Anthropology and Ethnographic Films

a travel shot of Visual Anthropology’s literary setting

Abstract

Through an exam ination o f the m ajor international publications on the relatio n betw een anthropology and ethnographic film, the article sketches the setting in w hich audiovisual anthropology was constructed. This (re)reading of studies that endeavor to relate visual and sound material to ethnographic writings and, primarily, to anthropological theory points to m ethodological concerns regarding application o f the tool to anthropological research. R e­sembling a travel shot, this review o f the literature begins in the late nineteenth century, with the first theoretical-methodological reflections on the use of moving images in anthropologi­cal research. It continues through the twentieth century, identifying research ers and their texts and images, and closes w ith the last productions and images o f the century just ended.