In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

5 Taking Pictures in the Field, or the Anthropologist’s Dress Code Ever since there have been cameras, anthropologists have used them to make a record of the ethnographic material they encounter in the field. Before that (and even after) some people made sketches. Malinowski made photographic images of Trobriand canoes with their carved prows, and much else as well—a village of frond-roofed huts with his tent close by, a scene of men carrying a pig lashed upside down on a palm trunk: “Ceremonial destruction during a So’I feast.” There are sixty-six such illustrations (and five maps) in his compendious Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. Evans-Pritchard punctuated his ethnographic analysis with photos of Nuer cattle, of girls milking cows, of men spearing fish, of leopard-skin chiefs in full regalia. He also used artful sketches of the gourds Nuer used to churn milk or to store cheese, and other implements of day-to-day life: “Bags made from the scrota of a bull and a giraffe,” for example, or “Calf’s bell-necklace of palm nuts.” His monograph, The Nuer: A description of the modes of livelihood and political institutions of a Nilotic people, contains a dozen drawings and twenty-six photographic plates. The sketch is a rendering of an observation. The camera is an extension of the eye. The camera takes visual notes. Anthropologists use these visual notes later to illustrate a lecture, to illuminate the words on the page in a book or journal article; we use these images to prove a point or as an aid to memory— we look at them to conjure up the place again, to recall it. Because the camera takes visual notes for us, and because those notes are a sort of document, we can justify the time we take snapping shots. But we also take pictures or make sketches for the sheer pleasure of the activity. When I was in the field studying Lauje and Manjaco, I used to take pictures for fun even as I pretended to myself and my subjects that I was doing work. 97 Anthropology and Egalitarianism 98 Taking photographs gave me aesthetic pleasure. As I looked through the lens, I imagined the way the shot would compare to photographs I had seen in books, magazines, and museums. I enjoyed composing a scene, using light and shadow and color to create “art,” and I enjoyed planning how best to convey a particular moment or mood or sensibility through a fleeting image. Above all I took pictures for the reason any tourist takes pictures. A typical tourist shot has the tourist in the foreground and the object of the tourist’s gaze in the background. Here you are at the waterfall. The waterfall flows right past your shoulder. Here you are at the plaza; the cathedral looms just behind you. Here you are in the town square in the quaint village on the mountainside. Your arm is around the shoulder of a smiling peasant. She is wearing a headscarf and her wrinkled face is tucked under your arm. Like the cathedral or the waterfall, she is a kind of trophy. If you can’t get her to pose with you, you can stroll across the square to the café and buy a postcard of an old woman weaving a sweater while a cat lolls next to her playing with a ball of yarn. At Colonial Williamsburg I used to take pictures of tourists taking pictures. There were certain scenes that everyone seemed to want to capture on film. In winter it was the doorways of the reconstructed and restored colonial houses, each door decorated with an elaborate Christmas wreath. The wife might pose next to the wreath while her husband snapped a shot. No matter what the season, people loved taking pictures of the horse-drawn carriages driven by a man in full livery. But most of all they all wanted a shot of the stocks in front of the courthouse. In colonial times the stocks were used for punishment. Someone who had been convicted of a petty crime would be forced to stand, their arms and head pinioned by the stocks, in plain view of passersby. To stand like that was painful and above all humiliating. Tourists would pose (usually grinning or laughing) as if they were criminals while a friend, a parent, or a spouse would take...

Share