Discursive Formation,Ethnographic Encounter,Photographic Evidence: The Centenary of Durkheim's Basic Forms of Religious Life and the Anthropological Study of Australian Aboriginal Religion in His Time

Historical research on the work of Émile Durkheim has often been confined to textual analysis aiming to reconstruct his research in the context of anthropological discourses at the turn of the 20th century. As radical changes in the visual culture of the late 19th century shaped the formation of anthropology as an academic discipline, the ambition of this article is to elaborate the ways Durkheim's use of ethnographic data and visual material formed the foundation of the theoretical and methodological design of his approach to religion. By tracing features in his Basic Forms that emphasize visual material and prioritize religious practice, I submit that the photographic evidence given in Spencer and Gillen's account of Aboriginal religion allowed Durkheim to theorize religion primarily through ritual. Photography, as a visual means of representation, enhanced the study of religion by focusing on ritual without necessarily demanding consideration of its mythical narratives and cosmological accounts. Based on a thorough analysis of his Basic Forms, this article argues that Durkheim used the photographs of the Aborigines of Central Australia systematically and that this use of photographs consequently guided his ethnographic depiction and his selection of theoretical concepts and methodological procedures.     

What's in a (Big) Name? The Art and Agency of a Bornean Photographic Collection

This article concerns the photographic collection of Paka anak Otor, the Bidayuh owner of a ‘mini-museum’ in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, and how it became entangled in his claims to status within and beyond his village. Superficially, the situation is easily apprehended via two analogous approaches within photographic theory and Southeast Asianist ethnography, which treat objects and images as representations or bearers of power and meaning. Here I suggest that such approaches end up eliding the action-centred nature of Paka's ‘big name’-making ambitions. In response, I approach his photographic collection through an analytical framework deriving from Alfred Gell's seminal theory, Art and Agency (1998), which has hitherto remained marginal to Southeast Asianist anthropology. I argue that, more than merely symbolising or bearing his ‘big name’, Paka's photographs were agentive image-objects that actively instantiated it. I conclude by asking how such an analytical shift might encourage a reconceptualisation of ‘power’ and ‘objecthood’ in Southeast Asianist anthropology.     

Piercing transfigurations: Representations of suffering in Cyprus

This paper explores representations of suffering in Cyprus, a divided island. It examines differences between Greek and Turkish Cypriots in their official publicity/propaganda photographic material in representing the issue of missing persons in Cyprus. It attempts to show that the differences are relatable not just to their different persuasive strategies, but also to different approaches to photography, to experience and memory. For the Greek Cypriots, the sacrifice of the person has to be represented as an absent body, the quintessential example being Christ. By contrast, for the Turkish Cypriots it is the presence of a (dead) body, the body of the dead hero/fighter, that signifies a sacrifice and transforms him into a shehit (martyr). Such differences can be related to differences between the two groups in the political fabulation of the past and its appeal to “memory” and “experience”. The Turkish Cypriots because of their pressing political problems, especially between 1963–70 when they tended to view their survival as being at stake, use photographs in a relatively “realist” matter‐of‐fact way although their aim is highly emotionally charged. Greek Cypriots use photographs as representations of what is in effect an iconic predicament: representation as participating in some fundamental way in that which it represents. After examining the predicament of depicting suffering through photography, the paper suggests that to respond effectively to suffering we may have to approach it not through the seductive realism of the photograph but through its means of representing the symbolic and the imaginary.     

Shades of Empire: Police Photography in German South-West Africa

This article looks at a photographic album produced by the German police in colonial Namibia just before World War I. Late 19th- and early 20th-century police photography has often been interpreted as a form of visual production that epitomized power and regimes of surveillance imposed by the state apparatuses on the poor, the criminal and the Other. On the other hand police and prison institutions became favored sites where photography could be put at the service of the emergent sciences of the human body—physiognomy, anthropometry and anthropology. While the conjuncture of institutionalized colonial state power and the production of scientific knowledge remain important for this Namibian case study, the article explores a slightly different set of questions. Echoing recent scholarship on visuality and materiality the photographic album is treated as an archival object and visual narrative that was at the same time constituted by and constitutive of material and discursive practices within early 20th-century police and prison institutions in the German colony. By shifting attention away from image content and visual codification alone toward the question of visual practice the article traces the ways in which the photo album, with its ambivalent, unstable and uncontained narrative, became historically active and meaningful. Therein the photographs were less informed by an abstract theory of anthropological and racial classification but rather entrenched with historically contingent processes of colonial state constitution, socioeconomic and racial stratification, and the institutional integration of photography as a medium and a technology into colonial policing. The photo album provides a textured sense of how fragmented and contested these processes remained throughout the German colonial period, but also how photography could offer a means of transcending the limits and frailties brought by the realities on the ground.     

Picturing Culture: The Photography of Muttappan teyyam between 1920 and Today

Three different appropriations of a 1928 photograph from South India allow insights into German anthropology in the 1920s, contemporary German museum practices, and present-day ritual forms in northern Kerala. Juxtaposing these readings as what Edwards named evidential strategies, power of representation, and re-experiencing demonstrates the possibilities and limits of visual representation. The article contributes to a Picturing Culture debate that considers entrenched visual economies of archived photographs, and opts for an understanding of different aspects of cultural knowledge transported through photographs.     

How does visual thinking work in the mind of a person with autism? A personal account

My mind is similar to an Internet search engine that searches for photographs. I use language to narrate the photo-realistic pictures that pop up in my imagination. When I design equipment for the cattle industry, I can test run it in my imagination similar to a virtual reality computer program. All my thinking is associative and not linear. To form concepts, I sort pictures into categories similar to computer files. To form the concept of orange, I see many different orange objects, such as oranges, pumpkins, orange juice and marmalade. I have observed that there are three different specialized autistic/Asperger cognitive types. They are: (i) visual thinkers such as I who are often poor at algebra, (ii) pattern thinkers such as Daniel Tammet who excel in math and music but may have problems with reading or writing composition, and (iii) verbal specialists who are good at talking and writing but they lack visual skills.     

Telling a Tale: Margaret Mead's Photographic Portraits of Fa'amotu,a Samoan Tāupou

In 1925 Margaret Mead spent 10 days in High Chief Ufuti's household in the village of Vaitogi, Tutuila, before sailing to Ta'u where she conducted most of her research on Samoan adolescence. In Vaitogi, Mead took many photographs of Fa'amotu, Ufuti's t # upou daughter, several of which appeared in Coming of Age in Samoa . This article examines a number of intertwined issues of visual representation which may have prompted Mead to use a disproportionate number of pictures of Fa'amotu in early editions of her book. Mead's approach to photographic representation and issues such as collaboration, performance, typicality, marketability, anonymity, and acknowledgement are examined through her photographs and writings.     

A Quantitative Photographic Survey of ‘Spoke-Burrow’ Type Lebensspuren on the Cape Verde Abyssal Plain

A photographic survey of the seafloor was conducted during RRS Discovery cruise 204 in September/October 1993 at the oligotrophic site of the French EUMELI programme at c. 21° N: 31° W (4650 m) on the Cape Verde Abyssal Plain. Two systems were used, a wide angle system (WASP) obtaining usable photographs covering 10 to 30m², and an epibenthic sledge mounted system obtaining photographs of about 2 m². A total of more than 3000 usable frames were obtained, covering about 64000 m² of seafloor. The photographs indicated an epibenthic invertebrate megafaunal density of 5.2 hectare⁻¹ and a demersal fish density of 1.8 hectare ^−1. In contrast, the photographs were dominated by lebensspuren, particularly of the ‘spoke-burrow’ type usually attributed to echiurans. Spoke-burrow density, where related burrows and other features such as sediment mounds are considered unitary, is estimated at 871 hectare ^−1. We describe and quantify the five principal types of spoke burrow encountered in this study and, on the basis of these observations and some morphometric studies of the lebensspuren, discuss the possible behaviour of their producers. We have no direct knowledge of the production rate of, or longevity of, lebensspuren in the study area. However, based on a number of assumptions and limited data from other areas we suggest that trace producer (mainly echiurans) density is on the order of tens of individuals per hectare. These trace producers probably greatly outnumber the rest of the invertebrate megabenthos, and we can only guess at the role this potential large population of hidden benthos might have in the overall structure and function of the deep-sea floor ecosystem.     

Visual processing of pictures

Word responses have been used to dedde whether pictures of expressive faces or postures portray truthful expressions. Previous investigators have assumed words are used only as symbols of “meaning”. They did not appreciate the use of words as symbols of “sorting”. If one viewer calls two photographs “angry” and another viewer calls the same two photographs “happy,” the viewers may disagree in their “meanings” but they agree in their ‘sortings” both agree each photograph portrays the same expression. Sorting groups reveal how the visual system processes photographic images.     

COUNTS OF CALIFORNIA SEA LION (ZALOPHUS CALIFORNIANUS) PUPS FROM AERIAL COLOR PHOTOGRAPHS AND FROM THE GROUND: A COMPARISON OF TWO METHODS

Pups on San Nicolas Island were counted by two methods; counts by observers on the ground were compared to counts from aerial photographs taken with a 126-mm-format camera with image motion compensation. No difference was detected between photographic counts and ground counts (P= 0.367) when ground counters had unobstructed views. However, ground counts were significantly lower when areas with obstructed views were included in the analysis (P < 0.001). For areas with unobstructed viewing conditions, no difference was detected between counts by the two methods for rock substrates (P= 0.140), sand substrates (P= 0.468), or mixed rock-and-sand substrates (P= 0.968). No differences were found among three replicate aerial photographic censuses (P= 0.432), but a significant difference was found between two replicate ground censuses (P= 0.037). Total counts obtained from the aerial photographs were more precise (CV = 0.042) than counts obtained on the ground (CV = 0.078). Less variability in counts was found between photographic counters than for ground counters.     

Systems of representation: Towards the integration of digital photography into the practice of creating visual images

This paper aims to set the foundations for an integration of digital photography into the broader framework of visual representation. The current climate seems to be marked by a preoccupation with contrasting the digital with the analog image. An alternative cross‐cultural approach is proposed, employing “systems of representation” characterized by the wide range of strategies for communicating through the visual image that can be found in the anthropology of art. These take into account the optical principles of depiction and their cultural determinants. The paper aims to place the practice of the digital generation and manipulation of photographs at a point of convergence with a variety of other means of transcribing the three‐dimensional world onto a two‐dimensional flat surface.     

Textualizing the san “past”: Dancing with development

The anthropology of conservation and the way that visual media, especially documentary film, contribute to mythical Tourist perceptions of the San, are discussed in relation to categories of conservancy, living museums, cultural ecology and the marketing of ecological legitimacy. The central metaphor of dance as a mythical tourist image of Africa is the vehicle through which the analysis is undertaken.     

Children through the Looking Glass

In recent decades social scientists have taken a renewed interest in Western conceptions of the child, revealing often contradictory notions of children as either lacking or capable, innocent or knowing, vulnerable or dangerous. The fine-art photograph offers visual anthropology a way to explore these contradictions and shifts in attitude. This essay addresses the question through the changing representations of children in 19th- and 20th-century art photography. Reaching back to the work of Julia Margaret Cameron, it examines images of children by Lewis Hine, Edward Weston, Helen Levitt, Sally Mann, Anthony Goicolea, and the Russian collective, AES?+?F, arguing that in these photographs the child has increasingly been perceived as mysterious and threatening to adult ideas of sexual and social order. The essay concludes with the case of Jacques-Henri Lartigue, who among all the noted photographers of children was the only one who brought a child’s perspective to the portrayal of childhood experience. If contemporary photographers have persisted in conveying disturbing and idealized notions of childhood, it may require another Lartigue to restore the balance.     

COUNTING STELLER SEA LION PUPS IN ALASKA: AN EVALUATION OF MEDIUMFORMAT, COLOR AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY

Estimates of Steller sea lion ( Eumetopias jubatus ) pup production are valuable for estimating population trend and size. Currently in Alaska, pups are counted by visiting rookeries, driving older animals into the water, then walking through the rookeries and counting the pups, a highly disruptive procedure. At smaller rookeries, with good vantage points, pups are occasionally counted from the periphery of rookeries without disturbing the sea lions. We evaluated counts made from medium-format, color, aerial photographs as an alternative to drive counts and peripheral counts. Neither the peripheral counts nor the aerial photographic counts disturbed animals on the rokeries. There were strong 1:1 linear relationships between photographic counts and drive counts ( r ²= 0.966, P < 0.001) and between photographic counts and peripheral counts ( r ²= 0.999, P < 0.001). Precision was similar for all three methods of counting. We suggest that medium-format, color, aerial photographs is appropriate for routine surveys of Steller sea lion pups in Alaska because it is not disruptive to the hauled-out sea lions and provides comparable estimates with similar precision to drive and peripheral counts. Large areas canbe rapidly surveyed during periods of good weather with a minimum of manpower.     

Coral disease dynamics at a subtropical location, Solitary Islands Marine Park, eastern Australia

Recent observations suggest that a spreading disease is increasingly contributing to hard coral mortality in the Solitary Islands Marine Park, NSW, Australia. This study determined coral disease prevalence and rate-of-spread through individual affected colonies and investigated the effect this epizootic had on coral populations at sites adjacent to South West Solitary Island. Quantitative data were collected between 2002 and 2004 using photographic and video methods, and visual census along radial arc belt transects. Disease similar to the reported white syndrome and white plague was apparent, spreading through hard coral species from the genera Turbinaria, Acropora, Goniastrea, Pocillopora, Stylophora and Porites. Coral disease prevalence varied between survey dates with mean prevalence increasing from 8.55% during March 2003 to 13.58% in June and declining to 7.75% in September and 6.21% during March 2004. There was a significant difference in mean prevalence between the affected species (p<0.001) and an overall difference between survey dates (p=0.001). Additionally, the rate-of-spread of coral disease through coral colonies determined using repeated, seasonal, still photographs followed similar patterns, with disease progression differing between affected species (p=0.004), and between survey dates (p<0.001). Analysis of the video-transects indicated significant difference in disease prevalence over larger spatial scales (100s of m). However, disease frequency did not vary significantly between 2002 and 2003.     

“A Devil's Engine”: Photography and Spirits in the Western Solomon Islands

This article looks at photographic practices in Roviana Lagoon in the western Solomon Islands of the South Pacific. It argues that the efficacy or affective power of photographs in this context must be understood in terms of what is locally called maqomaqo (soul or shadow). Photographs contain a material trace of the essence of what they portray, which enables them to “touch” their viewers. This case study allows us to think about the innate metaphysic of photography, and about the way in which “photography” only ever exists as a series of local photographies, which emerge from the interplay between this innate metaphysic of the photographic technology and local ontologies.     

The Independence Road to Fort Laramie: By Aerial Photograph

Abstract

Aerial photographs have been used to locate the eastern portion of the Oregon Trail, one of the earliest and most frequently used routes west. The section discussed is the section between Independence, Missouri and Fort Laramie, Wyoming.

Establishment of the location of the trail resulted from historical knowledge of the approximate whereabouts. Primary sources of the route were diaries of travellers, oral information, original township land plats, and other previously published sources.

Source of the aerial photographs is discussed together with photographic requirements for the study of old roads. The photographs used to identify the Laramie road are organized geographically and are classified by the author in terms of the road visibility on the prints,     

Out of words: The æsthesodic cine‐eye of Robert Gardner: An Exegesis and Interview

Anthropological evaluations of the film work of Robert Gardner have been compromised by their reluctance to engage with it as art, and more broadly, to celebrate rather than vilify the aesthetic possibilities of the genre of ethnographic film. Even recent experiments with reflexivity have done little to challenge the realism that undergirds anthropological reception of non‐fiction film. By contrast, this article and interview considers Gardner's work as both anthropology and art. In particular, it addresses the evolving dialectic of the verbal and the visual in his films, from Bhinden Harbour (1951) to Passenger (1998). It also argues that recent efforts by anthropologists to rethink the concept of culture from a post‐semiotic perspective, foregrounding corporeal embodiment in the constitution of culture as much as the self, expand the theoretical boundaries of visual anthropology. In turn, it suggests that this reorientation towards sensation and perception should allow for a more approbatory understanding of Gardner's films.     

Psychospiritual ecoscience: The Ju/'hoansi and cultural tourism

The relation between knowledge and the visual, on the one hand, and knowledge about peoples on the other, is a prime concern in visual anthropology. The impact of the visual on the everyday life of the Ju/'hoansi is my concern here. This paper is offered in two parts: this article and the one which follows.

The results of a field‐trip in July 1996 to Otjozondjupa (previously known as Bush‐manland) in Namibia are discussed in terms of the question: How do subjects make sense of the anthropological?¹ Our “subject community” was the Ju/'hoansi of Nyae Nyae. The “texts” we interrogated through Ju/'hoansi popular memory were those made of them by the documentary filmmaker John Marshall, a South African feature‐film director, Jamie Uys, and one by the Discovery Channel.     

Balancing bias and precision in capture-recapture estimates of abundance

Capture‐recapture estimates of abundance using photographic identification data are sensitive to the quality of photographs used and distinctiveness of individuals in the population. Here analyses are presented for examining the effects of photographic quality and individual animal distinctiveness scores and for objectively selecting a subset of data to use for capture‐recapture analyses using humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) data from a 2‐year study in the North Atlantic. Photographs were evaluated for their level of quality and whales for their level of individual distinctiveness. Photographic quality scores had a 0.21 probability of changing by a single‐quality level, and there were no changes by two or more levels. Individual distinctiveness scores were not independent of photographic quality scores. Estimates of abundance decreased as poor‐quality photographs were removed. An appropriate balance between precision and bias in abundance estimates was achieved by removing the lowest‐quality photographs and those of incompletely photographed flukes given our assumptions about the true population abundance. A simulation of the selection process implied that, if the estimates are negatively biased by heterogeneity, the increase in bias produced by decreasing the sample size is not more than 2%. Capture frequencies were independent of individual distinctiveness scores.