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The Ax Fight (1975) is an ethnographic film by anthropologist and filmmaker Tim Asch and anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon about a conflict in a Yanomami village called Mishimishimabowei-teri, in southern Venezuela. It is best known as an iconic and idiosyncratic ethnographic film about the Yanomamo and is frequently shown in classroom settings. [1]
The film has four parts and operates on a number of analytical levels. It opens with a map of the region where the village is located and then proceeds to about ten minutes of virtually unedited film footage of combat among multiple participants armed with clubs, machetes, and axes. This 11-minute sequence represents all that was shot of the fight, which lasted about twenty minutes. [2] Many of the shots and accompanying audio reflect the surprise of the Western film crew and their ignorance about the cause of the fight until some time later.
The fight, which occurred on the second day of Asch and Chagnon's arrival to the village on February 28, 1971, is presented to the viewer as it was experienced by the anthropologist and filmmaker, as chaotic and unstructured violence. The second part of the Ax Fight, however, replays the events in slow motion while Chagnon explains who the combatants are and describes their relationship to one another. Although they initially believe the fight occurred because of an incestuous relationship, the anthropologists learn that this is not the case and that the fight is the latest manifestation of long-standing hostility between a faction that lives in the village and a faction that is among a party of visitors. The fight is explained as "a ritualized contest, not a brawl" in which combatants make a relatively orderly progression from less lethal weapons to more lethal ones and people choose sides in the dispute on the basis of kinship obligations and shared histories. Eventually, elders (who tend to have conflicting loyalties) step in to help end the conflict.
The third part of the film uses a number of kinship diagrams to further elaborate on these family bonds and explains how kinship and political systems are often interchangeable in Yanomamo life.
The final part of the film replays an edited version of the fight, intended to illustrate the effect that the process of editing has on the construction of anthropological knowledge.
In 2007, The Ax Fight was re-examined by filmmaker Adam Curtis in his documentary program The Trap . Curtis interviewed Chagnon and put to him the assertion of fellow anthropologist Brian Ferguson that much of the Yanamamo violence, and particularly its intensity, was very strongly influenced by the presence of Westerners giving individuals goods, which were then fought over - in this case the goods were highly prized and useful machetes. Chagnon, however, insisted that his presence had had no influence whatsoever on the situation citing the fact that similar fights happened when he wasn't present, which he also documented. Curtis then asked, "You don't think a film crew in the middle of a fight in a village has an effect?" Chagnon replied, "No, I don't," and immediately walked out of the interview.
Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon (2000) is a polemical book by author Patrick Tierney, in which the author accuses geneticist James Neel and anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon of conducting human research without regard for their subjects' well-being while conducting long-term ethnographic field work among the indigenous Yanomamö, in the Amazon Basin between Venezuela and Brazil. He also wrote that the researchers had exacerbated a measles epidemic among the Native Americans, and that Jacques Lizot and Kenneth Good committed acts of sexual impropriety with Yanomamö.
Napoleon Alphonseau Chagnon was an American cultural anthropologist, professor of sociocultural anthropology at the University of Missouri in Columbia and member of the National Academy of Sciences. Chagnon was known for his long-term ethnographic field work among the Yanomamö, a society of indigenous tribal Amazonians, in which he used an evolutionary approach to understand social behavior in terms of genetic relatedness. His work centered on the analysis of violence among tribal peoples, and, using socio-biological analyses, he advanced the argument that violence among the Yanomami is fueled by an evolutionary process in which successful warriors have more offspring. His 1967 ethnography Yanomamö: The Fierce People became a bestseller and is frequently assigned in introductory anthropology courses.
Visual anthropology is a subfield of social anthropology that is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media. More recently it has been used by historians of science and visual culture. Although sometimes wrongly conflated with ethnographic film, Visual Anthropology encompasses much more, including the anthropological study of all visual representations such as dance and other kinds of performance, museums and archiving, all visual arts, and the production and reception of mass media. Histories and analyses of representations from many cultures are part of Visual Anthropology: research topics include sandpaintings, tattoos, sculptures and reliefs, cave paintings, scrimshaw, jewelry, hieroglyphics, paintings and photographs. Also within the province of the subfield are studies of human vision, properties of media, the relationship of visual form and function, and applied, collaborative uses of visual representations. Multimodal anthropology describes the latest turn in the subfield, which considers how emerging technologies like immersive virtual reality, augmented reality, mobile apps, social networking, gaming along with film, photography and art is reshaping anthropological research, practice and teaching.
Timothy Asch was a noted anthropologist, photographer, and ethnographic filmmaker. Along with John Marshall and Robert Gardner, Asch played an important role in the development of visual anthropology. He is particularly known for his film The Ax Fight and his role with the USC Center for Visual Anthropology.
Barbara Myerhoff was an American anthropologist and filmmaker, and founder of the Center for Visual Anthropology at the University of Southern California.
The USC Center for Visual Anthropology (CVA) is a center located at the University of Southern California. It is dedicated to the field of visual anthropology, incorporating visual modes of expression in the academic discipline of anthropology. It does so in conjunction with faculty in the anthropology department through five types of activities: training, research and analysis of visual culture, production of visual projects, archiving and collecting, and the sponsorship of conferences and film festivals. It offers a B.A. and an MVA in Visual Anthropology.
The Human Studies Film Archives (HSFA), part of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, is devoted to preserving, documenting and providing access to anthropological moving image materials. It is located at the Smithsonian Museum Support Center in Suitland, Maryland.
The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom is a BBC television documentary series by English filmmaker Adam Curtis, well known for other documentaries including The Century of the Self and The Power of Nightmares. It originally aired in the United Kingdom on BBC Two in March 2007. The series consists of three 60-minute programmes which explore the modern concept and definition of freedom, specifically, "how a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures led to today's idea of freedom."
Robert Grosvenor Gardner was an American academic, anthropologist, and documentary filmmaker who was the Director of the Film Study Center at Harvard University from 1956 to 1997. He is known for his work in the field of visual anthropology and films like Dead Birds and Forest of Bliss. In 2011, a retrospective of his work was held at Film Forum, New York.
A Man Called "Bee": Studying the Yanomamo is a 1974 film by ethnographic filmmakers Tim Asch and Napoleon Chagnon. While he was studying the Yanomamo people, Napoleon Chagnon used many different ethnographic research methods. Some of those methods included participant observation, key informants, tape recording and in depth interviews. Ethnography is based on fieldwork. In order for Chagnon to create this film about the Yanomamo people, he had to take part in their events he was observing, describing, and analyzing.
Lina Fruzzetti is an American anthropologist and documentary film director.
Magical Death is a documentary film by anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon that explores the role of the shaman within the Yanomamo culture, as well as the close relationship shamanism shares with politics within their society.
A Balinese Trance Seance is a 1979 documentary film by ethnographic filmmaker Tim Asch and anthropologist Linda Connor that profiles Jero Tapakan, a Balinese spirit medium. It was one of five films that were made with Jero Tapakan and were considered to be exemplary ethnographic films.
Dodoth Morning is a 1976 film by ethnographic filmmaker Tim Asch.
Herb Di Gioia is an Italian, American documentary film director who pioneered the field of "observational cinema" in his work and impacted ethnographic film making through his contributions as a teacher at Britain’s National Film and Television School. Di Gioia's films are recognized as a significant departure from the better-known works of other observational documentarians, like David and Judith MacDougall.
An ethnographic film is a non-fiction film, often similar to a documentary film, historically dealing with non-Western people, and sometimes associated with anthropology. Definitions of the term are not definitive. Some academics claim it is more documentary, less anthropology, while others think it rests somewhere between the fields of anthropology and documentary films.
The Yanomami, also spelled Yąnomamö or Yanomama, are a group of approximately 35,000 indigenous people who live in some 200–250 villages in the Amazon rainforest on the border between Venezuela and Brazil.
Kenneth Good is an anthropologist most noted for his work among the Yanomami and his account of his experiences with them: Into the Heart: One Man’s Pursuit of Love and Knowledge Among the Yanomami. While researching and living with the group in Venezuela, Good married a Yanomami woman named Yarima, who emigrated to the United States with Good when he returned home. Their three children were raised in the United States, but Yarima, finding adapting to life in the United States too difficult, returned to her village when the children were young.
Ethnocinema, from Jean Rouch’s cine-ethnography and ethno-fictions, is an emerging practice of intercultural filmmaking being defined and extended by Melbourne, Australia-based writer and arts educator, Anne Harris, and others. Originally derived from the discipline of anthropology, ethnocinema is one form of ethnographic filmmaking that prioritises mutuality, collaboration and social change. The practice's ethos claims that the role of anthropologists, and other cultural, media and educational researchers, must adapt to changing communities, transnational identities and new notions of representation for the 21st century.