Writing Culture and its graphic foundations Flashcards
What is the idea underlying Homo Scriba (the anthropological scribe)?
While anchored in fieldwork, anthropology is mostly a perceived as desk work
- ethnographers and their field notes
What is an ethnographic monograph?
Refined, well-crafted assemblage of scenes
What did Keith Hart (2002) criticise in the book “Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of Ethnography”?
- Poetics: the factual basis of ethnography must be questioned
- Politics: triad between anthropologist, subject and reader
-> what possible collaborations beyond the stereotype of the lonely ethnographer - Epistemology: question the knowledge status, methodology and configuration of (ethnographic) knowledge as power
What does Lochlann Jain argue regarding the ethnographic monograph?
It doesn’t seem an ideal modality for mass dissemination
Even though there’s an imperative to make the work accessible
How did Margaret Mead describe anthropology as a “discipline of words”?
“clinging to verbal description”
“hopelessly inadequate note-taking of an old age”
What did Lucien Taylor argue in ‘Iconophobia’ (1996)?
“Visuality itself becomes […] illustrative rather than constitutive of anthropological knowledge’
“What if film doesn’t just describe, but depicts?”
- “thin descriptions” and “thick depictions”
What is Ethnography, based on its etymology?
Scientific description of the customs of individual people and culture (i.e. people-writing)
- ‘ethnos’: people, nation, folks
- ‘grapho’: write, draw, scribe
What are the two graphic forms?
- Literary
- Visual
How did Alfred Kroeber describe Anthropology?
“the most scientific of humanities, and most humanistic of sciences”
What does Tim Ingold argue through the idea of Anthropography (2016)?
Call for graphic anthropology:
- “drawing […] must be central to our attempts to [revive the discipline]”
What is the concept of “thinking-while-seeing-while-drawing”?
Drawing combined to research activities immerses anthropologists in
- field-based generative process of perception
- practice of divergent thinking
Which fields are associated to graphic pathographies?
Graphic medicine
- Medicine and public health have provided an expensive body of “illness narratives in graphic form”
What is the purpose of graphic pathographies?
“convey immediate visceral understanding”, that texts can’t do
- informing patients, preparing families on expectations, offering doctors insights about patients’ experiences
How does the graphic novel ‘Lissa’ engage different modes of attention?
Through:
- detail-oriented sequential reading of segment parts
- composite-oriented simultaneous view of whole page / context
