SUBJECT AREA AND EPISTEMIC STRUCTURE OF VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Visual Anthropology is a modern dynamic multidisciplinary “industry” of the humanities, based on research experience in the field of ethnography, sociology, history, cultural phenomenology, phenomenology of religion, social psychology, aesthetics and semiotics. The subject of visual anthropology’s research is a set of visual presentations of social and cultural communities and traditions. It is argued that the subject of visual anthropology are all forms of expression of social and cultural meanings, which are available for visual fixation and transmission. Visual images take up a significant segment of the culture as a social-communicative system. Currently, the image has become a leading medium of expression and transmission of important information. “Visual turn” in the culture which associated with the focus from the semantic aspect of the image to its syntax is recorded and described. Human ontology and culture fundamentally transformed in connection with this turn. The question about the “correctness” of the image disappears because of the elimination of its referential parameter. The image is now measured not by fidelity of reality, but on the effectiveness of its impact on the recipient: the priority shifts from its identity to its functionality. Since the entire anthropological reality is concentrated in this sort of images, the attitude to reality becomes technical, manipulative. Visual anthropology is actively formed as an integral research discipline, the focus of which are on visual acts – human action or set of actions (both synchronous and consecutive), relating to the visual image, i.e. is an active, aimed at the production, translation and use of a visual image. The rapid development of visual culture sector determines the relevance of research in visual anthropology and makes its one of the most dynamic areas of contemporary humanities. The author formulates a version of the epistemic structure description of visual anthropology as an integrated multidisciplinary research project.
Keywords: anthropology, culture, visual image, the visual turn
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Issue: 1, 2015
Series of issue: Issue 3
Rubric: RESEARCH REPORTS
Pages: 11 — 20
Downloads: 1280