PHOTOGRAPHY AND ANTHROPOLOGY by Christopher Pinney ( 9781861898043 )

Item Details

Title:

PHOTOGRAPHY AND ANTHROPOLOGY

By:

Christopher Pinney

Format:

Paperback

List price:

£22.50

Our price:

£20.25

Discount:

10% off

You save:

£2.25

ISBN 10:

1861898045

ISBN 13:

9781861898043

Availability:

Reprinting. This item may be subject to delays or cancellation.

Delivery rates

Stock:

Currently 0 available

Publisher:

REAKTION BOOKS

Pub. date:

1 May, 2011

Series:

Exposures

Pages:

192

Description:

Photography and Anthropology is a highly illustrated, provocative analysis of anthropologists' use of photography from the 1840s to the present.

Synopsis:

Photography and anthropology share strikingly parallel histories. Christopher Pinney's provocative and eminently readable account provides a polemical narrative of anthropologists' use of photography from the 1840s to the present. Walter Benjamin suggested that photography 'make[s] the difference between technology and magic visible as a thoroughly historical variable,' and Pinney here explores photography as a divinatory practice. Though viewed as modern and rational, this quality of photography in fact propelled anthropologists towards the 'primitive' lives of those they studied. Early anthropology celebrated photography as a physical record, whose authority and permanence promised an escape from the lack of certainty in speech. For later anthropologists, this same quality became grounds to critique an imaging practice that failed to capture movement and process. But throughout these twists and turns, anthropology as a practice of 'being there' has found itself entwined in an intimate engagement with photography as metaphor for the collection of evidence.Photography and Anthropology reveals how anthropology provides the tools to re-imagine the power and magic of all photographic practices. It presents both a history of anthropology's seduction by photography and the anthropological theory of photography. This thoroughly researched book draws upon an intimate knowledge of the history of anthropology, photography and the world's major anthropological practitioners.

Publication:

Imprint:

Reaktion Books

Returns:

Returnable

Some other items by this author:

(TM)PHOTOS OF THE GODS (TM) (PB)

5TH EUROPEAN MONTH OF PHOTOGRAPHY BERLIN (PB)

ALLEGORY & ILLUSION (PB)

ARTISAN CAMERA (HB)

BEYOND AESTHETICS

BEYOND AESTHETICS (HB)