1991/01/01 by Terence Wright, Wright, T.
Arts and Humanities · #Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation #Museums and Cultural Heritage #Photography and Visual Culture
paper · doi:10.5287/ora-kz26vvjnw
openalex publication_date 1991/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
IF asked to select a name and date for the founding of modem anthropology, we would probably be expected to settle for Malinowski and 1914, the year in which he began his pioneering fieldwork in the Trobriands. However, we may well be encouraged to widen our enquiry-to shift emphasis from the vision of the individual anthropologist, and direct attention towards the socio-historical determinants of anthropological theory. Set against this background is an aspect of anthropological practice that is often overlooked-fieldwork photography. Here the camera has been used more often as a mute recording device, considered to be a transparent method of visual note-taking. But the last decade has seen renewed interest in photography's contribution to ethnography. No longer serving a simple