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Between Film and the World: Roma Ways of Seeing and Perceiving Persons
Author(s) -
Bonini Baraldi Filippo
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
visual anthropology review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.346
H-Index - 18
eISSN - 1548-7458
pISSN - 1058-7187
DOI - 10.1111/var.12221
Subject(s) - ambiguity , ephemeral key , ethnography , visual media , aesthetics , sociology , psychology , epistemology , history , visual arts , art , anthropology , philosophy , computer science , linguistics , algorithm
In a Roma village of Transylvania (Romania), Western ways of distinguishing visual products in categories such as fiction, ethnographic documentary, and scientific image do not make any sense. Far from being trivial, this dissolution of Western visual categories reveals the particular way Roma conceive of the ontological categories of person, person‐image (actor), and person‐skeleton (phantom), rooted in a strong ambiguity between “being oneself” and “playing a role.” This is an ambiguity that may fade away in some ephemeral moments, when the “true” person manifests.