Open AccessWHY DO “GOOD” PICTURES MATTER IN ANTHROPOLOGY?
Author(s) -
LEONQUIJANO CAMILO
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
cultural anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.669
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1548-1360
pISSN - 0886-7356
DOI - 10.14506/ca37.3.11
Subject(s) - representation (politics) , ethnography , sociology , subject (documents) , humanities , object (grammar) , experiential learning , visual anthropology , politics , anthropology , art , philosophy , linguistics , political science , pedagogy , library science , computer science , law
This article explores the relationship between photography and anthropology in the age of digital ethnographies and anthropologies of the future. It focuses on the phenomenological bond between the picture‐taking process and the politics of visual representations by looking at an object that has shaped the discipline since its very origins. Based on a series of visual encounters in a French banlieue , I describe to what extent good pictures are relative, incomplete, uncertain, sometimes inconsistent, and contain contradictory objects interacting with existing cultural and photographic conventions. I argue that good pictures are experienced pictures that go beyond the realm of a photograph. To this end, I consider the material and experiential connections between photography, sound, and text. Finally, I discuss how anthropologists' pictorial choices redefine the material and experiential ties to photographic materials. From a critical standpoint, a good picture might challenge the politics of visual representation of the imaged subject through both a photographic and ethnographic engagement.