Exactitudes

Here are three images from photographer Ari Versluis and stylist Ellie Uyttenbroek's project Exactitudes, which documents the way social cohesion functions even as we try to establish indivudual identities. The artists photograph real people wearing their own clothes, and have photographed in cities all over the world. For me this was a convenient way to visualize montage--taken alone, the photos are indivual cells, but together they state something greater about society. The work is also an interesting ethnography in it's own right, seemingly continuing the project of August Sander to chronicle all sectors of society.
Check out Exactitudes

Boys of Baraka Link, for real this time.

http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2006/boysofbaraka/

Argentines: The People Who Wait In Lines

An excerpt from “Argentines: The People Waiting In Lines,” by Natalie Kuhl:

On the 15th of August I returned from six months of fieldwork in Cordoba, Argentina. During my stay in my encampment, I was forced to adjust to numerous cultural factors, many of which conflicted with the mores and codes with which I’d been raised! (OMG! Can you believe that??) For example, it was not advisable to throw used toilet tissue into the commode; the trash receptacle located just to the side of the toilet was a better bet, unless you are fond of dealing with wastewater. As a child, I would watch excitedly from the window as my mother lied to Jehovah’s Witnesses on the doorstep, “No, sorry, we’re Jewish!” and shut the door in their faces. So the unannounced friend on the doorstep in Argentina always took me by surprise; didn’t they know I was enjoying alone time?
Despite these challenges to my cultural norms, the reader will be happy to know that, in the end, the natives of Argentina turned out to be a jovial and welcoming bunch! Even though I came from another place, the Argentines were quick to show me their ways and even invited me to participate in ritual inebriation on many occasions. Towards the middle of my stay, the village stylist, called a “hairdresser,” adorned me with the traditional Argentine female hair decoration, known commonly in North America as the “mullet.” After this transformative ceremony, most of my informants barely recognized me as the Yankee anthropologist of before; now I was “Nati,” a quasi-Argentine and capable of “passing” in their society. Success!

It’s true that my months in Argentina were not spent doing anthropological fieldwork. Or with indigenous peoples. Or in the Amazonian jungle. Or recording genealogical data on the ancestors of my informant-friends.
However, it occurred to me while reading the first chapter to Chagnon’s Yanomamo: The Fierce People, that you don’t need to be a trained anthropologist to know things ain’t gonna be the same way there as they are here, wherever that “here” and “there” might be. Chagnon’s naiveté, writing “I had visions of entering the village and seeing 125 social facts running about calling each other kinship terms and sharing food, each waiting and anxious to have me collect his genealogy,” is imbecilic, and frankly made me concerned for anthropology as a discipline (10). Chagnon is famous and considered an expert in his field; if this is the field workers’ attitude, then we have far larger things to worry about than whether or not Chagnon is getting to eat his honey and saltines in peace.
To be fair, we must contextualize Chagnon and Fierce People. Chagnon was one of the first to write on the Yanomamo, and his ethnography comes well enough before many of the influential anti-oppression movements of the late 60’s and 70’s that changed our cultural standpoint on difference. But I don’t want to cut him too much slack; by 1968, it was post-colonial world, and we can expect more from someone in such a privileged, academic location than musings on the disappoints of “discovering that primitive man is not always as noble as you originally thought” (8).
I don’t doubt that Chagnon learned much about the Yanomamo, and it’s likely that anyone who sustained so many years of research on a single subject would come to have a great passion, appreciation, and respect for the subject (i.e. people) he studied. [It would be interesting to hear Chagnon speak or read more of his work.] But this first chapter is a terrific overview of the many problematics of the anthropological project in general. We learn that even the expert, who spends the time and talks the talk, can still be (or at least come off as) an ethnocentric buffoon.
What concerns me is the qualification of further anthropological study; the other approaches. Jacques Lizot’s work with the Yanomamo is supposedly more objective and his voice is not central to the accounts. On the other hand, Lizot was accused of giving goods in exchange for sexual favors from Yanomamo boys in John Tierney’s book Darkness in El Dorado . So we reach this pivotal, critical question: Is it really at all possible to be an anthropologist not implicated in some way of objectifying those you are studying?
Maybe we can explore this question through ethnographic film, through visual anthropology. Or maybe we can just admit that no, it’s not at all possible to make an objective portrait of a culture or people that is not one’s own, and more forward with this knowledge. I look forward to viewing more examples of specifically ethnographic film that I feel more positive about; that make me believe film makers have a good intention at heart when they expose a subject to a large viewing audience. One example I can think of that could be considered “ethnographic” is Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s 2006 documentary about black youth in inner-city Baltimore, “The Boys of Baraka.” I felt sympathetic to the kids featured in this movie. Check it out: http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2006/boysofbaraka/

wen chieh.

Here is one of my roomates, Wen Chieh. She has been working on a photo project about hiding, which I think is also autobiographical. I think sometimes she feels alone because she lives very far from Taipei and the people she loves. I am just beginning to know her; I like her because she is mysterious.

M.I.A. Boyz

Here she does it again. This time her dancing crew hails from Kingston, Jamaica. More thoughts?

MIA BIRDFLU

Here is one of M.I.A.'s latest videos, in which people from an Indian village dance around to her song "Bird Flu" while wearing M.I.A. spirit gear and a splattering of other Williamsburg-style acessories. Like the Mead video, we have folks dancing and prancing. But what justifies M.I.A.'s use of these people in her video? Why don't we find it problematic? Or de we? M.I.A. is not an anthropologist but I think the ethnographic value of this clip is very high. Profit/access/visibility/and the concept of participant-observer are some ideas that come to mind while watching this clip.

What Are We Looking For?

Clifford, "On Ethnographic Authority"
Grimshaw, Introduction "The Ethnographer's Eye"
David and Judith McDougall, "Notes on Turkana Marriage"
Mead/Bateson, "Trance and Dance in Bali"


For me, the single most evident difference between the McDougall and Mead/Bateson pieces is the way authority is constructed. Clifford lies out four major “modes” of authority as experiential, interpretive, dialogical, and polyphonic. These different modes correspond to particular moments in the development of visual anthropology, and today’s ethnographers have the opportunity to utilize all four, or combinations thereof. Clifford writes, “none is obsolete, non pure; there is room for invention within each paradigm” (54). I find this exemplified in both the McDougalls’ and Mead/Bateson’s use of authoritative modes.

The mythology around Margaret Mead positions her as prototypical fieldworker-ethnographer who justifies her claims based on her experience and “feel” for the culture in question. However this seems to contrast with Mead’s role in “Trance and Dance in Bali.” Interestingly, the film we do not recognize her as an active participant-observer; instead we hear her voice-over narration and feel her as the omniscient, unseen expert. This disconnect actually lead me to question her authority. I could easily disassociate her voice from the visual footage. Therefore I was able to invest more in my own interpretations of what I saw. Because it was only Mead clarifying the performance, I began to think, “What is she not telling me, what is being omitted, and what is the value of the images Mead has chosen to highlight?” Overall, “Dance and Trance in Bali” lacks a contextual background; it left me feeling that I had not learned much at all.

The McDougall’s excerpt, on the other hand, utilizes more forms of authority, and this I believe constructs a richer and more in-depth understanding of the subject matter. We hear and see the filmmakers’ field notes, giving us insight into their motives. We learn that the filmmakers are living in a certain area because it’s near to the Turkana people that they know. This concept of knowing, or being personally familiar with the subjects of the film, seems to positions the McDougalls as “participant-observers,” or at least gets us closer to defining this slippery concept. They construct a more multi-layered sense of authority, contrasting with Mead’ “Dance and Trance.”

For example, the camera, although sometimes fixed on a talking Turkana person, is also given over to the people being filmed, and we “see” for a few moments “through their eyes.” Clifford, referencing Malinowski’s introduction to Argonauts of the Western Pacific, identifies “the dominant mode of modern fieldwork authority” sigaled as “You are there…because I was there” (22). So even this little camera play is enticing, gives the subjects agency; shortens the distance between those being filmed, and those watching. It says instead, “I, who you are seeing, am here.”


We also get many shots of the physical location and surroundings of the Turkana camp. This helps us contextualize. Many shots in this excerpt go without narration, and this seems to invite a sort of interpretive authority, on our own accord. Without explanation, we are forced to interpret for ourselves. All of the different ways of presenting information gives the viewer a selection of patches, which we are then able to put together and deduce meaning.

The differences between the construction of authority in these excerpts is absolutely linked to the degree of technological development in the moment each film was made. With omni-directional mics, or even just sturdier and more plentiful equipment, “Trance and Dance in Bali” might have taken on a different form. Current filmmakers have the ability to generate content from multiple voices, and multiple authors. I am curious to view more films, to see if multiple authorship does help to make a more satisfying ethnographic film.

As a viewer, I have to ask myself, “What am I looking for?” Why does the McDougall’s style feeling more appealing, more truthful? Grimshaw quotes Herbert Read, noting, “We see what we want to see, and what we want to see is determined, not by the inevitable law of optics or even (as may be the case in wild animals) by an instinct for survival, but by the desire to discover or construct a credible world” (8). I wonder if it’s even possible to see with an innocent eye.

Testing

yo this is my first blog.
radical.