| Raw Histories: Photographs, Anthropology and Museums Contributor(s): Edwards, Elizabeth (Author) |
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ISBN: 1859734928 ISBN-13: 9781859734926 Publisher: Routledge OUR PRICE: $171.00 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: May 2001 Annotation: 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. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Anthropology - General - Art | Museum Studies - Photography | History |
| Dewey: 306.47 |
| Lexile Measure: 1530 |
| Series: Materializing Culture |
| Physical Information: 0.72" H x 6.38" W x 9.52" (1.35 lbs) 284 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: 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. |
Contributor Bio(s): Gilroy, Paul: - Paul Gilroy is at the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics.Miller, Daniel: - Daniel Miller Professor of Anthropology, University College London. Recent books include "A Theory of Shopping," "The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach" (with Don Slater) and Ed. "Car Cultures."Edwards, Elizabeth: - Professor Elizabeth Edwards is Research Professor of Photographic History and Director of the Photographic History Research Centre. A visual and historical anthropologist, she has worked extensively on the relationships between photography, anthropology and history in cross-cultural environments and on the social practices of photography. Her monographs and edited works include Anthropology and Photography (1992), Raw Histories (2001), Photographs Objects Histories (2004), Sensible Objects (2006), Photography, Anthropology and History: Expanding the Frame (2009) and most recently The Camera as Historian: Amateur Photographers and Historical Imagination 1885-1918, (2012). She has published over 70 essays in journals and exhibition catalogues over the years and was recently featured in 50 Key Writers on Photography (2013). She is on the board of major journals in the field including Visual Studies and History of Photography. She recently completed a major HERA/European-funded project on the role of the photographic legacy of the colonial past in contemporary Europe (http//: photoclec.dmu.ac.uk). |