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JUST PUBLISHED
APPROPRIATING IMAGES: THE SEMIOTICS OF VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY
By Keyan G Tomaselli
Arhus: Intervention Press, November 1996, 332pp.
Photographs, Index.
ISBN 87-89825-05-5
EUROPEAN SALES: Intervention Press, Castenschioldsvej 7, DK-
8280 Hojbjerg, Denmark. Price: DKK: 180.00 / stlg: 19.00 /
US$: 29.00
Fax: + 45-86-275-133. Phone: +44-86-272-333. E-mail:
interven@inet.uni-c.dk
NORTH AMERICA: Smyrna Press, Box 021803-GPO, Brooklyn, NY
11202, USA. FAX: 201-864-6434. About $US35.
SOUTH AFRICA: Centre for Cultural and Media Studies,
University of Natal, Durban 4041. About R170.
E-mail: Govends@mtb.und.ac.za. Fax: + 27-31-260-1519
Prof David Turton, Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology saus
of the book:
APPROPRIATING IMAGES is a notable achievement for two main
reasons. Firstly, by using a single interpretive patradigm -
derived from semiotics - to discuss a wide variety of
documentary films - Keyan Tomaselli has been able to give an
integrated and coherent account of some of the issues which
have most bedevilled the discussion of film by visual
anthropologists, such as the relationship between the written
and filmed ethnography, objectivity and reflectivity and the
unequal power relation between film makers and subjects.
Secondly, APPROPRIATING IMAGES is informed throughout by an
explicit concern with the political context within which
anthropologusts and ethnographic film-makers do their work.
This is where Tomaselli's long personal edngagement against
apartheid has been a huge advantage to him: it enables him to
ask the kind of questions - awkward and deeply disconcerying -
which can be all too easily brushed aside by film-makers and
academics who have not had to face up to the same choices and
dillemas in their professional and everyday lives. The result
is a book which will not only serve as a lively and
provocative introduction for students but which also goes far
beyond the dispensing of anecdotal wisdom, the excessive
preoccupation with production strategies and the self-absrbed
recounting of personal histories ...
David Turton
Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology
University of Manchester
(From the flyleaf)
--------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
Forword - Dick Chalfen, Centre for Visual Anthropology, Temple
University
Preface: An autobiographical note
Introduction
The Visual Story - a world apart?
A Brief History of Ethnographic Film Making: the pioneers
Looking at Africa: the dark `Other'
Looking at the Rest of the World
Visual Anthropology: explaining ethnographic film in print
Film Theory: an anthropological orphan
Visual Sociology: the homeless orphan
Semiotics: a new synthesising lens
Chapter 1
What is Semiotics?
Defusing the minefield of terms
Making sense: back to basics
Elements of Semiotics
Reality: the struggle for the sign
Documentary as a Code
Chapter 2
Realism, Myth and Reception
Form, Coding and Style
How Real is Realism?
Phaneroscopy: 'the wide angle lens'
Slots, Phaneroscopy and Thick Description
The Concept of Myth
Myth and Media
Social Propaganda, Political Propaganda
Reception: propaganda vs information
Political Intertexts
Ritual: rearticulating ontologies
Phanerons, Monsters and Sudden Death
Chapter 3
The 'Other in Film:
Tribes and Tribalism
Academic Myths and Racism
Visual Imperialism
Social Science as Myth
The Myths of `Tribe' and `Tribalism': misunderstanding
African societies
Adventures into the past
Tribal Connotations: violence, savagery
`Tribe' as Tourist-speak
Chapter 4
Power, Exploitation and Anthropological Responsibility
The Ethical Conundrum
Showcasing Anthropology
Exploiting `Primitives' and `Ex-Primitives': copyright,
ownership, audiences
Political Responsibility
Reassessment of Visual Anthropology
Chapter 5
Signposting Semiotics in Studying the Other
Meta-Discipline
The Significant Agenda: the grounding of the sciences of
signs
The Wood and the Trees: semiology
The Wood, the Trees and the Timber: semiotics
Outline and Division of Interpretants: 'the cultural
connection'
Interpretants: how we make sense of signs
Producing Africa: the context of semiotics
Recovering Contexts
Combining Lexicons
Chapter 6
Trends in Visual Anthropology
Documentary, Ethnography and 'the Impression of Reality'
DOCUMENTARY AND THE IMPRESSION OF REALITY
How Real is Realism?
Naturalism
Distinguishing Between Ethnographic Film and Documentary
Technology: encoding and reception
Encoding Reality
Institutional Considerations
Anthropological Knowledge and Documentary Film
The Pluralist View
Diaries/Notebooks/Descriptive
Observational/Descriptive
Cinema Verite
Participatory/Shared Anthropology
Didactic
Processual
Character narration
Conceptual/narration
Testimonial
Seasonal Cycles
Film Maker as Griot
Subject-generated or Indigenous Media
Sociotherapy
Documentation Modality
Explanatory Mode
Explanation Rejected
Context Enrichment
Experience/Theoretical Understandings
The Exclusivist View
What Constitutes a Community?
Ethnographic Film and Surreality
The Scientific Unthinkable
Chapter 7
Filmic Ethnography Versus the Pluralist View
A COMPOSITE APPROACH
Integration off Form, Process and Content in Ethnographic Film
Ethnographic Film and Production Principles
Holism
Patience
Cine Trance
The Ethnographic Presence
The Ethnographic Present
Film Technique and Interpretations of Truth
Participant Observation, Pertinent Distance, Space and
Interaction
Reflexivity: admitting assumptions
Return to Basics I: re-examining reflexivity
Return to Basics II: re-examining ethnographic events
Editing as Imposition
Films of Cultures
The `Us' `Them' Dichotomy: Where to We draw the line around
Them?
Purpose
Definitions of Semiotics of Visual Anthropology and
Ethnographic Film
Chapter 8
Case Studies
Conventional Documentary
Maids and Madams - Servants of Apartheid (With Ruth Teer-
Tomaselli)
Appropriating Ethnographic Film Techniques
Classified People - Legislating Race (With Maureen Eke)
Comparative Description
Girls Apart - Encoding Difference
Chapter 9
Towards Ethical Film Making and Crew-Subject Interactions
Engagement With Subject-Communities: Relocating the Scholar
How to ensure Accountability of Crews/Facilitators of Subject-
Communities?
Bibliography
Index
Distributed in Europe by: Intervention Press,
Castenschioldsvej 7, DK-8270 Hojbjerg, Denmark, Tel.: +45
86272333, Fax: +45 86 275133, E-mail:interven@inet.uni-c.dk
Distributed in North America by: Smyrna Press, Box 1151, Union
City, NJ 07087, U.S.A. Fax: +201 864 6434
Distributed in South Africa by: The Centre for Cultural and
Media Studies, University of Natal, Durban 4041, South Africa,
Fax: +27-(0)31-260-1519, E-mail: Govends@mtb.und.ac.za
Murdoch University CWIS
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HTML last modified: 23 December 1996
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