Critical Remarks on Visual Anthropology

Barbara Keifenheim

Abstract

Keifenheim takes a sensible and critical look on contemporary visual anthropology as a separate discipline and a sub-discipline of general anthropology. She obviously appreciates its individual possibilities connected with audio-visual recording instruments (filmed documentation has no limitations of written documentation), but accuses it of persistently exploring outdated subjects and of avoiding more modern challenges. The issue of the filmer/filmed relation also poses a problem - visual anthropology continues to rely on the equally privileged and distanced observer-expert whose physical presence is the guarantee of the authenticity of transferred content. According to Keifenheim, visual anthropology neither collaborates with general anthropology nor addresses the need for a new research perspective. If anthropological science is to meet the requirements of our time, it has to take into account such phenomena as deterritorialization of culture, community decentralization, polycentric networks, translocation and transnationality, etc. But these issues are hardly existent in visual anthropology. Keifenheim tries to identify the gaps of the science and their consequences. In the end, she tries to defend the science and lists the advantages that - with a more progressive approach - may be used for multi-faceted research in today’s increasingly medialized world.