Customer Reviews

Film As Ethnography

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This is an edited volume with chapters by a number of different authors. There are a number of good articles in this book which are of use to those interested in the topic.
The topics covered in various chapters are (directly quoted from table of contents):
Part 1: "Authority, representation and anthropological knowledge"
Part 2: "Image, audience and aesthetics"
Part 3: "Politics, ethics and indigenous imagery"
Part 4: "Television and new technologies"
Overall a nice mixture of material, some on general theoretical concerns, some with specific ethnographic examples, and even some more technical discussion.

Visual Anthropology is a fast growing discipline within the domain of social sciences. Since the historical seminal book "Principles of Visual Anthropology" edited by Hockings in mid seventies, more and more writings in this area came to light to explain and put to discussion some theories and practices that both anthropologists and filmmakers did in aproaching various ethnic groups arround the world. "Film as Ethnography" is perhaps the best book ever published as a group of collected papers in this area. His editors, P. I. Crawford and D. Turton made available not only to the specialist but also to the general reader interested in non-ficcion film or ethnography, a range of different approaches to the matter from the practical matters to the more theoretical thinking. In short: a must to read and consult. A landmark to remember.