventually contributed to Congress designating Yellowstone as a national park in 1872. His paintings and photographs of Native Americans, gold miners, railroad workers, and Western landscapes all contribute to a visual record of American expansion.   Jakobson, Roman Osipovich (1896–1982). Russian linguist and literary critic, was a leading figure of the Moscow Linguistic Circle, one of the two movements constituting Russian Formalism, and a founder of the Prague School of Linguistic Theory. He continued his groundbreaking work after moving to the United States in 1941. His three major contributions to linguistics—linguistic typology, markedness, and linguistic universals—continue to play a major role in the discipline today. Jenness, Diamond (1886–1969). Canada’s most distinguished pioneer anthropologist. He led an Oxford University anthropological expedition to New Guinea in 1911– 1912. This was followed by his work as ethnologist for the Canadian Arctic expedition of 1913–1918. His participation in the traditional life of the Copper Inuit laid the groundwork for his later research. His 1928 work, The People of the Twilight, is one of the best books on the Canadian Inuit. Jonson, Ben (1572––1637). English Renaissance dramatist, poet, and satirist, considered one of the major dramatists and poets of the seventeenth century. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone (1606), The Alchemist (1610), and Bartholomew Fair (1614), and his lyric poems.

pope from 1503 to 1513. Known as the “warrior pope,” his papacy was marked by aggressive efforts to extend the power of and restore lost territory to the Papal States. His most lasting legacy is to be found in his patronage of art and literature. He laid the foundation stone of St. Peter’s Basilica, hired Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and commissioned Raphael to paint in the Vatican. Jung, Carl Gustav (1875–1961). Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of analytical psychology. He proposed and developed the concepts of the extroverted and introverted personality, archetypes, and the collective unconscious. Aside from his contemporary Freud, no one has had a bigger impact on modern psychiatry and psychology than Jung. His unique approach to psychology has been influential in countercultural movements since the 1960s. See also Freud   King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968). Baptist minister, author, and the pivotal leader of the American civil rights movement. In 1957, he was elected the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the burgeoning civil rights movement. King took the ideals for SCLC from Christianity and adopted its operational nonviolent techniques from Gandhi. His most famous speech—“I Have a Dream”— was the culmination of the 1963 March on Washington. Here he raised public consciousness of the civil rights movement and established himself as one of the greatest orators in U.S. history. Knight, Charles Robert (1874–1953). American artist best known for his groundbreaking depictions of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. Millions of people are exposed annually to his works in major institutions around the world, including the American Museum of Natural History. His works have also been reproduced in many books. Kroeber, Alfred Louis (1876–1960). One of the major figures in twentieth-century American anthropology. He studied under Franz Boas and earned the first doctorate in anthropology conferred by Columbia University. A proponent of the principle of cultural relativity, Kroeber sought to understand not only the materials (weapons, pottery, housing) of a culture, but also its social roles and moral beliefs. Kroeber was extremely interested in recording the cultures of Native American peoples, and he came to be regarded as an expert in the field of Native American archaeology and ethnography. See also Boas, Franz   Laban, Rudolf (1879–1958). Dancer, choreographer, and dance/movement theorist. One of the founders of European modern dance, Laban raised the status of dance to an art form. He invented a system of dance notation that came to be called Labanotation, which is still used as one of the primary movement notation systems in dance. Today Laban’s theories are applied in diverse fields, such as cultural studies, leadership development, and nonverbal communication. See also Labanotation Lange, Dorothea (1895–1965). Influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist. She learned her trade in a photographer’s studio in New York and, in the 1920s, traveled the Southwest, taking

G lossa ry

401

photographs of Native Americans. Her most famous work was for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) during the Depression and later, for the War Relocation Authority. Lange’s photographs of displaced and dispossessed Americans humanized the tragic consequences of the Great Depression and World War II and profoundly influenced the development of documentary photography. Langenheim, Frederick (1809–1879) and William (1807– 1874). Major early photographers in the United States. The brothers emigrated from their native Germany in the early nineteenth century. They opened a daguerreotype gallery in Philadelphia to display their work and gained a reputation as two of the most successful commercial photographers in the United States. Technically innovative, they made eight sequential photographs of the 1854 total eclipse of the sun. Although others are known to have documented the event, only the Langenheims’ daguerreotypes survive. Later they were pioneers in the use of the stereograph and the lanternslide. Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1908–). French anthropologist famous for his development of structural anthropology, a term applied to the analysis of cultural systems (politics, kinship, gender roles) in terms of the structural relations among their elements. Structuralism as a method of understanding human society and culture has influenced not only social sciences but also philosophy, comparative religion, and literature. Among his most celebrated works are The Savage Mind (1966), Structural Anthropology (1963), and the four-volume masterwork, Mythologies (1969–1981). Lomax, Alan (1915–2002). American folklorist and musicologist. One of the great field collectors of folk music, Lomax recorded thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, the West Indies, Italy, and Spain, and was the first person to record many musical legends, such as Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, and Muddy Waters. His major interest, however, was in preservation. By collecting and presenting folk music and dance in concerts, films, and television, he drew attention to and renewed interest in these traditional forms.   MacDougall, David and Judith. American documentary filmmakers. They have been described as “the most significant ethnographic filmmakers in the Englishspeaking world today.” Among their collaborations are the films of the “Turkana Conversations” series on seminomadic camel herders in Kenya, which includes the award-winning Lorang’s Way (1980). David MacDougall is also the author of Transcultural Cinema (1998) and The Corporeal Image: Film, Ethnography, and the Senses (2005). Malinowski, Bronislaw (1884–1942). Considered one of the most important anthropologists of the twentieth century. His pioneering work in ethnographic fieldwork emphasized the importance of detailed participantobservation. He founded the field of social anthropology known as Functionalism that argues that all components of society interlock to form a balanced system. His works include The Trobriand Islands (1915), The Scientific Theory of Culture (1922), and The Dynamics of Culture Change (1961). See also participant-observation Mandela, Nelson (1918–). Former president of South Africa and the winner of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize. An antiapartheid activist, Mandela led the African National 402

Congress and its armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. Convicted of plotting to overthrow the government, he spent twenty-seven years in prison. Upon his release, Mandela again picked up the fight to move South Africa toward multiracial government and majority rule. He was elected president in 1994, the first to be elected in fully representative democratic elections. Marshall, John (1932–2005). Filmmaker and anthropologist best known for his lifetime involvement with the Ju/’hoansi of the Kalahari Desert. Marshall first visited the Kalahari at age seventeen. From 1950–1958, he shot more than 300,000 feet of 16mm film, resulting in his first film, The Hunters, which became an instant classic of ethnographic film. Throughout the years, he continued to work with this extensive footage and completed fifteen short films. Along with Timothy Asch, he founded Documentary Educational Resources (DER) to support educational and ethnographic filmmaking. He continued filming the Ju/’hoansi until 2000, combining advocacy work on their behalf with documentation of their lives and struggles. See also Asch, Timothy Mattis, Gen. James N., USMC. Current Commander, U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM), and Supreme Allied Commander Transformation for NATO. He commanded the 1st Marine Division in the 2003 Iraq invasion. Mauss, Marcel (1872–1950). French sociologist and anthropologist. The nephew of Emile Durkheim, who was his early mentor, Mauss elaborated on and secured the legacy of his uncle. His most influential work is The Gift, which explores the religious, economic, legal, and mythological aspects of reciprocity. See also Durkheim, Emile McCracken, Grant. Anthropologist, culture critic, and the

author of Culture and Consumption (1990). He was the founding director of the Institute of Contemporary Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum. McLuhan, Marshall (1911–1980). Canadian educator, philosopher, literary critic, and writer. His 1964 work, Understanding Media, brought McLuhan to prominence as a media theorist. McLuhan is known for coining the expressions “the medium is the message” and the “global village.” McNamara, Robert (1916–). U.S. Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. One of the key architects of early U.S. policy in Vietnam, he eventually advocated for a negotiated solution to the war. After resigning his cabinet post in 1968, he became the president of the World Bank. McNamara was responsible for the institution of systems analysis in public policy, which developed into the discipline known today as policy analysis. Mead, Margaret (1901–1978). American cultural anthropologist and writer. Arguably the best-known anthropologist of all time, she was both a popularizer of anthropology, introducing its insights to thousands of people outside the discipline, and also a respected, if controversial, academic. Supervised in her first research in Samoa by Franz Boas, she focused on child-rearing and personality and produced the influential ethnographies Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) and Growing Up in New Guinea (1931). In Bali, she and her husband and collaborator, Gregory Bateson, pioneered the use of photography for anthropological research. See also Bateson, Gregory; Boas, Franz Viewpoints

cameras to capture a horse in motion and prove that there is a moment in the gallop when all four hooves leave the ground. This racehorse experiment laid the groundwork not only for the motion pictures to come, but also for the realization that photos could be used as data.

Medici, Cosimo di Giovanni de (1389–1464). Also known as

Cosimo the Elder. The first of the Medici political dynasty to rule Florence during most of the Italian Renaissance. A member of the wealthiest family in Italy, Cosimo secured the family fortune through the expansion of their banking empire. He was also noted for his patronage of culture and the arts, founding the Medici library and supporting artists such as Donatello and Ghiberti. Meiselas, Susan (1948–). Award-winning American photographer. She joined Magnum Photos Cooperative in 1976 and has worked as a freelance photographer since then. Much of her extensive career has been devoted to documenting human rights issues in Latin America. For example, in 1981 she photographed a village destroyed by the armed forces in San Salvador and took pictures of the El Mozote massacre. Meiselas’ work has been shown at many one-person exhibitions, and she has had installations at the Whitney Museum of American Art, among other places. Menander (342 BC–291 BC). Greek dramatist and the chief representative of the New Comedy, which refined the excess and satire of the Greek theater of Aristophanes and banished living and real characters from the stage. Menander wrote more than one hundred plays known for the truthfulness of their characterizations, but only a few of his manuscripts have survived. Michelangelo (1475–1564). Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer. Considered the greatest sculptor of the sixteenth century—his works include the Pietà and David—Michelangelo also created masterpieces in other media, such as the painting that adorns the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the largest fresco of the Renaissance at St. Peter’s Basilica. Mohr, Jean (1924–). Swiss photographer who has traveled the globe documenting the lives of the dispossessed and marginalized. He is best known for his collaborations with John Berger. Together they have published several books, including A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor (1967); A Seventh Man (1976), about migrant workers in Europe; and Another Way of Telling (1981). He also worked with the late Edward Said on After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives (1986). See also Berger, John Muhammad (c. 570–632). Founder of the world religion of Islam. Muslims consider Muhammad to be the true and last messenger and prophet of God. Born in Mecca, Muhammad was forty years old when he received his first revelations from God. From that time, he began to teach and to develop a code of behavior, which was later codified in the Arabic language in the Shariah. He is the first founder of a major world religion who lived in the full light of history and about whom there are numerous records in historical texts, including the Quran and Hadith compilations. Murdock, George Peter (1897–1985). American anthropologist best known for his cross-cultural studies of African and Oceanic peoples. Murdock developed the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) at Yale University, a well-known information source for researchers of comparative cultures. Murdock also compiled a list of every known culture, The Outline of World Cultures (1954). Muybridge, Eadweard J. (1830–1904). English photographer gained worldwide renown photographing animal and human movement imperceptible to the human eye. In his most famous dissection of motion, he used multiple G lossa ry

 

Odets, Clifford (1906–1963). Important American playwright

of the 1930s. He was one of the original members of the avant-garde, left-wing ensemble the Group Theatre, which would become a highly influential theater company in the United States. The Group, committed to radical revolutions in theater, focused on social issues while ridding their productions of the artifices of Broadway. In 1934, Odets wrote his first play, Waiting for Lefty, which borrows heavily from Communist ideology. Despite forays to Hollywood to write screenplays, Odets continued to produce work for the theater, including his greatest success, Golden Boy (1937). Ophuls, Marcel (1927–). Documentary filmmaker. He was born in Frankfurt and immigrated to the United States with his exiled father, famed director Max Ophuls. He has continued his father’s legacy of making films that focus on oppression. He is best known for his internationally acclaimed examination of French collaboration with the Nazis, The Sorrow and the Pity (1970). Orozco, José Clemente (1883–1949). Mexican social realist painter. With Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, he was part of what came to be called the Mexican Mural Renaissance. Orozco began his career in 1910 drawing cartoons, but by the late 1920s, he was established as a mural painter both in Mexico and the United States. His masterworks are the frescoes he painted for Hospicio Cabañas in Guadalajara.   Paulay, Forrestine. Member of the Dance Notation Bureau, worked with Alan Lomax and Irmgard Bartenieff to develop methodologies for the comparative analysis of song, dance, and speech. The initial results were published in Lomax’s Folk Song Style and Culture (1968). See also Bartenieff, Irmgard; Lomax, Alan Pikatan, Rakai. The crown prince of the Sanjaya Javanese dynasty. He is thought to be responsible for the construction of Prambanan, the largest Hindu temple in Indonesia. See also Prambanan Powell, John Wesley (1834–1902). U.S. soldier, geologist, and explorer of the American West. His accounts from what is known as the 1869 Powell Geographic Expedition, a three-month river trip down the Green and Colorado rivers, are collected in Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and Its Tributaries (1875). Before Powell’s expedition, the uncharted Colorado River had been considered unnavigable. He later served as the director of the U.S. Geological Survey.   Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred Reginald (1881–1955). English social anthropologist. He is credited with the development of the theory of Structural Functionalism, which analyzes the social structure of primitive civilizations. His extensive fieldwork in the Andaman Islands, Australia, and elsewhere led to his major contributions to anthropological ideas on kinship. Chief Red Cloud (1822–1909). War leader of the Oglala Lakota, the largest band of the Sioux nation. One of the most capable Native American opponents the U. S. military ever 403

faced, he successfully resisted the development of the Bozeman Trail to the Montana gold fields. He was strongly opposed to westward expansion by whites and led his people in several other important victories over the U.S. government. Until his death, he lobbied for tribal control of Indian lands. Riis, Jacob (1849–1914). Danish-American muckraker journalist, photographer, and social reformer. After a stint at the New York Tribune, he went to work as a photojournalist for the New York Evening Sun in 1888. He was among the first photographers to use flash powder, which made it possible for him to photograph interiors and exteriors of slums at night. In 1890, he published the landmark How the Other Half Lives, which became a pivotal work in reform efforts on behalf of the poor. Rivera, Diego (1886–1957). Mexican painter and muralist, widely considered to be the greatest Mexican artist of the twentieth century. He is credited with the reintroduction of fresco painting (murals painted on fresh plaster) into modern art. After studying in Europe, Rivera returned to Mexico in 1921, where he undertook governmentsponsored murals, such as the frescoes painted for the National Agricultural School, which are considered among his finest works. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted murals in Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York. His murals and paintings exhibit a native style based on large, simplified figures and bold colors, sometimes revealing an Aztec influence (as in the murals at the Secretariat of Public Education in Mexico City). Roosevelt, Theodore (1858–1919). Naturalist, explorer, soldier, leader of the Progressive Movement, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the twenty-sixth president of the United States. After the assassination of President William McKinley, Roosevelt assumed the presidency. Before that, he had served as governor of New York. Some of his most long-lasting achievements are in conservation: he added to the national forests in the West, reserved lands for public use, and fostered water projects. Rouch, Jean (1917–2004). French filmmaker and anthropologist. His long association with Africa began during his tenure as a civil engineer supervising a construction project in Niger. After World War II, he returned to Africa where, over the next half century, he would chronicle extraordinary change, from colonialism to independence. Rouch was one of the most prolific ethnographic filmmakers ever. He is considered one of the pioneers of both visual anthropology and the school of cinema verité. See also cinema verité   Scott, James C. Anthropologist and political scientist. The Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University, he is also the director of the Program in Agrarian Studies. Scott’s work focuses on the ways that subaltern people resist dominance. His books include The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (1976) and Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (1990). Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, or Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC–65 AD). Roman philosopher, statesman, and playwright. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero. Of his plays, only eight survive, including The Trojan Women, Phaedra, Oedipus, and Medea. His tragedies are divided into five acts, a form that would be adopted widely 404

later in Renaissance drama. Other of his conventions— soliloquies and asides, for example—also became standards for later playwrights. Shakespeare, William (1564–1616). English poet and playwright, is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s preeminent dramatist. His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, 2 long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Siqueiros, David Alfaro (1896–1974). Political activist, painter, and muralist known for large works in fresco that established him as part of the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and others. His exterior frescoes focused on revolutionary themes meant to inspire the masses to action. See also Orozco, José Clemente; Rivera, Diego Sites, Kevin. American journalist. Sites began his career at

Yahoo! with the award-winning Web site “Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone.” Before coming to Yahoo!, he worked in television journalism, including five years covering wars and disasters around the world. Sites helped pioneer solo journalism, working in and reporting from the field without a crew. Souter, David (1939–). Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1990. Appointed by President George H. W. Bush, he filled the seat vacated by William J. Brennan. Spies, Walter (1895–1942). Russian-born German photographer and primitivist painter. In 1923 he came to Java, eventually settling in Bali. There he created some of his best paintings, works that combine a fluid imagination with scenes from Balinese life and myth. A cofounder of the Pita Maha Arts Society, he helped shape the development of Balinese art and establish the Western image of the Balinese idyll that still exists today. Suharto (1921–2008). Second president of Indonesia (1967–1998) and a military leader. Three decades of uninterrupted rule by his “New Order” administration brought political stability and economic growth. Health, education, and living standards all improved. At the same time, his military-dominated administration was authoritarian and corrupt: dissent was suppressed, and Suharto used his power to enrich his friends and family. Economic instability and popular discontent forced his resignation. Subsequent corruption charges were dropped due to health issues. Sukarno (1901–1970). First president of Indonesia, a post he held from August 17, 1945, the day he declared Indonesia’s independence from the Netherlands, until he was deposed in 1967. A leader of the radical nationalist movement, he was imprisoned by the Dutch several times in the 1930s. After taking office, he presided with mixed success over the country’s turbulent transition to independence. Sukarno was forced from power by one of his generals, Suharto, who formally became president in March 1967. See also Suharto   Trinh T. Minh-ha (1952–). Filmmaker, writer, academic, and composer. Born in Vietnam, she immigrated to the United States in 1970. Much of her work is built around the theme of the “other,” that is, the persona one considers him/herself to be in relation to. Her ethnographic Viewpoints

fieldwork in West Africa resulted, in part, in her first and best-known film Reassemblage (1982). She is also the author of the seminal Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism (1989).  

Vermeer, Johannes (1632–1675). Dutch painter, a Baroque

artist whose work mostly portrayed domestic interior scenes of ordinary life. Only thirty-five or so paintings— all of which are admired for Vermeer’s sensitive rendering of light and color and the poetic quality of his images—are decisively attributed to him. He was virtually forgotten for nearly two hundred years until 1866 when the art critic Thoré Bürger published an essay about Vermeer’s work. Since that time his reputation has grown, and he is now acknowledged as one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age. Vertov, Dziga (1896–1954). Russian pioneer documentary and newsreel director. Born Denis Arkadievitch Kaufman in czarist Russia, he adopted his pseudonym (loosely translated: spinning top) while a student. He abandoned school to write and edit for Kinonedelya (Cinema Weekly), a filmed periodical. His first film as a director was The Anniversary of the Revolution (1919), followed by the thirteen-reel History of Civil War (1922). Joined by his wife, Elizaveta Svilova, and his cinematographer brother, Mikhail Kaufman, Vertov started the Kino-Pravda newsreel series, filming everyday scenes in Soviet life and establishing a new kind of screen journalism through which he could communicate directly with the people.   Warren, Kemble (1830–1882). Civil engineer and a Union Army officer. After graduating from West Point, Warren served on several important survey expeditions. His topographical report on the Nebraska Territory won him Congressional acclaim, leading to more expeditions and the building of military roads into the territory. Warren is best remembered, however, for arranging the last-minute defense of Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg. Weber, Max (1864–1920). German political economist and sociologist. Considered one of the founders of the modern study of sociology and public administration, Weber also ranks among the foremost social theorists of the twentieth century. His two most noted contributions were the rationalization thesis (an analyis of the dominance of the West in modern times) and the Protestant ethic thesis (a non-Marxist genealogy of modern capitalism). As an advisor to Germany’s negotiators at the Treaty of Versailles and to the commission charged with drafting the Weimar Constitution, he proved influential in contemporary German politics. Wilder, Thornton (1897–1975). American playwright and novelist, best known for his Pulitizer Prize–winning play, Our Town (1938). Wilder achieved international acclaim for his body of work, which includes the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927) and the play The Skin of Our Teeth (1942). Winnemucca, Sarah (1842–1891). Daughter of Chief Winnemucca of the Paiutes. She used language skills learned in convent school to work as an interpreter in an Army camp, where she also served as a scout in the war against the Bannocks, who had taken her father hostage. She was the first Native American woman known to G lossa ry

secure a copyright and to publish (under her married name, Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins) in the English language. Her book, Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883), is an autobiographical account of her people during their first forty years of contact with explorers and settlers. Wiseman, Frederick (1930–). American documentary filmmaker, lecturer, and social reformer. A member of the Massachusetts Bar Association, Wiseman came to documentary filmmaking after first being trained as a lawyer, a fact that has influenced his style and choice of subjects ever since. His documentaries—including Titicut Follies (1967), Hospital (1969), and Welfare (1975)—chronicle the exercise of power in American society by focusing on the everyday trials of the least fortunate citizens. Wood, Grant (1891–1942). American artist, born in Iowa. Considered among the most American of painters, Wood’s gently satirical work offered penetrating portraits of the Midwesterners around him. His best-known painting, American Gothic, has become an iconic image of the twentieth century. Worth, Sol (1922–1977). Painter, photographer, filmmaker, researcher, and educator. A pioneer in the use of film in anthropological field research, Worth’s work explores the question of how meaning is communicated through visual images. He is perhaps most famous for his book Through Navajo Eyes: An Exploration in Film Communication and Anthropology (1972), coauthored with anthropologist John Adair.   Zedong, Mao (1893–1976). Chinese revolutionary theorist and a military and political leader. From peasant beginnings, Mao rose to leadership in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He built the Red Army and mass peasant support, which was instrumental in defeating Chiang Kai-Shek and seizing control of the Chinese mainland. In the long political career that followed, he ordered the redistribution of land, the establishment of heavy industry, and the Cultural Revolution, which resulted in mass death and the suffering of millions of Chinese. Although still controversial—he is credited with unifying China while at the same time reviled for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution—Mao remains one of the giants of twentieth century history.

405

Auth or B i o g raphi e s Adra, Najwa

Hermer, Carol

Najwa Adra is a cultural anthropologist who specializes in the links between dancing and culture and the integration of intangible heritage with development. She has conducted field research on dancing and tribal values in Yemen since 1978 and has published several articles on dancing and culture in the region. She is currently completing an ethnography of dancing in Al-Ahjur. In 2003–2006, she served as coeditor of Visual Anthropology Review.

Carol Hermer obtained her PhD in anthropology from the University of Washington. Before that she worked as a journalist and video producer. Her combined experience has formed the basis of a course, Anthropology of Visual Media, which she has taught in various manifestations at universities around the country. She has served as board member and president of the Society for Visual Anthropology.

Biella, Peter

McLain, Kimowan

Peter Biella has served as the president of the Society for Visual Anthropology. He directs graduate students in visual explorations at San Francisco State University. Biella has worked with ethnographic photography, film, video, and interactive media as an independent maker and sponsored researcher for twenty-five years.

Kimowan McLain comes from the Cold Lake First Nations, a Cree Indian reservation in Western Canada. In the 1990s, he worked for a weekly Indian newspaper for six years. He began as a political cartoonist and eventually became the managing editor. His formal art training has taken him from the universities of Alberta, New Mexico, and North Carolina to Yale University. Currently, he is a professor of art at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. McLain is a mixed-media artist, who often employs photography, drawing, and found objects in his work. He uses juxtaposition to suggest typologies and narratives, challenging the authority of fixed representations. His work has an aesthetic appeal for political and cultural understanding. McLain’s work has been purchased for numerous public and corporate collections, including the University of North Carolina, the Canadian government, Syncrude Canada, and Peace Hills Trust. His many awards include the 2000 Minority Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of North Carolina, the University of New Mexico Graduate Fellowship, the Ellen Battel Stoekel Fellowship from Yale, and a national award from the Canadian Native Arts Foundation. He is also a recipient of a 2003 Individual Artist Fellowship from the North Carolina Arts Council.

Collier, Malcolm

Malcolm Collier is a native of Taos, New Mexico, and was educated in Peru, New Mexico, and California. He has worked among Spanish American, Navajo, Alaskan Native, and Asian American communities. A founding member of and lecturer in the Asian American Studies Department and College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University, Collier has an MA in anthropology and coauthored Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method. Flowerday, Julie

Awarded a PhD in social anthropology (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 1998), Julie Flowerday pursued a postdoctoral photography project (1999–2000) to produce “Hunza in Treble Vision: 1930s & 1990s.” Her exhibitions include: Lok Versa, Government Ministry of Culture, Islamabad, Pakistan (January 2000); the University Center for International Studies, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (February–May 2001); Hunza, Pakistan (September 2001); and the Library at the University of London (December 2001). A book based on the exhibit is in preparation. She gratefully acknowledges support from Fulbright, the American Institute of Pakistan Studies, the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, the Aga Khan Culture Service–Pakistan, and the librarian of the School of Oriental and African Studies for making this work possible. Freeman, Richard

Richard Freeman has a BA in cinema and photography from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale; a master’s degree in visual anthropology from Temple University, Philadelphia; and a doctorate in cultural anthropology from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign. He has worked for many years in commercial photography and has traveled and photographed extensively throughout Israel, Western Europe, Kenya, and Central and South America. His dissertation research was conducted in Buenos Aires, Argentina, working with the youth group of the Democratic-Socialist Party of Argentina. Currently he teaches in Rochester, New York, and is preparing to embark on a video/ ethnographic project in Kenya. 406

Ochsenschlager, Edward

The author is professor emeritus at Brooklyn College where he first served as chairman of the Classics Department and later as chairman of the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology. He was director of excavations at Thmuis (1965–1975) and Taposiris Magna (1975) in Egypt and American field director and principal investigator of the Smithsonian–Archaeological Institute of Belgrade Excavations at Sirmium in Yugoslavia (1969–1973). He served as assistant field director of the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University and the Brooklyn Museum’s Mendes excavation; of the Institute of Fine Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Arts excavations at al-Hiba in Iraq (1968–1990); and, most recently (1994–1995), was assistant director of the Institute of Fine Arts excavations at Shibam in Yemen. The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology published his book on the ethnoarchaeological project at al-Hiba, Iraq’s Marsh Arabs in the Garden of Eden in 2004. Peacock, James, and Louly Peacock Konz

James Peacock is Kenan professor of anthropology and professor of comparative literature at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He received a BA from Duke University and a PhD from Harvard University. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts Viewpoints

and Sciences and has received various grants and awards, including Guggenheim, Rockefeller, the Thomas Jefferson award at UNC, the Franz Boas award of the American Anthropological Association, and Citizen of the World from the International Affairs Council. He has served as chair of the UNC Faculty Senate, chair of the Department of Anthropology, and director of the University Center for International Studies. He is a former president of the American Anthropological Association. During 2003–2004, he was a fellow at the National Humanities Center. His field research is primarily in Indonesia and Appalachia. Publications include The Anthropological Lens (rev. ed. Cambridge University Press, 2001), and, in press, Grounded Globalism: How the U.S. South Embraces the World and Identity Matters: Ethnic and Sectarian Conflict. — Louly Peacock Konz, James’ daughter, is on the faculty in art history at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina, where she teaches art history survey courses as well as world art and contemporary art and theory. She received a BA from Davidson College and studied at the Institut de Touraine in Tours, France, as well as the Ecole du Louvre in Paris, before completing a PhD in art history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her publications include Marie Bashkirtseff’s Life in Self-Portraits (1858–1884): Woman as Artist in NineteenthCentury France (Edwin Mellen, 2005). Her current scholarship focuses on contemporary art. Scherer, Joanna Cohan

Joanna Cohan Scherer is emerita anthropologist in the Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution. She is the former anthropologist/illustrations researcher for the twenty-volume Handbook of North American Indians (1978–2006), Smithsonian, where she created a collection of more than one hundred thousand images relating to American Indians. She has published several books, twenty-three articles, many reviews, and two Web sites relating to photographs of American Indians. Curator of the Wrensted Exhibition, which traveled throughout the United States from 1994 to 1996 (http://anthropology.si.edu/ wrensted/), she was also curator of Red Cloud’s Manikin and His Uncle’s Shirt: Historical Representation in the Museum, exhibited at the Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History (http://anthropology.si.edu/redcloud/) She is past president and an active member of the Society for Visual Anthropology, a unit of the American Anthropological Association, and is currently on its board of directors. Scherer received her BA from Syracuse University in 1963 and her MA from Hunter College of the City University of New York in 1968. Strong, Mary

Mary Strong is an anthropologist and artist with a PhD in visual anthropology. Her applied research in the arts and community development has been in service to national and international nongovernmental organizations, fair trade organizations, and small local communities. She has taught for many Au th o r B i o g r a ph i e s

years at the City University of New York, and acted as student advisor during on-site field projects. She wrote and illustrated articles, reviews, and research reports, was writer-illustrator for Anthropology News, and is review editor for the journal Visual Anthropology, for which she served as a guest editor and contributor to special issues. She made alone or helped to make many murals, collaborating with neighborhood mural teams, and has also worked with folk artists on other projects in the United States and Latin America. She participated in making videos and short films. She is now preparing an illustrated book about Andean folk arts and is president of the Society for Visual Anthropology, American Anthropological Association. Thompson, Charles D.

Charles D. Thompson Jr. is curriculum and education director at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, where he is also adjunct professor of cultural anthropology and religion. A former farmer, he holds a PhD in religion and culture from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His latest book is The Human Cost of Food: Farmworkers’ Lives, Labor, and Advocacy. His film The Guestworker was released in 2004. Wilder, Laena

With a degree in documentary photography from the Academy of Art in San Francisco and an MFA from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Wilder uses the camera as a tool for gathering cultural information. Her research has earned her a prestigious Rockefeller Fellowship Grant and taken her throughout the United States and Canada, India, Western and Eastern Europe, Africa, and South America. Exhibitions of her photographs have been displayed internationally and domestically, including at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the Kostroma Municipal Gallery in Russia, and the Foto Gallerie in Hong Kong. In addition to her documentary work, Wilder is deeply committed to her role as an educator. She has taught a range of photographic courses at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, the University of San Francisco, and the Academy of Art University. Wilder has also created and facilitated several “kids with cameras” projects, including most recently the “See Me Project” in South Africa. For more information on Laena Wilder’s photographic projects, view her Web site: www.wildervision.com. Zeller, Anne

Anne Zeller has been studying macaques since 1973 and is currently the chair of the anthropology department at the University of Waterloo in Canada, where she has taught for the last twenty-three years. Her research covers a wide range of primate behavior, including communication, infant socialization, deception, handicapped primates, and object use in monkeys. She is also involved in semiotics and visual anthropology and is currently working on a project on ape painting.

407

I ndex Italic page numbers refer to illustrations. Abu Ghraib prison, 149 acoustic context, 154, 158, 169 activist documentary, 133 Adair, John, 5, 24 Adair, Peter, Holy Ghost People, 132 Adra, Najwa, 200, 201; bara’ performance in village of Al-Husn, 234; cited works, 251; fourth movement of bara’, 230; men in village of Mahjar, 229. See also dance; dancing behavior aesthetic style: aesthetic principles ordering everyday life, 231, 231n3, 245n14; and film structure, 128; Gardner on, 58, 59 Africans, as symbol in street murals, 304, 316, 318 Ajayi, O. S., 245 Al-Ahjur, 231–235, 238, 239, 240, 242 alienation effects, 159 Allen, Jeanne, 122 Allen, Woody, 152n18 Altamira, Spain, murals of, 299, 299n2, 300 ambiguity/metaphor: in murals, 317–319; of photographs, 61–62 American Anthropological Association (AAA), 6, 327, 363 American Museum of Natural History, 300–301 Anderson, Benedict, 335 Andrews, Jesse, 187 angles: and connotative meaning, 124; in film structure, 126–127; and photographs as records, 17, 44; still photography techniques, 45–46 annotations: and photo elicitation, 22; and photographs as records, 18, 43, 81; and preexisting images, 21 anthropological knowledge, and representation, 53–55 anthropologic film. See ethnographic film anthropology: biological anthropology, 4, 144, 200–201; cultural anthropology, 4, 56, 156, 157, 200, 327; of dancing, 242–248; economic anthropology, 144; and murals, 298–299; scientific subfields of, 4; social anthropology, 327; symbolic anthropology, 327, 330; theoretical traditions of, 2, 157–158; traditional sub areas of, 200; visual anthropology’s place in, 2; as word-oriented discipline, 3. See also art history/anthropology relationship; visual anthropology Arai, Tomi, Crear una Sociedad Nueva, 313 Arawak group, 303 archaeology: art history compared to, 327; and murals, 298, 299; and text/image relationship, 4; and visual anthropology, 200, 202. See also ethnoarchaeology architecture: art history/anthropology relationship, 285, 329, 330, 332–342, 346, 349–350, 351, 352–353, 354, 355; of scholarship, 156, 156n23, 157, 160, 162, 163; and still photography, 56 archival issues: and electronic technology, xi, 48–49, 113; and still photography, 48–49 Aristophanes, 152n18 Aristotle, 150n15, 151 art: art making process, 297; as element of

408

anthropological concept of culture, 231, 231n3, 245n14; as observable form of culture, 2; public art, 297, 300; science/art relationship, 3–4 art history: of Bali, 327–328; and murals, 299; visual anthropology related to, 327, 328, 355–356 art history/anthropology relationship: and architecture, 285, 329, 330, 332–342, 346, 349–350, 351, 352–353, 354, 355; and contextual information, 328–329, 330, 332, 333–335, 337, 342, 343–345, 347–349, 350, 352–353; and interpretation, 328–329; and meaning of sensed forms, 328, 329, 332, 334, 337; and representation, 327, 328; and still photographs, 331–332, 356; and symbols, 329, 330, 346, 350–351, 354–355 artifacts: and al-Hiba, 261–262, 265–266, 267, 274–276, 278–279, 280; in historical photographs of Native Americans, 82; photographs as, 86–87; in still photography, 40, 42 artificial intelligence, and interactive media, 162 Asch, Patsy, Jero Tapakan Series, 152n18 Asch, Timothy: The Ax Fight, 124, 163; Jero Tapakan Series, 152n18 Atlas-ti, 380 audiences: of murals, 297, 302, 313, 317–321. See also viewers audio effects, and film structure, 128–129 Austerlitz, Paul, 246 authority of narration, and film structure, 128–129 Avid, 374 Avid Pro Tools, 373n5 background music, and film structure, 129, 136 balanced reciprocity, 182 Balinese character, Mead and Bateson on, 57–59, 67 Banks, Marcus, 3, 5 bara’, 229, 229, 230, 233–237, 234, 236, 238, 239, 240, 241, 241, 242 Barbary macaques: adult female with newborn infant, 207–208, 207, 209, 211; adult male protectiveness, 208, 208; code system of gestures, 205, 206, 221–225; and distance, 207–208, 209, 218; facial communications, 200–201, 205, 219–220, 223–225; fearful expressions, 206, 224, 225; friendly approaches, 206, 224; gathering data on, 206–219; identification of, 210–212, 220; intragroup variability in expressions, 205–206; juvenile approaches, 209; and kin group patterns, 206, 220, 223–224, 223, 225; observation considerations, 209–211, 221–222; practical problems in study of, 215–219; research project, 219–221; and respectful behavior, 207–209, 219; sensitivity to staring, 206, 207, 209; Super-8 camera for recording, 211–212; threat gestures, 206, 219–220, 220, 222– 224, 223, 224; variable mouth positions, 206, 220, 220, 223, 223, 224. See also ethological research Barrett, Edward, 163n25 Bartenieff, Irmgard, 245–246 Barthelmess, Christian, 84, 85 Barthes, Roland: Camera Lucida, 331, 332n1; on interpretation, 112; on staged aspect of

documentary photographs, 332 Basel Mission archives, xi Bashkirtseff, Marie, 332n1 Bateson, Gregory: art collection of, 328; and ethnographic film, 156n24, 244, 327; on knowledge of the heart, 3; as pioneer in visual studies, 202; and still photography, 58–59, 60, 61, 67, 327; and symbols, 354 Battle of Little Big Horn, 89 Bayo’an (Taino chief), 318–319, 319 Bazin, André, 66, 156n22 Becker, Howard, 55, 60, 62, 62n11, 63, 69, 70 Bedouin people, 259, 260 Benesh Notation, 247, 249 Benjamin, Walter, 159 Benton, Thomas Hart, 301 Berger, John, 61–63, 62n11, 65, 68–70 bias: and default readings, 147, 150, 158; and embedded journalists, 148; in images of war, 147; of informants, 256; in photographs, 81, 82, 91, 92; and prejudicial frames, 147, 150, 158; presentist bias, 93; and text/image relationship, 4; and voiceover narration, 132 Biella, Peter, 119; cited works, 172–173, 387; Maasai Interactive, 167, 168; Microsoft Word presentation, 366; Santería Web, 161; Yanomamö Interactive, 164, 165. See also collaborative and advocacy research; film techniques; interactive media; intimacy binary opposites, 130 binary pairs, 124 biological anthropology, 4, 144, 200–201 Blacking, John, 245 Blackman, Margaret, 92 Bloomfield, Barry, 100 Boas, Franz, xi, 56, 58, 58n7, 244 Boon, James, 350 Boorne, W. H., 93 Born in Brothels, 35 Borobudur, Java, 329, 330, 331, 333–334, 336– 337, 336, 337, 346, 352–353 Botticelli, Venus, 330 bracero program, 184, 184n3 bracketing, still photography techniques, 45 Brandes, Stanley, 56, 69n14 Braun, Kwame, passing girl: riverside, 131, 131 Brecht, Bertolt, 142, 150–151, 150n15, 152n18, 159, 166 Briski, Zana, 35 British Colonial India: and Hunza, 98–99, 103, 111; map of, 98 Brooks, Mel, 152n18 Brown, Mayra, Peace, 309, 309, 314 Buddhism, in Java, 334, 335, 336–337, 343, 352, 353 Buenos Aires, Argentina: photographs giving emic sense of, 62–65; photographs giving political mise-en-scène of, 66–67, 66, 67; youth activists of, 61, 65–71, 65n12 buffalo split-horned headdress, 89, 89 Bunzel, Ruth, 298 Bureau of American Ethnology, 84 Burns, Ken, The Civil War, 151–152, 151, 151n16 Burushaski language, 98–99, 102, 103, 104, 104n6, 107, 109 Burusho people, 98–99, 103 Bush, Vannevar, 163n25 Camp, David, 350

Viewpoints

Camus, Albert, 143 Cancian, Frank, 60–61, 62 Cardinal, Morris, 291 Caribbean Native American groups, 303 Caribs, 303 Carpenter, C. R., 210 cartes de visite, 92 Cartier-Bresson, Henri, 62 cassette recorders, ix, x Cassirer, Ernst, 328 catharsis, 151, 159 Centennial Photographic Company, 87 Chagnon, Napoleon: The Ax Fight, 124, 163, 163n26; Yanomamö Interactive, 163–166 Chalfen, Richard, 5, 24–25 Champion, Jessica Megumi, Selection from JJ’s Identity Journey, 24 Chavin de Huantar murals, 299n3 Chico, mural by, New York City, 2001, detail from, 306 Chief Smoke’s (Oglala Teton Sioux; uncle of Red Cloud) shirt, 90–92, 90, 91 China, murals of, 300 Chinese immigration, 311–312 Chomsky, Noam, 143, 150 choreometrics, 245–246 Ciboney group, 303 cinema verité, 125, 132 CITYarts Workshop: Crear una Sociedad Nueva, 313; and murals, 298n1; Plaza Cultural, 307; Puerto Rican Heritage, 319 Ciulistet Group, 24 Clifford, James, 54, 59 collaborative and advocacy research: and cultural insiders/outsiders, 5–6, 23–25, 34–43, 50–51, 284–285, 320, 384–385; and digital technology, 363, 384; and fieldwork, 376; and FileMaker Pro, 378–380, 378n7, 379, 383; and Final Cut Pro, 364, 371–374, 372n3, 373; and iMovie, 364, 370–371, 371, 372; and InqScribe, 367, 368–370, 369, 380, 382, 383; and Magpie Pro, 374–376, 375, 382, 384; and Microsoft Word, 364– 367, 365, 366; and murals, 284–285, 304, 320; and Octopz, 376–378, 377, 378n6; photographer as collaborator, 34–43, 50– 51; and Quicktime Pro, 367, 368, 368; and Transana, 367, 370, 380–382, 381, 383 Collier, John, Jr.: aide and students, Tuluksak, Alaska, 20; bridal party in the San Geronimo Fiesta Parade, Taos, New Mexico, 20; and collaborative and advocacy research, 5; husking corn, Talpa, New Mexico, 22; kitchen in Anglo home, Talpa, New Mexico, 15; man with back-strap loom, Otavalo, Ecuador, 15; market scene, Cholula, Mexico, 16; Señor Picón, principal of the Vicos school, teaching numbers to a beginning student, Vicos, Peru, 14–15; on still photography, 10; teacher and students, Kwethluk, Alaska, 16; and text/image relationship, 3 Collier, Malcolm: Carolina Romo, Talpa, New Mexico, 26; cited works, 31; and collaborative and advocacy research, 5; ESL class, Drawing from film, 22; overview of Talpa, New Mexico, 21; on still photography, 10; and text/image relationship, 3 Collins, William O., 90

index

color: and connotative meaning, 124; as pictorial element in murals, 314; and transient styles, 152n17 Commission on Visual Anthropology, 6, 363 communication process: communicative forms, 1–2, 55; and film, 123–124; and Internet, xiii, 4, 363; of macaques, 200–201, 205, 219–220, 223–225; and murals, 297, 299, 311, 312–313, 316–319; nonverbal communication, 16–17; and poetry, 290; of primates, 205, 206; and still photography, 35, 62, 70–71, 85; and viewers, 4 community members, Hunza, 112 composition: and photographs as records, 17, 44; still photography techniques, 46 Connor, Linda, Jero Tapakan Series, 152n18 connotative meanings, 124 contextual information: and analysis of photographs, 19, 59, 112; and art history/ anthropology relationship, 328–329, 330, 332, 333–335, 337, 342, 343–345, 347–349, 350, 352–353; and ethnographic film, 122; and meaning, 62; and multimedia, 160; and murals, 319–320; and photo elicitation, 22; and preexisting images, 21; and still photography, 46, 331. See also spatial context; temporal context Coover, Roderick, 153 copyright law, 93, 142, 149n11, 151n16 coquí, 305 Cormack, Mike, 130 Covarrubias, Miguel, 327 Cowan, Paul S., 145n3 Crabb, David, 350 Crawford, Vaughn E., 259 Crear una Sociedad Nueva (Tomie Arai, CITYarts Workshop, and LES community), 313 Cross, Richard, 166 Crown Heights Youth Collective, Peace, 309, 309, 314 cultural anthropology: archeology compared to, 327; and attributes of ethnography, 156; and Boas, 56; and expressive culture, 200; rhetorical arguments of, 157; and text/ image relationship, 4 cultural change: and dancing behavior, 239–241; and ethnoarchaeology, 258, 258n4, 261, 267, 268–272, 280 cultural evolution, paradigm of, xi, 246 cultural insiders/outsiders: and collaborative and advocacy research, 5–6, 23–25, 34–43, 50–51, 284–285, 320, 384–385; and ethnoarchaeology, 264–265; and ethnographic film, 152; and fieldwork, 201; and live relics, 287, 290–291; and Malinowski, 53; and meaning, 284; and photo elicitation, 22–23 culture: aesthetic principles ordering everyday life, 231, 231n3, 245n14; and anthropological inquiry, 53; and art history/anthropology relationship, 328; dancing as metaphor of, 235–239, 243, 245; and ethnographic film, 121, 122, 123; and Hollywood fiction, 132; nature of knowledge in, 93, 112; observable forms of, 2; purpose of, 71; significance to those within it, 54; and social power, 97, 104, 107, 110–111, 112; symbols as culturally specific, 124 curators, 35, 42

Curtis, Edward S., In the Land of the War Canoes, 132 Custer, George A., 89 daguerreotypes, 85, 92 Dalí, Salvador, 350 dance, as observable form of culture, 2 dancing behavior: anthropology of, 242–248; bara’ in Yemen, 229, 229, 230, 233–237, 234, 236, 238, 239, 240, 241, 241, 242; belly dance, 238n11, 240, 241; and cultural change, 239–241; and dance historians, 243; dasa’ in Yemen, 231; documentation of, 247–248; early studies of, 244; ethnography of, 201; and field investigation methods, 247; khaliji in Yemen, 240, 241; lahji in Yemen, 240, 241, 242; linguistics of, 244, 247; lu’b in Yemen, 230, 231, 234–235, 237–238, 237, 238n10, 239, 240, 241, 242; as metaphor of culture, 235–239, 243, 245; and motor behavior, 245–246; notation of, 246, 247–248, 249; and phenomenology, 244, 245; raqs in Yemen, 229, 230; semiotic approach to, 244–245 Daniel, Yvonne, 244, 246 decisive moment, still photography techniques, 46 decoding, as interpretation of messages, 124 Deetz, James, 264n11 default readings, and prejudicial frames, 147, 150, 158 DeFrantz, Thomas F., 244, 246 Delvo, Dillon, Page from Everything You Were, Are, and Will Be, 25 denotative meanings, 124 Densmore, Frances, 91 depth of field: and connotative meaning, 124; and film structure, 127, 127 detail level: and analysis of photographs, 20, 20; and photographs as records, 17, 44; still photography techniques, 46 diachronic structure, 130 dialogic, 54, 70 digital technology: advantages/disadvantages of, 47, 49, 112–113, 217; and annotations, 18; archival issues, 48–49, 113; artists’ use of, 320n7; cataloging images, 48; and collaborative and advocacy research, 363, 384; constructed images, 25–26; editing techniques, 169, 371, 372–373; and ethnographic scholarship, 157; implications of, xi, 4–5; new work in, 200; practical uses of, 361; and primacy of images over words, 3; and software applications, 364–384, 364, 364n1; and temporal flow, 142; and video recording, 212–215. See also interactive media; multimedia; and specific software programs Dinwiddle, William, Sky Striking the Earth, Chippewa, from White Earth, Minnesota, wearing a feather duster headdress, 82, 82 dissolves, in film, 126 distance: and field research on Barbary macaques, 207–208, 209, 218; and photographs as records, 17, 44 documentary film: and passive inaction and intimacy, 151–152; and realism, 152–153, 152n17; types of, 132–133. See also ethnographic film documentary photography: and montage

409

technique, 62; photographer as collaborator, 34–43; and social activism, 33–34, 49; training in, 6 Domenech i Montaner, Lluís, 349 Drufovka, Iván, 152 Ducat, Stephen J., 141, 145 Duke, David, 41 Dukkhan, Mohammed al, 261, 262, 263 Duncan, Isadora, 3 Durkheim, Emile, 112, 350–351, 353, 354, 361 DVDs, and communication, 123 Eastman, George, 81 economic anthropology, and myth of race, 144 economics, and murals, 300 Edwards, Elizabeth, 55, 58, 59n9, 112 Egypt: murals of, 299; symbols of, in murals, 316 Eiland, Murray L., Jr., 268n17 Eisenstein, Sergei, 62n11, 125 ejidos, 182–183, 183n2, 188 emic view: as goal of ethnography, 61; and indigenous collaborators, 384; and Malinowski, 53; and montage of photographs, 62, 62–65, 63, 70 emotion: film as affective medium, 118, 119, 123, 128, 150; and film transitions, 126; and hypermasculinity, 145; and interpretation of intimacy, 149–150; photography conveying, 59; and racism, 144 encoding, and making of messages, 124 endogamy, 232 Erikson, Erik, 145 ethics: and collaborative and advocacy research, 6; and ethnographic film, 119, 191; and historical photographs, 92–93; and informed consent, 93n21; and interpretations of intimacy, 150; and multimedia, 158; relationship with subject, 56; and still photography, 49 ethnoarchaeology: and classification, 257, 263, 264n11, 267; and cultural change, 258, 258n4, 261, 267, 268–272, 280; and cultural insiders/outsiders, 264–265; description of, 256; and gender roles, 265–268, 268n17; and language, 263–264; and observation, 257, 257n1, 262, 264; and theoretical constructs, 258, 258n5; utility of, 260n8, 267, 268n17, 280–281; and visual anthropology, 256–258. See also al-Hiba ethnographers and ethnography: and attributes of scholarship, 157; goal of, 53; and montage technique, 68, 69–71; photographs used in, 55, 56–61; properties of photography used in, 61–62; recording “in the field,” ix–x. See also intersubjectivity ethnographic film: attributes of, 153–155, 156, 157; Bateson’s and Mead’s use of, 59n8, 156n24, 244, 327; case studies of, 122, 133– 136; criteria measuring ethnographicness of, 121, 154n19; critical skills in viewing, 122, 123; and dancing behavior, 247–248; and ethics, 119, 191; and ethnoarchaeology, 257–258, 257n3; filmmakers as guests, 191–194; historical place of, 132–133; history of, x, xi; ideology in, 122–123, 129, 132, 135, 136, 137; and indigenous collaborators, 384–385; interpretation of intimate images in, 147; and intimacy, 144–147, 145n3, 146; limitations of intimacy in, 147–153; and long-take shooting, 154–155, 154nn19–20, 155, 158–159, 159, 160, 161, 163–166, 169–170;

410

obligations of filmmakers, 189–191; passive inaction and intimacy, 147, 150–152, 158; as pornographic, 121, 145n4; production methods, 122, 130–132, 153; purposes of, 156; reason overshadowed by intimacy in, 147–149; and self-reflexivity, 130, 134, 152n18, 153–154; strategies for applied media-making, 142; structure of, 122, 124–133; training in, 6; and transcription, 365; transient realist styles and intimacy, 147, 152–153, 152n17, 160; and war, 119, 134–135, 134 ethological research: approach of, 219; equipment for, 211–215, 216, 217, 225; and film/video recording, 206, 207, 210, 211–215, 216, 218, 219, 220–221, 222, 224, 225, 226; and interaction analysis, 225; and long-take shooting, 210; and object manipulation patterns, 225; observer’s role in group, 218–219; orangutan’s interest in camera, 218, 218; and participantobservation, 207; permissions for, 206–209; practical problems of, 215–219, 225–226; and predators, 217–218; and primate behavior, 201; and respectful behavior, 207–209, 219, 225; and still photography, 211–212, 215, 217; in zoo setting, 209–210, 211. See also Barbary macaques EthoVision, 380 etic view: and Brandes, 56; and Malinowski, 53 Eure, Stan, 188, 190 Evans, Walker, 62, 63 Evans-Pritchard, E. E.: on dancing, 244; The Nuer, 131–132 Every Day is Mother’s Day (Anonymous, New York City), 307 expository documentary, 132 expressions: of ethnic identity concepts, 298– 299, 303–311, 316; as observable form of culture, 2 facts, and analysis of photographs, 20 fair use doctrine, 149n11, 151, 151n16 Farm Security Administration, 62 Favel, Floyd, 294 femiphobia, 145 Fernandez, James, 244 fetishes, and still photography, 331–332, 332n1 field investigation methods: and analysis of visual phenomena, xi; and apprenticeships, 297; and collaborative and advocacy research, 376; and dancing behavior, 247; and digital technology, 365; and farmworkers, 187–189; and gifts, 181–182, 188–189, 190, 191, 193–197; and intersubjectivity, 54; and Jenness, 56; and Malinowski, 53–54, 56, 60; and participant-observation, 54, 60, 61; and power differences, 35, 182, 189–194, 196, 197; and scientific method, 201; and still photography, xi, 55, 56–61, 61n10 FileMaker Pro, 378–380, 378n7, 379, 383 film: and emotion, 118, 119, 123, 128, 150; ideology inherent in, 118, 122–123, 129, 132, 135, 136, 137; and mise-en-scène, 66, 156n22; montage technique in, 62n11, 125–126, 125, 126; one-directionality of, 157; as series of signs, 123–124; and social advocacy, 119; structure of, 124–133; synchronous sound recording, x, xi, 128, 132, 152n17, 154, 154nn19–20, 158–159. See also documentary film; ethnographic film Film Festival and Visual Research Conference, 6

film techniques: cuts, 125–126; dissolve, 126; long takes, 154–155, 155, 155nn19–21, 156n22, 158–159, 159, 160, 161, 163–166, 169–170, 210 filters, and connotative meaning, 124 Final Cut Express, 372n4 Final Cut Pro, 364, 371–374, 372n3, 373 First Gulf War, 148n8, 240 Fischer, Michael M. J., 59 Flaherty, Robert J.: and collaborative research, 370; Nanook of the North, 132, 134 Flowerday, Julie: Afzal, 110; cited works, 114; community members (two images), 112; and Hunza, 79; Jamat Khana, 108; Kharum Bat, 103; Mr. Noori Hyatt, 110; Shiah Mosque, 109; Sunni Mosque, 108 focus: and connotative meaning, 124; and film structure, 127, 127, 137, 154n19; and photographs as records, 18 foreground/background, of murals, 313 Fragonard, Jean-Honoré, 355 framing: in film structure, 126–127, 135, 136; and photographs as records, 17; still photography techniques, 46 Frank, Robert, 62 Frazer, James, 354 Freeman, Richard: Alejandro (Ale), 69; Carolina in action, 68; cited works, 75; JPSD preparing to march, Buenos Aires, 68; Mariana, María-José, Mariela (Mari), and Alicia, 69; Melina and Lucho, 68; National Strike (Paro Nacional), 67; preparing to march, Plaza del Congreso, Buenos Aires, 66; on youth activists of Buenos Aires, 61, 65–71, 65n12 Freire, Paulo, 152 French Revolution, and murals, 300 Freud, Sigmund, 354 Gandhi, Mahatma, 300 gang marks, tags and signs, 310–311 Gardner, Alexander, studio portrait of Red Cloud, 88, 88 Gardner, Robert: and aesthetic quality, 58, 59; Dead Birds, 124, 127, 128, 128, 129, 132, 133–135, 134, 156n24; on text/image relationship, 3 Gatling, Richard, 350 Gaudí, Antonio: Casa Batlló, 342, 350; Casa Milá, 334, 342, 343, 349–350; La Sagrada Familia Cathedral, 329, 329, 330–335, 331, 333, 337, 342–343, 346, 347, 349–350, 353, 354; Park Güell, 334–335, 342–343, 343 gaze: direction of, 127; Western gaze, 133, 133n2 Geertz, Clifford, 335, 341, 348 Geertz, Hildred, 328 Gell, Alfred, 245 Gibraltar, landscape in, 216–217, 217 Giddens, Anthony, 144 Gilgit Transport Road (GTR), 98, 100, 101 Gill, De Lancy: Indian photographs of, 85; Jacob Tall Bull, Northern Cheyenne, from Lame Deer, Montana, 84; John Grass, also known as Charging Bear, Blackfoot Teton Sioux, 91, 91; Thadeas Redwater (also called Mayom), Northern Cheyenne, from Lame Deer, Montana, 84 Gilmour, Gina, Love Letter to Lévi-Strauss, 328 Giurchescu, Anca, 244 glass lanternslides, 33, 99, 99n4 global inequalities, 143 global warming, 143 Godard, Jean-Luc, 152n18 God Bless Our Home (mural), 319

Viewpoints

Godmilow, Jill, 151–152 Gonzalez Moreno, Don Candelario: as guestworker, 182–187, 183, 186, 190, 193, 194, 197; Mexican home of, 195–196 Goodyear, Frank, 85 Goya, Francisco, 317 Grass, John, also know as Charging Bear, Blackfoot Teton Sioux, 91, 91 Great Depression, 301 Great Stupa, Sanchi, India, 352, 353 Grimshaw, Anna, 154 Guajiros/as, 307 Güell, Eusebi, 342 Guest, Ann Hutchinson, 248 guestworkers: assignments of, 190; contracts of, 184–185, 192–193, 195–196; ethnographic film of, 188, 189–191; federal programs for, 184–187; fieldwork among farmworkers, 187–189; filmmakers as guests, 191–196; and gifts, 181–182, 188–189, 190, 191, 193–197; Gonzalez Moreno as, 182–187, 183, 186, 190; and meanings of guest, 181, 186–187, 191, 196; Mexican home of, 195–196; and obligations of filmmakers, 189–191, 196–197; recording of buckets, 194; and social power, 182, 186, 189–194, 196, 197 H2-A Guestworker Program, 184–188, 185, 187n4, 193, 196 Handbook of North American Indians, 78, 86 Hansen, Donald P., 259 Harper, Douglas: captions of photographs, 59–60, 65; and communicative properties in photographs, 59, 62; narration in photographs of, 65; photographs as visual redundancies, 55, 57, 57n5, 58; and social activism, 61 Hayden Expedition, 81 Heider, Karl: on ethnographic film, 121, 126, 154, 154nn19–20, 156, 166, 169; on Gardner’s Dead Birds, 134, 156n24; and still photography, 58, 59; and text/image relationship, 3 Heine-Geldern, Robert, 335 Herman, Edward, 150 Hermer, Carol, 118; cited works, 138. See also documentary film; ethnographic film; film; reflexivity; truth; Western gaze Hernández, Alfredo, Plaza Cultural, 307; Puerto Rican Heritage, 319 al-Hiba: and artifact use, 261–262, 267, 276, 280; and artifact value, 275–276; Bedouin people, 255, 259, 260; Beni Hasan people, 255, 260, 271, 271, 272, 276, 280; and broken artifacts’ utility, 278–279; and burial goods, 273–274; and carpet weaving designs, 269–270, 270, 270n20; and construction materials, 280; and cooperation, 265–266; covering boats with bitumen, 278; and cultural change, 258, 258n4, 261, 268–272, 280; and culturally important criteria, 267–268; excavations of, 256, 259–260, 266; and fishing methods, 271–272; garbage pits of, 278; implications of research, 266–280; and Lagash remains, 255, 258–259; and manufacture of artifacts, 261–262, 265–266, 267, 274–276, 280; and material resources for artifacts, 260–261, 274, 275, 280; Mi’dan man setting out food, 262; Mi’dan people, 255, 260, 263, 271–274, 276, 280; and moral tradition, 272–274, 272n23; moral value of crafts, 277–278, 278n24; and mudhifs, 275, 275,

index

279–280; and political organizations, 279; research plan for, 260–261; research problems, 262–264; research process, 261–262; site of, 258–260; social value of crafts, 277; and toys, 272–273, 273; and translators, 263–264; view of village near, 255; and village plans, 279–280; and water buffalo, 271–272, 272n22; weaving shelter, 277; young man making sling, 276 Hieb, Louis, 244–245 Hill, Cynthia: The Guestworker, 182n1, 187, 188– 197; Tobacco Money Feeds My Family, 187 Hillers, John K.: Indian photographs of, 83–84, 85; “The (Paiute) Mother,” 83, 83 Hilton, James, 99 Hinduism, in Java, 334, 335, 337–338, 343, 347, 351, 352, 353 Hine, Lewis: and social activism, 11, 33–34, 49; “Young Cotton Mill Operators (Some so Small They Have to Climb onto the Machine to Make it Work),” 34 Hispanic/Latino groups in New York City: and cultural archetypes, 303–305; ethnic identity concepts expressed by, 298–299, 303–311, 316; ethnic variety in, 302, 302n5, 307–308; history of murals, 299; street murals of, 297–298, 301–311 historical photographs: bias in, 81, 82, 91; and contextual information, 21; and ethics, 92– 93; of Hunza, 99–100, 102, 104; limitations of early equipment, 81–83, 99, 99n4; as primary documents, 92–93 historical photographs of Native Americans: bias of, 91; and body paint, 85, 85; circumstances of, 82–84; discrepancies in ethnographic picture record, 83–85; and manikins, 86–87, 86, 87, 88, 89–90, 89, 90, 91, 92; as means of communication with Anglo policy makers, 85; and Medicine Lodge ceremony, 93; as primary documents, 92; stereographs, 82, 86–87; and studio props, 84–85, 91–92; unrelated artifacts in, 82 Hockings, Paul, 3 Holm, Bill, 298 Holton, Kimberly DaCosta, 244, 246 Hubbard, Jim, 35 Human Support (mural), 311 Hunza: and Burusho people, 98–99, 100; community members, 112; cultural composition of, 109–110; Culture Preservation Society, 102, 103–104, 111; historical photographs of, 99–100, 102, 104; and Islam, 107, 109, 111; location of, 97–98, 98, 101; and Lorimer, 79, 99–100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 104n6; and social power, 97, 104, 107, 110–111 Hyatt, Noori, 110, 110 hypermasculinity, and suppression of intimacy, 145, 145n5, 148n10 HyperResearch, 380, 382–384, 382n8, 383 iconic signs, 124 ideology: and common sense, 123; of film, 118, 122–123, 129, 132, 135, 136, 137; and multimedia, 143; and reception of film, 122–123; and symbolic language, 124 Ikegami, Yoshihikio, 245 images: accessibility of, 34–35; and interrelationships in field, 56; mediation of, 21, 25, 104, 111; narrative of, 55; objective data in, 58, 60; realism in, 303; reality in, 123–124; Sullivan’s critique of, 58; and truth, 3, 4, 58, 62n11. See also text/image

relationship Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, 184 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), 184 Imogiri, Java, 339–340, 340, 341 iMovie, 364, 370–371, 371, 372 Inana (Sumerian goddess), 256 indexical signs, 124 “Indian Chief, Red Cloud” stereograph, 87, 87 Indigenes, 303–304 indigenous voice, and film structure, 129, 132, 134, 136 informants: bias of, 256; and intersubjectivity, 54, 262–263, 263n10; and politics of representation, 5. See also subjects information transmission, diagram of, 221 In Memoriam of Cesar (Anonymous, New York City), 308 InqScribe, 367, 368–370, 369, 380, 382, 383 insiders. See cultural insiders/outsiders interactive documentary, 133 interactive media: application of, 363; and attributes of scholarship, 156–158, 156nn22–24; and collaborative research, 119; and Internet, xiii, 4, 363; and interpretive photography, 257; and interruption technique, 159; obsolescenceresistant attributes of, 162–163, 163n25; and stylistic obsolescence, 160–162 International Committee of the Red Cross, 149 International Visual Sociology Association (IVSA), 6 Internet: and interactive communication, xiii, 4, 363; murals influenced by, 309; for research, 92; and text/image relationship, 3 interpretation: and art history/anthropology relationship, 328–329; decoding as interpretation of messages, 124; of intimacy, 147, 149–150, 158; and photography, 112, 257; stereotypic default interpretations, 148 interruption technique, 159, 166 intersubjectivity: and ethnoarchaeology, 262– 263; and field investigation methods, 54; and Freeman, 69, 69n14; and Harper, 59; and informants, 54, 262–263, 263n10; and photographs, 56; and portraits, 69; and quality of data, 56, 57n6, 65n12 interviews: and analysis of photographs, 19–20. See also photo elicitation intimacy: countering dehumanization, 144; and ethnographic film, 144–147, 145n3, 146; expansion of, 145; and film, 119, 136; interpretations of, 147, 149–150, 158; and interruption technique, 159; limitations of, 147–153; and multimedia, 158, 164; and passive inaction, 147, 150–152, 158; reason overshadowed with, 147–149; reinforcing stereotypes with, 147; and transient realist styles, 147, 152–153, 152n17; virtual intimacy, 145, 145n4; and war, 148, 148n8, 156, 169–170 inventory of images, and analysis of photographs, 19 Iraq War, 147–148, 148n8, 149, 149n11 Islam: and Hunza, 107, 109, 111; and Java, 333– 334, 343–345, 349, 352 Jablonko, Allison, 246 Jacknis, Ira, 55, 56, 58 Jackson, Michael, 245 Jackson, William Henry, 81, 85 Jacobs, Alan, 167n28 Jacob Tall Bull, Northern Cheyenne, 84, 84 Jakobson, Roman, 244

411

Jamat Khana, 108 Japanese macaques, 215–216, 217, 224 Jarvis, J. F., 87 Java: Buddhism in, 334, 335, 336–337, 343, 352, 353; Hinduism in, 334, 335, 337–338, 343, 347, 351, 352, 353; Islam in, 333–334, 343–345, 349, 352 Jenness, Diamond, 56 Jíbaros/as, 306–307, 307, 318 John, Andrew, 84 Jones, Lu Ann, 187 Jonson, Ben, 152n18 judgments, and film structure, 130 Jujol, Josep Maria, 342 Julius II (pope), 302, 318 Jung, Carl, 351, 353 juxtaposition, and interactive media, 162 Kaeppler, Adrienne, 244 Karakoram Highway (KKH), 101 Kauffman, Ross, 35 Kealiinohomoku, Joanne, 244, 246 Kesepuhan Palace, Java, 340–342 Kharum Bat: dynamiting of, 102, 103, 104, 107, 107n7, 110, 111; Flowerday’s photo of, 103; historical photographs of, 97, 102, 104; and photo elicitation, 104; supernatural character of, 102–103, 109; tales of, 105– 107, 109, 110, 111 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 141 Kittay, Eve Feder, 145 Klein, Melanie, 145 Klein, Theodor, xi Knight, Charles R., 300–301, 301n4 Konz, Louly Peacock, 285; Park Güell, 343; La Sagrada Familia Cathedral, 329; La Sagrada Familia Cathedral angel figure, 347; La Sagrada Familia Cathedral cross, 333; La Sagrada Familia Cathedral interior, 331; La Sagrada Familia Cathedral spire, 333; works cited, 357 Kroeber, Alfred, xi, 327, 328, 356 Kurath, Gertrude, 244 Kwakiutl community, 56 Laban, Rudolf, 244, 248 Labanotation, 246, 247–248, 249 Lamberg-Karvolsky, Clifford C., 260n8 Lange, Dorothea, 62 Langenheim brothers, 99n4 language: and ethnoarchaeology, 263–264; Mead and Bateson on, 57; and Microsoft Word, 364; as observable form of culture, 2; symbolic language, 124; written language as symbolic, 124 Lascaux, France, 299 Latin America, murals of, 301 ledger art, 293 Lehner, P. N, 219 Lenin, V., 300 lens options: and film structure, 127, 127, 134, 135, 136, 137, 154n19; still photography techniques, 46 LES community: Crear una Sociedad Nueva, 313; Puerto Rican Heritage, 319 Levine, Suzanne, 23 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 328, 331–332 light/darkness, as pictorial element in murals, 314–315 lighting: and connotative meaning, 124; and ethological film, 214, 216; and film structure, 128; and still photograph techniques, 44, 45 linguistics, 4, 200, 244, 364

412

live relics: and cultural difference, 290; and McLain’s Cold Lake, 287, 291–294; and text/image relationship, 291 Lomax, Alan, 245–246 long-tailed macaques, 216, 217–218, 224 Lorimer, David: and Buri Bun tale, 104–105, 106, 107; Earth Pari West of Nilt, 100; and Hunza, 79, 99–100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 104n6; and Kharam Bat, 102–103, 107; Kharum Bat, 102 lu’b, 230, 231, 234–235, 237–238, 237, 238n10, 239, 240, 241, 242 Lugones, Maria, 147 Maasai Interactive: intimacy in, 146; and intimate ethnographic biography, 166–169; and Maasai ilmurran, 167–169, 167n28; Mama Toreto’s scene, 168–169, 168; reflexive moment from, 154; still photographs in, 166–167, 166–167; transcription of, 382 macaques. See Barbary macaques; Japanese macaques; long-tailed macaques MacDonald, George, 169 MacDougall, David: and collaborative research, 5; Doon School series, 133; Lorang’s Way, 154–155, 155, 159; on role of ethnographic film, 154; and text/image relationship, 3; The Wedding Camels, 133 MacDougall, Judith, Lorang’s Way, 154–155, 155, 159 MacGregor, Francis Cooke, 58 Magdaleanean culture, 299 Magpie Pro, 374–376, 375, 382, 384 Malick, Terence, The Thin Red Line, 148n9 Malinowski, Bronislaw, xi, 53–54, 56, 57, 61 Mandela, Nelson, 300 manikins: buffalo split-horned headdress worn by, 89; clothing and paraphernalia of, 89–90, 90; computer comparison of photographs, 87, 87, 88; in kraton at Yogyakarta, 339; making of, 88, 89; of Red Cloud, 78, 87, 87, 88, 89, 91, 92; stereographs of, 86–87, 86, 87, 91, 92 manual artists, digital/computer artists compared to, 320, 320n7 Mao Tse-Tung, 300 Marcus, George E., 54, 59 Mari, palace of, 299n3 Marshall, John: Death by Myth, 133; The Hunters, 132; Joking Relationship, 132; N!ai, 133 Martinez, Wilton, 124, 148, 152–153, 169 mass/depth, as pictorial element in murals, 315 mass media: analyses of, 141; and copyright law, 149n11, 151n16; critiques of, 142; and ethnographic film, 121; and exoticism, 99; and fair use doctrine, 149n11, 151, 151n16; and Iraq War, 34, 147–148, 148n8; murals influenced by, 309–310, 316; and Native Americans, 88–89, 92; and self-censorship, 148n8, 150; and social activism, 34–35; stereotypes legitimized by, 71 Mattis, James N., 145n5 Mauss, Marcel: on balanced reciprocity, 182; The Gift, 119, 181, 193, 196 Mayan temples, murals of, 299 McCracken, Grant, 39–40 McLain, Kimowan: Cold Lake, 287, 288–289, 290–294; as cultural insider/outsider, 284, 287, 290–291; on live relics, 287, 290, 291– 294; on poetic encounter, 287, 290 McLuhan, Marshall, 163n25 McNamara, Robert S., 150n14

Mead, Margaret: art collection of, 328; and Boas, 58n7; and ethnographic film, 59n8, 156n24, 244, 327; on preparation for anthropology, 327; and still photography, 58–59, 60, 61, 67, 327; and symbols, 354 meaning: and ambiguity of photographs, 61–62; and analysis of photographs, 20, 20; and Barbary macaques’ facial expressions, 206; and cultural insiders/outsiders, 284; of guest, 181, 186–187, 191, 196; and intimate ethnographic media, 158; and juxtaposition of themes, 69; layers of, 293; and live relics, 287; and montage technique, 62, 63, 70; and multimedia, 160; and murals, 298, 311, 313–315, 317–319, 320; and poetic encounter, 290; sensed form as locus of, 328, 329, 332, 334, 337; of symbols, 124 mediation: of academic training, 284; and ethnographic film, 123; of human expressions, xiii; for informants, 5; of king, 347; of mass media, 143; of photographs, 21, 25, 104, 111; of technology and external reality, 297; and tribal law, 233 Meiselas, Susan, 62 Menander, 152n18 Mendoza, Zoila S., 246 Métraux, Rhoda, 141 Metz, Christian, 331–332 Mexican Revolution of 1900, and murals, 300, 301, 315–316 Michelangelo, 302, 318 Microsoft Word, 364–367, 365, 366, 368 Mi’dan people, 260, 272 militarism: countermeasures to, 146, 150, 152; and intimate ethnographic media, 158, 170; and Iraq War, 147–148, 148n8; and suppression of intimacy, 145; syndrome of, 141, 143. See also war Mills, C. Wright, 164 Minh-ha, Trinh, Reassemblage, 133 mise-en-scène, 66–67, 66, 67, 156n22 Mitchell, W. J. T., 3 Moertono, Soemarsaid, 335 Mohammad Nazim Khan (Mir, Tham), 102 Mohr, Jean, 61–63, 62n11, 65, 68–70 montage technique: in film, 62n11, 125–126, 125, 126; in still photography, 11, 62–63, 62–65, 62n11, 65, 67, 68, 69–71 moral consequences, of narrative, 147 Morphy, Howard, 3 Morris, Errol, The Fog of War, 150n14 Moulthrop, Sidney, 88 Movie Maker, 364n1, 370–371 Moyer, Robin, 350 multicultural courses, 265n12 multimedia: and attributes of scholarship, 156–158; and durable scholarship, 160; interruption technique, 159; and intimacy, 158, 164; long-take style, 158–159, 160, 161, 169–170; and Maasai Interactive, 146, 154, 166–169, 166–167, 167n28; and still photographs, 169; and stylistic obsolescence on Web, 160–162; and text/ image relationship, 142, 156; and transient realist styles, 153; users of, 156n22, 170; in visual anthropology, 153–163; Yanomamö Interactive, 163–166, 164, 165, 169 mundane subjects, and photographs as records, 18 murals: ambiguity/metaphor in, 317–319; and anthropology, 298–299; artists’ group names in, 311; characteristics of, 301–320; and CITYarts Workshop, 298n1; and collaboration, 284–285, 304, 320; and

Viewpoints

communication process, 297, 299, 311, 312–313, 316–319; context of, 319–320; cultural archetype themes, 303–305; design of, 311–314; escape themes, 308–309; history of mural making, 299–301, 315, 317–318; imagery of, 303–311; “In Memoriam” theme in, 308; media influence on, 309–310, 316; natural surroundings theme, 305–306, 306, 316; obsolescenceresistant attributes of, 162–163, 163n25; patrons of, 302, 317–318; political and social content of, 298; stock heroines and heroes, 306–308; street mural making, 297; symbols in, 303–304, 315–319; and trick of the eye, 319–320 Murdock, George, 32, 45 museum anthropology, 327 music, as observable form of culture, 2 Muybridge, Eadweard, 118 Naim, Charles, The Kawelka: Ongka’s Big Moka, 126, 126, 127, 133, 135–136, 135 Nakasako, Spencer: AKA: Don Bonus, 24; Kelly Loves Tony, 24 narrative structure, and film structure, 130, 147 National Child Labor Committee (NCLA), 33–34 Native Americans: and cultural insiders/ outsiders, 290; Indianness of, 294; intercultural mechanisms, 291; ledger art, 293; mass media’s representation of, 88–89, 92; storyhides, 292–293; as symbol in street murals, 303–304, 318. See also historical photographs of Native Americans Navajo, Pine Springs project, 24 navigation, and interactive media, 162 Nepal, murals of, 299n3 Ness, Sally Ann, 244, 245 Newman, Arnold, 69 New York City, murals in, 300–319, 306, 307, 308, 309, 313, 319 Nichols, Bill, 121, 132, 133, 157 Niepce de St. Victor, Abel, 99n4 noddy, 126 nonverbal communication, and video recording, 16–17 Nordic Anthropological Film Association, 363 North Carolina, and guestworkers, 184–187, 184, 185 North Carolina Growers Association (NCGA): and ethnographic film of guestworkers, 187, 188, 190; and guestworker contracts, 184–185, 192–193; and North Carolina Legal Services, 187n4, 188, 188n5, 191 North Carolina Legal Services, 187–188, 187n4, 188n5, 191 Nussbaum, Martha, 147 objectivity: and collaborative and advocacy research, 6; and etic view, 53; and language, 57; limitations of, 53n1, 81; and mass media, 150; and science, 53, 59, 60; and still photography, 25, 58, 81; and text/ image relationship, 4 observation: considerations with Barbary macaques, 209–211, 221–222; and ethnoarchaeology, 257, 257n1, 262, 264; observable forms of culture, 2; participantobservation, 54, 60, 61, 207 observational documentary, x, 132–133 Observer (software), 380 Ochsenschlager, Edward, 200, 202; Beni Hasan, 271; cited works, 282; covering boats, 278; making a sling, 276; Mi’dan man, 262; mudhif, 275; two carpets, 270; village near

index

al-Hiba, 255; weaving shelter, 277; woman in courtyard, 274; young boy, 273. See also ethnoarchaeology; al-Hiba Octopz, 376–378, 377, 378n6 Odets, Clifford, 152n18 Omaha delegation of 1852, daguerreotype of, 85 omissions, and film structure, 127 open immersion, and analysis of photographs, 19, 20 Ophuls, Marcel, The Memory of Justice, 150n14 oral history investigations, 23, 41 O’Rourke, Dennis, Cannibal Tours, 125–126, 125, 129, 130, 131, 133, 136, 136, 137 Orozco, José Clemente, 301 Ortiz, Alfonso, 263n10 Oswalt, Wendell H., 257n1 outsiders. See cultural insiders/outsiders

Prager, Karen, 144 Prambanan, Java, 337–338, 338 praxis, 321 prejudicial frames, and default readings, 147, 150, 158 Premier, 372 primate communication systems, 205, 206. See also Barbary macaques primatology, ix, 222, 226 public art: murals, 297; in New York City, 300 Puerto Rican Heritage (Alfredo Hernández, CITYarts Workshop, and LES community), 319 Puig y Cadalfach, Josep, 349

Paradiso Fresco, 299n3 Park Güell, Barcelona, Spain, 334–335, 342–343, 343 participant-observation: and ethological film, 207; and field investigation methods, 54, 60, 61 Pascal, Blaise, 3, 4n1, 351 Paulay, Forrestine, 245–246 Peace (Mary Strong, Mayra Brown, and Crown Heights Youth Collective), 309, 309, 314 Peacock, James: and art history/anthropology relationship, 285; Borobudur, 336; Buddha, 337; “Eye to Ear and Mouth to Hand,” 328; Imogiri, 340; manikins, 339; Prambadan, 338; Rites of Modernization, 328, 332, 350; and still photographs, 328; Yogyakarta princess, 346 performance arts, 200 performative documentary, 133 Pfuts, 102, 105–106, 107 phenomenology, 244, 245 photo elicitation: and analysis of photographs, 19–20, 21; and Kharum Bat, 104; responses to, 21–23, 22 photographs: ambiguity of, 61–62; analysis of, 18–20, 112; and anthropological knowledge, 55; as artifacts, 86–87; bias in, 81, 82, 91, 92; as constructed images, 25–27; and ethnography, 55, 56–61; as records, 13, 17–18, 33, 43–44, 81; as sources of information, 13, 14–15, 16–17, 16, 27. See also historical photographs; still photography physical attitudes, as observable form of culture, 2 pictorial factors, in murals, 313–315 Pigeaud, Theodore, 335 Pine Springs project, 24 Pink, Sarah, 154 placement, of images in murals, 312–313 Plains Indians, 84–87, 90, 292 Plato, 160 Plautus, 152n18 Plaza Cultural (Alfredo Hernandez and CITYarts Workshop), 307 politics of representation: and intentions, 4–5; and manikins of Red Cloud, 89, 92; and subjects as collaborators, 35 Pollock, Griselda, Vision and Difference, 328, 351, 353, 354 post-colonial studies, and myth of race, 144 postmodernism, 54, 59, 133, 337 Pournell, Jennifer, 256 poverty, in United States, 143 Powell, John Wesley, 83, 84 power. See social power

racism: countermeasures to, 145, 146, 150, 152; and guestworker program, 186; ideology of, 132, 132n1; and intimate ethnographic media, 158, 170; and myth of race, 144, 144n2; and stereotypic default interpretations, 148; syndrome of, 141, 142, 143; and war, 144, 145 Radcliffe-Brown, A. R., xi, 244 Raffles, Thomas Stanford, 352 raqs, 229, 230 Rasmussen, Dennis R., 210 Rasmussen, Susan, 244 realism: in art history, 351; and ethnographic film, 121, 122, 123–124, 166; in images, 303; and intimacy, 149; reality and documentary film, 152–153, 152n17 reason, intimacy overshadowing, 147–149 Red Cloud (Sioux warrior-statesman): manikins of, 78, 87, 87, 88, 89, 91, 92; photographs of, 85, 87, 88 reflexivity: and Harper, 59; reflexive documentary, 133; self-reflexivity, 122, 130–131, 134, 152n18, 153–154 Regnault, Félix, x regular intervals, and photographs as records, 18 repetitions, and film structure, 127 representation: and ambiguity/metaphor in murals, 317–319; and anthropological knowledge, 53–55; art history/ anthropology relationship, 327, 328; bias in, 91; distinguishing reality from, 294; knowledge and, 53; politics of, 4–5, 35, 89, 92 respectful behavior: and ethological research, 207–209, 219, 225; and field research, 101–102; and still photography, 11, 35, 36, 37–38 rhetorical qualities: of ethnographic film, 157; of scholarship, 156, 157, 160, 161, 163 Rigby, Peter, 166 right/left placement, and murals, 312–313 Riis, Jacob A.: “Bandit’s Roost,” 32; How the Other Half Lives, 33; and social activism, 11, 33, 34, 49 Rites of Modernization (Peacock), 328 Rivera, Diego, 301, 318 Rivers, W. H. R., xi Robertson-Smith, William, 354 Rockefeller, Nelson, 318 Rockefeller Center, 300, 301 Rockefeller family, 301 Roof, Judith, 265n12 Roosevelt, Theodore, 33 Rouch, Jean: The Lion Hunters, 133; and observational documentary, 132; and text/ image relationship, 3

QuickTime Player, 365–367, 365, 366 QuickTime Pro, 367, 368, 368

413

Ruby, Jay: on anthropological cinema, 121; on self-reflexivity, 122, 130–131, 152n18, 153, 154; on theory, 156 Rushin, Terry, 350 Russian Revolution, and murals, 300 sadism, 145n5 La Sagrada Familia Cathedral, Barcelona, Spain, 329, 329, 330–335, 331, 333, 337, 342–343, 346, 347, 349–350, 353, 354 Salgado, Sebatião, 62 Santería religion, 160–161, 161, 304 Santo carving, 304 Scherer, Joanna, 78; cited works, 95. See also bias; historical photographs; photographs, as records Schieffelin, Edward, 245 scholarship, 156–158, 160 School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), 97, 100, 103 Schrieke, B., 335 science: and objectivity, 53, 59, 60; science/art relationship, 3–4 Scott, James C., 193 Seaman, Gary, 163–166, 164n27 searchability, and interactive media, 162 Seaver, C., Jr., “Indian Chief” stereograph, 87, 87 Second Gulf War, 147–148, 148n8, 149 self-censorship, 150 self-reference, in ethnographic film, 131–132, 134, 136 self-reflexivity: Ruby on, 122, 130–131, 152n18, 153, 154; and transparency of production, 130, 134, 152n18, 153–154 Sellers-Young, Barbara, 246 Semar (clown-god), 334, 336 semiotics, 244 sequences/sets of photographs, and photographs as records, 17, 44 sexism: countermeasures to, 146, 150, 152; and intimate ethnographic media, 158, 170; syndrome of, 141, 142, 143; in war, 145 Shakespeare, William, 152n18 Shapiro, Meyer, 327 shared humanity, and racism, 144 Shay, Anthony, 244, 246 Shiah Mosque, 109 Shooting Back, 35 Siqueiros, David Alfaro, 301 Sites, Kevin, 149–150, 149, 149nn11–12 size, as pictorial factor in murals, 313–314 Sky Striking the Earth, Chippewa, 82, 82 Smillie, Thomas W., Squint Eye, or Tichkematse, Cheyenne, wearing Chief Smoke’s shirt, 91 Smith, Hubert, Living Maya series, 152n18 Smith, Jennie, 350 Sobieszek, Robert, 54, 55, 69 social activism: and digital technology, 363–364; and documentary photography, 33–34, 49; and ethnographic film, 191; and film, 119, 133; and murals, 297–298, 299, 302, 304–305, 313–314, 317, 321; and passivity and intimacy, 150–152, 150n15, 158; and still photography, 71; and Wilder, 11 social anthropology, 327 social change, investigation of, 111 social power: and culture, 97, 104, 107, 110–111, 112; and field investigation methods, 35, 182, 189–194, 196, 197; and guestworkers, 182, 186, 189–194, 196, 197 Society for Visual Anthropology (SVA), 6, 33 sociological imagination, 164 Solutrean culture, 299 Sorenson, Richard, 58

414

Sound Forge, 373n5 Souter, David, 151n16 South African rock art hunting scenes, 299n3 South Asia, map of subcontinent, 101 Southeast Asian communities, video diaries of, 24, 24n5 Southern Oral History Program, 187 space, use of: and mural design, 311–312; as observable form of culture, 2 Spanish heritage, as symbol in street murals, 304, 318–319, 319 spatial context: and analysis of photographs, 59; and ethnographic film, 154; and inventory of photographs, 19; and long-take style, 158, 169; and Mead, 58; and photographs as constructed, 26; and photographs as records, 17 speakers’ identity, and film structure, 129 special effects: and connotative meaning, 124; and film structure, 154n19 speed, and interactive media, 162 Spies, Walter, 327 Squint Eye, or Tichkematse, Cheyenne, wearing Chief Smoke’s shirt, 91, 91 Stadler, Jane, 147 Stanislawski, Michael B., 258n5 statistical information, and analysis of photographs, 19 Steps for the Future series, 133, 133n3 stereographs: historical photographs of Native Americans, 82, 86–87; of manikins, 86–87, 86, 87, 91, 92; production of, 92 stereotypes: and film structure, 130; intimacy reinforcing of, 147; and intimate ethnographic media, 158; mass media legitimizing, 71; in murals, 316; and presumed racial attributes, 147, 148, 148n7 Sterne, Laurence, 152n18 still photography: and archival issues, 48–49; and art history/anthropology relationship, 331–332, 356; Bateson’s and Mead’s use of, 57–59, 60, 67, 327; cataloging images, 48; and communication process, 35, 62, 70–71, 85; and contextual information, 331; equipment for, ix, x, 44, 45, 47–48, 81–83, 99, 99n4, 212, 215, 217; and ethics, 49; and ethnoarchaeology, 258, 261, 265–266; and ethological research, 211–212, 215, 217; examining work, 43–44; and fetishes, 331–332, 332n1; and field investigation methods, xi, 55, 56–61, 61n10; limitations of, 16, 18, 55, 78; and local guides, 39–41; and Maasai Interactive, 166–167, 166–167; and meaning of sensed forms, 329; montage technique in, 11, 62–63, 62–65, 62n11, 65, 67, 68, 69–71; objectivity of, 25, 58, 81; and people’s experience in own terms, 23–25, 35; photographs as records, 17–18, 43–44, 81; portrait techniques, 36–39, 50–51, 69; preexisting images, 21; and respectful behavior, 11, 35, 36, 37–38; in social and cultural research, 10, 13, 13n1, 27; and social interaction, 16, 16; as source of information, 13, 14–15, 16–17, 16, 27; techniques of, 44–46; and text/ image relationship, 11, 14–15. See also documentary photography stopped-frame technology, 257 storage, and interactive media, 162 storyhides, 292–293 Strong, Mary: cited works, 325; on collaboration, 284–285, 320; Mockup of Women of the World, 323; mural photograph of Every Day is Mother’s Day, 307; mural photograph

of In Memoriam of Cesar, 308; mural photograph of mural by Chico, 306; Peace, 309, 309, 314. See also field investigation methods; murals structured analysis: of film, 124–133; of photographs, 19, 20 Stryker, Roy E., 53, 54, 55, 62 Studio portrait of a young Kansa woman wearing trade silver broach and earrings, 85 subjects: copies of photographs for, 37, 47; of historical photographs, 81, 82, 85, 92; mundane subjects, 18; photographer as collaborator with, 34–43, 50–51; as photographers, 5, 23–25, 35; and photographs as constructed, 26; and possibilities of still photography, 13, 16. See also informants; intersubjectivity subtitles: and Final Cut Pro, 373; and iMovie, 370; and InqScribe, 368–370; and QuickTime Pro, 367, 368; and Transana, 382 Sufism, 334, 343, 347 Sullivan, Gerald, 58 Sumer, 255, 256, 258–259 Sunni Mosque, 108 supremacy, syndrome of, 141, 142, 143 suspension of disbelief: and film, 123; and interruption technique, 159 symbolic anthropology, 327, 330 symbolic signs, 124 symbols: and art history/anthropology relationship, 329, 330, 346, 350–351, 354– 355; Cassirer’s definition of, 328; in culture, 1; in murals, 303–304, 315–318; symbolism in film, 124 synchronic structure, 130 Taino Indians, 303, 318–319, 319 Tamisari, Franca, 245 technical choices, in film structure, 125–128 technological developments, and visual anthropology, xi, xiii, 4–5 temporal context: and ethnographic film, 154; as implied, x; and inventory of photographs, 19; and long-take style, 158, 169; and multimedia, 142–143; and photographs as constructed, 26; and photographs as records, 17; and portraits, 50–51. See also time text/image relationship: and ethnography, 55, 58, 59, 60–61, 68, 69–71; and montage technique, 68, 69–71; and multimedia, 142, 156; and murals, 310–312; relative importance of, 112; and still photography, 11, 14–15; and two-pronged method of telling, 291; and visual anthropology, 3 Thadeas Redwater, Northern Cheyenne, 84, 84 Thesiger, Wilfred, 268n18 Thomas, Roy, 291 Thompson, Almon Harris, 84 Thompson, Charles: bracero program, 184; bucket recorded, 194; Chihuahua buses, 185; Don Candelario, 183; Don Candelario harvesting, with bucket (two images), 186; Don Candelario water break, 190; farming background of, 202; growers assign workers, 192–193; The Guestworker, 182, 182n1, 187, 188–197; Len and Saúl, 189; Len Wester, 189; on Mauss, 119; No sean titeres (don’t be puppets), 188; protesters in Durham, North Carolina, 184; workers assigned, 190 Tibet, murals of, 299, 299n3 Tieck, Ludwig, 152n18

Viewpoints

Tierney, Patrick, 163n26 time: and cyclical movement, 352; and digital technology, 142; and dissolves in film, 126; and interruption technique, 159; and McLain’s Cold Lake, 292; past shaping present, 294; and past tense/present tense recording, x; and still photography, x, 331. See also temporal context Tinbergen, Nikolaas, 219 top/bottom placement, and murals, 312 Trance and Dance in Bali (Mead and Bateson), 327 Transana, 367, 370, 380–382, 381, 383, 384 transcription: and InqScribe, 368–370, 369; and Microsoft Word, 364–367, 365, 366; and Quicktime, 365–367, 365, 366; and Transana, 380–382, 381 transitions: in film, 126; and Microsoft Word, 364; and photographs as records, 18 tripods, 44, 45, 213, 216–217 Trobriand Islands, 56 truth: and artifacts, 278; and ethnographic film, 121, 189, 190, 193, 194; and first-person stories, 35; and images, 3, 4, 58, 62n11; and intimacy, 144, 150; and lighting, 44; and politics of representation, 5; of texts, 59, 62n11 turf marks and signs, 310–311 Twain, Mark, Life on the Mississippi, 15 Tylor, Edward, 354 ‘ud, 235 users, of multimedia, 156n22, 170 Utes, 83 van de Velde, Henry, 349 van Hoof, J. A. R. A. M., 220 van Nieuwkerk, Karin, 246 Varisco, Daniel, 231 Vejigantes dancers, 304 Venters, Travis, 350 Vertov, Dziga, 125 vervet monkeys, 218 videmes, 125 video recording: and communication, 123; digital editing, 169; equipment of, xi, 212– 215, 216, 218; and ethological research, 206, 207, 210, 211–215, 216, 218, 219, 220–221, 222, 224, 225, 226; multimedia uses of, 156n24; one-directionality of, 157; and social interaction, 16–17, 16; technological advances in, 212–215; video diaries, 24, 24n5 Vietnam Memorial, 308 Vietnam War, 148n8, 150n14 viewers: and communication process, 4; and decoding, 124; and documentary photography, 35; of ethnographic film, 122–123, 125–133; exposure to images, 34– 35; and historical photographs of Native Americans, 91–92; intimacy interpreted by, 147; and montage technique, 70; and murals, 312–313, 315, 320–321; and photographs as constructed, 26; and poetic encounter, 287, 290; and text/image relationship, 4, 68 violence: and global inequalities, 143; syndrome of, 141, 142 Virgin of Guadalupe, 316 virtual intimacy, 145, 145n4 visual anthropology: and anti-racism, 145, 146; and archeology, 200, 202; art history related to, 327, 328, 355–356; and attributes of ethnographic film, 153–155;

index

and communicative forms, 1–2; and culture wars, 143; and ethnoarchaeology, 256–258; and expressive forms, xiii, 1, 2; machines for documenting visual record, ix–xi; multimedia’s place in, 153–163; and myth of race, 144; organizations of, 6; place within anthropology, 2; and science/art relationship, 3–4; strategies for applied scholarship and media-making, 142; and technological developments, xi, xiii, 4–5; and text/image relationship, 3; training in, 6; and transient realist styles, 153 Visual Anthropology (journal), 6 Visual Anthropology Review, 6 visual data, styles of presentation, x–xi visual effects, in film structure, 125–126 Visual Studies (journal), 6 vocabulary, and film structure, 130 voiceover narration: and expository documentary, 132; and film structure, 128, 134, 135, 136, 163; and long-take style, 159; and transient styles, 152n17 voiceover translation, 152n17 Wakem, Matthew, 40 Wall of Respect for Women (mural), 312 Wang, Jun, 350 war: and bara’ in Yemen, 234, 237, 242; effects on village-based culture, 202; and ethnographic film, 119, 134–135, 134; and gender roles, 268; Hollywood war films, 148n9; intimate images of, 148, 148n8, 156, 169–170; proliferation of, 143; and racism, 144, 145; stereotypic passions evoked in images of, 147; syndrome of, 141. See also militarism Washabaugh, William, 244, 246 Waterman, Richard A., 245 Watson, Patty J., 260n8 Web: stylistic obsolescence on, 160–162. See also interactive media; Internet Weber, Max, 354 Wester, Dot, 197 Wester, Len, 188–190, 189, 191, 193, 194, 197 Wester Farms, 188–189, 193, 195 Western gaze, 133, 133n2 Wey, Francis, 69 Whallon, Robert, 260nn8–9 white supremacy, 141, 142 Wiegman, R., 265n12 Wikipedia, 376 Wilcken, Lois E., 246 Wilder, Laena: action of cartwheel in photograph of landscape, Voronet, Romania, 46; Hamad, Zanzibar, Tanzania, 50; portrait of Aja, Zanzibar, Tanzania, 44; rickshaw driver, New Delhi, India, 45; Seeing Eye to Eye, 41–43, 42; shoes at mosque entrance, Zanzibar, Tanzania, 36; soccer team, Zanzibar, Tanzania, 51; and social activism, 11; Toronto Teens exhibit, 39–40, 40; two portraits of Agnes, 38, 39; young girls dancing, Jaisalmir, India, 37 Wilder, Thornton, 152n18 Williams, Drid, 246, 247–248 Wilson, Warren, 355 Winnemucca, Sarah, 85 Winnogrand, Gary, 62 Wiseman, Frederick, 132 Women of the World mockup (Strong), 323 Wood, Grant, 301 Works Progress Administration (WPA), 301, 315, 316 Worth, Sol, 5, 24, 125

Wrensted, Benedicte, 85 Wright, Terence, 56 written ethnography: forms of, 54; methodology of, 153; skills of, 55. See also text/image relationship Yankton Sioux drum, 89 Yanomamö Interactive, 163–166, 164, 165, 169 Yemen: and Al-Ahjur community, 231–235, 238, 239, 240, 242; bara’ in, 229, 229, 230, 233–237, 234, 236, 238, 239, 240, 241, 241, 242; belly dance in, 238n11, 240, 241; and cultural change, 239–241; dancing as metaphor of culture, 235–239, 248; dasa’ in, 231; and egalitarian ethic, 233, 237, 238; genres of dancing, 233–235; khaliji in, 240, 241; lahji in, 240, 241, 242; lu’b in, 230, 231, 234–235, 237–238, 237, 238n10, 239, 240, 241, 242; and Qaba’il, 231–233, 235; and qabyala, 232–233, 237, 238; raqs in, 229, 230; religious conservatism in, 241–242; and tribal law, 233; unity and diversity in, 242 Yogyakarta, Java, 334, 335, 339, 339, 345, 346 Youngerman, Suzanne, 246 Yup’ik communities, 24 Zeller, Anne: adult female Barbary macaques, 207, 220, 223, 224; adult male Barbary macaques, 204, 208, 224; and Barbary macaques, 200–201; cited works, 227; fearful expression, 225; Gibraltar landscape, 217; orangutan, 218; threat face, 223, 224; What Do Primatologists Do?, 210 Zinacanteco Maya community, 60 Zwick, Edward, Courage Under Fire, 148n9

415