Aesthetics Versus Knowledge: An Ambiguous Mixture of Genres in Visual Anthropology
Résumé
Visual anthropology is both a descriptive and an aesthetic endeavor. Filmed ethnography, for example, is a powerful scientific tool for documenting reality, but it is also often used to express anthropologist-filmmakers' personal artistic visions. This mixture of science and aesthetics has indirectly but deeply influenced anthropological theory, and has also contributed to visual anthropology's unclear definition in academia since it constitutes a terra nullius between science and art. This mixture of aesthetics and knowledge has practical consequences in the anthropology of art.