This book focuses on how visual records mainly on film or video can provide data for research and presents a variety of visual projects drawn from ethnographic fieldwork in Indonesia.
Karl Heider argues for the expansion of visual anthropology - or anthropology with a camera - beyond descriptive ethnographic film into actual use of the camera as a research tool. The chapters explore several ways in which camera-generated materials can complement and support what anthropologists already do in their research. Heider includes samples from fieldwork in Indonesia conducted over a number of years, particularly in New Guinea and Sumatra with groups including the Dani and Minangkabau. His studies combine visual and psychological anthropology and provides insight into the analysis of emotions in particular.
Intended to inspire new approaches to the ethnographic enterprise, the book is valuable for scholars of visual anthropology and Southeast Asia.
This book focuses on how visual records mainly on film or video can provide data for research and presents a variety of visual projects drawn from ethnographic fieldwork in Indonesia.
Introduction: The Place of Visuals in Anthropological Research; Part I:
Visual Research Projects; 1 Microcultural Incidents in Minangkabau Childrens
Emotion Behavior; 2 Dead Birds Revisited: Rethinking Emotion in a New Guinea
Dani Funeral; 3 Comparing Styles of Teaching and Learning in Some South
Carolina and West Sumatra Kindergartens: Video-Cued Multivocalic Ethnography
(with Louise Jennings); 4 Three Styles of Play: New Guinea Dani, Central
Java, and Micronesia; 5 Nonverbal Studies of Dani Anger and Sexual
Expression: Experimental Method in Videotape Ethnography; Part II: Exploring
Indonesian Cinema; 6 National Cinema, National Culture; 7 Analyzing Emotion
in Scenes from Indonesian Cinema; 8 Culture and Cinema in Indonesia: Teguh
Karyas Doea Tanda Mata; 9 Banana Peels: Visual Conventions in Indonesian
Movies; 10 Anger in Indonesian Cinema; 11 Order and Disorder in Indonesian
Genre Films and National Politics; Appendix; Other Uses of Visuals, Fragments
and Suggestions; Excerpt One: Above the Fold: Early Twentieth Century Front
Page Anger; Excerpt Two: Still Photographs; Excerpt Three: Life Story: Dr.
Mochtar Naim; Excerpt Four: Ethnographic Shorts
Karl G. Heider is Carolina Distinguished Professor of Anthropology (Emeritus) at the University of South Carolina, USA.