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Paper short abstract:

In interaction with images, this paper makes inquires into fragmentary, non-documentary photographic practices and their capacity to mediate anthropological knowledge. Their relevance in conveying research is explored through ideas of direct experience as well as representation.

Paper long abstract:

Anthropologists have mainly been concerned with the indexical aspects of photography, which has resulted in a documentary ideology based on the idea of the photograph as evidence. The expanding interest in sensory aspects of human experience, particularly the interrelation between various senses, have provided means for anthropology to leave the visualist paradigm behind and approach photography from a broader perspective. Non-documentary aspects of images, such as their capacity to interrogate and to lie, have recently been acknowledged and investigated within visual anthropology. Ethnographic studies of various photographic practices and collaborations with artists have further expanded the field. This paper makes use of the interrogatory capacity of photography to explore how experiential forms of anthropological knowledge can be mediated visually. It is concerned with the relevance of using images that question the documentary ideal and represent fragments rather than narratives.

During a presentation of such open-ended images, the paper will discuss to what extent they may: alter the mediation of sensory experience; represent the production of knowledge in fieldwork settings as an open continuity rather than a closed retrospective; and have a larger potentiality to mediate generalisations and abstractions. The efficacy of the images will in this presentation mainly be related to the framework of anthropological texts, the context in which most researchers make use of photographs.