The Anthropologist as Photographer: The Visual Construction ofEthnographic Authority.

"The Anthropologist as Author" - Clifford Geertz's formulation is
emblematic of a theme of anthropology in the 1980s, ethnographic
writing. Ethnographic photography however, was barely a subject
of consideration. Reviewing Evans-Pritchard's "The Nuer", a book
widely re-read in the writing culture debate, this article
investigates not only the author's visual construction of
ethnographic authority. It also reveals ethnographic photography
as a medium, which can undermine this authority in a subtle yet
compelling manner. Thus concentrating on the medium itself this
paper investigates the uneasy relationship between photography
and anthropology, and proposes an approach to ethnographic
photography that goes beyond the questions of representation.
(Author's abstract).