---
title: "Visual anthropology"
chunk: 2/2
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_anthropology"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:58:56.752879+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

== Timeline and breadth of prehistoric visual representation ==
While art historians are clearly interested in some of the same objects and processes, visual anthropology places these artifacts within a holistic cultural context. Archaeologists, in particular, use phases of visual development to try to understand the spread of humans and their cultures across contiguous landscapes as well as over larger areas.  By 10,000 BP, a system of well-developed pictographs was in use by boating peoples and was likely instrumental in the development of navigation and writing, as well as a medium of storytelling and artistic representation. Early visual representations often show the female form, with clothing appearing on the female body around 28,000 BP, which archaeologists know now corresponds with the invention of weaving in Old Europe.  This is an example of the holistic nature of visual anthropology: a figurine depicting a woman wearing diaphanous clothing is not merely an object of art, but a window into the customs of dress at the time, household organization (where they are found), transfer of materials (where the clay came from) and processes (when did firing clay become common), when did weaving begin, what kind of weaving is depicted and what other evidence is there for weaving, and what kinds of cultural changes were occurring in other parts of human life at the time.
Visual anthropology, by focusing on its own efforts to make and understand visual representations, is able to establish many principles and build theories about human visual representation in general.

== List of films ==

== See also ==
Ethnofiction
Ethnographic film
Gregory Bateson
John Collier Jr.
Multimodal Anthropology
Visual Anthropology (journal)
Visual sociology

== References ==

== Bibliography ==
Alloa, Emmanuel (ed.) Penser l'image II. Anthropologies du visuel. Dijon: Presses du réel 2015. ISBN 978-2-84066-557-1 (in French).
Banks, Marcus; Morphy, Howard (Hrsg.): Rethinking Visual Anthropology. New Haven: Yale University Press 1999. ISBN 978-0-300-07854-1
Marcus Banks and  David Zeitlyn, 2015. Visual methods in social research (Second Edition), Sage: London
Barbash, Ilisa and Lucien Taylor. Cross-cultural Filmmaking: A Handbook for Making Documentary and Ethnographic Films and Videos. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
Bassnet, Sarah and Sarah Parsons. Photography in Canada, 1839-1989: An Illustrated History. 2023, Art Canada Institute: Toronto.
Collier, Malcolm et al.: Visual Anthropology. Photography As a Research Method. University of Mexico 1986. ISBN 978-0-8263-0899-3
Daniels, Inge. 2010. The Japanese House: Material Culture in the Modern Home. Oxford: Berg Publishers.
Coote, Jeremy and Anthony Shelton. 1994. Anthropology, Art and Aesthetics. Clarendon Press.
Edwards, Elisabeth (Hrsg.): Anthropology and Photography 1860–1920. New Haven, London 1994, Nachdruck. ISBN 978-0-300-05944-1
Engelbrecht, Beate (ed.). Memories of the Origins of Ethnographic Film. Frankfurt am Main et al.: Peter Lang Verlag, 2007.
Grimshaw, Anna. The Ethnographer's Eye: Ways of Seeing in Modern Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Harris, Claire. 2012. The Museum on the Roof of the World: Art, Politics and the Representation of Tibet. University of Chicago Press.
Harris, Claire and Michael O'Hanlon. 2013. 'The Future of the Ethnographic Museum,' Anthropology Today, 29(1). pp. 8–12.
Heider, Karl G. Ethnographic Film (Revised Edition). Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006.
Hockings, Paul (ed.). "Principles of Visual Anthropology." 3rd edn. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2003.
Kalantzis, Konstantinos. Tradition in the Frame: Photography, Power and Imagination in Sfakia, Crete. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
MacDougall, David. Transcultural Cinema. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Martinez, Wilton. 1992. “Who Constructs Anthropological Knowledge? Toward a Theory of Ethnographic Film Spectatorship.” In Film as Ethnography, D. Turton and P. Crawford, (Eds.), pp. 130–161. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Mead, Margaret: Anthropology and the camera. In: Morgan, Willard D. (Hg.): Encyclopedia of photography. New York 1963.
Morton, Chris and Elizabeth Edwards (eds.) 2009. Photography, Anthropology and History: Expanding the Frame. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing
Peers, Laura. 2003. Museums and Source Communities: A Routledge Reader, Routledge
Pink, Sarah: Doing Visual Ethnography: Images, Media and Representation in Research. London: Sage Publications Ltd. 2006. ISBN 978-1-4129-2348-4
Pinney, Christopher: Photography and Anthropology. London: Reaktion Books 2011. ISBN 978-1-86189-804-3
Prins, Harald E. L. "Visual Anthropology." pp. 506–525. In A Companion to the Anthropology of American Indians. Ed. T. Biolsi. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.
Prins, Harald E. L., and Ruby, Jay eds. "The Origins of Visual Anthropology." Visual Anthropology Review. Vol. 17 (2), 2001–2002.
Ruby, Jay. Picturing Culture: Essays on Film and Anthropology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, ISBN 978-0-226-73099-8.
Worth, Sol, Adair John. "Through Navajo Eyes". Indiana University Press; 1972.

== Further reading ==
Bassnet, Sarah and Sarah Parsons. Photography in Canada, 1839-1989: An Illustrated History. 2023, Art Canada Institute: Toronto.
Visual Anthropology - Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology, article by Jay Ruby
Visual anthropology in the digital mirror: Computer-assisted visual anthropology, article by Michael D. Fischer and David Zeitlyn, then both University of Kent at Canterbury
Legends Asch and Myerhoff Inspire A New Generation of Visual Anthropologists - article by Susan Andrews [1] Archived 2011-02-26 at the Wayback Machine
Pink, Sarah. "Doing Visual Ethnography:Images, Media, and Representation". Sage, London, 2012
Banks, Marcus and Ruby, Jay. "Made to be Seen: Perspectives on the History of Visual Anthropology. University of Chicago Press, 2011

== External links ==
Organizations
European Association of Social Anthropologists Visual Anthropology Network
SVA Society for Visual Anthropology
Center for Visual Anthropology of Peru / Centro de Antropología Visual del Perú - CAVP
Publications
Visual Anthropology Review
Visual Anthropology (journal)
Resources
VisualAnthropology.net
OVERLAP: Laboratory of Visual Anthropology
Visual Anthropology Archive
Visual Anthropology Films & Educational Resource Library
Royal Anthropological Institute, Ethnographic Film
National Anthropological Archives and Human Studies Film Archives - collect and preserve historical and contemporary anthropological materials that document the world's cultures and the history of anthropology.
Audio-Visual Resources (from the website of Prof. Alessandro Duranti, anthropology department, UCLA)
Films of anthropological and other "ancestors"
A kiosk of films and sounds in Ethnomusicology - Robert Garfias
Documentary Educational Resources (Visual Anthropology Films & Filmmakers)
Documentary "El mal visto". Interpretation about the evil eye from the visual anthropology.
Visual anthtropology (Chinese)
Articles on Fieldwork Archived 2010-05-11 at the Wayback Machine
The Ovahimba Years Collection
Visual Anthropology of Japan
Artpologist an Art project using Art and Anthropology 
Ethnographic Terminalia - A curatorial collective and exhibition series.