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Photography and ambivalence

Joyce D. Hammond
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 Visual Studies, Vol. 19, No. 2, October 2004

Photography and ambivalence

JOYCE D. HAMMOND

Although scant attention has been devoted to the published the pictures, keeping them only for the
anthropological ‘crisis in representation’ of creating still personal pleasure of enjoying their aesthetics and the
images as part of anthropological research, several memories they evoked for me. Since I had not expressly
contemporary women anthropologists have written of sought permission of those in the images, I came to
their misgivings. In this paper, I examine the ideas and
have very ambivalent feelings about them. By contrast,
photographic practices of Ruth Behar, Lila Abu-Lughod,
another photograph that I took in the course of visually
Serena Nanda, Barbara Tedlock, Kristen Hastrup and
documenting Tahitian tı̄faifai is one that I find less
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, all of whom hold ambivalent
attitudes toward photography. I will identify common problematic, if not as engaging aesthetically. The maker
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concerns as well as strengths acknowledged by them. Also, of the tı̄faifai who agreed to my request to include her
I will examine new ways in which they and a number of in front of her creation participated in constructing the
other anthropologists are re-visioning photographic photograph; she instructed her granddaughter to put
practices and creating more equitable relationships on ‘nice clothes’ and did so herself. The two then stood
between researchers and subjects. proudly in front of the woman’s tı̄faifai in a formal
pose that conveyed her sense of a correct photographic
portrait. Providing the tı̄faifai maker with a copy of the
Although a major criticism of anthropological study
photograph afterwards and carefully recording her
that emerged within the ‘crisis in representation’ of the
name and that of her granddaughter for possible future
1980s and 1990s was directed at the visualist emphasis
use also eased any feelings of ambivalence on my part.
of constructing knowledge (most notably, culture as
something observed through participant observation),
While photographic practices within the
the critique of constructing Others and their realities
anthropological discipline have been variously utilized
has continued, ironically, to be largely restricted to
and regarded, it is a rare anthropologist who does not
assessments of the written word. Exceptions are
use a single lens reflex (SLR) or digital camera as
primarily centred on the creation of ethnographic films
standard equipment when engaged in research. Even
made with anthropologists’ input or by anthropologists
those anthropologists who do not plan to incorporate
themselves. However, the creation and publication of
photographs into publications or use photography as
anthropologists’ still images have been largely ignored
part of their research methodology, rapport-building
as a subject of focused critique (Dominguez 2000: 377)
strategies, or PowerPoint and website presentations,
despite the great number of anthropologists who engage
usually create some still images. Thus, given the now
in taking and publishing still images.
well-established reflexive turn in anthropological
My own questioning of photographic practices within thinking, it is surprising that so few anthropologists
anthropological work stemmed from an early stint of have written about the use of photography in their
fieldwork. In the course of gathering information on work. This might be linked to the general lack of
eastern Pacific quilts and quilt-like textiles called attention to visual forms of communication within
tı̄faifai, I created two photographs within the public anthropology, as well as a common oversight that text
arena of community events that occur frequently in the and images are often interrelated (e.g. Hastrup 1992). It
islands: a formal departure and a wedding feast. The might also be partially attributed to our image-
candid close-ups of people expressing heartfelt saturated society in which image production and
emotions turned out very well in composition and viewing is so pervasive that it eludes many scholars’
technique – so well, in fact, that I came to think of critical attention. In light of these forces, it is
them as ‘my National Geographic photographs’ because heartening that a small number of contemporary
they had similar properties to many of the colourful anthropologists have considered the use and place of
and arresting images of that publication. I never still photography within their work.

Joyce D. Hammond is Professor of Anthropology at Western Washington University where she teaches a course on visual anthropology. Recent publications
include: Telling a Tale: Margaret Mead’s Photographic Portraits of Fa’amotu, A Samoan Tāupou (2003), Difference and the I/Eye of the Beholder: Revisioning
America through Travelogues (2002), and Photography, Tourism and the Kodak Hula Show (2000).

ISSN 1472–586X printed/ISSN 1472–5878 online/04/020135–10 # 2004 International Visual Sociology Association
DOI: 10.1080/1472586042000301638
 136 J. D. Hammond

Men as well as women have identified concerns about are contemporary anthropologists who have created
the creation and use of still photography in and used photographs as part of their research and
anthropological work, but, to date, more female published work. In addition to including still images
anthropologists seem to be reflexively discussing their within their ethnographies, three of these women have
use of photography. Perhaps, consciously or not, had one of their photographs published on the covers
women anthropologists are challenged by a western of one or more of their ethnographies. Nanda’s 1999
popular notion that associates photographic imagery Neither Man Nor Woman, Abu-Lughod’s 1993 Writing
with intuition, art and implicit knowledge, qualities Women’s Worlds and 1986 Veiled Sentiments, and
commonly viewed as feminine, deceptive and irrational Behar’s 1986 The Presence of the Past in a Spanish
(Scherer 1992: 32). More likely, in my opinion, is the Village and 1993 Translated Woman feature the
interest women anthropologists may take in various anthropologists’ informants or consultants on the cover
issues feminists have addressed as affecting all women: image. Along with an author’s chosen title, which
visibility/invisibility conventions in expectations and constitutes a textual communication, the cover image
norms that affect women’s behaviour, the male gaze
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sends a visual message to the potential reader.

and image/appearance pressures from the media.
Behar is the only one of the three authors to have
The issues raised by Susan Sontag in On Photography in written explicitly about her cover photograph. In her
1973 coincide with representational issues centered on 1996 book The Vulnerable Observer, she refers to the
power relations with which feminism and cover photograph of her earlier book The Presence of the
postmodernism have grappled. Sontag argued that Past in a Spanish Village – an image which notably did
photography replicates and reifies the process of taking not receive any textual commentary in that book. In
something from someone, since an image has a Behar’s 1996 work, she recounts that she depicted the
metonymical relationship to its subject through the wife and husband featured in the cover photograph in a
mechanical/chemical (and now digital) process that manner supportive to her title and thesis (a theme, I
relies on something ‘out there’ to translate into an would like to point out, that is reiterated in the choice
image, even if it may be drastically altered once of photographs within the text and written observations
‘captured’. When printed, the image’s subject is literally as well). She also reflects on the way the photograph
rendered into an object. Despite the fact that a printed was perceived by its subjects:
photograph is something concrete that can be given
Hilaria, with her husband, Balbino, appeared
back to a person (and, in the past, was perhaps more in the cover photography of my book The
significant as a gesture of reciprocity than a book Presence of the Past in a Spanish Village, poised
written in a language unfamiliar to its recipient), a still before a hay cart. When they saw the cover,
image does not allow the ‘voice’ of someone pictured to they said that they must look really poor to
be heard. The authority of the photographer in people in the United States. I had, indeed,
choosing the subject matter, the time to photograph, chosen a picture of them in peasant guise, not
the angles, focal length and so on encapsulate the one of them in their street clothes or Sunday
essence of a traditional anthropological research best. Only as peasants could they fit into my
approach that placed the researcher in the position of argument, be made visible there. (1996: 60)
greatest control.
Whereas Behar explicitly critiques her own selectivity of
subject matter and its effect upon her consultants, Abu-
In this paper I explore the ambivalence of some women
Lughod only indirectly refers to what must be her
anthropologists who have written about the creation
consultants’ reactions to cover photographs that appear
and use of still photography in their own work. I will
on her books. Despite the informal image of her 1993
identify common concerns as well as strengths
book Writing Women’s Worlds, Bedouin Stories, an
acknowledged in the use of photography by these
image of a young Bedouin woman spinning wool with a
anthropologists. I will also examine new directions that
handheld spindle, within the book Abu-Lughod tells
a number of anthropologists are exploring for
readers:
photographic work in their research and activism.
… the photographs people in this community
RETHINKING THE PHOTOGRAPH really prefer are those in which they or those
they love pose stiffly, unsmiling, in their best
Ruth Behar, Lila Abu-Lughod, Serena Nanda, Barbara clothes; they always told me to keep the candid
Tedlock, Kirsten Hastrup and Nancy Scheper-Hughes shots for myself. (1993: 37)
 Photography and ambivalence 137

Interestingly, it is on the cover of her earlier book, the past were frequently cast as racial or ethnic types.
Veiled Sentiments, that Abu-Lughod conforms to the Captions reinforced the photographic visual codes and
preferences of her consultants. The picture is of an rarely mentioned a person’s name in lieu of
older woman and a girl, identified by caption within demographic trait information such as ‘a racial type’ or
the text as ‘An independent old woman with her niece’. ‘a Maasai elder’. Sometimes exotic or nostalgic western
The two stand erect and in frontal pose to the camera. epithets were used in captions, such as ‘a village
Their solemn expressions and embellished clothes beauty’.
suggest that this would, by their standards, be
The question of anonymity of anthropological subjects
considered a desirable photograph.
is at the centre of one form of ambivalence with which
In many ways cover images, available to the view of any some anthropologists struggle. In keeping with past
passerby, embody some of the most important issues ethical practices of protecting subjects’ identities, an
facing anthropologists who use still photography in anthropologist may elect to conceal a person’s identity
their work. Four issues of representation especially either through refraining from photographing someone,
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resonate for anthropologists/photographers who wish photographing the person in a manner that makes it
to rethink their positions vis-à-vis those among whom difficult to identify him or her, or by employing a
they work. pseudonym or deliberately omitting a person’s name. A
decision not to include a person’s name, however, may
A primary issue, as suggested earlier in this essay,
recreate the distanced effect of using generic captions
centres on gaining permission of those who are
associated with less sensitive historical precedents. In
photographed. Coming from societies in which laws
keeping with current ethical guidelines to allow people
protect people who wish to photograph others in public
to make their identities known if they wish or hidden if
contexts, many anthropologists have not considered the
they choose, anthropologists may now feel obliged to
ethics of creating images of others in different cultural
engage in dialogue with photographed subjects to
contexts. This is complicated by the historical precedent
determine their subjects’ wishes on naming practices.
of anthropologists gathering data to increase knowledge
Inclusion of personal names may detract from
for knowledge’s sake. Anthropologists historically did
anthropologists’ motivations for creating an image, as
not find it necessary to ask permission to photograph
for example, if an image is meant to document typical
‘their’ subjects. Indeed, many subjects of early
proxemic behavior or representative hair treatment. It
anthropological work were unfamiliar with the
may also prove difficult to collect or display all the
workings of cameras or were intrigued with the
names of a large group of people who are subjects of a
equipment and expressly requested that they be
photograph.
photographed. However, as the power inequalities of
researchers and many of their subjects began to be Yet another ethical issue centres on the way in which
seriously examined in the 1960s, the question of gaining photographs may provide visibility for people in a
express permission came to the fore for those manner that parallels the feminist concept of voice. For
anthropologists who began to examine personal ethical marginalized people especially, a photographic presence
decisions within their relationships to others. may serve as an important political statement of their
existence and significance. The anthropologist/
Another ethical set of concerns revolves around the way
photographer may collaborate with subjects to ensure
in which images and captions may objectify people, an
that they are represented and represented as they wish.
outcome that usually goes unacknowledged and is
frequently tied to unexamined conventions of past Behar’s cover of Translated Woman provides a case
anthropological imaging. In older anthropological study for a number of the issues discussed above. The
works, photographic conventions of distancing and cover is a photograph Behar took of ‘Esperanza’, the
exotification were frequently employed, even if ‘translated woman’ who is the focus of the book. While,
unconsciously, as a means to support the on the one hand, Esperanza’s true identity is concealed
anthropological textual analyses that revolved around through a pseudonym (and in reading the book one
difference. Depicted in their most distinctively non- comes to understand the necessity for protection of this
western clothing, sometimes pictured engaged in an kind), on the other hand, her identity is displayed
activity unfamiliar to the potential viewer, at other through her picture. This contradiction, remarked upon
times pictured next to a person of European descent as by many after the book’s appearance, is paradoxical and
a means to show a difference in height, modesty perhaps tied to a contradictory, if not ambivalent,
conventions and demeanor, anthropological subjects of approach on the part of Behar. It is clear from the
 138 J. D. Hammond

image’s construction that Esperanza agreed to the photographs, several scholars have entered into
photographic portrait. However, whether she also reflexive self-critique. Tedlock has twice commented in
agreed to her image being used as the cover of the book written form on particular incidents of photographing:
cannot be ascertained from the image.
One summer evening as my husband and I sat
Standing in front of a stone wall, Esperanza directs her in a Zuni kitchen with a returned pilgrim from
attention to Behar and her camera for a full, frontal Kachina Village, the Land of the Dead, I
image. Next to Esperanza is a photographic portrait of suggested that I might take a picture of the
Pancho Villa, the famous Mexican hero to whom pilgrim, ‘for history and all’. The family
agreed, but the first photo revealed only a
Esperanza expresses allegiance. The subject position
gleaming-white electronic blur bouncing off
that Behar guarantees to Esperanza through the
his glasses, and the second, without glasses, a
collaborative creation of the image is supported by a blank red-eyed stare. Pictures no one loved,
strong inference within the book that it was Esperanza’s liked, or even wanted. Instead of a loving
decision to pose herself next to Villa’s portrait. In a family portrait, those photos betrayed my
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sense, Esperanza mirrors Behar in assuming the insistent documentary urge to freeze, store,
authority to create an image that fits her purpose. The and retrieve the authenticity of an encounter
inclusion of another portrait within her own portrait with a returned Zuni pilgrim, a classic act of
not only communicates Esperanza’s political loyalties, it ethnographic bad faith. (1995: 277–278)
also serves as a reminder of the constructed nature of
Sometimes ethical dilemmas in photography stem from
Esperanza’s own portrait.
subjects’ requests rather than an agenda based on an
Through photography, the reader is tacitly invited to anthropologist’s motives for photographing. In Nanda’s
identify with Behar in the role of one who can learn second edition of Neither Man Nor Woman, for
much from Esperanza. Behar’s cover photograph ties example, the anthropologist describes an ethical
the reader’s first encounter with Esperanza with Behar’s dilemma that occurred while she was doing fieldwork
own first meeting of her. Perhaps the ambiguity of in India among the Hijra. As she recounts, she was
revealing Esperanza’s identity through a photograph, particularly concerned about ethical questions in her
even though her real name is concealed, paralleled by research and publications ‘because of the inherently
the ambivalence that Behar expresses in how she first exotic, and potentially sensationalist nature of the
approached Esperanza as a researcher. As Behar group’ she was studying (1999: 156). One of her key
recounts in the book, she first met Esperanza in 1983 as consultants urged Nanda to take a picture of her genital
a result of a photographic incident. Behar was in a area, which had been transformed through operation
Mexican cemetery on the Day of the Dead busy from male to female:
‘snapping away at the sight of the tombstones people
‘You must take a picture of my operated area,’
were lavishing decorating’. Attracted by Esperanza’s
she insisted, ‘so that people in your country
striking appearance and likeness to ‘something out of
will also know the power and skill of the
one of Diego Rivera’s epic Indian women canvases’, hijras’. I felt really torn. On the one hand, I
Behar asked Esperanza if she might photograph her: had no doubt that such photographs were a
She looked at me haughtily and asked me, with legitimate part of my data gathering. But I also
a brusqueness I had not encountered before knew that I would never feel comfortable
among local women, why I wanted to showing such pictures, even to a scholarly
photograph her. I made some weak reply, and audience, and that to focus on a disembodied
she let me photograph her … I jumped on her physical part of a person who was my friend
as an alluring image of Mexican womanhood, would be contrary to my understanding of a
ready to create my own exotic portrait of her, human personality as a whole. (1999: 156–157)
but the image turned around and spoke back
The ambivalence that Nanda felt is a constant theme in
to me, questioning my project and daring me
many of the writings of the anthropologists whose work
to carry it out. (1993: 4)
I examine here. At times this ambivalence stems from a
In discussions of the circumstances of negotiating disagreement about a decision to take or not to take a
image-making with their consultants, anthropologists specific photograph; many times, however, it revolves
can undermine the objectifying process of around the broader question of using photography at
photographing and raise ethical issues for the reader’s all. Behar asserts in The Vulnerable Observer, ‘I found
consideration. In their honest reappraisal of taking myself resisting the ‘‘I’’ of the ethnographer as a
 Photography and ambivalence 139

privileged eye, a voyeuristic eye, an all-powerful eye’. Tedlock cleverly juxtaposes information about
Behar informs readers that ‘Feminist writers within the photographs of Zuni people taken by Matilda
academy have devoted a considerable amount of energy Stevenson, an early anthropologist working among the
to … the difficult question of how women are to make Zuni in the 1880s, and Stevenson’s unethical approach
other women the subjects of their gaze without to making them, with a personal collection of
objectifying them and thus ultimately betraying them’ photographs of a young Zuni named Joe. Significantly,
(1996: 21). Some of her own struggle is manifested in Tedlock includes two of Stevenson’s images, while none
Translated Woman: of Joe’s are placed within the book. After recounting
that Joe shared ‘an old boot box full of curled and
I know that as I walked through the streets of
San Luis photographing Esperanza with the faded colour snapshots, mostly from Vietnam’, Tedlock
bucket of vegetables on her head, I often felt as assigns captions to the non-pictured photographs that
though we were playing the parts of Arthur parallel the captions she replicates from Stevenson’s
Munby and Hannah Cullwick, I published work. Examples of the captions that
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photographing the working-class woman at Tedlock juxtaposes over several pages (1992: 173–187)
every turn, she willingly the subject of my gaze. include:
(1993: 244)
ALTAR AND FETISHES OF RAIN PRIEST OF THE
Despite their articulated concerns and assessments of NADIR
negative outcomes that can result from photographic
practices, the anthropologists’ use of photographs in JOE AND A SIOUX IN ARMY FATIQUES WITH A
some of the same works that hold their remarks also WALKIE-TALKIE
reveal their assessment of some positive reasons to
utilize photographs.
RATTLESNAKE SHRINE
As a material object that is often prized by their
PARATROOPER WHO LOST HIS LEG IN A
consultants, anthropologists may take photographs as a
MORTAR BLAST
favour to those among whom they work. Tedlock, for
example, twice mentions a Zuni child asking the
Tedlocks (her uncle and aunt in the Zuni family to SWORD SWALLOWERS’ DRY PAINTING, AND
which the couple was attached) to take a photograph, FETISHES
one of which Tedlock included in her book The
JOE WITH A PRETTY TEENAGED VIETNAMESE
Beautiful and the Dangerous.
GIRL
The familial use of photographs is noted on several
occasions by Behar, Tedlock and Hastrup and, as
surrogate kin or, at least as accepted community SHALAKO GODS
members among those whose lives they shared, THE SIOUX AND JOE ZONKED ON ACID
anthropologists are often witness to others’
photographic documents: Through the ironic ploy of fabricating captions in the
scientific mode of her predecessor, Tedlock draws a
Marta focuses her camera on all of my reader’s attention to the objectifying properties of past
Mexican wares. ‘Look at all the beautiful things
anthropological research and the dangers of her own
from Mexico’, she says into the [video]
discussion of Zuni lives. At the same time though, she
camera. She seems to be displaying for her
family back in Mexico all the Mexican things undermines the stereotypes of Native Americans by
the anthropologist has in her house, which the assigning brief descriptions of constructed moments
Mexican herself, namely, Marta, doesn’t want from one of her consultant’s lives that he and others
to have. (1996: 91) created for his own use. She safeguards his privacy as
well by not including any of the images from his
Even though they often do not include a person’s own personal collection.
photographs in their work, references to their
informants’ photographic collections are often With an interest in their consultants’ own photography,
instructive to anthropologists, and the lessons they Tedlock and Hastrup are able to ‘see’ further into the
glean from seeing others’ image collections are passed actual versus the ideal of certain societal behaviors.
on to the reader. In The Beautiful and the Dangerous, Tedlock, for example, comes across a photograph of
 140 J. D. Hammond

masked Hewa Hewa Clowns and queries Joe on this

point: From the periphery of the event, where I
moved about in order to be inconspicuous, I
Now wait just a minute, we thought it wasn’t took pictures and made notes, trying hard to
allowed to take pictures of masked dancers. ‘It look like an honorary male. It was impossible,
isn’t.’ Well? ‘They’re members of the family, and eventually, I had to leave out of sheer
and besides, I took it right here in the house. embarrassment … I was satisfied, however, to
Look here, man, you can see it’s a flash have been there and to have been able to
picture. Do you want it? It’s a Polaroid. Maybe document this remarkable event … I even had
you could figure out how to make some bigger photos from the sacred grove of a male secret
ones to give to the rest of the guys, Mom, and society.
me’. (1992: 186–187)
When, later, I saw the pictures, they were
Hastrup also discovers some truths when she is shown hopeless. Ill-focused, badly lit, lopsided and
showing nothing but the completely
an Icelandic family’s photo album. She terms the
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uninteresting backs of men and rams. While I

photographs ‘icons of memory’ and writes that they
was taking them I had the impression that I
‘were among their dearest treasures’. She was shown was making an almost pornographic record of
pictures of the family’s two sons in their christening a secret ritual. They showed nothing but bore
gowns, but was surprised to see the boys photographed the marks of my own inhibition, resulting
at the ages they were: from my transgression of the boundary
between gender categories.
Further questioning revealed that when the
boys had actually been christened the family This is the point: the nature of the event could
had no camera; but when they were 1 and 4 not be recorded in photography. The texture
years old, respectively, the parents had the of maleness and sex which filled the room had
opportunity to borrow one. Then they had been an intense sensory experience, but it was
dressed the huge babies in their old christening invisible. The reality of the total social event
robe and taken photographs of them ‘so that had been transformed into a two-dimensional
we had their christening pictures’, the mother image, a souvenir (cf. Sontag 1973: 9). For me
explained. it invokes a particular memory, for others the
information is very limited.
Christening pictures they were, but on which
scale were they authentic, and in which sense Probably better photographers, or just male
were they archives to the family’s past? They ethnographers, could have made a finer
certainly were representation of ‘pastness’ but photographic record of the ram exhibition.
they were not history (cf. Tonkin 1990: 27). They would still have to realise, however, that
This incident taught me, first, that we have to pictures have a limited value as ethnographic
question the relationship between visibility and ‘evidence’. While one can take pictures of
veracity. Next, I learnt by direct experience ritual groves and of the participants in the
ritual, one cannot capture their secret on
that history is not fixed, it consists in a series
celluloid. This has to be told. (1992: 9)
of representations that may or may not
coincide with one’s own conventions of Yet in her 1998 ethnography that includes 11 of her
representation. (Hastrup 1998: 66–67) black and white photographs, Hastrup includes one of
Despite her sceptism in the veracity of photographs, a the ram festival. Aside from the photograph’s
sceptism shared by Tedlock and Behar in particular, respectable look as a photograph, the image seems to
and despite her assertion that photographs are quite fulfil the same role as the other photographs of the
book – a simultaneous personal testimony of fieldwork
inadequate to the demands of ethnography since they
in Iceland (indeed, three of the book’s photographs
cannot communicate anything except what someone
specifically depict her Icelandic field sites) and a visual
wants to say about them, Hastrup uses photographs in
record that accompanies the textual examinations of
her 1998 ethnography A Place Apart, an Anthropological
her fieldwork experience and its results.
Study of the Icelandic World. Of particular interest to
me is her inclusion of a photograph she took at a ram In her written work, Hastrup emphasizes the
festival. In an earlier piece of writing in which she significance of landscape to Icelanders. The eight
generally denounces the use of photography, Hastrup predominantly landscape photographs support her
described the experience of photographing the event: written statement, but more importantly convey the
 Photography and ambivalence 141

‘feature of visibility’ that Hastrup contends ‘has in all Most of Abu-Lughod’s lyrical images of Bedouin people
likelihood deeply marked people’s sensation of its in both Veiled Sentiments and Writing Women’s Worlds
historical magnitude’ (1998: 118). Two photographs in may be seen as contradictory to the sense of Bedouin
particular – ‘Appropriating the vastness of nature: the aesthetics of a proper picture. Yet the anthropologist’s
church at Ingjaldsholl’ and ‘Return to silence’ – choice to include candid images of people engaged in a
emphasize the importance of visuality through visual wide variety of activities suggests that she finds
communication. The former depicts a church rendered photography to be an expressive form in the translation
very small against the snow swept, bleak landscape, and process of constructing an ethnography in the same
the latter depicts a few faraway houses huddled under a way that the poetry of the Bedouin people expresses
hillside, facing the shore of the ocean. Both black and truths about their lives. The intimacy of the
white photographs encapsulate a feeling of starkness photographs further communicates Abu-Lughod’s
and create a contrast of human habitation to nature position within the group as a trusted and beloved
reiterated in the contrast of the black and white images. family member and friend.
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Hastrup’s choice of distance in creating the

photographs creates a visual parallel to her written The ‘interpretive turn in anthropology’ seems well
descriptions. A reader senses through visual means the suited to the use of a camera in a sensitive pair of
same interpretation Hastrup articulates through her hands, and it is the foregrounding of their
experimental ethnographic text. In harmony with her interpretation that Tedlock, Hastrup and Behar seem to
musical metaphors, the poetry she includes at the emphasize in their photographic work in a variety of
beginning and end, and her decision to alternatively use ways. While Tedlock and Behar foreground their use of
first and third person when referring to herself, such photography as a visual mode of interpretive
images convey another sensual dimension to Hastrup’s communication in written statements, I contend that all
characterization of herself and her subject. The of the anthropologists discussed in this paper use
photographs may indeed be ‘thinner’ than the thick images in a self-conscious manner to highlight them as
description that Hastrup elsewhere attributes to text; interpretive devices (cf. Dominguez 2000). The
her choice to include them, however, signals that she juxtaposition of the photographs with some
assigns positive value to their communicative ethnographic textual treatments that may be
properties. categorized as experimental may aid the reader/viewer
in understanding the photographs as careful,
The historical debate as to whether photography should interpretive constructions similar to a first
be a part of science (as a document) or of art (an person anecdote, a poem or a series of reflexive
interpretation) is, in some respects, still a part of the statements.
ambivalence that anthropologists may feel toward the
medium. Yet what may contribute to feelings of NEW DIRECTIONS
ambivalence toward photography may also be
considered a desirable combination of factors. In The Given the prominence of written texts in
Beautiful and the Dangerous, Tedlock succinctly alludes anthropological history and their foreseeable ongoing
to these combined properties: importance into the future, the inclusion of
photographic images in books can contribute to the re-
Wanting images that were simultaneously
evaluation and formulation of changes in photographic
documentary and interpretive, in order to
forms. The juxtaposition of text and image is one that
learn about the butchering process [of a deer]
and to evoke the dismemberment of this lovely some anthropologists are still exploring to the mutual
once-living being, I decided to bounce my advantage of both communicative forms.
electronic flash gun off the whitewashed ceiling
‘Photomontage with Texts’ by Lisa Pope (the
at the classic f5.6. My shutter clicked and the
photographer) and Amy Heffernan (the selector of
gun flashed. (1992: 125)
quotes) is such an experimental form. It is a
The reader of The Beautiful and the Dangerous is collaborative work that often juxtaposes photographic
presented with one of the photographs in question in portraits of well-known women anthropologists such as
one section of the book and images of beautifully Elsie Clews Parsons, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead,
painted ceramic bowls in another – visualizations that Zora Neale Hurston and Gladys Reichard) with
reflect Tedlock’s interpretation of Zuni ideas about the quotations from seven women anthropologists’ works
beautiful and the dangerous. (Pope and Heffernan 1993: 327–333).
 142 J. D. Hammond

In a quest for empowering themselves and others, and In a piece entitled ‘Artifacts (The Empire After
in an effort to avoid the problems of imaging associated Colonialism)’, Novack wrote:
with anthropology’s past, some anthropologists have
I constructed a bipartite dance with two
begun to experiment with new photographic forms and
radically contrasting sections. Part I,
uses. Tedlock alludes to a means of undermining the ‘Diorama’, displays a series of images taken
nostalgic stereotypes about Others in The Beautiful and from the book, in a continuous, slowly moving
the Dangerous: sequence. … While my embodiment of the
I felt suddenly compelled to take photos of the photographs alludes directly to the book, my
skinning and butchering process [of a deer]. I choreographic structure subverts it. …
could just see it: my grad-school friends Because the movement never stops, the
lounging on floor pillows and Navajo rugs spectator can never be sure precisely what
dreaming away during one of our exotic constitutes a ‘genuine’ historical artifact and
Southwestern slide shows, vision-questing an what is my improvisation. I hope that at least
some of the images become blurred, losing
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ancient, pristine, melancholy, lost America,

then – these gory slides. The dull eye of the their discrete identity and rendering their
dead deer and the gleam in the butcher’s eye. reconstruction problematic for the viewer.
(1992: 124) (1992: 86)

Another vein of exploration is in critiques of Elizabeth Edwards’ interest in deconstructing the

photographic work created by members of dominant historical sociopolitical relations of photographs led her
groups in the past (Geary 1988, Edwards 1995, Poole to collaborate with photo-artist Elizabeth Williams in
1997). In ‘Familiarising the South Pacific’, Australian exploring the intersecting space between aesthetic
curator Ann Stephen juxtaposes an old photograph expressive and ethnographic documentary in
(1870–1900) of two Solomon Islands men taken by photography. Together, the two wished to utilize
white Australians with a photograph of her own photography’s ‘potential to question, arouse curiosity,
grandfather and uncle in military uniform circa World tell in different voices or see through different eyes’ in
War I. Her intent, she writes, is that by ‘placing my order to explore ‘components of culture which require
family snaps beside these foreign bodies, we can a more evocative, multidimensional, even ambiguous
glimpse something of what Australian culture sought expression than the realist documentary paradigm
out in the ‘‘other’’, and what remained unavailable’ permits’ (1997: 54). Their project, at a theoretical level,
(1993: 70). was conceived ‘to reveal the ambiguities of the realist
paradigm’ historically used by anthropology with
As a communication form that can be conceived photography and to permeate the ‘The Boundary’ by
independently of written texts, some anthropologists’ ‘admitting the metaphorical, allegorical, and expressive’
photographic images are part of a growing emphasis and ‘critiquing the fixity of imagery of photographs
within the discipline to explore subjective, emotive and normally described as ethnographic’ (1997: 55, 64). A
performative means to research and express facets of series of photographs conceived as postcards – objects
the human condition. Given the innovative features of that literally cross boundaries of space – were taken by
this trend, it is not surprising that it encourages Williams in Northern Sinai in 1993. With subject
interdisciplinary cross-fertilization both within and matter of fragments of material culture (sandals, pieces
outside of the academy. of cloth) against desert soil, the images were capable of
Cynthia Novack has applied her experience as a dancer ‘questioning, positing issues, rather than proclaiming
to her perceptions and formulations as an ‘‘this-is-how-it-is’’ (1997: 66). Edwards, a curator of the
anthropologist: Pitt Rivers Museum, established a visual dialogue with
Williams by responding with purchased postcards of
I decided to make a dance that used the stereotypical views of Oxford, which also had some
ambiguity of the photographs in The Book of visual or metaphorical comment on the Sinai material.
the Dance [by Agnes de Mille, published in
The ambivalence of tourist encounters, the fragments of
1963] – their simultaneous evocations and
subject matter and of images themselves (which
reductions of dancing – and the ambiguity of
my feelings – my desire to know and my ironic metaphorically refer to contents outside the frame, to
sense of the impossibility of knowing, my history or memory or cultural experience) and the
affection for the photographs and my critique ambiguities of the medium were all part of the visual
of the book in which they appear. (1992: 85) dialogue into which Edwards and Williams entered.
 Photography and ambivalence 143

Other anthropologists have begun to explore a number women’s art forms, by expanding on the collaborative
of innovative approaches to photography as a tool for efforts of an anthropologist and her consultants and
empowerment. Although still photographs literally emphasizing an activist agenda. In contrast to earlier
render people within the frames voiceless, a consciously work based on the photographs of anthropologists or
constructed power of presence (El Guindi 1993) may be museums, much recent work centres on photographs
likened to a visual voice and be a tool of empowerment. taken by consultants themselves. Lynn Blinn and
The power of presence is explored by Behar in The Amanda Harrist, for example, used Polaroid snapshots
Vulnerable Observer specifically in reference to events of re-entry women students that the women themselves
that are threatening to the lives and well-being of made. The anthropologists spearheaded the project in
others: …‘do you, the observer, stay behind the lens of order to explore with the women the challenges of
the camera, switch on the tape recorder, keep pen in combining the demands of school and home life
hand? Are their limits – of respect, piety, pathos – that (1991). Caroline Wang, Mary Ann Burris and Xiang
should not be crossed, even to leave a record? But if Yue Ping introduced a photovoice project to rural
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you can’t stop the horror, shouldn’t you at least Chinese women as ‘an innovative methodology that
document it?’ (1996: 2). Nancy Scheper-Hughes, puts cameras in the hands of rural women and other
advocate for a ‘barefoot anthropology’ that takes a constituents who seldom have access to those who
militant stance on the primacy of the ethical, sounds a make decisions over their lives’ (1996: 1391). In the
similar note, distinguishing between anthropologist as past eight years, a wide range of projects in many
spectator and anthropologist as witness: countries have drawn from the photovoice concept.
I think of some of my anthropological subjects
… for whom anthropology is not a ‘hostile CONCLUSION
gaze’ but rather an opportunity for self-
The representational issues with which anthropologists
expression. Seeing, listening, touching,
have grappled – objectification, objectivity and
recording can be, if done with care and
sensitivity, acts of solidarity. Above all, they are authenticity, ethnographic authority, visibility/voice,
the work of recognition. Not to look, not to and the gaze, are ones that have led many female
touch, not to record can be the hostile act, an anthropologists to feel ambivalence towards the use of
act of indifference and of turning away. (1995: photography in their work. As the juxtaposition of
418) images and text for a number of prominent women
anthropologists has revealed, that ambiguity has led to
In Death Without Weeping (1992), Scheper-Hughes uses a variety of thoughts and approaches of using
photography as a visual testament to the difficult lives photography within ethnographic texts.
of her Brazilian barrio consultants. The full frontal
gazes of the people attest to their awareness of Scheper- In new arenas that depart from the burdens of past
Hughes’ camera. Her captions and textual discussions ethnographic practices, some anthropologists have
similarly support the documentation quality of her begun to explore their conflictual feelings toward
photographs which recall those of such photographic photography using photography itself as a means to
activists as Lewis Hine. Along with photographs of ill that end. The limitations of the medium are explored as
and dying children, a woman begging for the sake of strengths in work that draws on such photographic
feeding her children and a child’s corpse, Scheper- properties as ambiguity, fragmentation and emotive
Hughes includes an image of Nestle milk products and properties. The anthropologists discussed in this essay
women organizing for self-help. Scheper-Hughes does have already begun to challenge the disciplinary
not include photographs of impoverished subjects boundaries and to draw upon others’ insights. Works
gratuitously. Hers is an activist agenda that uses images such as Jo Spence and Joan Soloman’s anthology What
as well as text to inform and argue for change. Can a Woman Do with a Camera? (1995), Elaine
Reichek’s art/photo montages, Barbara Kruger’s
One important trend for empowerment within
photographic activist posters and a variety of other
anthropology is that of photo-elicitation (and, more
feminist photographic works that critique western
specifically, photovoice). Information derived from
hegemonic visual discourses are among the resources
showing consultants photographs can be traced back to
available to all anthropologists.
the beginning of this century. However, recent photo-
elicitation projects differ from earlier work, much of Anthropological re-visioning of photography is used to
which was conducted by women anthropologists about critique past photographic practices that constructed
 144 J. D. Hammond

Others in uneven power relations. It is also a tool to Cameroon, West Africa. Washington, DC: Published for
create means of empowerment for subjects and the National Museum of African Art by the Smithsonian
anthropologists alike. The deconstruction of old Institute Press.
dichotomies and boundaries, combined with a new Hastrup, Kirsten. 1992. ‘Anthropological visions: some notes
on visual and textual authority,’ in Peter Ian Crawford
means of expressing and acting on such significant
and David Turton, eds., Film as Ethnography,
themes as empowerment, visibility and collaborative
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 8–25.
communication herald future directions for
———. 1998. A Place Apart, An Anthropological Study of
anthropologists who wish to combine photography Icelandic World. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
with their works and lives. Nanda, Serena. 1999. Neither Man Nor Woman, The Hijras of
India. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Novack, Cynthia J. 1992. ‘Artifacts (the Empire after
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