1st Edition
Visual Research and Indonesian Ethnography Beyond Description
This book focuses on how visual records – mainly on film or video – can provide data for research and presents a variety of visual projects drawn from ethnographic fieldwork in Indonesia.
Karl Heider argues for the expansion of visual anthropology - or anthropology with a camera - beyond descriptive ethnographic film into actual use of the camera as a research tool. The chapters explore several ways in which camera-generated materials can complement and support what anthropologists already do in their research. Heider includes samples from fieldwork in Indonesia conducted over a number of years, particularly in New Guinea and Sumatra with groups including the Dani and Minangkabau. His studies combine visual and psychological anthropology and provides insight into the analysis of emotions in particular.
Intended to inspire new approaches to the ethnographic enterprise, the book is valuable for scholars of visual anthropology and Southeast Asia.
Introduction: The Place of Visuals in Anthropological Research
Part I: Visual Research Projects
1 Microcultural Incidents in Minangkabau Children’s Emotion Behavior
2 Dead Birds Revisited: Rethinking Emotion in a New Guinea Dani Funeral
3 Comparing Styles of Teaching and Learning in Some South Carolina and West Sumatra Kindergartens: Video-Cued Multivocalic Ethnography (with Louise Jennings)
4 Three Styles of Play: New Guinea Dani, Central Java, and Micronesia
5 Nonverbal Studies of Dani Anger and Sexual Expression: Experimental Method in Videotape Ethnography
Part II: Exploring Indonesian Cinema
6 National Cinema, National Culture
7 Analyzing Emotion in Scenes from Indonesian Cinema
8 Culture and Cinema in Indonesia: Teguh Karya’s Doea Tanda Mata
9 Banana Peels: Visual Conventions in Indonesian Movies
10 Anger in Indonesian Cinema
11 Order and Disorder in Indonesian Genre Films and National Politics
Appendix
Other Uses of Visuals, Fragments and Suggestions
Excerpt One: Above the Fold: Early Twentieth Century Front Page Anger
Excerpt Two: Still Photographs
Excerpt Three: Life Story: Dr. Mochtar Naim
Excerpt Four: Ethnographic Shorts
Biography
Karl G. Heider is Carolina Distinguished Professor of Anthropology (Emeritus) at the University of South Carolina, USA.
