FROM VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY TO THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE VISUAL
FROM VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY TO THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE VISUAL

Summary/Abstract: Visual Anthropology is the area of anthropology that looks at the visual materials that cultures produce such as art, video and other visual objects as well as the documentation of culture through visual forms like film and photography. Because of this split of focus between visual representations of films, photographs, and visual productions by art, material culture, architecture, performance, etc., the definition of what visual anthropologists do has led to confusion within the field itself as it continues to struggle to find an identity that is defined by a single theory or method. Yet as visual signifiers become more prominent in media-saturated cultures, Visual Anthropology can provide the framework within which to explore cultural products and processes. Recent research in visual anthropology examines the idea that people learn how to “see” the world in specific ways. For example, people learn to understand that a map, which is not the world, is a scientific representation of space that they learn to understand as the world. This approach incorporates the ideas that seeing is cultural and that understanding images is actively constructive to an understanding of the world, and components within it such as reality, science and knowledge.

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