Fieldwork at sunset: Visual representations of anthropology online

Most institutional anthropology departments have a website, to tout credentials, attract students, and offer information. These websites also take up the visual task of disciplinary representation, but their images have skipped the scrutiny that is necessary and overdue. This article analyzes online...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inFocaal Vol. 2020; no. 86; p. 97
Main Authors Goodwin-Hawkins, Bryonny, Gould, Hannah
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Brooklyn Berghahn Books, Inc 22.03.2020
Subjects
Analysis
Anthropology
Book publishing
Campaigns
Charity
Children
Colleges & universities
Credentials
Cultural anthropology
Departments
Discipline
Field study
Graphics software
Malinowski, Bronislaw
Rankings
Ratings & rankings
Rhetorical figures
Scrutiny
Social interest
Sociocultural factors
Students
Textiles
Websites
United States
United Kingdom
North America
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Summary:Most institutional anthropology departments have a website, to tout credentials, attract students, and offer information. These websites also take up the visual task of disciplinary representation, but their images have skipped the scrutiny that is necessary and overdue. This article analyzes online images of sociocultural anthropology across one hundred high-ranking universities worldwide. We show how, online, a discipline defined by diversity becomes readily reducible to "exotic" geographies and objectified "others." While the urban serves as an unattractive foil, frequent images of children recall charity campaigns. Such visual tropes--which comprise a significant, public interface for anthropology--are not just awkwardly dated but also do disservice to ambitions for public anthropology. Change, we suggest, must begin at (the) home(page). Keywords: photography, public anthropology, visual anthropology, websites
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ISSN:0920-1297
1558-5263
DOI:10.3167/fcl.2020.860108