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Who constructs anthropological

knowledge? Toward a theory of
ethnographic film spectatorship
Wilton Martinez

Film as Ethnography

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8 Wilton Martinez

Who constructs anthropological knowledge?

Toward a theory of ethnographic film
spectatorship

In recent years, critical anthropology (Clifford and Marcus 1986; Marcus and
Fischer 1986; Clifford 1988) has challenged the 'truthfulness' of 'realist' ethno-
graphies and anthropologists are increasingly experimenting with partial, 'open'
and evocative forms of ethnography, adopting 'self-conscious' and dialogic styles
of writing (Crapanzano 1980; Taussig 1989 and others). The main concern of
this critique is, to a large extent, still focused primarily on authorship, style and
textuality. Although there is considerable debat-e over the impact of these alterna-
tive texts, little attention has been paid to their reception by the 'general public' or
to their linkage with the larger process of the construction of cross-cultural
knowledge and cultural identities.
An increasing number of studies in visual anthropology have focused on the
politics of representation in ethnographic film, challenging the authority of
film-makers (Pinney 1989; Banks 1990), their perpetuation of patriarchal views
of other cultures (Kuehnast 1990), and their colonialist stereotyping of the
'primitive' (MacDougall 1975; Nichols 1981; Tomaselli et. al., 1986; Lansing
1990). This recent deconstruction of ethnographic films has questioned their
apparent stability, but only to a limited extent. Again, these critical studies tend to
consider the text (i.e. film) as the fundamental source of meaning and to overlook
the role of the 'reader' (i.e. viewer) in its construction. 1
In the pedagogical practice of ethnographic film, it is the films that are
generally seen as the exclusive vehicles of anthropological knowledge - with a
relatively fixed set of meanings; many instructors teaching with ethnographic film
continue to use an 'archaeological' approach assuming that 'meaning is a treasure
that can be excavated through interpretation' (lser 1978, p. 5). Despite the
impact of films on an increasingly large viewership, there is a notable absence of
studies of ethnographic film spectatorship. Films are still seen as the result of
epic enterprises in 'the field', embodying a 'truthful' knowledge which viewers
must come to understand one way or another. Underlying this attitude is the
132 Image, audience and aesthetics Toward a theory ofethnographic film speaatorship 133

assumption that the construction of anthropological knowledge about other Understanding the ethnographic film spectator
cultures is the exclusive domain of the anthropologist/author.
In this paper I explore the ramifications of various reader-oriented theories as Studies on the anthropology of visual communication (Worth 1981; Worth and
a 'provocation' to the field of visual anthropology to redirect our attention to the Gross 1974) have elaborated on the interpretive strategies and semiotic
spectator of ethnographic film. I believe we need to move from the dominance of mechanisms by which viewers decode and 'assign' meanings to films. In their
author-text to a theoretical consideration of the viewer/ reader as a powerful view, good communication occurs when readers move beyond 'attributing' their
source of signification in the construction of anthropological knowledge. Under- own pre-assumptions to texts and learn to 'infer' authors' intended meaning.
graduate students, the primary users of ethnographic film, are by no means While this model is helpful for understanding the dynamics of stereotyping (via
passive receptors; they are necessarily inscribed in the filmic text; they interact attribution), it retains an ultimately text-centred perspective by limiting the role
with films; they decode texts using their interpretive strategies and ideologies and of the reader to 'assigning' meanings to texts, rather than eo-constructing
they eventually constitute textual meanings. signification and knowledge.
What motivates this concern with the 'reader' is my finding of an interpretive MacDougall (1978) has moved closer to theories that challenge the dominant
'gap' between the intentions of film-makers/ instructors and student response role of the author in the construction of meaning. He has characterised 'modern'
(Martinez 1990a, 1990b). In a study of students' responses to a variety of films in ethnographic films as open-ended 'texts' in that they incorporate and juxtapose
an introductory anthropology course at the University of Southern California, 2 I multiple perspectives (e.g. author, film subjects, 'indigenous commentary'). His
have found that many students decode films in an 'aberrant' way (Eco, 1979), approach suggests displacing traditional forms of representation and ways of
with relatively high levels of disinterest, 'culture shock' and/or alienation, and reading in favour of participatory film styles which allow for more complex forms
with a relatively low level of 'understanding' (correspondent with textual and of communication: 'The underlying insight of the film-as-text is that a film is a
pedagogical intended meanings). These readings were generally linked to the conceptual space within a triangle formed by the [film] subject, film-maker, and
audience and represents an encounter of all three' (1978, p. 422). Although
specialised format of conventional and 'factual' ethnographic film and to what
pointing in the right direction this approach has not evolved theoretically nor has
was perceived as the 'bizarre' appearance and behaviour of the 'primitive'. In
it been applied in empirical studies of reception. Furthermore, MacDougall's
contrast, when students' interest was stimulated and 'understanding', analytic
advocacy of modernist texts carries with it an excessive optimism that overlooks
insight, and empathetic reflexivity maximised, it was generally in response to
the unequal power relations within the filmic triangle (cf., Martinez 1990b). 3 In
emotionally engaging films with humour and narrative drama, made-for-TV
the light of these limitations within our field, I shall turn to other disciplines
documentaries, films using a reflexive style, close-up portrayals of the lives of
which have developed complex models of interpretive processes and readership:
individuals, and/ or filmic attention to topics of general concern (issues of gender,
literary criticism, film theory and Marxist 'cultural studies'.
economics, etc.). This film preference and the more active spectatorship which it
In literary studies, the shift from text-centred theories (i.e. Formalism, New
suggests was a product of stimulated curiosity for the 'primitive' combined with
Criticism and structuralism) to reception theory (Jauss 1982a, 1982b; Iser 1978),
students' desire for entertainment, a need for self-empowering knowledge and
reader-response studies (Gibson 1950; Holland 1968; Fish 1980; Tompkins
pleasurable ways of seeing. Meanwhile more strictly informational and overtly 1980) and theories of the text (Barthes 1977; De Man 1979; Eco 1979) has been
educational films were commonly seen as 'dry' and 'boring' and, most dis- experienced as a veritable revolution (Holub 1984). These new paradigms have
concertingly, tended to leave students with reinforced and even augmented challenged the notion of 'objective' works and proposed a responsive and pro-
colonialist stereotypes of the 'primitive'. ductive reader as the central role player in the constitution of meaning. Given
These 'symptomatic' readings indicate more tha)-1 a pedagogical problem; they their attention to the larger historico-cultural process of communication, recep-
suggest that the use of film has powerfully catalysed the crisis of representation in tion theories have been assimilated into mass media and film studies and have
the classroom. Similar to results reported by Hearne and DeVore (1973), my more recently merged with post-structuralist and postmodern perspectives.
findings indicate that we may be perpetuating the devaluing and stereotyping of Historically, film scholars have privileged the power of texts over spectators,
other cultures. Moreover, by overlooking student responses, we may also be ｾｮ･ｲ｡ｬｹ＠ reserving any critical role for specialised film analysts. Largely
contributing to reconstituting anthropology as a univocal and hegemonic influenced by structuralist semiotics and Lacanian psychoanalysis (Metz 1977),
discourse. In the long run, students' constructed knowledge is re-inserted into 6lm theorists have discussed the 'cinematic apparatus' and the unconscious
the circuit of anthropological meanings, into the larger sets of cultural discourses mechanisms by which the spectator identifies with the gaze of the camera and is
of the 'primitive' and into the 'political unconscious' of the 'Other' in the West thereby constructed as 'subject' of the filmic text. More recently (Mulvey 1975;
(Jameson 1981). In short, we need to listen to students' voices more carefully; Dayan 1976; Miller 1977; Oudart 1977; Heath 1981) they have incorporated
they speak for more than just 'uninformed' readings.
134 Image, audience and aesthetics Toward a theory ofethnographic film speaatorship 135
Marxist and feminist approaches and a more radical Lacanian psychoanalytic Some of the most useful theories of the role of the reader have resulted from the
perspective, focusing on the ways in which films, understood as products of convergence of semiotics with phenomenology in literary studies. Eco's 'model
ideology, 'interpellate' (Althusser 1971) and 'suture' (Miller 1976) spectators reader' (1979) and lser's 'implied reader' (1974) are two of the most influential
who are already constituted as the 'subjects' of dominant discourses (e.g. capital, representatives, according to which the reader is inherent in the text. Eco
patriarchy). Contemporary approaches are progressively assimilating theoretical conceives of the 'model' reader as a 'textual strategy', one 'supposedly able to deal
influences from reception theories and 'cultural studies', focusing on the dialogic interpretively with the expressions in the same way as the author deals
relation between film structures and spectator activity. generativelywith them' (1979, p. 7). 4 Whether directly or indirectly addressed in
Marxist theories of mass communication have also switched attention to the the text, the reader is positioned 'in' and 'by' it, ideally matching semantic frames
reader. The Frankfurt School of the 1930s and 1940s (Adorno and Horkheimer of competence, knowledge and ideologies shared by addresser and addressee.
1944), and the later 'critical theory' (Gouldner 1976; Gitlin 1978) both saw lser's 'implied reader' is a 'textual structure' and a 'structured act' or a 'process'
viewers as alienated consumers dominated by an overpowering 'culture industry' of meaning production: 'The term incorporates both the prestructuring of the
able to orchestrate every aspect of the reception process. In response, 'cultural potential meaning by the text and the reader's actualisation of this potential
studies', a multidisciplinary perspective which combines social sciences, semi- through the reading process' (lser 1974, p. xii). Similarly, film theory distin-
otics, film theory and feminism, has questioned the power of the text and guishes between the 'subject-position' prescribed by the text and that of the
elaborated on the role of hegemonic reinstation, equating the process of recep- human agent who actually engages with that text (Heath 1981; Silverman 1983;
tion with the political 'struggle for meaning' (Williams 1977; Hall, 1980, 1985; Smith 1988).
Morley 1980; Bennett 1982; Fiske 1987). In this view, readers are 'over- Thus, we need to focus on the specific strategies texts use to 'create' their
determined' (Althusser 1971) by their socio-historical position (class, sex, race, reader and to guide the reading activity. Eco's (1979) distinction between 'open'
culture, etc.), which powerfully affects the ways they are 'interpellated' by textual and 'closed' strategies proves helpful for considering the particular effect of
discourses. Yet, given the multiple and contradictory nature of signifYing different types of ethnographic film on communication. In short, 'open' texts
practices, subjective experience and social relations, viewers nevertheless play an carry, and generate, a high level of semiotic 'movement' (i.e. communicative and
active role in negotiating meanings and contesting hegemonic ideologies. Post- interpretive dynamics, active interaction of reader-text, intertextual relations)
modern and discursive theories of culture (Kuhn 1982; Grossberg, 1984) have and thus carry an explicit 'invitation' for the reader to do the interpretive work.
further elaborated on the notion of 'difference', the multiple moments of Generated with an 'ideal' reader in mind, 'open' texts are suggestive and sus-
resistance in the text and the viewers' potential to deconstruct dominant mes- ceptible to a virtually unlimited range of possible readings. Yet, some semiotic
sages. Similarly, Fiske (1987) has emphasised the power of audiences to derive 'limits' are imposed precisely by the textual strategies: 'An open text, however
pleasure from texts by reading them oppositionally. "open" it be, cannot afford whatever interpretation. An open text outlines a
While these disciplines have primarily conceptualised the role and power of "closed" project of its Model reader as a component of its structural strategy'
the reader in terms of (textual) 'dominance' or (reader) 'contestation', there is (Eco 1979, p. 9).
growing attention in each field to dialogic models of communication. My view is In contrast, 'closed' texts carry specific instructions to be read in a particular
that neither of these extreme positions accounts for the complexity of ethno- way, thus significantly delimiting the variability of reader's interpretations. The
graphic film spectatorship. Rather, we need to consider the student/spectator as forces of closure do not, however, necessarily ensure transparent communica-
both active, resourceful, motivated and critical and passive, submissive and tion, nor do they 'silence' readers who do not match the 'model reader'. Closed
alienated. These roles and stances, furthermore, will be situationally affected by texts are still in semiotic 'movement', yet of a different kind; most critically, they
the particular context ofviewership (e.g. school setting, educational philosophies are 'immoderately open' to aberrant decoding, resulting largely from a mismatch
and strategies, film repertoire). We need to concentrate on the process of between the intended or 'model' reader and actual readers. Generally seen as a
reception itself and on how anthropological knowledge is eo-constructed in the 'betrayal' of the author's intentions or a failure of communication (mostly at the
interaction. level of denoted messages), aberrant readings should not, however, necessarily
be viewed in a 'negative' way. They can also entail critical and even appositional
interpretations.
The reader in the text Perhaps one of the most significant findings of my study (1990b) is the high
The reader is the space on which all the quotations that make up a writing are inscribed correspondence between films using 'open' textual strategies and more elabo-
without any of them being lost; a text's unity lies not in its origin but in its destination. rated and reflexive responses. The strongest pattern of aberrant readings and
(Barthes 1977, p. 148) reactions of disinterest, alienation and shock corresponded to more 'closed'
136 Image, tmdience and aesthetics Toward a theory ofethnographicfilm speaatorship 137

strategies. Supporting MacDougall's (1978) position, these results suggest that narrator in Dead Birds?' or 'What does the anthropologist's gaze at Dedeheiwa
the more 'open' films, those using narrative, experimental, or reflexive styles (e.g. mean to the viewer ofA Man Called Bee?' It is at this level that students' immediate
First Contact, Cannibal Tours, Number Our Days), empower viewers by allowing impressions of cultural behaviour, appearance and interaction are configured by
them space to negotiate meanings in a more dialogic, interactive way of reading, a politics of difference and the blanks get filled in aberrant ways: nudity is read as
generally resulting in more complex interpretations (as we shall see later). In vulgarity; normative verbal communication as rude and angry confrontation;
contrast, the responses to conventional ethnographic film, those using the delousing as a manifestation of a despicable lifestyle rather than an act of
'closed' strategies of 'factual' and distanced representations (e.g. Trance and communication and intimacy, etc. The blanks, once connected by viewers,
Dance in Bali, Asch/Chagnon Yanomami films), suggest a closing of interpretive become 'thematic units'.
space and thus an apparent disempowerment of viewers. Although assuming a At the second level, broader guiding devices, or 'vacancies', condition readers'
reader with considerable anthropological knowledge, these films generally work views of new and previous themes, leading them to form the text's 'horizon'. The
to reduce ambiguity by attempting to elicit the 'right' or 'truthful' response from 'themes' of ethnographic films are generally narratives illustrating
spectators - and thus act as catalysts for aberration. At the same time, most anthropological topics (e.g. daily life, social organisation, ritual) which are based,
ethnographic films convey representations of cultures largely foreign to on or even motivated by, theoretical paradigms or explanations (i.e. the 'horizon'
spectators. They are thus potentially 'immoderately open' to cross-cultural of ethnographic films). At this level, the 'filling' activity is more powerfully guided
meanings and interpretations and are a rich source of aberrant readings by those by anthropologists' rationalisations of a cultural 'logic', anticipating a closer
who do not match the 'model' reader inscribed in the text (extreme examples are correspondence between reader and text. Yet, in some cases, despite the con-
Les Maitres Fous, The Nuer and Forest ofBliss). textual information provided in lectures, films and books, students fill not only
Akin to Eco's conception of an 'outline' in the text that helps to curtail absolute the thematic 'blank' but also the text's 'horizon' in aberrant ways (Martinez
arbitrariness in interpretive practices, Iser (1978) sees the literary text as a 1990b). In response to Trance and Dance in Bali, for example, some students
'schematised structure' (also 'schemata' or 'structure of the blanks') to be explained Balinese mythology and performance as mere 'superstition' and
completed by the reader. The 'blanks', or 'gaps', within the textual structure play 'masochistic' behaviour. Similarly, a significant number of students interpreted
a regulatory function by which the text exercises considerable control over the the film-maker's intention in The A x Fight as one of representing the level of
reader in a relation of fundamental asymmetry. Given this imbalance, the reader is extreme violence of a 'corrupted' and 'barbaric' society.
generally unable to validate the 'correctness' of her or his interpretation, or to While blanks and vacancies operate at the syntagmatic level, Iser's third level, a
corroborate the ultimate intentionality of the author. This elusiveness, and thus more complex variety of'blank' or negation, operates paradigmatically, at the level
dominance, of the text is based on the notion of'contingency', which accounts for of overall 'content'. Negations of specific elements in the text's repertoire (i.e.
the unpredictability of reading situations. This is partkularly relevant to the social conventions) act to prestructure the reader's comprehension of the socio-
reception of ethnographic films which, due to the foreign, 'different' and historical issues raised by the text and point to ways of reassessing them. Iser
'unknown' nature of their content, and to their usually prescriptive/ explanatory claims that negation characterises 'good' literature, which has the function of
'rhetoric of truth', confront student viewers with a more powerful and controlling calling into question 'familiar' norms and conventions. Given the cross-cultural
schemata. The asymmetry of the ethnographic film text may be further nature of ethnographic films and the pedagogical intentions of their authors,
augmented given that these films often constitute the only source of information these films characteristically 'negate' the spectators' own cultural assumptions,
for viewers about a given culture. asking them to re-position themselves so as to understand the 'logic' and validity
lser distinguishes three levels ('blanks', 'vacancies' and 'negation') on which of different cultural schemata. By taking this expectation for granted, however,
texts operate to guide the reading activity, a distinction which proves fruitful for and by failing to challenge specific assumptions, some films may actually
analysing ethnographic film. On the first level, 'blanks' appear in the empty reinforce ethnocentric interpretations, for example, that the Yanomamo
spaces between elements (e.g. utterances, gestures, objects} and perspectives shamanistic use of drugs is 'irrational', 'unsustainable' or even 'immoral', as some
(e.g. narrator's, characters') in the text. In ethnographic films, like fictional texts, students suggest in response to Magical Death; that the healing dance in N/ um
the blanks are prestructured by the text to be filled in specific ways, for example, Tchai or the trance session in A Balinese Trance Seance express little more than a
according to particular pre-coded and editorialised cultural patterns of blind and 'ridiculous' subjugation to superstition; that conflict of sex roles in
behaviour. However, given both the cross-cultural nature of the message and the Maasai Woman is a prime example of'primitive sexist backwardness"; or that the
power of the visual image, the textual elements and perspectives are more New Guinean highlanders in First Contact were almost sub-human and savage
resistant to authorial prestructuring and more open to idiosyncratic interpreta- cannibals that needed colonialism in order to 'understand the world'.
tions. We may find ourselves asking, 'What is the relation between Pua and the lser also proposes the concept of 'secondary negation', a more complex
138 Image, audience and aesthetics Toward a theory ofethnographic film spectatorship 139

invalidation of the 'familiar' which is common in modernist literature (prime reading activities ultimately define the production of meaning as well as the
examples are Joyce's and Beckett's novels). This entails the negation of conven- reconstitution of readers.
tional interpretive strategies and expected modes of reading orientation, as in the A basic condition of reception is that a text (literary or filmic) cannot be
disappearance and/ or problematising of the narrator's perspective and constant perceived in all its aspects at once. As Iser suggests, we can experience a text as a
switching of frames of reference through multiple and fragmentary narrativity. whole only when we have finished experiencing it. To some extent, the reader is
Recent anthropological documentaries and ethnographic films (e.g. Cannibal transcended by the temporal dimension of texts, which can only be grasped after
Tours, Number Our Days, Kenya Boran) have also increasingly incorporated the consecutive phases of reading. This makes the reader a 'moving viewpoint which
use of'secondarynegation' through experimental and self-reflexive qualities that travels along inside that which is to be apprehended' (Iser 1978, p. 109). The
bring about consciousness of the very activity of communication and repre- 'wandering viewpoint' is a continuous positioning and re-positioning that allows
sentation, putting interpretation and meaning in brackets, 'laying bare the his- readers to uncover, distinguish and connect the multiplicity of elements and
toricity of our concept of meaning' (Is er 1978, p. 223). Although in part merely perspectives in the text.
attracted by 'innovative' forms of representation and/ or responding to their need In this constant adjusting of our picture to fit with new information we
for the author's reflexive mediation to help bridge the cross-cultural gap, reconstruct the text and ourselves as a meaningful 'totality' (gestalt): we are
spectators manifest more than facile engagement in these films; students seem to 'conformed' by the very object we are producing. Although readers constandy
accept the 'invitation' to participate actively in discerning the diverse layers of search for 'consistency', the process of gestalt-formation is, for lser, charac-
representation. terised by both 'unity' and 'transition'. This is pardy because, in the process of
Consideration of the basic textual strategies of openness and closure and of the assimilating and appropriating the 'object' and the 'unknown' experiences
structure of the blanks, elucidates the reader-text relation and the complexity emphasised in the text, readers must at some point hinder their own previous
underlying student 'symptomatic' readings. Firsdy, even when powerfully guided experience: 'The division, then, is not between subject and object, but between
by textual schemata, viewers' opportunities to fill in the large number of'blanks' subject and himself (Iser 1978, p. 155). lser argues that this dividing impact can
in ethnographic film, including the author's intentions, seem to be potentially help further readers' consciousness. Thus, 'good' reading is a 'therapeutic
endless. Secondly, my findings show that students' (mis)readings - and their experience'; it helps the reader to gain access to hidden or non-manifest sub-
construction of meaning via the 'attribution' of pre-assumptions (Worth 1981) - jective dimensions (e.g. conventions, ｰｲｾｪｵ､ｩ｣･ｳＬ＠ stereotypes) and to reshape
are linked more to ethnocentric and hegemonic stereotyping than to relativistic or them into new forms of gestalt. In this light, ethnographic film has the potential to
critical interpretations. While these findings have crucial implications for expand students' cross-cultural understanding and thus trigger new forms of
teaching practices (which I discuss at the end of this chapter), they also point to consciousness. But the presentation of a world too alien, and even threatening, to
the need for further theoretical consideration of students' reading pre- the spectator may also create a subject-position that is too divisive. In this case,
dispositions and, more specifically, to the mechanisms by which they constitute one can expect 'uninformed' viewers to resort to stereotyping or even to reject the
meanings in the course of the reading act. text as a whole as, for example, some students do with Magical Death or
Anasternaria.
The reading act While useful, Iser's framework remains at an individual level. It does not
account for the social and historical forces that affect reading practices. Iser
We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and proposes that the social function of literature is to 'negate' conventions (e.g.
ourselves. (Berger 1972, p. 9)
prejudice) in order to help us lead 'better' and more 'productive' lives- similar to
Theories to explain how viewers make sense of ethnographic films can be the anthropological aim of promoting cultural relativism. This utopian goal,
drawn from cognitive and phenomenological approaches to readership and however, idealises a particular version of'educated' textuality and individualised
from psychoanalytic film studies. While emerging from different epi- readership. The construction of a model reader embodying the paradigm of
stemological paradigms, these two orientations converge in some important 'liberalism' is naive because it does not consider the intentions of authors and
respects. For instance, while lser (1978) sees the reading act as a complex of assumes that a 'liberal' reader can be free of particular 'biases' and determinants.
experiential phenomena and a series of cognitive acts (e.g. consistency- In contrast, Lacanian film theory conceives of the subject/spectator as an
building, image-making, ideation) leading to 'gestalt-formation', film theory already multiple and decentred entity. For Lacan (1977), the human 'subject' is
defines it as a dialectic of symbolic-imaginary operations (e.g. gazing, inter- constituted in the intersection of two co-existing and complementary orders: the
pellation, suturing, subject-positioning) resulting in 'subject-construction' imaginary (the register of images, phantasy, identification, duality} and the
(Metz 1977; Mulvey 1975; Heath 1981). Both approaches share the notion that symbolic (the register oflanguage, cultural order, law and discourse). At an early
140 Image, audience and aesthetics Toward a theory ofethnographicfilm spectatorship 141

age (seven to eighteen months old), when we gain access to the symbolic via suturing of subjects into its narrative, film discourse interpellates spectators -via
repression (i.e. castration) of imaginary identification with the mother, we enter recognition and identification- and forces them to participate in its ideology.
the discursive complex of culture (the field of the Other). In this process, we, as From this perspective, we can analyse the various ways in which student!
subjects, become signifiers within a network of signification, becoming 'subjects' spectators are 'bound into' ethnographic film textuality. One fundamental
of the enunciated, that is, we are 'spoken' by ideological and discursive forma- suturing mechanism is that of the spectator's cultural identification with the
tions. Yet in this process of creation of meaning and identity, we are also alienated 'normalising' gaze (F oucault 1977) of the camera, with the editorial perspective
from our own drives ('aphanisis' or the 'fading' of the subject) and constituted as and with its scientific narrative about the 'primitive other'. More strongly than
'lack', which signals the formation of the unconscious and the inauguration of with films on or about Western culture ('us'), cross-cultural representations of
desire (desire of the Other). the 'other' trigger a massive identification with the textual discursivity itself, and
In Lacanian terms, human signification constantly reproduces alienation and thus a more powerful form of ideological interpellation. As Trinh T . Minh-ha
desire; for instance, the articulation of a statement in language gains meaning suggests, 'the privilege to sit at table with "us" ... proves both uplifting and
through negativity, that is, by eliminating other alternative meanings that remain demeaning. It impels "them" to partake in the reduction of itself and the
in the field of the Other. The unconscious also speaks, through constant appropriation of its otherness by a detached "us" discourse. The presence of a
openings and closures, the codes and signifiers of cultural discourses ('the (grateful) witness serves to legalise such discourse, allowing it to mimic, when-
unconscious is the discourse of the Other'). This perspective offers a key for ever necessary, the voice of truth' (1989 p. 6 7). Given this larger suturing into
analysing Western representations of, and unconscious desire for, the 'primitive' culture, students strongly identifY with the surveillance function of the
as a cross-cultural signifier. As Said (1979), Todorov (1984) and Kuper (1988) voyeuristic camera and are powerfully interpellated by its politics of
have argued, the 'primitive' has been culturally constructed as 'other'5 by differentiating, classifYing, qualifYing, rewarding or punishing of the 'primitive'-
negating racial and cultural identities in order to construct, by opposition, an most evident in their responses to conventional and strictly observational ethno-
identity of 'self'. Throughout the history of Western colonialism, these repre- graphic films.
sentations of otherness have been loaded with a dualistic and fetishised image of At the level of narrative in the strict sense (i.e. story telling), I have observed
the 'primitive' as both 'original presence' and 'lack' of 'civilisation' (White 1978; students' suturing primarily via identification with the 'plot' (which explains their
Jameson 1981). More specifically, these forms of signification can be observed in preference for films employing personal narratives, e.g. Dead Birds, The Kawelka:
ethnographic film tropes as well as in students' preconceptions of the 'primitive', Ongka 's Big Moka) yet not necessarily with the 'characters', as would be common
as I will discuss below; similarly, students' unconscious signifYing practices (e.g. in Hollywood narratives. In general, students have difficulties in identifYing with
dreams) seem to reproduce the dualistic representation of the 'other'. 6 the peoples represented as 'subjects' (determined by race and culture), yet they
In film-viewing we also find a constant division of the subject-in-language: do seem capable of 'relating' to particular aspects of them (determined by sex,
mediated by unconscious discursive practices, the film 'subject' (i.e. the position age, forms of gestalt or subject-positions). For instance, identification by gender
to be occupied by the actual spectator) is an entity 'constantly missing and moving can be found among female students in response to films such as N!ai, The Story
along the flow of images' (Heath 1981, p. 88). Yet, as with all discursive of a !Kung Woman, 1952-78 and The Women's Olamal and among males in
situations, spectators are also repeatedly united or sutured into the text at the level response to Meat Fight and some of the Yanomamo films; identification by age
of a common ideology. Initially conceptualised as a 'pseudo-identification' or as and gender is also common, among males, in response to Naim and Jabar and A
the 'junction of the imaginary and the symbolic' (Lacan 1977; Miller 1977), the Rite ofPassage. On a more micro level, the multiplicity of gazes represented in
notion of suture has been extensively applied in film theory in ways that parallel ethnographic films also serves continually to (re)structure spectators'
Iser' s model of 'filling in'. 7 At a micro level, typical mechanisms of suturing are identifications and power relations with specific textual perspectives (e.g. those of
the techniques of shot!reverse shot, by which the missing field of the single shot the anthropologist and peoples represented). Given that the observed/ observing
is filled with the 'presence' of the reverse shot (Dayan 1976; Oudart 1977), and gaze of the 'primitive' is seldom returned in most conventional ethnographic
point-of-view editing, i.e. gazing character/gazed image/gazing character films, students are all too often unconsciously positioned in the voyeuristic,
(Rothman 1976). At a more macro level, Heath (1981) sees suture as a 'multiple omnipotent role of the film-maker. When there is a returned gaze, it is usually a
function' that entails larger mechanisms of'joining' the subject/spectator to the non-threatening one, again satisfYing the viewers' power-reinstantiating
chain of textual discourse ('no discourse without suture') and suggests focusing preference for the gaze of those perceived as receptive and amenable, as sub-
on the level of textual narrativity: 'narrative makes the join of symbolic and ordinate or even 'weak' males, or for the gaze of women or children. 8
imaginary, process and reflection ... the spectator is placed as subject for the The tendencies described here indicate the interpellatory power of ethno-
narrative relations and constituted in their reflection' (1981 p. 122). Through the graphic film, which all too often results in unconscious domination of the
142 Image, audience and aesthetics Toward a theory ofethnographic film speaatorship 143

spectator, a domination rooted in the Western 'political unconscious' Oameson (i.e. 'write') them. In addition, readers generally belong to several communities
1981). Within this perspective, we need to study further how students construct and thus participate in different strategies, thereby also partaking in inter-
meanings through their multiple forms of alienation, identification, pleasure and communal interpretive struggles for 'writing' texts. As we shall see below,
power relations with the film subjects. At the same time, we must not forget the students' membership in or access to different types of interpretive communities
role of student/subjects as active gap-fillers; as recent critiques (Linker 1984; (e.g. student fraternities, religious and political associations, special interest
Smith, 1988) have emphasised, even though signifying practices - both con- groups) powerfully affects the ways they interpret and value films.
scious and unconscious - cannot operate outside cultural discourses, the While Fish's radical emphasis on the powerful reader proves useful for
mechanisms of suturing do not always translate into monolithic or transcendental deconstructing the hegemony of the text, it fails to account for the guiding and
processes of domination. The fragmentation of textual discourse and the interpellatory force of the textual schemata and for the power relations which
multiple forms of interpellation necessarily create contradictory subject- determine the dominance of certain interpretive communities. It may be more
positions that allow space for spectators' agency and resistance. In order to accurate to conceive of interpretation as a 'secondary revision', as 'an essentially
analyse the various informing discourses that affect the construction of allegorical act, which consists in rewriting a given text in terms of a particular
spectators' subjectivity and their correspondent construction of meaning, we interpretive master code' (Jameson 1981, p. 10, emphasis added). This suggests
need to consider the mediatory role of socio-historic processes in spectatorship. the need for analytical categories to account for readers' 'master codes', which
can be identified and studied in terms of both their 'form' (e.g. aesthetic
conventions of genre, tropes, style) and 'content' (e.g. historical paradigms,
Interpretive strategies
ideologies and meta-narratives of the 'primitive').
[The unconscious] represents nothing, but it produces. It means nothing, but it works. Jauss's aesthetics of reception (1982b) is particularly instructive with regard to
Desire makes its entry with the general collapse of the question 'What does it mean?' 'form'. He proposes that readers can be isolated neither from the 'horizon of
(Deleuze/ Guatarri 1983, p. 109)
expectations' of a given time nor from the horizon of previous readings of a given
Like all spectators, students 'read' films guided by their own conventionalised text. 'Horizon of expectations', a constitutive and mediatory mechanism, refers to
knowledge of what is 'good', 'believable', 'interesting' or 'boring'. Whereas it is intersubjective structures of historico-aesthetic knowledge, the 'system of
difficult to assess how introductory courses affect students' subjectivity and references' of a group expressed in textual and aesthetic conventions of genre,
interpretive conventions in the long run, by analysing viewers' sets of expecta- form and style (e.g. novel, poetry, documentary, ethnographic film). Our his-
tions, preferences and affective valuations of films and represented subjects we torico-aesthetic horizon is largely unconscious and thus elusive and hard to
can add to our understanding of the interpretive strategies students use to understand fully or transcend, yet in the reception process we project, fuse and
construct anthropological knowledge. change our horizons by means of transforming our expectations into conven-
The need to consider the role of interpretive mediation leads us to the field of tionalised knowledge (i.e. master codes) until a 'new' text defamiliarises these
contemporary hermeneutics and its critique of 'essentialism', the belief in the conventions and expands them into a new horizon.
existence of an ultimate meaning. As Gadamer (1975) and others (e.g. Geertz A more specific way of studying anthropology students' horizons is by
1973) have proposed, interpretation can only be understood in the context of analysing their 'film literacy' (Amelio 1971; Worth 1981). In my observations,
cultural and historical mediation. More radically, and similar to Lacanian theory, most students come to class with a relatively high knowledge of, and preference
Jameson (1981) claims that we have access to the 'real' only through texts and for, the technology of television or film language and styles yet with a limited
interpretive paradigms ('ideologemes'). Fish (1980) argues that there is no such knowledge of documentary and ethnographic film and little critical competence
thing as 'pure' perception since 'reality' is always mediated by social interpretive to analyse them. While seeing conventional ethnographic film as the 'raw' or
conventions: readers do not 'read' texts; they 'write' them. 'amateur' version of non-fiction texts, most students prefer the professionalism
Unlike Iser's individualised reader, Fish proposes that our interpretations are of made-for-TV documentaries addressed to a more 'general viewer' and
shaped by communal patterns and that all texts are only constituted as such by encompassing a broader contextualisation and general overview of cultures.
'interpretive communities' which 'are made up of those who share interpretive Students' overall preference for personal narratives combining humour and
strategies not for reading (in the conventional sense) but for writing texts, for drama indicated a deep-seated desire for entertainment in the form of grati-
constituting their properties and assigning their intentions' (1980 p. 171, ficatory and hedonistic 'plaisir' (Barthes 1973) characteristic of consumer
emphasis added). Working on the basis of common understandings and stra- societies. While this does not necessarily provoke critical or elaborated interpre-
tegies, different communities (e.g. anthropologists, film-makers, students) tation, students with higher levels of interpretive competence do engage in more
define their own understanding of what 'true' or 'good' texts are, and how to read elaborated forms of creative, productive or 'poietic' pleasure (Jauss 1982a) and
144 Image, audience and aesthetics Toward a theory ofethnogrfllhicfilm speaaumhip 145

tend to generate more 'surplus meaning' (Morley 1980). In general students are students' structure of feeling demand to be analysed as part of a cultural
open to 'innovative' forms of textuality that challenge their conventions, but only formation, which suggests, in addition to an aesthetic of reception, the need for
to some extent. They prefer dramatic, ironic or technically sophisticated and an ethnography of reception (Hall and Jefferson 1976; Radway 1984). From a
stylised films and may even reject texts that radically challenge the very nature of more restricted perspective on spectatorship, students' 'feel' for ethnographic
representation (e.g. Reassemblage, Films Are Dreams) . films and for the 'primitive' can be analysed in relation to interpretive patterns
Thus there is a need to expand students' film literacy, thereby also expanding and strategies of identification and pleasure, issues which need to be further
their horizons of expectations. Jauss (1982b) suggests that this last process investigated.
operates as an endless play of'question and answer' wherein the text is primarily In addition, as Williams suggests, we need to analyse students' structures of
an answer, but not necessarily a formulated or explicit one; at the same time, texts feeling - as well as their horizons of expectations - within the dynamics of social
question readers about their respective horizons. Constandy shifting over time, struggle, power and hegemony. A fundamental way in which dominant groups
texts also act as mediators between different historical horizons. Jauss proposes exert power over 'residual' and 'emergent' groups is by seeking to impose and
an historical reading, or 'application', as the most advanced and comprehensive naturalise their sets of feelings, values and interpretive strategies, and, by exten-
interpretive activity, one where readers supposedly can find the 'answer' of the sion, their own representations of the 'real'. The recent history of this hegemony
text by distinguishing and reconstructing past horizons of expectation and then in the United States can be seen in the 'master codes' formed during the 'Age of
'applying' their new aesthetic understanding- thus broadening the 'horizon of Reaganism' and its 'brutal Darwinian picture of self-help and self-promotion'
one's own experience vis-a-vis the experience of the other' (1982b p. 146). This (Said 1983, p. 136), which have naturalised the power of 'First World' techno-
reconstruction ofhorizons has important implications for the use of ethnographic cultural, economic and military hegemony over 'other' worlds. Among students/
film in teaching: despite the fact that many instructors show films which have spectators, this discourse is quite evident in their more distant and 'negative'
been produced in various contexts over the last sixty years, the historical con- feelings toward a radically 'different' other and in more conservative (i.e. ethno-
textualisation of these texts is not undertaken in most introductory courses. centric) values and attitudes toward notions of'primitiveness'. We can expect to
Historical readings are fundamental in ethnographic film reception. Their neg- see a radicalisation of these tendencies as a result of the Gulf war: the 'triumph of
lect not only limits students' understanding of the films but, even worse, also civilisation' and its 'smart technology' over what US General Schwarzkopf
tends to perpetuate the notion that the peoples represented are 'societies without described as those who 'are not part of the same human race ... as the rest of us
history' (Wolf 1982). are.'
Jauss's theory of aesthetic reception offers valuable insights for the analysis of
spectatorship. It is, however, relatively indifferent to political and ideological
discourses and practices and, like Iser's, it idealises the utopian and innovative Ideology and discourse
function of 'high' literature. In particular, Jauss privileges the aesthetic Although the history of Europe as Subject is narrativised by the law, political economy,
dimension of the 'horizon', referring to literary conventions (form, style, genre) and ideology of the West, this concealed Subject pretends it has no 'geo-political
as nearly exclusive determinants of textual 'influence'. As empirical reception determinations'. (Spivak 1988, p. 271).
researchers (Morley 1980; McRobbie 1982; Radway 1984) have shown, how-
A conversation of'us' with 'us' about 'them' is a conversation in which 'them' is silenced.
ever, readers' responses to a given text are largely guided by 'extra-aesthetic' 'Them' always stand on the other side of the hill, naked and speechless, barely present in
conventions, which leads us to consider the domain of readers' affects, values and its absence. (Trinh T. Minh-ha 1989, p. 67)
attitudes and values toward the text's 'content'.
Williams' notion of 'structure of feeling' (1977) is particularly useful here At the level of the 'content' of interpretive 'master codes' we need to consider (a)
because it combines historico-aesthetic assumptions and expectations with lived viewers' knowledge and preconceptions about the 'primitive' and how these
social practice within a context of power relations. 9 Conceptualised as a frame student responses to ethnographic film; (b) the constitution of'preferred
mediating category between social, experiential and representational practices, meanings' and identities of the 'primitive' by ethnographic films and how their
'structure of feeling' accounts for the 'feel' of a social group- 'the characteristic specific forms of power and knowledge may affect spectators; and (c) the process
elements of impulse, restraint, and tone; specifically affective elements of con- of negotiating meanings and representations and the ideological struggle for
sciousness and relationships' (1977 p. 132). Structures of feeling cannot be signification that characterises the construction of anthropological knowledge.
reduced to the ideologies of social groups or to class relations but are manifest as My analysis of students' assumptions about the 'primitive' before taking the
their ethos, the 'idiosyncratic' and common-sensical conventions and attitudes course 10 showed that most of them conceptualised 'primitiveness' as both an
that articulate a group's 'presence'. From an anthropological perspective, essentialist presence- an 'original' and 'basic' form of life characterised by instinct
146 Image, audience and aesthetics Toward a theory ofethnographic film speaatorship 147

and survival- and as a 'lack' or regressive absence, signalled by a lack of culture, of porary films such as The Nuer, Forest of Bliss). Indicating a different political
development and of intelligence. They see the 'primitive' either as 'simple', agenda, metonymy and realism have figured prominently in conventional ethno-
'pure' and 'naive', thus emphasising 'positive' attitudes associated with the graphic films (e.g. Trance and Dance in Bali, the Yanomamo films) which have
romanticised image of the 'Noble Savage'; or as 'wild', 'backward' and 'lacking' aimed to 'explain' the 'primitive' through 'factual' scientific accounts that
education, language, morals, thus emphasising a 'negative' valuation, corres- inevitably confound experience with narrative (Brodkey 1987): the use of a
ponding to the dehumanised image of the 'Barbarian' (White 1978). A minority strictly observational and omniscient camera gaze, a discourse of detached
of students (six per cent) came to the classroom with a relativistic understanding 'neutrality', and a metonymic fragmentation of cultures (e.g., focus on single
of the term 'primitive' and with some level of awareness of its hegemonic events) all result in authoritative objectification and the dissection of film subjects
connotation. as mere 'data' and 'evidence' (Tyler 1986).
Students largely speak for, and are spoken by, the popular mythologies and The subsequent synecdochic move to 'integrate' represented cultures
stereotypes of the 'primitive' perpetuated and disseminated through an increas- includes: (1) the more recent anthropological documentaries (e.g. series like
ingly sophisticated 'culture industry'. As a free-floating signifier, constantly Odyssey, Disappearing World) that employ both the narrative of 'pre-cooked'
reinterpreted through intertextual media representations, the 'primitive' is now anthropological information and a form of domesticated exoticism to inform and
positioned and consumed in all kinds of contexts: on other planets, in the future, entertain large TV audiences; and (2) the incorporation of the film-maker/
in 'postmodern MTV'. Nevertheless, the popular notion of the 'primitive' retains author in the text, initiated by Jean Rouch and continued by 'participatory
much of its colonialist and racist signification, as subaltern 'other' to the West. cinema' and 'self-reflexive' styles (e.g. Kenya Boran, Number Our Days). The
While idealising the most remote 'other', students also see the more proximate increasing use of irony in contemporary ethnographic film can be seen to express
'other', such as 'Third World' people and ethnic 'minorities' in the United States a more critical and comprehensive 'secondary negation' (lser 1978), which
as approximations to the 'primitive', emphasising their differences rather than attempts radically to question and deconstruct its own narrativity and to reflect
similarities, seeing their non-mainstream lifestyles as technologically and intel- critically on the insufficiency and inadequacy of our cultural master codes to
lectually 'inferior' and characterised by cultural 'backwardness'. account for the 'other' (e.g. Cannibal Tours, Reassemblage, Films Are Dreams,
While the content of these preconceptions may not be surprising, their Cannibal Tours). Although neither self-reflexive nor ironic films are completely
significance as social constructs requires consideration from at least two per- free from ideologies of exploitation, that is, via cultural manipulation, self-
spectives. On the one hand, preconceptions have to be understood as formations indulgent or narcissistic figuration of the other, 11 they do invite more complex
of our historical horizons and as the 'spontaneous' ways in which we know the forms of reading than conventional ethnographic films and explicitly challenge
world, while on the other, preconceptions (as forms of knowledge) and stereo- stereotypical representations.
types (as 'fixations of difference' (Bhabha 1983)) are inevitably rooted in his- While some of these films are still seen as 'avant garde' and are rarely shown in
torico-cultural structures that need to be analysed in terms of both social introductory courses, 'factual' films continue to be considered more 'ethno-
interests and power relations (Foucault 1980). Thus, a fundamental pedagogical graphic' because they are seen to provide more detailed, analytical, theoretically
task is that of criticising the politics of representation by which our pre- grounded, 'holistic' and 'truthful' information (Heider 1976). Given these
conceptions are naturalised and reproduced through different forms of inter- assumptions, they, together with documentaries and early narratives, are the
textuality. most widely used in introductory education. As a result, student/spectators are
Critical anthropology has made it more evident than ever that ethnographic primarily confronted with films that construct idealised, objectified, exoticised,
films are inevitably inscribed within hegemonic discursive formations primitivised peoples, identities that correspond with the Western fascination with
(MacDougall1975; Nichols 1980; Marcus and Fischer 1986; Tomaselli, et. al., and condescension toward the 'primitive other'.
1986; Tyler 1986; Clifford 1988; Lansing 1990). To pursue this critique, I would This ideological correspondence, however, is not a simple 'reflection' of class
propose that an ideological and historical analysis of tropes (Burke 1969; White and intercultural power relations, or of the authors' conscious intentions. Even
1978) in ethnographic film be developed as a very useful tool for understanding after the reception of their texts, author/ film-makers themselves are not neces-
their specific construction of knowledge and identities of the 'primitive other', sarily aware of their historical horizons of expectation, of how they are 'spoken' by
and for reconstructing their 'answers' to Western horizons of expectation. We their own tropes, or of the potential ideological impact of their films. As Williams
can see, for example, that early films (e.g. Nanook ofthe North, The Hunters, Dead (1977) proposes with regard to mass media, producers implicitly communicate
Birds) exercised their rhetorical power through the trope of romantic metaphor, hegemonic 'structures of feeling', ideologies and capital interests in the course of
poeticising anthropological knowledge and constructing a mythical, essentialised arranging social experience, the 'raw' material of cultural texts, according to
and universalised 'primitive' (A variant of this trope can also be seen in contem- forms of naturalised 'common sense'. Thus, even when texts are not
148 Image, audience and aesthetics Toward a theory ofethnographic film speaatorship 149

communicating social structures of domination directly, they do so indirectly, appositional (i.e. counter-hegemonic) readings were found mainly in response to
primarily via connoted or unconscious meanings. This process operates similarly relatively 'open' films which convey a critical and self-critical message, seeming
in conventional ethnographic film, where the interests of scientific 'truth' as a to trigger a re-evaluation of students' preconceptions. Responses challenging
form of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1977) often represent hegemonic ideologies textual authority or actively deconstructing hegemonic messages (e.g.
and discourses of power over and knowledge of the 'other' (although this varies colonialism, cultural domination) in order to reconstruct alternative forms of
depending on how much the constructed knowledge is negotiated with film knowledge (e.g. political expressions of cultural relativism) were almost non-
subjects and on the degree of cultural criticism and self-reflexivity of authorial existent. Often, students' political and cultural alignment, if any, with the 'primi-
messages). tive' resulted in romanticised idealisation (e.g. 'we should leave them alone').
Hall (1980) has observed that, in order to perform their 'ideological work', Evoking alternative subject-positions and/ or particular forms of 'otherness',
media producers encode texts by selecting and negotiating 'preferred meanings' appositional readings were more frequent among students marginal to or outside
which aim to predetermine the process of decoding, that is, to obtain particular mainstream culture (e.g. among African-Americans and 'Third World'
'preferred readings'. This does not, however, translate into perfectly 'transpar- students).
ent' communication: as texts and readers embody multiple and fragmentary These responses need to be analysed critically to avoid rigid generalisations.
experiences, ideologies, and discourses, there is a relation of 'no necessary Critics of the notion of hegemony and of Hall's typology of preferred readings
correspondence' between encoding and decoding activities. Hall proposes that have argued that the latter overlooks and reduces the 'universality' of negotiated
readers 'appropriate' the meanings that best fit as 'imaginary' solutions to their readings (Newcomb 1984), polarising the reading activity in terms of dominance
own socially experienced contradictions, 'answers' that confirm their sense of and opposition (Fiske 1986; Condit, 1989), and that its formulation seeks a
self, truth, rightfulness, and oppose or negate those that challenge their necessary correspondence between experience and textuality (Grossberg 1984).
ideological formations and identities. Reading is thus a struggle for signification These critics regard the range of ideological responses as a continuum rather
within hegemonic structures. This politics of signification, encompassing dif- than a discrete categorisation and the dynamics of response as a multiple and
ferential types of interpellation and subject positioning, results in observable variable positioning within discursive formations. In particular, Marxist
patterns of response or 'preferred reading' (i.e. 'hegemonic', 'negotiated', 'appo- discourse theory has expanded Hall's model by emphasising the notion of
sitional'). difference at the levels of meaning (i.e .. polysemy, openness), subjectivity (i.e.
Hegemonic readings were found in students' responses to most tropes of fragmentation, overdetermination, subject positions) and social formation (i.e.
ethnographic film (Martinez 1990a); even the most 'personal' narratives can cultural diversity).
trigger readings that legitimise the authorial discourse by implicitly disem- Drawing primarily on Lacan, Althusser and Foucault, discursive models in
powering the film subjects or encapsulating them within dominant interpretive cultural studies (Kuhn 1982; McRobbie 1982; Hall 1983; Grossberg 1984)
paradigms, cross-cultural labels or stereotypes (e.g., 'they basically have no reject the separation between 'society' (class interests, economic forces) and
culture ... they only live for fighting'). As discussed above, however, hegemonic 'culture' (symbolic forms of representation), and between experience and
readings (commonly linked to aberration) were more often observed in response textuality. Discourse theory claims that the struggle for signification should not
to the conventional format of'closed', factual, single-event films and distanced/ be directed towards developing anti-hegemonic strategies but against all
objectifYing representations of the 'primitive'. In these cases, students seemed to moments of power and domination. As power constantly slips within all forms of
retreat more readily to their preconceptions in reaction to the limited space textuality, without ever condensing in any given form, the relation between
allowed for a dialogic viewership, the minimum cultural contextualisation reader and text then becomes one of continuous domination and resistance, of
internal to the film, and the 'lack' ofidentificatory communication. A wider range suture and 'rupture'. Feminist media researchers (Kuhn 1982; McRobbie 1982)
of negotiated readings were found in response to texts using more 'open' have argued that mass media cannot convey only patriarchal ideologies. There
strategies, personal portrayals, and films with greater internal contextualisation. are always moments (e.g. blanks, silences, counter discourses) in those texts
Socialised into the discourse of liberal pluralism, (e.g. 'everyone is different', which cannot be coded within hegemonic rhetoric; all texts carry resistant and
'primitive peoples are somewhat similar to us'), many students do privilege the appositional readings already coded within their structure. Similarly, Fiske
'exception to the rule' and 'individual free will' and can thus appear relatively (1987) has elaborated on the 'semiotic excess' of TV messages which cannot be
open to negotiating texts. Yet, as seen above, negotiated readings were limited by exhausted by dominant codes, thus allowing viewers space for appositional
the 'fit' (i.e. suture) into dominant cultural identities and discourses, and by . decodings resulting in 'play' and deconstructivist pleasure.
preconceptions of the 'primitive', resulting in many cases in paternalistic views of By the same token, in every ethnographic film-viewing 'event', there is
the film subjects (e.g. 'they dont know any better'). Different forms of encoded contradiction and available space where students can actualise their
150 Image, audience and aesthetics Toward a theory ofethnographicfilm spectatorship 151

own set of discursive positions and reconstitute their interpretive technologies. power, Hall proposes to rethink 'unity' and 'difference' in terms of'articulation',
Even closed films may generate resistance to the exoticised, objectified and/or which refers to
disempowering representation of peoples. Some students, for example, are
a connection or link [between representation and practice, text and reader] which is not
critical of the power relations between the anthropologist and the Yanomamo
necessarily given in all cases, as a law or fact of life, but which requires particular
subjects in A Man Called Bee; others notice and identify with the Yanomamo conditions of existence to appear at all, which has to be positively sustained by specific
reluctance to be filmed in TheAx Fight. However, with the exception of the rare processes, which is not 'eternal' but has constantly to be renewed. (1985, p. 113)
viewer who rejects the whole representation as authoritative, closed texts are
generally read from an aberrant/hegemonic perspective. Thus, the relation between 'writing' and 'reading' cannot be seen as mono-
In response to more open or 'negotiated' films, which actively voice the lithically or unilaterally determined either by textual meanings or the reader's
represented subjects' perspective, students find numerous opportunities to activity. Rather, the relation text-reader produces correspondences of ideologies
oppose disempowering representations. As in the case of mass media viewers' and master codes that are articulated within specific socio-historical conditions
resistance to patriarchy, female students tend to negotiate and even oppose of reception.
patriarchal discourses in ethnographic film (for example, in response to N!ai, From this perspective, we can attempt a conclusive evaluation of the ten-
Story ofa !Kung Woman, Andean Women, Maasai Women). Although this critique dencies described above as 'symptomatic' responses. Firstly, the interpretive
is generally directed against the 'backwardness' of represented cultures, it also 'gap' documented by my research indicates a lack of articulation between
triggers students' resistance against their own culture's forms of sexual spectators and particular films (e.g. 'factual' films) mainly because students do
hegemony. Reacting to political domination, students have come to criticise the not completely match the text's implied/ model reader and because films and! or
intentions of the film-makers', even in 'balanced' or 'sympathetic' films like represented subjects do not fit students' aesthetic expectations and ways of
First Contact as 'concealing' colonial exploitation. In response to Maids and feeling. While such lack of articulation can also entail critical readings, students'
Madams, some students oppose the representation of black women as racist, (mis)interpretations generally result in the reconstitution of fixed forms ofknow-
'degrading' and 'offensive'. Yet there are some limits to resistance: many ledge (i.e. stereotypes). Secondly, despite the 'aberration' observed in student
students also feel threatened by socio-cultural criticism and thus read it as response, at a broader level, viewers' readings are generally articulated with- and
'negative' (i.e., as a negation of their own discursive position). In response to largely sutured into- films' ideologies. As· seen before, most critical interpreta-
Cannibal Tours, for example, some students react defensively, arguing that the tions correspond to films that question cultural domination or challenge stereo-
film-maker has exaggerated and that the tourists are portrayed in 'unrealistic' typical representations. Similarly, students' hegemonic readings somehow
ways. correspond to films' disempowering representations and hegemonic meanings-
When oppositional readings do occur they are generally motivated by the mostly manifest through connoted and! or unconscious messages. Most
spectators' predisposition to respond in such a manner. As Condit (1989) has negotiated readings, generally corresponding to students' expected forms of
argued in her analysis of college students' responses to TV programmes, access representation (e.g. 'good' documentaries), indicate a broader articulation with
to and participation in an organised 'counter-rhetoric' may prove to be more spectators' preferred subject positioning as 'general viewers' and with 'con-
relevant than personal competence for generating critical and oppositional sensual' knowledge of the 'other'. Thirdly, while all students are potential
readings. I have also noticed (1990b) that students who are active in particular 'critical readers', only a few are able to 'disarticulate' (i.e. deconstruct) textual
special interest groups (e.g., homeless support organisations, anti-Apartheid discourses. As mentioned before, appositional responses are found mostly
movement) read films in predominantly appositional ways, questioning the among non-mainstream students who are already predisposed to react critically
disempowering representation and stereotyping of film subjects, while those and/ or among those who do the additional interpretive work, moving beyond
who belong to more conservative organisations (e.g. fraternities and sororities) negotiating to reconstructing alternative forms of knowledge of the 'other'.
place themselves in a hegemonic position and allow themselves less space to Finally, these considerations strongly suggest that the forms of'articulation' of
negotiate texts and their own preconceptions. Such constraints on the openess ethnographic film spectatorship need to be studied both in the larger frame of
of students to 'difference' point to the need for analysing the boundaries of cultural textuality of the 'primitive other' and in concrete situations of reception.
'difference' in terms of its articulation with hegemonic power. At the broader level, recognising that 'writing' and 'reading' about the 'primitive'
In this respect, Hall (1985) argues that post-structuralism has privileged the are necessarily articulated by shared cultural master codes, we need to analyse
principle of 'difference' (i.e. discursive fragmentation) over 'unity' (i.e. the specific ways in which films and spectators participate in, interact with and
discursive hegemony) and proposes to bridge this binary opposition. Recon- even subvert their own meta-narratives of the 'other'. At the same time, we need
sidering hegemony as the expression of 'pluricentered' and 'multidimensional' to focus on the multiple and changing forms of articulation between text and
152 Image; audience and aesthetics Toward a theory ofethnographicfilm spectatorship 153

reader in specific contexts of reception. The results of my research show dangers calls for a much more self-conscious use of films and a re-examination of
significant variability depending on the specific teaching approaches employed; our pedagogic task within the present moment of'crisis' and experimentation in
these results have to be correlated with studies of spectatorship in different anthropology.
contexts (e.g. public and private colleges and universities, high schools, adult 2. The evidence of 'aberrant' readings, not only at the level of texts'
spectatorship) and with comparative analyses of responses in different historical syntagmatic structure (i.e. text elements, themes and horizon) but at the para-
settings. This dual approach to articulation will not only provide insights into the digmatic level (i.e. negation) as well, points to the seriousness of the interpretive
ways in which spectators 'read' ethnographic films and film-makers and instruc- 'gap' between particular films (especially the more 'closed' ones) and under-
tors 'write' cultures; it will also help us to understand how, as 'overdetermined' graduates. Moreover, this evidence also suggests that aberrant readings may be
and active subjects, we all construct anthropological knowledge. inevitable in most ethnographic visual representations. While it may be impos-
sible to reconstruct the implied meanings of any text, all texts being the sum of
their own 'misreadings' (Bloom 1976), this understanding has even stronger
Spectatorship and pedagogical practice
implications with respect to cross-cultural representation of the 'primitive',
My emphasis on the complex role of the spectator in the construction of where 'misinterpretations' are more loaded with prejudices, stereotypes and
anthropological knowledge not only raises new questions for study but also hegemonic notions of otherness.
challenges current pedagogical practices. It leads me to propose a 'negation' While recognising that instructors cannot completely avoid aberrant readings,
(Iser, 1978) of conventional uses of film in introductory courses and to call for there are alternatives that may help lessen them and their automatic re-triggering
teaching strategies that can help students learn about other cultures by, at the of stereotypes. We need to identifY and study what kind of misreadings particular
same time, deconstructing authoritative and univocal representations. As critical films generate, instead of ignoring or overlooking them. We may then be able to
anthropologists (Simon and Dippo 1986; Brodkey 1987) have proposed, such help students become aware of, and reflect on, the preconceptions that inform
alternative approaches require a 'negative critique', that is, 'any systematic, viewers' (mis)interpretations. Probably a more circumspect option is to evaluate
verbal protest against cultural hegemony' (Brodkey 1987, p. 67), entailing carefully the levels of correspondence between reader and text (that is, between
reflexive awareness of students' signifYing practices about others and the political 'implied reader' and actual viewer) before screening films and to design teaching
implications of those practices. While ackrrowledging that this overall agenda and strategies that build from a common understanding. 12
details of the relation between spectatorship, textuality and pedagogy need to be 3. Although helpful, such strategies for lessening misinterpretation provide
examined more extensively in future works, I will reflect briefly in this final only partial solutions; we must look at teaching methods and approaches which
section on the implications that using film has for our teaching practice and may serve unwittingly to perpetuate cultural hegemony. My own study suggests
suggest some alternative strategies. In doing so I shall draw on my research that teaching approaches which combine evolutionary theory (and a similar
experience of an introductory anthropology course focused on the use of film (see sequencing of films), the use of films as illustrations of'factual' knowledge, and a
footnote 2) but the analysis applies to the use of films in general. The pedagogical selection of 'closed' texts, are more likely to reinforce students' role as 'blind'
implications of this research may be summarised in the following observations. believers in univocal and authoritative representations. The positivist notion that
1. The old but often overlooked adage that images speak louder than words, the more 'objective' and distant accounts of culture are more 'truthful' and
that they communicate more strongly than books at the emotional, subliminal and 'neutral', and therefore better entrees into 'authentic' instruction, may prove
ideological levels, radically challenges the naive use of films as mere 'illustrations' false and naive because it overlooks the mediating role of interpretation before,
of written texts and theoretical paradigms. Although the role of films in creating during and after the construction of 'factual' knowledge, and thus also conceals
an 'illusion of reality' and 'immediacy' has been acknowledged before (Heider, the ideological impact of visual media.
1976) the issue needs to be reassessed. As discussed above, the mimetic and In preference to the 'closed' univocal texts which imply a passive, uncritical
rhetorical power of visual figuration not only recreates 'illusions' of the 'real' but receiver, material could be selected from films that convey at least the 'openness'
also constructs our sense of 'reality' and subjective identity, thus powerfully to engage spectators as worthy contributors to the active eo-construction of
'telescoping' (Baudrillard 1988) viewers into the simulacra of textual repre- knowledge. Teaching approaches that combine interpretive and reflexive
sentation of the 'primitive'. Even more, the suturing power of ethnographic anthropology with contemporary post-colonial history, incorporating critical
images activates unconscious signifYing practices and a complex and powerful theory and a more diverse selection of films (including reflexive, critical and
process of ideological interpellation that far exceeds the impact of written texts experimental films) are more likely to result in open, elaborated and reflexive
and poses commensurate risks of engendering viewer's alienation, revulsion, readings. Such openness tends to be both situated in and evocative of self-
condescension and/or unreflexive stereotyping. The recognition of these empowering, identificatory and pleasurable viewing experiences. Recognising
154 Image, audience and aesthetics Toward a theory ofethnographicfilm speaatorship 155

that pleasure can be either a teaching resource (as a productive and interpretive Students also need to see themselves as spectators and to analyse how they
activity) or detrimental to learning (as self-gratification and escapism), instruc- construct textual meanings. Beyond the learning of'factual' information, the use
tors might do well to capitalise on the openness of more pleasurable repre- of film requires that viewers express their immediate and visceral reactions (to
sentations, especially in introductory courses and early in the semester, and work both the film and to the 'primitive') and that they elaborate and discuss their
toward transforming passive and escapist pleasure into creative or 'poietic' (J auss viewing experience and interpretations in the classroom. By encouraging this,
1982a), reflexive and critical pleasure. instructors can contribute to students' self-awareness of their own 'structure of
4. The crisis of representation in the pedagogical practice of ethnographic film feelings' about the 'primitive', helping them to expand their 'reading' skills and
is, at least in part, a 'crisis of contextualisation'. Although the importance of competence and making them more aware of their own conventions and
contextualisation has been widely recognised within the field (Asch 197 5; Heider identification with particular interpretive communities. Teaching students about
1976), my study suggests a need to reframe our understanding ofit. We need to their spectrum of 'preferred' ideological readings of ethnographic films can
broaden our perspective and to recognise that it is not only the 'other' that needs contribute to helping them re-examine their own preconceptions of the 'primi-
to be contextualised but also, and equally important, the self Films need to be tive' and thus increase their ideological range. Like most spectators, students
framed as texts within their respective theoretical underpinnings and filmic tend to take their own interpretations as natural. Thus, an important goal would
strategies, both as informational sources and as representational means; students be to incorporate into introductory courses a study of 'socially motivated decon-
need to be contextualised as spectators in their viewing experience, horizons of structive critical' thinking (Fiske 1986). Such training, which would include both
expectation and interpretive strategies; and, finally, instruaors and their own textual and ideological criticism, can provide students with the necessary tools to
theoretical perspectives need to be contextualised within the diverse com- analyse and criticise film tropes and to deconstruct the hegemonic messages
munities of academic discourse. inevitably inscribed in ethnographic films.
Conventional practices for surrounding a film with 'ample' contextualisation As members of specific teaching communities, we have the task of expanding
of the represented subjects, although of crucial importance, may not be enough. our self-reflexive teaching methods and contextualising our own academic com-
In their research, Hearne and DeVore (1973) provided extensive con- munities, their respective epistemological frameworks and representational
textualisation of Yanomamo culture through study guides, books, the complete practices in ethnographic film. As Simon and Dippo (1986) have proposed, we
film series, and extensive lecture presentations, yet their students still reacted by need to recognise how our involvement in the production of knowledge affects
resorting to hegemonic stereotyping of the Yanomamo. By the same token, the ways we participate in cultural hegemony and in the legitimation of particular
cross-cultural comparative approaches can help contextualise students' under- interests. This form of contextualisation may help students and teachers to
standing of other cultures, but they may also prove to be insufficient. After relativise and criticise authoritative forms of textuality that all too often confound
showing The Ax Fight, for example, it is not enough to say 'we are also violent ... experience with narrative and facilitate their own participation as active con-
they are not the only ones', and so on because the visual pragmatics of textual structors of anthropological knowledge.
messages overpower any attempt to draw a 'fair' comparison. 5. The use of film in teaching thus demands an expanded instructional role
This evidence points to the importance of framing films as representational from professors: the employment of a complex and powerful medium requires a
means: we need to inform students about the specific textual strategies that more sophisticated 'translator' of cultures. Such an expanded role would entail
ethnographic films use to communicate and the power they have to prestructure understanding the language of visual representation and its rhetorical and inter-
interpretations. Like all readers, students can better understand films if they are pellatory power, as well as knowledge and application of film criticism. Although
equipped with the reading skills - and the kind of film literacy - necessary to most anthropology professors are generally not trained for assuming the tasks of
analyse and criticise anthropological messages. Historical readings of film are film critique, the experimental use of films and open discussion of student
fundamental to spectators' reconstructing of their horizon of expectations about interpretations in the classroom offers many possibilities for self-training in this
texts and about the 'other'. In addition, the analysis of film tropes can greatly area. Inter-departmental collaboration with other fields (e.g. film studies, literary
contribute to relativising authoritative representations and make evident their criticism, communications) can also prove to be of special value for a multi-
rhetorical power to construct knowledge and the identities of film subjects. On a disciplinary analysis of films. In addition, periodic workshops and colloquia on
micro scale, study of film techniques (e.g. use of interviews, narration, camera the use of film in teaching should be further promoted; efforts in this direction
approach) can also help viewers to understand how texts construct their 'mes- carried out by the Society for Visual Anthropology have been valuable for
sage'. In sum, students need to know about the multiple texts and subtexts films exchanging experiences and training instructors.
communicate and how they are conveyed, including the analysis of denoted and Although the expanded instructional role outlined above may appear over
connoted messages. ambitious and even idealistic, it is a logical consequence of the complexity of
156 Image, audience and aesthetics Toward a theory ofethnographicfilm spectatorship 157

ethnographic film spectatorship. It also represents an urgently needed response symbolic) has been equated with the 'primitive other'. However, in Lacan's own
to the crisis of representation in anthropology, a crisis which requires that we terms, the Other (with capital '0') refers to the ultimate signifier (the phallus) while
enhance our self-reflexive and self-critical practices in order to identifY the limits the 'other' is a mere fetishised substitute of the Other.
of our knowledge claims as well as their potential impact on the social construc- 6 In an exploratory analysis of dreams that students reported with reference to films
tion of anthropological knowledge. shown in class and to the 'primitive', I have found that they seem to reproduce the
archetypical notion of the 'primitive' as both the threatening barbarian linked to
Notes unconscious fears of castration, death and alienation and the idealised savage linked
to pleasurable experiences of protection, participation and spiritual communion.
I am extremely grateful to Carolyn Taylor for reading earlier versions of this paper and for 7 Oudart distinguishes three stages in the process of suturing: (1) the spectator's pure
her invaluable contributions to it. I also warmly thank Lucien Taylor, Claudia South, pleasure of seeing prior to the articulation of cinema; (2) the breaking of the illusion
Diana Lee, Paul Gelles and Nancy Lutkehaus for their helpful comments and or the loss of'total vision' and the recognition of an 'absent field' outside the image, a
suggestions. transition which marks the movement from cinema to cinematic discourse; (3) the
1 While respecting the particular 'language' of each medium and its form of com- suturing of discourse or the reappropriation of the 'absent-one' by substituting it with
munication, I use the term 'text' to refer to both written and filmic media. Drawing on a perspective in the film (e.g. camera, character).
theories of the text (Barthes 1977), I stress the term to underline the similarities of 8 See the excellent study by C. Lutz and J. Collins (1991) of the multiple gazes in
written and visual media as forms of discourse and communication, as both products National Geographic photographs.
and producers of meaning and knowledge. Correspondingly, the terms 'reader', 9 Williams uses as examples the contradictory structures of feeling of the defeated
'viewer', 'spectator' and 'reading subject' are used interchangeably to emphasise the Puritans and the restored court in England between 1660 and 1690, and the rise of
idea of active agency in the decoding and interpretive process and in the eo- the new British bourgeoisie during the period of 1700-1760. Other studies have
construction of meaning and textuality. incorporated the category to analyse the postmodern subject's relation to selfhood
2 This ongoing study has been conducted since spring 1987 under the supervision of and language in popular and avant garde texts (see Pfeil1988).
Dr Nancy Lutkehaus. Partial funding has been provided by the Spencer Foundation, 10 Data were collected in the form of written essays on the first day of class during the
the Fulbright Commission and the Center for Visual Anthropology at USC. Data spring semester of 1988. Students were to write about the notion of 'primitiveness',
have been collected in ten sections (five different professors) of an introductory personal experience with 'primitive' societies, information about them learned from
anthropology course entitled 'Exploring C::ulture Through Film' where I work as a media, their knowledge of'primitive' peoples' daily lives, appearance, beliefs, values
teaching assistant. The course, which is geared to meet general education and relation to 'modern' societies.
requirements, uses from 15 to 25 films per semester and meets in sections of roughly 11 Tyler (1986) has sharply criticised the subjacent hegemonic meaning of these more
100 students each. Approximately 90% of the students are upper middle class, recent tropes: 'Now . .. she [the other] has become the instrument of the ethno-
Caucasian, non-majors. Qualitative methods of analysis included direct classroom grapher's "experience", the ethnographer having become the focus of" difference" in
observation, comprehensive interviews with students and professors, student case a perverse version of the romanticism that has always been in ethnography, no matter
studies, and content analysis of student assignments and reported student dreams how desperately repressed and marginalised by the objective impulses of seekers of
(related to the films and to the 'primitive'). Quantitative methods were applied to pure data . . . the other is the means of the author's alienation from his own sick
attitude scale tests, student profile questionnaires and film preference rankings. culture, but the savage of the twentieth century is sick too; neutered, like the rest of
Preliminary reports have been presented in the form of papers at the American us, by the dark forces of the "world system", IT has lost the healing art.' (p. 128)
Anthropological Association meetings from 1987 to 1990 and as a research report to 12 These strategies may include familiarising students with the film format, showing
the Spencer Foundation. documentaries before the more specialised ethnographic films or even including a
3 MacDougall cites such films as Nanook of the North, The Ax Fight, Chronicle of a film sequence on the historical development of ethnographic film; starting with films
Summer and Kenya Boran as exemplary of participatory and open-ended texts pri- on more assimilable topics (e.g. daily life, socialisation, marriage) rather than those
marily on the grounds that they voice more than the author's perspective. However, about the most 'distant' topics (e.g. warfare, witchcraft); beginning with films on
while this claim of openness may be valid for reflexive films that do incorporate the more familiar cultures (including the students' own) and progressively moving to the
film subject's point of view, which seems essential to any truly 'open' text, this does most 'exotic' ones.
not apply to TheAx Fight, where 'indigenous commentary' is completely absent.
4 Eco also proposes to see the 'author' as a textual strategy, inserted in the text as an
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