Course overview
This course is about ethical visual representations of culture and cultural difference. It looks at a wide variety of visual media (including art, photography, film, video, and digital technologies) to explore the ways in which these shape both the perception, and the experience, of socio-cultural change. Throughout the course, an emphasis is placed on the inherent power of images: Their ability to shape our own cultural experiences, to cast cultural 'others' in particular ways, and to act as a mode of resisting other people's stereotypes. A particular focus is placed on the production and circulation of visual narratives which, when paired with written narratives, mediate our cultural contact zones. It is in these moments of contact - in postcolonial encounters, in ethnographic research, and in the algorithmic mediations of cyberspace - that people construct ideas about themselves and others.
Course learning outcomes
- A secure and accurate understanding of key concepts and theoretical approaches in visual Anthropology, including how colonisation and decolonisation have influenced the production of visual content.
- An understanding of the wider inter-disciplinary context of research into human societies and behaviour.
- Knowledge of the impact of colonisation on First Nations, Aboriginal, and Indigenous populations–including the ability to identify how settler histories have impacted their visual representations.
- Capacity to understand and recognise central or key anthropological questions and ethical problems.
- Ability to apply anthropological knowledge and research methods to a variety of real-world contexts.
- Capacity to produce visual narratives that are supported by written narratives.
- Knowledge of the appropriate and available technologies for conducting effective and ethical research.
- Ability to draw on digital technologies in ways that enhance meaningful research outcomes.
- A recognition of social and cultural issues, and their ethnical implications, in a global context in terms of the production and generation of Anthropological research and knowledge.
Availability
Class details
Adelaide City Campus East
Class number 53681
Section SE01
Size 50
Available 49
Class number 53680
Section SE02
Size 50
Available 48
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