Paper short abstract:

Images, like texts, have their own contradictions for they capture not only events or individuals they successfully hide information as well. Gender-specific images are discussed in order to raise questions about truth, representation and historicity.

Paper long abstract:

Images, both present and historical, offer challenges for scholars developing tools for critical analyses of intertextuality and narrativity. Anthropologists have long been accustomed to use visual data to offer unique insights into their ethnographic narratives with the awareness that taken for granted images make taken for granted interpretations. In this presentation, I argue that photographs raise questions not only about authenticity and truthfulness but importantly about historicity, i.e. relationship of images vis-à-vis earlier images. Moreover, I propose that viewing images not only cross-culturally but historically as well provides more than simple answers as to what they were made for - we learn what went on before and what came after. Ultimately, an understanding of iconography comes neither from strictly the native's nor from the anthropologist's point of view - more often than not it is historical. Thus, visual narratives are anchored not only to cultural contexts within which they were (re)produced, but to certain historic prequels as well as sequels - roughly the 'before' and 'after' images having similar composition. By utilizing current and historic iconography of women in a specific setting (butchering), I interrogate notions of image-based gender politics and knowledge production concerning alternative or visual 'truths'.