Film As Ethnography

Film as Ethnography delves into the debate surrounding the use of film and the camera as research instruments within anthropology. The book critically examines why practitioners in the field have traditionally shied away from employing visual techniques to communicate ethnographic knowledge, highlighting a profound division between image and text. By contrasting the roles of the written and the visual, the work argues that while written narratives can encapsulate the essence of filmed images, the reverse is not true. It positions the visual mode as analogous to a "thin description," offering only a record of observable behavior, whereas "thick description" through writing provides a deeper account of cultural meaning. Published by Manchester University Press in 1992, Film as Ethnography challenges readers to rethink the boundaries between visual media and textual analysis in anthropological research.