Raw Histories

Photographs, Anthropology and Museums

Elizabeth Edwards (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

284 Seiten

2001
Berg Publishers (Verlag)
978-1-85973-497-1 (ISBN)

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Photographs have had an integral and complex role in many anthropological contexts, from fieldwork to museum exhibitions. This book explores how approaching anthropological photographs as 'history' can offer both theoretical and empirical insights into these roles. Photographs are thought to make problematic history because of their ambiguity and 'rawness'. In short, they have too many meanings. The author refutes this prejudice by exploring, through a series of case studies, precisely the potential of this raw quality to open up new perspectives. Taking the nature of photography as her starting point, the author argues that photographs are not merely pictures of things but are part of a dynamic and fluid historical dialogue, which is active not only in the creation of the photograph but in its subsequent social biography in archive and museum spaces, past and present. In this context, the book challenges any uniform view of anthropological photography and its resulting archives. Drawing on a variety of examples, largely from the Pacific, the book demonstrates how close readings of photographs reveal not only western agendas, but also many layers of differing historical and cross-cultural experiences. That is, photographs can 'spring leaks' to show an alternative viewpoint. These themes are developed further by examining the dynamics of photographs and issues around them as used by contemporary artists and curators and presented to an increasingly varied public. This book convincingly demonstrates photographs' potential to articulate histories other than those of their immediate appearances, a potential that can no longer be neglected by scholars and institutions.

Elizabeth Edwards is Professor and Senior Research Fellow, University of the Arts London.

Introduction: Observations from the Coal-Face Part I: Notes from the Archive 2 Exchanging Photographs, Making Archives 3 Photographing Objects Part II: Historical Inscriptions 4 Visualising History: Diamond Jenness's Photographs of the D'Entrecasteaux Islands, Massim, 1912, 5 Time and Space on the Quarter Deck: Two Samoan Photographs by Captain W. Acland 6 Professor Huxley's 'Well-considered Plan' 7 Re-enactment, Salvage Ethnography and Photography in the Torres Strait Part III: Reworkings 8 Rethinking Photography in the Ethnographic Museum 9 ]orma Puranen -Imaginary Homecoming-A Study in Re-engagement

Erscheint lt. Verlag	1.5.2001
Reihe/Serie	Materializing Culture
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Gewicht	453 g
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Fotokunst
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Hilfswissenschaften
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	1-85973-497-9 / 1859734979
ISBN-13	978-1-85973-497-1 / 9781859734971
Zustand	Neuware