Visual Anthropology

The course starts with introduction to spectrum of visual anthropology. On BA level the emphasis is on uses of film, video and photography in anthropological research and presentation. The research of visual in culture is left mostly for MA level. Beginnings of film and photography for scientific purposes. The ‘forefathers’ of ethnographic film in documentary film. History of different approaches in ethnographic film, their contextualisation and meaning for anthropology: Documentation of technologies and cultural praxis for archive purposes; analysis of social interaction; looking for emic perspective; observational and participatory approaches; film as provocation, cinéma vérité and ciné-trans; biographic approaches; subjective voices in complex constructions. Critique of naive realism and romantisation. Reflexive approach to position of filmmaker and of possibilities of representation of others. Ethics. Political dimensions and new uses of production and representation of ethnographic films, engaged potential of ethnographic film. Consideration of relationship of ethnographic and documentary film, aesthetics. The question of the viewer. Photography and film as techniques for documentation and archive uses. Ethnographic film and photography as research techniques; their methodological approaches and problems. Photography in function of elicitation. Photography and participatory methods. Potentials of photostory. Research of visual in culture (material culture, rituals, visual media, visual arts, visual popular culture, new media) are briefly considered. The question of actors and context in the meaning of the visual. Ethnographic film and visual research in Slovenia. Institutions and festivals of ethnographic film around the world.