2003
Books will soon be obsolete in the schools...It is possible to
teach every branch of human knowledge with the motion picture.
Thomas Edison (1913).
...and the applications are limited only by your imagination.
slogan of micro-computer advocates in the late 1970s.
Visual anthropology in the
digital mirror: Computer-assisted visual
anthropology
Books will soon be obsolete in the schools...It is possible to
teach every branch of human knowledge with the motion picture.
Thomas Edison (1913).
...and the applications are limited only by your imagination.
slogan of micro-computer advocates in the late 1970s.
Keywords: Visual Anthropology, Computer Applications.
It is difficult to identify 'distinctive' applications of
computing for a particular humanities or social science
discipline, and in particular for anthropology. Anthropology has
a reputation, among anthropologists at least, for borrowing
heavily from other disciplines. As with all disciplines that
focus on people and their productions, anthropology is
information rich and understanding poor. The computing methods
used by particular specialist anthropologists tend to be similar
to methods used in allied subjects in the humanities or social
sciences.
Anthropology is a broad subject, with diverse sub-disciplines
ranging from folklore to molecular anthropology. Where
anthropology tends to be distinctive is its use of information
derived from a method called 'participant observation' reported
though ethnography. As a method this stereotypically consists of
an extended period of living with 'research subjects' (who may be
university professors Sheehan 1993 or other types of
hunter-gatherer). You stay in a house, hut or tent just as 'they'
do. You eat the same food, sit around the same fire, bar or tea
stall and talk, get involved in personal relationships and
personal obligations. You catch some of the same diseases and
suffer from the cold or heat. Because of your origins as an
'outsider' and the surety that your future will not be theirs (or
at least only in episodes), you cannot be a real member of the
community and should not claim to be, but you do gain a great
deal of experience. Others work "at home" where such membership
does exist but the fact of education and the practice of research
is alienating, so one ends in a somewhat similar situation to
that of 'stranger' anthropologists.
This experience-rich method gives anthropologists a great deal of
specific information they use to interpret what people say, what
people do, and what people say they do. Although many
sub-disciplines of anthropology cannot practice participant
observation (e.g. archaeology and molecular anthropology), all
branches of anthropology are influenced by the information
collected by those who do. From this body of ethnographic
information, emerge the problems that define anthropology, and
thus the wider goals of all anthropologists.
Next we consider the use of computers in anthropology in general.
This is a necessary prologue to consideration of our empirical
findings since the results were obtained, in part, from the use
of computers as a field tool. We have devoted much attention to
the concern that the field techniques have created the problems
we address rather than reveal them as an analytic problem. We
discuss the specific reasons why the problems are not artefacts
of the empirical methods used after a more general discussion of
how computers and anthropology may be related.
If we are to identify a distinctive synergy of computers with
anthropology it will most likely be in the collection, reporting
and analysis of ethnographic data. We suggest that computer-based
multimedia applied to ethnographic research is most likely to
yield a distinctive mix that advances both to some extent.
Computer-based multimedia has the potential to integrate visual
and aural field material into ethnography, both of which have
posed sufficient problems in the past to deter most
anthropologists, despite broad agreement of the importance of
such material. At the same time, the high demands of representing
ethnographic material reveals important relationships between
media units within computer-based multimedia that have not been
widely reported or applied.
Within this context we will introduce some of the past problems
with the use of computers in anthropology, and give a brief
sketch of past computing applications. In particular, we
concentrate on visual methods in anthropology, examining how
computers address visual materials and how anthropologists can
exploit computer-based capabilities. We conclude that most of
these methods decrease the labour of working with visual
materials, but do not essentially add new capability. New
capability can be achieved only if we have a way to represent our
knowledge about the material in the computer-representations of
that material. Computer-based multimedia provides tools for doing
this, contingent on our ability to represent our own knowledge
formally. We identify different levels of knowledge that can be
represented. We show that if we and others are to derive much
value from it these levels must be incorporated into multimedia
documents. These general points are illustrated by a case study
in which our data suggest a radical revision of conventional
understandings of ritual.
In his (1998) commentary on the Banks and Morphy (eds: 1994)
collection Chris Wright isolated three issues (among others) -
the 'visual' as an anthropological subject/ object, visual
documentation in anthropology, and the relationship of visual
form to the anthropological subject. He distinguishes between the
first and second category, though in a rather diffident manner.
Following the 'anthropology of ...' model (economic anthropology
being the anthropology of economics, and so on), we would expect
visual anthropology to indicate the study of visual form in
social or cultural context, not the use of visual data. There is
no other area of anthropology which is distinguished solely by
the inclusion of a specific form of data. In differentiating
visual anthropology from the use of visual data in anthropology
Wright exceeds himself, suggesting that the use of visual data
might be called 'illustrated' anthropology. Should those of us
who still use fieldnotes be said to do 'annotated' anthropology?
Or are all those who wear glasses or contact lenses automatically
to be considered as visual anthropologists since they have
technologically mediated visual access to much anthropological
data? It should be remembered that for most of the last century,
continuing to the present day, conventional ethnographic studies
have typically incorporated little or no visual data.
The reasons for such exclusion are varied: ranging from the cost,
and portability of the equipment, through the lack of analytic
tools for dealing with visual data, to a disregard for detail.
The contemporary situation is probably more related to the
'political economy' of anthropology than an indication of the
inherent value of visual data. It is quite possible to
incorporate visual information as evidence for a broader study.
But this kind of data tends to be oriented towards detail, and
increasingly anthropologists are less and less concerned with
detail, and more and more concerned with possible problems that
might emerge if they were to undertake detailed studies. So long
as anthropologists are more rewarded for uncovering new 'big
issues' regardless of how ill prepared they are to do so, than
for establishing a cumulative programme of research, then the
concern with matters close to individual participants and
specific manifestations of human emotion, thought and action
within a society will remain undervalued.
There are, of course, different kinds of problems with different
kinds of evidence, but these problems do not necessarily stem
from the sensory form the evidence takes. Rather the problems
come with the context and mode of recording, with the evaluation
of the relationship between the evidence and the subject, others
with the identification and evaluation of patterns of similarity
and difference. These problems are numerous and laborious to
offset, as anyone who works with visual and other recordings is
aware. Recording light or sound (or impressions) from a situation
is not a wholesale or total recording of that situation, or even
a model of the situation. It is a recording of some details
related to it, and must be placed within an interpretive
framework to possess value as evidence.
Using visual data requires precisely the same care as
incorporating any other form of evidence, be it written, spoken
or aural (and presumably other non-textual sensory channel
recordings as these become available). Of course, there are real
issues concerning the use of visual data within 'mainstream'
anthropology. Some might even argue that this is because it isn't
useful. Wright introduces the film of the 'Yanomani Ax
Fight'1 as a good example of
the relationship between visual ethnographic data and its
analysis in anthropology. We agree. In the 'raw' footage of the
film, we hear Chagnon making immediate comments, talking to
people and relaying their instant commentaries on the fight. In
the middle section Chagnon's analysis suggests that these initial
commentaries were at best inaccurate, and, in the normal usage of
the term, incorrect. Wright suggests this analysis might be
imaginary (as a synonym for being 'incorrect'). However, it came
about not from an obsession of Chagnon's part to look for kinship
related factors, but from his attempts to investigate both his
initial interpretations as an experienced observer and the
initial interpretations of the indigenous observers around him.
He was unable to support those interpretations in the analysis.
But within anthropology, in part for sound analytic purposes, in
part for aesthetic reasons, we are obliged to define all
indigenous views (held by 'others') as 'correct' views, and one
of the goals of our accounts is to allow for variation in
viewpoints, to make a body of seemingly incorrect and
inconsistent views correct and coherent within our framework in
order to validate the framework, not the views.
Kinship enters the picture, not because it is a 'natural'
relationship, but because it is a way of 'measuring' social
relationships as these are defined culturally, in particular,
relationships which vary according to perspective, from one
individual to another. Kinship theory as developed by
anthropologists is in many ways unique in science or social
science, because it provides a means for synthesising an overall
account of a set of relationships which are different relative to
each involved participant. They are multi-perspectival,
relativistic in the strict sense of the word, but not for the
individual actors who are constrained by each other (see Ruby
1995 for further discussion).
After conducting their analysis Chagnon and Asch present the film
a final time. Now the viewer is armed with a set of
'measurements' to make and patterns to match. What was apparently
chaotic in the first instance now is ordered, albeit
synthetically. Their account is not the only one, nor perhaps
even the best, and is certainly partial, but it is not imaginary.
It is rooted in the anthropological aesthetic, and we are able to
share this new account, as are casual observers in the classroom.
This differs from countless other accounts of similar events
which fail to connect what we see to the production of the
accounts about them Wright suggests that this film might be more
about the anthropological process than it is about the Yanomami.
We suggest it is about both, in a classical sense. An
ethnographic account is not a 'real' description. It is synthetic
and analytic, as is any scientific, journalistic, or artistic
account. It is constructed using evidence and tools for procuring
and evaluating evidence. If it is constructed well, we are able
to use it for a purpose such as 'understanding' the Ax Fight. If
it is constructed poorly, we cannot.
Reduction exploits redundancy. But the aesthetics of a good
synthetic analysis is the extent to which information can be
removed in the course of the analysis, then restored by
'animating' the resulting account. This does not ensure a
'correct' analysis, but it does result in a pleasing one. The Ax
Fight accomplishes a non-trivial example of this by presenting
the same information twice, sandwiched by an analytic account.
From the first we learn only a few rudimentary 'facts' about the
Yanomami, from the last we can animate the analysis and overlay
it on the film and 'see' the film through new eyes which combine
vision and knowledge. If the film is 'overused' it is because it
is perhaps the clearest example to the lay person (or student) of
the power of anthropological analysis to clarify rather than
mystify.
Wright endorses Grimshaw's warning about accepting visual
recording as mere technique without considering its broader
implications within anthropology. We are not quite sure what is
meant here. The only reason for the existence of a 'technique'
within a discipline is to contribute to that discipline -
precisely through the implications of its use. If it has none, it
is not useful. If we do not know what the implications are, it is
literally useless. Photography and video are only useful as
techniques if they help us do better ethnography and/or analysis.
This goes far beyond 'illustrated' anthropology, which may
improve the storytelling aspect of ethnography, but makes no
comment on visual material as primary or secondary
evidence.
There have been potential computer-based solutions to some of
these problems for well over 15 years, in the form of
computer-controlled playback machines, but these have not been
widely applied in research. Computer-based representations
provide the organisational resource of quick access to individual
images, video sequences and audio sequences which can be indexed
to textual references or references to objects in the same or
other media. Multimedia documents use non-sequential links
between different instances of a range of media. Although
relatively few anthropologists as yet are using computers to
incorporate visual records into their research, we suggest that
this represents a genuine contribution to the discipline. Visual
records have been poorly utilised by anthropologists, although
they have shown great interest since the advent of photography,
cine film, and more recently, video.
The first example of a significant (e.g. not a demonstration)
computer-based collection of ethnographic data in the form of
images and text is the collection of material relating to the
Naga in the Naga Videodisc project developed by Professor
Macfarlane's group at Cambridge (see e.g. Macfarlane & Gienke
1989, now partly available via the web at http://
www.digitalhimalaya.com/). This has been followed by Professor
Stirling's Forty-five years in the Turkish Village project
incorporates demographic data, household data, migrations data,
fieldnotes and about 1200 photographs and 1000 stills and
out-takes from videotape (see
http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/TVillage/notes.html). Also, the computer
accessible version of the Chagnon and Asch film (cited above) has
recently become available.
Computers provide a platform for visual records that overcomes
most of the barriers to using these in the research process. In
the past these barriers have included:
In addition to resolving these technical difficulties, which in
principle can be overcome (and have been on occasion),
computer-based visual records offer new capabilities, most
notably the ability to layer and interrelate in a non-linear
manner data research data, at all levels from the field to
publication.
Means by which computer-based methods address these problems
include:
There is great variation in the extent to which
anthropologists incorporate images into their research. Some use
visual records as a central part of their research. Others take a
few photographs simply for the purpose of illustrating aspects of
their notes and other data. These may find little use for a
computer other than, perhaps, the creation of a special register
or 'card index' of photographs and legends; giving their
photographs names then referring to them in the notes or other
data resources. There are many more possibilities. The technical
details of when, where and how to acquire images in the form of
digital photographs or video, and the basic methods of analysis
and use are no different from more conventional media for
representation. These issues are well covered in Collier and
Collier (1986) and Jackson (1967), as well as briefly discussed
by Blacking (1984). However, the range of analysis possible and
the ease of access are more extensive when using computers. These
begin with text/code-based computer-assisted classification using
authority lists such as a taxonomic thesaurus of classification
terms for subject domains. Others include systems to enable
cross-references between fieldnotes and people, places and events
depicted in the records. More sophisticated yet is the
incorporation of the images into a computer representation which
can be not only accessed and viewed on screen from a catalogue,
but can serve as an interactive element for data entry relevant
to the images and objects in the images. Images can be
incorporated into most computer applications which operate on
graphical operating systems, including word processors, database
programs. Images can be resized and otherwise manipulated using a
'paint program' capable of editing colour images. For video tape,
support for partial or even full transcription at frame level is
available, either through computer-controlled players, or through
direct representation on the computer. Indeed, full transcription
may not be necessary in some cases because, under computer
control, specific video frames or sequences can be displayed on
the monitor as a response to database queries, along with notes
and markings added by the researcher.
Field considerations for video as a research tool
Like all research methods but especially those which costs and
technical limitations apply, the use of digital video in the
field has to be critically assessed. For most researchers the
principal application of displaying or making video in the field
include:
It is primarily the first aspect that was explored in our recent
case study (as described in accompanying papers). In all cases
video clips can be manipulated by other computer tools, such as
database management systems or inserted into word processing
documents or multimedia authoring programs, as well as
specialised programs for working with video material. With the
system level support indicated below, there is support in each of
these applications for making selections from the original clips,
regardless of what application they are embedded within, and
installing these new 'sub-clips' into the same or other
application. This is done by reference, rather than making a
copy, so the new sub-clip does not add appreciably to the storage
requirements. A five minute video sequence can thus be broken
into smaller and smaller sequences within an application such as
a word processor database or spreadsheet, where these can be
documented, while retaining the entire clip for reference.
As it is commonly used, computer-based multimedia refers to
the presentation of documents which include a variety of visual,
textual and aural information. As with most things in the
computer world, multimedia is not an original development, but
rather is based on existing non-computer models. We are not
dealing with anything particularly new here. The ideas underlying
hypertext documents are attributed to Vannevar Bush beginning in
1945, although some medieval scholars attempted to construct
hypertext systems almost a millennia before (see Rouse and Rouse
1982). Computers may make many of these old ideas achievable in
practice, rather than remaining of theoretical interest. This is
a basis of the discomfort of many people, because although one is
not obliged to be more concrete on a computer than any other
technology-based medium such as writing on paper, the additional
capacity to manipulate media on the computer seems to impel
people towards the concrete.
There are currently several major models for computer-based
multimedia. One might be called McCluhanist, in which a variety
of media convey meanings perhaps only remotely related to the
content of the media. This is commonly used in some
advertisements or rock music videos. MDF's first exposure to the
parent of this form of multi-media was in Prof. Krupa's
'Electronic Poetry Course' at the University of Texas in 1969. It
was very difficult to enrol for the course, as it had a typical
waiting list of perhaps 200, but one could walk in at lunch time
and watch the show. He had set up an impressive array of movie
projectors, slide projectors, tape recorders and overhead slides,
all of which changed independently. To this background he would
give his lecture. It is not clear what was learned about poetry
in this class, but it was a striking display. Unfortunately, this
is often the impression the computer version gives as well: "very
flashy, but what is being communicated?"
A second model relates most closely to film; a sequenced
presentation, commonly using visual stills, computer-generated
graphics, text, sound and video. This form has been adopted
widely in business for corporate presentations, entertainment or
info-tainment, and educational purposes. There is some
interaction by the reader (or user in computer-speak), for pacing
the presentation and activating a few side-demonstrations in the
form of small video clips or animations. As a finished document,
this form corresponds most closely to film, in the sense that it
is produced and sequenced in a more or less precise manner. The
organisation is somewhat looser than that of film, in the sense
that the presentation is often divided into units, and the units
can activated (or 'visited') in any order, but the preferred
sequence and the units have been been carefully crafted.
A third approach is essentially one modelled on the book. Frames,
corresponding to pages, contain a mixture of image and text.
There are innovations, such as the ability to activate new frames
based on references within a frame (called hypertext or
hypermedia links). One can move to a given 'page', consult an
index, or perhaps search for a term. This approach should not be
dismissed, because it is more 'powerful' than a book; it can
incorporate information not currently available in print
publications, such as digitised video and sound (e.g. Zeitlyn's
audio appendices to a published transcript 1993a). And even more
importantly, we can incorporate 'expertise' in the use of the
material (e.g. help and guidance files, teaching notes etc).
A fourth type we call layered multimedia and it has the most
promise for anthropological applications. It has some of features
in common with books, but is designed in such a way as to provide
different kinds of resources at different points in the text.
These resources are organised into 'layers', which can be
followed independently, or in combination with other layers. For
example, in MDF's work on dance in the Cook Islands, he presents
a textual analysis of the structures of male and female dancers
in same- and opposite-sex interactions. In the text the
definition of different terms are linked to drawings of
abstracted dance positions. Selecting a drawing leads to the
individual video sequences the abstractions are based upon. The
reader of the document can follow the analysis down to the raw
data as MDF assembled it
(<http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/tradition.html>). Another example
is a cross-tabulation derived from a socioeconomic survey MDF
undertook in Pakistan in 1982. The summary table is presented in
the text. Selecting a cell in the table produces a list of the
households in that cell. Selecting a household leads to the
household members. Selecting a household member leads to a
personal record for that person- albeit anonymised for public
access (accessible via http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/GreenNotes/).
The book model and the layered model are examples of non-linear
multimedia. That is, there is no necessary fixed order through
the multimedia document (though there may be an order preferred
or recommended by the author or teacher setting the text for a
class).
The creation of multimedia documents has been associated with
relatively large and expensive equipment, time consuming
procedures, a remarkable amount of manual processing for a
computer-based document, as well as non-portability, since often
the only computer which can reproduce the document is the system
on which it was created. Recent developments have dramatically
changed this situation. It is now possible to record, digitise
and process audio and video tape then author a multimedia
document based on these materials using portable equipment
weighing about 4 kg. The resulting document can be reproduced on
any computer with appropriate software and a reasonable display.
A standard for multimedia software and the means for
dissemination has emerged in the form of the Hypertext Mark Up
Language (HTML) and World Wide Web browsers such as Icab and
Netscape (among many others). These make the use of multimedia
possible both in a field context as a research tool, and as a
means of dissemination to a range of researchers with less
specialised hardware.
Ethnographic film has been criticised for being difficult to
use in research. Indeed it is very difficult to find examples of
ethnographic film being used in research at all (Loizos 1993).
Banks (1994) has made similar criticisms of computer-based
multimedia in anthropology. He suggests that multimedia databases
may make it easier to exchange research material, but that there
is little added by making the various interconnected (non-linear)
links in the material. Biella (1994) counters this with a
detailed analysis of non-linear structure, and how this structure
constitutes a genuine encoding of knowledge within the document.
Both focus on the 'freedom' of the multimedia user, and are
principally disputing whether this freedom is of value or not. An
aspect that both ignore is that this freedom is largely
illusionary. The use of links in a multimedia document represents
an increase in authorial control, not an advance in reader
freedom (see Crane 1991). For example, it is difficult to imagine
much more freedom than is afforded by a book! Although there is a
linear order to the pages, the reader is free to look at the
pages in any order, and parts of pages at will. Most books come
with a device called an index which facilitates non-linear use.
By processing the book through a concordance program, individual
sentences can be utilised completely out of context (see
discussion in Landow (ed.) 1992)
Multimedia documents afford the reader no more freedom than in
books, and in many cases much less. Not every thing is linked,
and only material that is linked can be accessed from a
particular point in the document (although full-text searching
provides some alternatives, but a misleading one since a poor
choice of search term may mislead the user). Access to other
parts of the document is controlled by the author. The manner in
which the author produces the links in part reflects the author's
knowledge of the content. Levels of knowledge might be
represented from low to high as follows:
Each of these levels implies a greater control and knowledge
about the material within. At present most multimedia is limited
to the first two. These consist entirely of fixed direct links,
or links that relate to classified material. Some forms of
layered multimedia achieve level 3, such as the example relating
table cells to households to individuals, all of which is related
using a general syntactic description of the relationships. In
such documents there are no hard links at all, but the
information is retrieved systematically through the use of
relationships between different types of information.
Because of the increase of authorial control in computer based
multimedia, it is important that we are able to achieve at least
level four. Otherwise the reduction in reader access will prevent
them from using their normal skills in supplying semantic links
(i.e. making cross-references to other relevant material). It is
currently possible to insert such links in a hypertext document
(although it has not been implemented as a multimedia model to
our knowledge). The commonest example of this in conventional
computing applications is the expert or knowledge-based system,
where links between information are based on situational
matching. A multimedia representation would involve tagging the
textual, visual and aural segments with propositions that can
interact with each other within a knowledge-based system to
create relevant links. To accomplish this involves not more
computer technology, but the development of more formal means of
describing non-textual media.
The use of computers as a medium for preparing, storing and
retrieving visual material greatly increases the potential for
using visual material in anthropological research by reducing the
mechanical difficulty of working with these materials. But this
alone does not add any genuine new capability, it simply makes
the existing one more attractive. New capabilities are only
possible if we can impose sufficient structure on the material to
reflect our increasing knowledge derived from working with it.
With texts language enables us to express cumulative ideas, to
impose organisation and structure. We can abstract, represent and
communicate. Such techniques are less developed and much less
formal for non-textual data. Computer-based multimedia provides a
solution. Our interest in multimedia methods was derived from a
general dissatisfaction with the limitations of working with
aural and visual data manually, while recognising that it was
essential that anthropologists consult non-textual data with
rigour to supplement traditional ethnographic techniques. There
are, however, very few methods for referring to still images,
much less time-based media (such as sound recordings and
movie/video recordings).
Finally, let us ask where this leaves the visual in anthropology?
One view of multimedia documentation is that it means we need to
spend less time describing the visual or even its representation
since the representations (photos, video, sound and other
recordings, short explanatory texts and various notes and
titbits) can easily be included in our 'texts'. The space saved,
the energy that no longer has to be devoted to conveying in words
a sense of what is seen, can be spent on analysis. That is on
asking anthropological questions such as described in Wright's
(1998) review discussed above: how to approach the 'visual' as an
anthropological subject/ object, the status of visual
documentation in anthropology, and the relationship of visual
form to the anthropological subject. Where this leaves his
greater question as to the relationship between aesthetic
(including artistic and scientific) portrayals and
anthropological accounts is not certain. For the time being we
should do both and then examine the implications of their
juxtaposition.
Multimedia methods have been subjected to considerable criticism
for appearing 'transparent' while actually being 'constructed' by
the analyst. Although grossly overstated, these criticisms
deserve attention. Although we cannot 'remove' construction by
choice of subject, we can vastly improve the contextualisation of
a visual or aural corpus to an extent approaching that of a
written corpus. This will not satisfy all critics, but it is a
clear qualitative improvement.
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1 Now available as an interactive CD: Biella, Chagnon, & Seaman, 1997
2 See Zeitlyn and Houtman 1996 and Schwimmer 1996 for summaries.
3 Keyword searches suffer because the same topic may be discussed using different terms (the problem of synonymy) and the same term may be used in the discussion of very different topics (the problem of homonymy).