Földessy Edina, Szűcs Alexandra, Wilhelm Gábor: Tabula 1. (Néprajzi Közlemények; Budapest, 1998)

HELTAI GYÖNGYI: Tendenciák a kortárs vizuális antropológiai gondolkodásban

GYÖNGYI HELTAI Tendencies in contemporary visual anthropology This paper surveys the new theories of ethnographic film based on the review of two books, dedicated to this topic (Film as Ethnography and Ethnographic Film, Aesthetics and Narrative Traditions). Within a postmodernist discourse on cultural representation the paper examines the current positions concerning the relationship between film and written world as ways of producing ethnographic knowledge and texts. The article tries to verify that the new tendencies in ethnographic film theory are not simple applications, imitations of the methodological changes in cultural anthropology due to its ..literary turn". Although the mainstream literature on visual anthropology in the 70s (Principles of Visual Anthropology) accentuated a positivist approach, expressed the need and the possibility of objective recording of cultural heritage on film, some ethnographic film makers as David MacDougall or Jean Rouch were outlining the same concerns and theoretic doubts as the anthropologists of that period. The paper seeks to explain by examples that there was a parallel conceptual development between ethnographic film and cultural anthropology. The article presents some new definitions and classifications for ethnographic film. It tries to define to which extent the notions of the postmodern literary theory and the readers' response theory are applicable to the research of ethnographic film. It accentuates also that the suggested solution by the authors for ethnography and for ethnographic film is the same, notably the application of more dialogue-like forms of representation. Now when the ethnographic film has become an accepted subdiscipline of visual and cultural anthropology it seems to be important to outline the current theoretical positions for the Hungarian public as well.