APPROPRIATING IMAGES: THE SEMIOTICS OF VISUAL REPRESENTATION
By Keyan G Tomaselli
Aarhus: Intervention Press, November 1996, 332pp.
Photographs, Index.
ISBN 87-89825-05-5
Prof David Turton, Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology says of the book:
APPROPRIATING IMAGES is a notable achievement for two main reasons.
Firstly, by using a single interpretive paradigm - derived from semiotics -
to discuss a wide variety of documentary films - Keyan Tomaselli has been
able to give an integrated and coherent account of some of the issues which
have most bedeviled the discussion of film by visual anthropologists, such
as the relationship between the written and filmed ethnography, objectivity
and reflectivity and the unequal power relation between film makers and
subjects.
Secondly, APPROPRIATING IMAGES is informed throughout by an explicit
concern with the political context within which anthropologists and
ethnographic film-makers do their work. This is where Tomaselli's long
personal engagement against apartheid has been a huge advantage to him: it
enables him to ask the kind of questions - awkward and deeply disconcerting
- which can be all too easily brushed aside by film-makers and academics who
have not had to face up to the same choices and dilemmas in their
professional and everyday lives. The result is a book which will not only
serve as a lively and provocative introduction for students but which also
goes far beyond the dispensing of anecdotal wisdom, the excessive
preoccupation with production strategies and the self-absorbed recounting of
personal histories ...
David Turton
Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology
University of Manchester
CONTENTS
Foreword - Dick Chalfen, Centre for Visual Anthropology, Temple
University, Japan
"Tomasell's primary reference point for visual anthropology remains
with the ethnographic film world ... This model includes what happens
outside the camera so to speak, and refocuses attention to the for-whom in
addition to the by-whom. Tomaselli asks us to consider seriously the
cultural predispositions of life before-film and after-film, especially in
his repeated acknowledgement of the need to attend to reception studies and
theory ..."
Preface: An autobiographical note
Introduction
The Visual Story - a world apart?
A Brief History of Ethnographic Film Making: the pioneers
Looking at Africa: the dark 'Other'
Looking at the Rest of the World
Visual Anthropology: explaining ethnographic film in print
Film Theory: an anthropological orphan
Visual Sociology: the homeless orphan
Semiotics: a new synthesising lens
Chapter 1
What is Semiotics?
Defusing the minefield of terms
Making sense: back to basics
Elements of Semiotics
Reality: the struggle for the sign
Documentary as a Code
Chapter 2
Realism, Myth and Reception
Form, Coding and Style
How Real is Realism?
Phaneroscopy: 'the wide angle lens'
Slots, Phaneroscopy and Thick Description
The Concept of Myth
Myth and Media
Social Propaganda, Political Propaganda
Reception: propaganda vs information
Political Intertexts
Ritual: rearticulating ontologies
Phanerons, Monsters and Sudden Death
Chapter 3 The 'Other in Film:
Tribes and Tribalism
Academic Myths and Racism
Visual Imperialism
Social Science as Myth
The Myths of 'Tribe' and 'Tribalism': misunderstanding
African societies
Adventures into the past
Tribal Connotations: violence, savagery
'Tribe' as Tourist-speak
Chapter 4
Power, Exploitation and Anthropological Responsibility
The Ethical Conundrum
Showcasing Anthropology
Exploiting 'Primitives' and 'Ex-Primitives': copyright,
ownership, audiences
Political Responsibility
Reassessment of Visual Anthropology
Chapter 5
Signposting Semiotics in Studying the Other
Meta-Discipline
The Significant Agenda: the grounding of the sciences of
signs
The Wood and the Trees: semiology
The Wood, the Trees and the Timber: semiotics
Outline and Division of Interpretants: 'the cultural
connection'
Interpretants: how we make sense of signs
Producing Africa: the context of semiotics
Recovering Contexts
Combining Lexicons
Chapter 6
Trends in Visual Anthropology
Documentary, Ethnography and 'the Impression of Reality' DOCUMENTARY AND THE
IMPRESSION OF REALITY How Real is Realism?
Naturalism
Distinguishing Between Ethnographic Film and Documentary
Technology: encoding and reception
Encoding Reality
Institutional Considerations
Anthropological Knowledge and Documentary Film
The Pluralist View
Diaries/Notebooks/Descriptive
Observational/Descriptive
Cinema Verite
Participatory/Shared Anthropology
Didactic
Processual
Character narration
Conceptual/narration
Testimonial
Seasonal Cycles
Film Maker as Griot
Subject-generated or Indigenous Media
Sociotherapy
Documentation Modality
Explanatory Mode
Explanation Rejected
Context Enrichment
Experience/Theoretical Understandings
The Exclusivist View
What Constitutes a Community?
Ethnographic Film and Surreality
The Scientific Unthinkable
Chapter 7
Filmic Ethnography Versus the Pluralist View
A COMPOSITE APPROACH
Integration off Form, Process and Content in Ethnographic Film
Ethnographic Film and Production Principles
Holism
Patience
Cine Trance
The Ethnographic Presence
The Ethnographic Present
Film Technique and Interpretations of Truth
Participant Observation, Pertinent Distance, Space and
Interaction
Reflexivity: admitting assumptions
Return to Basics I: re-examining reflexivity
Return to Basics II: re-examining ethnographic events
Editing as Imposition
Films of Cultures
The 'Us' 'Them' Dichotomy: Where to We draw the line around Them?
Purpose
Definitions of Semiotics of Visual Anthropology and
Ethnographic Film
Chapter 8
Case Studies
Conventional Documentary
Maids and Madams - Servants of Apartheid (With Ruth Teer-Tomaselli)
Appropriating Ethnographic Film Techniques Classified People - Legislating
Race (With Maureen Eke)
Comparative Description
Girls Apart - Encoding Difference
Chapter 9
Towards Ethical Film Making and Crew-Subject Interactions
Engagement With Subject-Communities: Relocating the Scholar How to ensure
Accountability of Crews/Facilitators of Subject-Communities?
Bibliography
Index
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E-mail: georgakas@erols.com <mailto:georgakas@erols.com>
SOUTH AFRICA: Centre for Cultural and Media Studies, University of Natal,
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E-mail: Govends@mtb.und.ac.za <mailto:Govends@mtb.und.ac.za> . Fax: +
27-31-260-1519
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