MA in Visual Anthropology

You will study:

• three core modules
• option modules to the value of 30 credits
Core Modules Module title Credits. Anthropology of Art I Anthropology of Art I 15 or 30 credits

This module is worth 15 credits if you study it at Level 6 and 30 credits if you study it at Level 7.

Modern Anthropology has had an uneasy relation with art and with objects and images in general. The reaction against the museum anthropology of the 19th century led to a certain iconoclasm in the discipline. Yet a hundred years later, the interest of anthropologists on art, and conversely, of artists in Anthropology, is blooming. But this is not so contradictory: in fact modern anthropology and modern art are very close from their origin, in their critical reflection on the relation of images, objects and persons. In this module, we will discuss first the questions that the anthropological tradition has opened up on the relation of things, images and persons. Is the value of objects a human construction? Do objects have agency? Are images, representations? What are the arguments for idolatry and iconoclasm? All these questions are necessary preludes to understand the anthropological approach to art in the modern world. They will enable us to ask what characterises 'art' as a form of social value in our society, as well as how objects and images from other societies are valued as 'art'.

15 or 30 credits. Ethnographic Film and Cinema Studies Ethnographic Film and Cinema Studies 30 credits

This module consists of screenings followed by seminars. The emphasis will be on key feature, documentary and ethnographic films, from Nanook of the North (Flaherty) to Burden of Dreams (Blank) to Blade Runner (Scott). A focal theme of the seminars will be the examination of the 'language of film'.

30 credits. Anthropology Video Production Anthropology Video Production 60 credits

This module will train you in the use of camcorders (diverse formats), sound-recording, lighting, scripting/story-boarding and digital editing. During terms 1 and 2, you will be required to produce short practice videos (2-4 minutes) supervised by members of staff and will keep production diaries to document your acquisition of skills. While MA degrees normally result in dissertations, the key assessed artefact of the MA Visual Anthropology programme is a film. Accompanying this, however, will be an essay/report of 5,000 words in which you will provide a supporting textual account in the form of a catalogue.

60 credits. Critique, Theory and Representation Critique, Theory and Representation 30 credits

This module looks at various ways in which anthropology has engaged with images, in terms of the production of narrowly anthropological research material through ethno-photography and ethnographic film as well as in terms of a broader set of interdisciplinary concerns with theories of representation, modern media, translation and political advocacy. The ethnographic project of modern anthropology has been a hybrid scientific/literary enterprise and visual complements, film in particular, have provided links both to cognate fields and non-specialist audiences. The module is grounded in a wide-ranging literature that informs the history of anthropological and social theoretical concerns.

30 credits. Option modules

You take option modules to a value of 30 credits from a list that has previously included:

Module title Credits. Anthropology of Rights I Anthropology of Rights I 15 credits

This module encourages you to engage critically with the rights discourses that underpin development agendas in the contemporary world. You will consider the historical evolution of rights discourses, the institutions that have been established to uphold rights, the language of Human Rights used in international law, as well as the concept of rights as understood by development organisations, governments and multilaterals (such as the UN). You will also analyse the cross-cutting – and often competing – claims made in the name of, for example, gender and child rights, indigenous rights, intellectual property rights, animal and environmental rights, customary law and bioethics.

The module provides an opportunity to explore the concept and discourses of rights in relation to numerous contemporary social issues (such as natural disasters, constitutional reform, war crimes tribunals, environmental disputes and gender politics), and consider the purchase of the rights concept (and its limitations) within development discourses and practices, as well as in relation to patterns of governance and social justice.

15 credits. Anthropology of Rights II Anthropology of Rights II 15 credits

tbc

15 credits. Critical Voices in Development Critical Voices in Development 30 credits


While taking this module, you'll concentrate on planned change in the 20th century with special emphasis on the post World War II era, after the rise of the so-called Development Industry. We will cover the history of development and aid through various approaches to development, and will explore the discourses which have informed approaches to policy. Following this you will look at implementation and the history of anthropological involvement, including anthropological critiques. Finally, there will be an in-depth analysis of the development implications (both in terms of international agency or national government policy implications as well as projects on the ground) of selected global trends. Possible selected trends might be HIV/AIDs or Structural Adjustment Policies.

30 credits. Anthropological Approaches to History Anthropological Approaches to History 15 or 30 credits

There are long held tensions between the disciplines of anthropology and history, although they share some common epistemological concerns.

Increasingly, anthropologists have incorporated historical accounts towards expanding ethnographic possibilities, and to explore theoretical questions of continuity, social change and periodisation, and to examine colonialism as a set of historical conditions. As part of a historicised practice, anthropologists have challenged assumptions about relationship between myth and history, and explored complex temporalities.

In turn, historians have borrowed from anthropological methodologies to underpin radical ideas about microhistories, oral history practices, which have also contributed towards the anthropological project. More recently, both historians and anthropologists have turned to memory as a way of accessing the past through practice, policy and the emotions.

This course sets up these questions through three interconnected threads: the history of anthropology, historical anthropology, and anthropologies of history.

We examine the different kinds of evidence that may be used to understand the past, and how the past is made sense of in the present, through archives, images and material culture. Together this provides us with a model for approaching the past anthropologically, in order to gain ethnographic understandings of the dynamic processes of historicity in everyday contexts, where the past can be deployed, imagined and evidenced.

15 or 30 credits. Anthropology of Art I Anthropology of Art I 15 or 30 credits

This module is worth 15 credits if you study it at Level 6 and 30 credits if you study it at Level 7.

Modern Anthropology has had an uneasy relation with art and with objects and images in general. The reaction against the museum anthropology of the 19th century led to a certain iconoclasm in the discipline. Yet a hundred years later, the interest of anthropologists on art, and conversely, of artists in Anthropology, is blooming. But this is not so contradictory: in fact modern anthropology and modern art are very close from their origin, in their critical reflection on the relation of images, objects and persons. In this module, we will discuss first the questions that the anthropological tradition has opened up on the relation of things, images and persons. Is the value of objects a human construction? Do objects have agency? Are images, representations? What are the arguments for idolatry and iconoclasm? All these questions are necessary preludes to understand the anthropological approach to art in the modern world. They will enable us to ask what characterises 'art' as a form of social value in our society, as well as how objects and images from other societies are valued as 'art'.

15 or 30 credits. Anthropology of Health and Medicine I Anthropology of Health and Medicine I 15 or 30 credits

This module is worth 15 credits if you study it at Level 6 and 30 credits if you study it at Level 7.

An introduction to key areas of medical anthropology, ranging from ideas about healing to questions of social inequality and ‘biosociality’. We will explore questions of how culture shapes understandings and experiences of the body, health and illness. We'll also examine the implications of new technologies on understandings of health, and the politics of modern global healthcare. We will engage with classic and contemporary ethnographic work.

Key questions include:

• How is health understood and experienced culturally?
• What is the relationship between health and unequal economic and technological systems?
• What can anthropology contribute to global health issues?
15 or 30 credits. Anthropology of Religion Anthropology of Religion 15 or 30 credits

This module is worth 15 credits if you study it at Level 6 and 30 credits if you study it at Level 7.

Questioning the category of religion, this module will introduce you to the sociological thought which has informed the anthropology of religious phenomena and will highlight the specificity of anthropological approaches which combine comparative, historical and ethnographic methodologies and concerns. Focussing on both ‘world religions’ and more localised cosmologies and practices, you will learn about different anthropological approaches (structuralist, Marxist, phenomenological, symbolic and cognitive) which emphasise different dimensions of religious practice and experience. You will also be encouraged to think about the relevance of these approaches for understanding the continued persistence, salience and transformation of religious ideas and practices in the contemporary world.

15 or 30 credits. Economic and Political Anthropology I Economic and Political Anthropology I 30 credits

We begin with an overview of the state, highlighting the contingency of its current form and discussing whether or not analyses of the state continue to be relevant in the light of globalisation and changing modes of production. We then go on to analyse key economic institutions that exist through (sometimes in spite of) the state. In the second half of the Autumn term, through locales such as factories, we will see these institutions in action by exploring the capitalist labour process, the impact of industrialisation on the peasant economy and political forms of peasant resistance. We think about changed practices of labour through globalisation of capital and flexible production, and drawing together certain themes (such as value and freedom) that have been running throughout all the lectures. We end the first term by looking at contemporary forms of radical politics, with a special focus on anarchism and at its agenda of building ‘societies without states’.

30 credits. Economic and Political Anthropology II Economic and Political Anthropology II 30 credits

We revisit some of the key questions of the previous term in the context of contemporary politics and drawing connections between economic and political institutions. We look at nationalism, regionalism and new forms of migration; at reproductive and care labour, and how migration challenges and/or upholds gendered labour relations. We will discuss the role of consumption on class relations and expand our focus from the flow of objects to the movement of ideas and images and on new technologies. We ask how the compression of space and time and the notion that new technologies are ‘disembedding mechansisms’ challenge ideas and territoriality, while also opening up new spaces of belonging.

We will explore the role of the media, considering the ways in which ‘local’ action groups are using new technologies to promote their political aims on a transnational scale. We thereby reflect upon the extent that technology can be regarding as an alienating force. We then focus on indigenous rights movements. We explore how indigeneity is constructed through political discourse, thinking particularly about notions of ‘authenticity and territoriality. We ask ‘who speaks for the indigenous’, and examine the legal and ‘rights’ frameworks through which political claims are made. Finally we reflect back on Autumn term’s discussion of property and consider debates over intellectual property, ‘indigenous’ knowledge and the new commons.

30 credits. Environmental Anthropology Environmental Anthropology 15 or 30 credits

This module is worth 15 credits if you study it at Level 6 and 30 credits if you study it at Level 7.

This module examines three areas of anthropological enquiry into human-environment relations:

• different societies’ experience of and thoughts about their biophysical surroundings (beliefs, practices, dwelling)
• human shaping of landscapes (living in balance with nature, enhancing or destroying it)
• environmental politics, or political ecology (small and large scale resource conflict, science and policy processes, environmental movements)

Each topic is examined through one or two key studies, drawn from different regions of the world (eg Amazonia, West Africa, Indonesia) and relating to different resources (eg forests, soil, water, oil).

Throughout the module, we will also discuss the bearings of the anthropological ideas examined on public discourses of environmentalism and on conservation policy.

15 or 30 credits. Intercultural Film Intercultural Film 15 credits

“You guys [Balanda (white) anthropologists] keep looking, looking, looking but you just don’t see”
Aboriginal filmmaker Bangana in Deger ‘Shimmering Screens’ p221

Why is film so affective? What do we understand about how film works? These questions are absolutely fundamental if we are to consider anthropology’s relationship to the moving image.

Thinking through this cinematic magic from both a media, and an anthropological perspective allows us to construct a set of productive new approaches to understanding film. Anthropologists began using film very early on – the earliest footage was shot on the Cambridge Expedition to the Torres Straits in the 1890’s – when the camera was considered a “vital” piece of equipment.

However, this module will critically consider the general assumption that visual anthropology equals documentaries with ethnographic (ie exotic) content. It will instead, explore a series of creative approaches to the visual as evidence and witness from an anthropological perspective. The proliferation of so-called ‘indigenous media’, particularly on the web, arguably redefines the role of the visual anthropologist, and we will the problems and productive possibilities of intercultural looking.

These questions are central to a renewed interest in various kinds of ethnographic film as a result of the recent convergence of contemporary art and documentary. The module will argue for an experimental approach to intercultural filmmaking and suggest what the future of anthropological film might look like. The module also provides a strong theoretical background for those students going on to take Experimental Ethnographic Filmmaking in the Spring Term.

15 credits. Photography & Sound Photography & Sound 15 credits

This module takes up Weinberger’s criticism of contemporary visual anthropology for adopting a narrow definition of its field and its available tools, when the conjunction of ‘visual’ with ‘anthropology’ should actually open up a whole range of creative possibilities for conducting and presenting research.

It will explore the role of photography and sound in anthropology in terms of both the history of their use within the discipline, and also the potentials they hold for new ways of conducting research.

The module will take an anthropological approach to develop a new understanding of photography and the way in which it participates in society. Photographs have become one of the primary and most tangible forms for recording memory, and we will explore the magical animist nature of photography. The module will also consider the potential of sound as a means of anthropological description and a way of researching space and place, time and memory, identity and belonging. We will consider the relations between words and sounds, and ways of knowing and being in the world. The distinctions between the word as it is written and as it is spoken is important here, as are issues of translation – sound into recording, sound into text, one sense into another, as well as adequate cross-cultural translation. The module also provides a strong theoretical background for those students going on to take Ethnography T hrough Photography and Sound in the Spring Term.

15 credits. Anthropology and Gender Theory Anthropology and Gender Theory 15 or 30 credits

This module is worth 15 credits if you study it at Level 6 and 30 credits if you study it at Level 7.

This module explores the inter-relationship of gender, sexuality and the body both within western cultures and western social theory,