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Relation between culture and technology in anthropology
Visual anthropology is important
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Visual anthropology plausibly carries on from the idea that culture is noticeable through perceptible characters entrenched in ceremonies, gestures, artifacts and rituals positioned in artificial and natural settings. Culture is visualized of as bringing out itself in scripts with intrigues connecting actors and actresses with props, lines, settings and costumes. The cultural nature is the computation of the state of affairs in which individuals take part (Ruby, 2000). If an individual can observe culture, then researchers ought to have the ability to make use of audiovisual technologies to document it as data open to presentation and analysis. Even though the basis of visual anthropology are to be instituted historically in a positivist theory that a purpose certainty is apparent, majority of contemporary culture philosophers put emphasis on the socially built nature of cultural realism and the faltering nature of our acceptance of any culture (Ruby, 1996).
There is an evident relationship linking the assumption that culture is independently apparent and the popular conviction in the transparency, neutrality, and impartiality of audiovisual technologies. As of a positivist point of view, reality can be caught on film devoid of the constraints of human perception. Pictures offer an impeccable witness and resource of extremely consistent data. Given those suppositions, it is rational that the moment the technologies were accessible, anthropologists tried to generate with the camera the kind of goal research data they could store in documentations and availed for learning by generations to come (Ruby, 2000).
Visual anthropology has in no way been totally integrated into the conventional of anthropology. It is underestimated by a few...
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...ter: A Photographic Analysis. Their works contained 759 photographs that portrayed skills children had learned in the Balinese culture. Among their different works, they also recorded performances of the Balinese ceremonial kris dances. Overall the different works they recorded with their visual films had a variety of rituals and skills that these cultures practiced. Each Anthropologist had a distinct way and purpose for doing their studies of the different cultures.
Works Cited
Ruby, J. (2000). Picturing culture: Explorations of film & anthropology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ruby, J. (1996). Visual Anthropology. Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology, vol. 4, pp.1345-1351
Heider, Karl G. Ethnographic Film. Austin: University of Texas, 2006.
Grimshaw, Anna. "The Ethnographer's Eye: Ways of Seeing in Anthropology. Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Jacquelyin Kilpatrick , Celluloid Indians. Native Americans and Film. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1999
Bordwell David and Thompson, Kristen. Film Art: An Introduction. 8th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008.
...and to view cultures differently in general. Some Anthropologists with postmodernist ideologies view cultures as "messy text", which is "the most complex and interesting form of experimentation with ethnographic writing now being produced" (Marcus, 187). The influence of Postmodernism also lead to the emergence of reflexivity. Various styles of reflexivity now exist, such as feminist, sociological, and anthropological. Reflexivity contributes to "messy text," because it identifies many cultural aspects ethnographers cannot explain nor understand and thus cannot be fitted, neatly into structure. Reflexivity is also influencing ethnographers to develop new approaches in studying culture. As we have reviewed in several ethnographies this semester, we see that personal reflections of the anthropologists is just as significant to fieldwork as the 'outsider' descriptions.
Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge, 14th Edition William A. Havilland; Harald E. L. Prins; Bunny McBride; Dana Walrath Published by Wadsworth, Cengage Learning (2014)
Schultz, Emily A. & Lavenda, Robert H. 2005, Cultural Anthropology, 6th edn, Oxford University Press, New York, Chapter 3: Fieldwork.
I emphasize here the collusion between all parties involved, for it is important to recognize the ways in which informmants are also actors and agents, and that the negotiation of reality that takes place in the doing of ethnography involves complex and shifting relations of power in which the ethnographrapher acts and is also acted upon. (Kondo 75)
Spradley, James P., and David W. McCurdy. "Ethnography and Culture." Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology. New York: Longman, 1997. 7-14. Print.
In her book Around the World in 30 Years Barbara Gallatin Anderson presents a convincing and precise representation to the many aspects that go into the being a cultural anthropologist. Her visually impacting story follows her around the world throughout her personal career. The attention to detail and thorough explanations make the reader feel as though they too are an anthropologist.
In the article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Laura Mulvey discusses the relationships amongst psychoanalysis (primarily Freudian theory), cinema (as she observed it in the mid 1970s), and the symbolism of the female body. Taking some of her statements and ideas slightly out of their context, it is interesting to compare her thoughts to the continuum of oral-print-image cultures.
Bordwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction. 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997.
Apart from helping improve the lives of other people, anthropologists try to use knowledge shape anthropology’s main content. John van Willigen says that, “much authentic anthropological knowledge is scattered throughout journal from a broad array of disciplines, and in the fugitive literature of technical and contract reports,” and because of that anthropological knowledge has little effect on shaping anthropology’s main content which is the opposite of what should be done (Rylko-Bauer, Singer and Willigen 2006). Knowledge should be incorporated into the main contents which should be an utmost importance for “academically based applied anthropologists” (Rylko-Bauer, Singer and Willigen 2006). Applied anthropologists also speak of a “theory of practice” whereby meaning a group of standards that forebode or clarify how information produced by applied studies is rendered into action which “can refer to factors” that directed effectual application of such knowledge either in policy growth, interference, or decision making(Rylko-Bauer, Singer and Willigen
Welsch, Robert L, and Kirk M Endicott. “Should Cultural Anthropology Model itself on the Natural Science.” Taking sides clashing views on controversial issues in cultural anthropology. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.
Schultz, E.A. & Lavenda, R.H. Cultural Anthropology: A Perspective on the Human Condition, Sixth Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005.
Pink, S. (2006). Engaging the Visual: An Introduction. In, Pink, S., The Future of Visual Anthropology: Engaging the Senses. Routledge: New York, pp. 3-20.
The idea of using an holistic approach in Anthropology is not only demonstrated throughout these works, but the downfalls of failing to use holism is shown as well. When discussing perspective, the standpoint of the individual and the relationship he or she has with the subject or area of study is of vital importance. Any pre-conceived notions one has entering into a study can affect the process and validity of gathering information in the form of facts. In the tale, the men were unable to gather reliable information because they had already made up their minds about what the elephant looked and acted like. Anderson, however, was able to observe from both a participant standpoint and an onlookers point of view when collecting information regarding her various cultures of study. Ones culture provides a frame of reference that places limitations on the way people of varying cultures look at one another (Tversky and Kahneman). If one has only knowledge and experience of their native culture, they will have difficulty comprehending the world around them