为视觉人类学一辩——略论视觉人类学的滥觞、渊源与嬗变

Reinterpreting Visual Anthropology:A Discussion on the Origin and Evolution of Visual Anthropology

视觉人类学是一门全新但历史渊源悠久的学科。它的起源可以追溯至史前史和人类文明的萌芽时代;但是作为一门学科,它的最终定义却比较晚近。这样,在学术史上就形成了一个悖论和矛盾的现象。一方面,有人强调它形成学科流派较晚而将它同影视人类学混为一谈。这些学者认为视觉人类学是研究影视材料的人类学,他们把它的内容局限在摄影术发明以后。另一方面,西方视觉人类学界却在不断开拓它的内涵,将视觉人类学和人类的视觉认知、史前视觉资料记录和传承文明的内涵及其语义、符号和象征意义进行诠释,从而阐发出视觉人类学是研究人类认知和符号系统乃至书写系统起源的关键,因之得出了它也是破译人类文明之钥匙的结论。本文的目的在于正本清源,从视觉人类学的定义和任务谈起,力求廓清线索,理出视觉人类学发展的脉络,从而确立视觉人类学的真正定义。

Visual anthropology is a brand-new subject with a long history.It can be traced back to prehistory and infancy of human civilization,and is often known as a subfield of social-cultural anthropology.The view limits the scope of this study to the production and analysis of ethnographic photography and film.However,this paper argues that visual anthropology should encompass a broader range of all visual representations research such as prehistoric drawings,pictorial records,visual art,and modern mass media.This paper also examines the cognitive inspiration for visual anthropology and explores how it should be used in cooperation with other fields of anthropology including socio-cultural,biological/physical,archaeological,linguistic and applied anthropology to help us understand cultural development.