Document Type : Research Paper
Author
Abstract
Anthropology, like other social sciences and humanities, has a deep and reciprocal interaction with the social context in which it functions. Technology, for example, has changed anthropology's subject and areas of interest. Moreover, it, along with epistemological changes, has helped some methodological changes such as revision in gathering, and presentation of ant,hropological findings. Following these changes there can be distinguished a wide range of approaches to anthropology. On the one hand, one could ask: can we still think of anthropology as a useful and alive field of academic activity, while small scale communities are going to be totally disappeared? On the other, one can address many adaptations of anthropology with its changing context, where reflexive anthropological films, for example, embody creative tendencies and artistic activities among anthropologists. Giving a brief explanation of visual anthropology, its relation with traditional or written anthropology and some methodological concerns, this article introduces the very first Persian book on ttJ.e subject, "Ethnographic Cinema". Des-dte the fact that the book is indeed a pioneer in this field, I shall argue that it suffers from some shortcomings: it highlights cinematic aspects at the cost of anthropological aspects; it does not deal with some basic points which authorize different approaches to visual anthropology; and it suffers from sociologism.
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