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Full Text: Anthropos, 99.2004

ANTHROPOS 
99.2004: 427-434 
The Quest for the Authentic 
On the Heroics of African Visual Anthropology 
Robert J. Gordon 
Abstract. - Recent assessments of the future of visual an 
thropology have suggested that with the increasing availability 
of low cost digital technology the subdiscipline is on the 
edge of a great leap forward. However, by analyzing another 
ora, that of the interwar years, when the arrival of low cost 
Photographic equipment was also held to herald a new era for 
visual anthropology, this article suggests exactly the opposite. 
Rather accessibility led to a decrease in use of visuals. This 
article analyses some of the factors involved and suggests that 
current assessments might be overly optimistic. [Africa, visual 
anthropology, history of anthropology, fieldwork methodology, 
cameras ] 
Robert J. Gordon is a Research Associate of Lefapha la Antro- 
Poloji, Yuniversithi Ya Freistata and Professor of Anthropology 
and African Studies at the University of Vermont. Recent 
Publications include: Law and Order in the New Guinea 
highlands (Hanover 1985) (with M. Meggitt); The Bushman 
iHyth (Boulder 1992); Picturing Bushmen (Athens 1997). 
h his brilliant, albeit, ignored critique of Imperi- 
a hsm, Mark Twain has King Leopold of Belgian 
Congo fame soliloquize: 
Hhe Kodak has been a sore calamity to us. The most 
Powerful enemy indeed. In the early years we had no 
Rouble in getting the press to “expose” the tales of the 
’Mutilations as slanders, lies, inventions of busy-body 
American missionaries and exasperated foreigners by 
’he press’s help we got the Christian nations everywhere 
’° turn an irritated and unbelieving ear to those tales and 
Sa y hard things about the tellers of them. Yes, all things 
Rout harmoniously and pleasantly in good days, and I 
looked up to as the benefactor of a down-trodden 
and friendless people. Then all of a sudden came the 
crash! That is to say, the incorruptible Kodak and all 
the harmony went to hell! The only witness I have 
encountered in my long experience that 1 couldn’t bribe. 
Every Yankee missionary and every interrupted trader 
sent home and got one; and now oh, well, the pictures 
get sneaked around everywhere, in spite of all we can 
do to ferret them out and suppress them. Ten thousand 
pulpits and ten thousand presses are saying the good 
word for me all the time and placidly and convincingly 
denying the mutilations. Then that trivial little Kodak, 
that a child can carry in its pocket, gets up, uttering never 
a word, and knocks them dumb! (1970: 68 [1905]). 
Given anthropology’s strong roots in philanthro 
pies like the Aborigines Protection Society, its 
propensity, at least in Africa, to engage in what 
has been termed the expose tradition, the relative 
inexpense and skill required to use a camera, why 
hasn’t photography been used more consistently 
and extensively? This is a question that has been 
raised by many, including most recently David 
MacDougall (2001) who foresees that with the 
advent of relatively inexpensive digital video ex 
citing possibilities for visual anthropology. 
This article addresses this question by focus 
ing on another period when major advances in 
film technology occurred that not only simpli 
fied but also reduced the costs and thus made 
these technologies more accessible, namely the 
interwar years. My argument is simple: It sug 
gests that MacDougall might be overly optimistic 
because if we treat anthropology and especially 
visual anthropology as an adventure which de 
rives its value precisely from an attributed unique 
“scarcity” value, then the ready access to improved
	        
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