Three snapshots of the relationship between scientific photography and anthropology in Mexico
- Citlalli González Ponce
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Three snapshots of the relationship between scientific photography and anthropology in Mexico
Received: June 21, 2017
Acceptance: January 23, 2018
Abstract
This article presents an overview of the use of photography as a methodological resource in the scientific works of Mexican anthropology. The count goes from 1840 to date, emphasizing three periods. When addressing the first, it is pointed out how the first traveling photographers who arrived in the country established the relationship with anthropology. In the second, three projects that led to the first ethnographic maps of the indigenous population in Mexico are reviewed. On the third, some 21st century research is mentioned that reviews and critiques the multiple nuances and forms that this relationship has taken.
Keywords: Anthropology, Photography, research, methodology, scientific practices
Three Snapshots Of The Relationship Between Scientific Photography And Anthropology in Mexico
This article presents an overview of photography's use as a methodological resource for scientific work in Mexican anthropology. Three periods dating from the 1840s to the present are emphasized. A first section looks at how early itinerant photographers who came to Mexico created a link to anthropology. A second section reviews three projects that led to the first ethnographic maps of Mexico's indigenous populations. The third looks at twenty-first-century research that reviews and critiques the multiple forms and nuances this relationship has taken on.
Keywords: Photography, anthropology, methodology, research, scientific practices.
Presentation
This article is derived from the research I did for my PhD thesis. This article is derived from the research I did for my PhD thesis. 1 In the thesis I sought to account for the methodological uses of photography in scientific research in some areas of the social sciences and humanities in Mexico. To build the research, I established a historical overview of the relationship between photography, understood as a scientific tool, and the social sciences and humanities in our country, in addition to reviewing the works published in the selected disciplines that expressly indicated the methodological use of photography. Photography. That is, I do not include in the thesis or in this article purely photographic works or essay-style publications on relationships with photography or images in general, but rather those that refer to the use of scientific photography or the scientific use of photography and the disciplines studied, for the case of this article anthropology.
Below I describe three periods that I consider relevant to explain, by way of a historical scheme, the characteristics that the connection, understanding and use of photography (scientific or for scientific purposes) have had in Mexican anthropology, since its pre-scientific origins. to contemporary critical explorations or recent reviews of those early adventurers or artists' works.
The anthropology-photography link in Mexico
The relationship between anthropology and photography is as old as the appearance of this technique. Since its presentation at the Academy of Sciences in Paris, one of the benefits that stood out was its potential as a scientific support tool, which has been developed since its invention.
The first world-renowned works to use photography in the social sciences are the investigations of Franz Boas, Margaret Mead, and Gregory Bateson. Subsequently, the methodological contribution of John Collier (1986) recalls and draws the focus of attention to photography as an elementary resource in anthropology. In these investigations, photography is used within the "traditional" limits and expectations of the discipline, attending to the needs of its area of study, that is, as a visual field annotation.
In Mexico, there is no work that has had the penetration and diffusion of the previous references, which have laid the foundations for the development of a large number of works carried out later not only by anthropologists, but by social scientists in general. However, the photography-anthropology relationship in Mexico is much older. In this matter, Samuel Villela has highlighted the essential role that traveling photographers had in strengthening it, since
impelled by the eagerness to document the face of unknown and exotic peoples, they will break into the most inhospitable passages and to provide information that will be compared with the new theoretical approaches on the cultural diversity of the human race and, with the sieve of the comparative method and research techniques in situ, will allow to lay the foundations for a greater knowledge of human becoming (1998: 106).
Debroise (2005) points to François Aubert as the first to photograph the Mexican population in their different activities and thereby carry out a work on “popular types”; however, Villela (1998) places as his predecessor C. Théodore Tifereau, who in 1845 began to photograph the populations of Mexico.
It must be clearly established that some of the fundamental images of this nexus between science and photography were produced for that purpose using the new medium, but others have since been seen as valuable sources for the scientific analysis of social phenomena.
The interest of these explorers resulted in a great contribution to disciplines such as archeology and extended to ethnography; In this area it is found in the work of Lumholtz, one of the main exponents of the ethnographic scientific interest through images (Del Castillo, 2005). Lumholtz, between 1890 and 1910, financed by the American Museum of Natural History in New York, studied some indigenous groups in northwestern Mexico such as the Coras, Yaquis, Tepehuanes, Huichols, and Tarahumara. Del Castillo (2005) finds that in his images he went beyond the register and showed a broad context that placed the characters in their cultural environment, following the line of the integral study of Franz Boaz. However, interest in photography as a scientific tool appears since its discovery.
From the first voyages of exploration, scientific societies began to be founded that financed or promoted a more technical and intentional record. The same year as the official presentation of the photograph, the Société Ethnologique de Paris (1839) was founded, which published a guide to fieldwork. In 1842 the American Ethnological Society was established and in 1869 the Geserchaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte was founded (Gutiérrez, cited in Villela, 1998: 113).
Thus, in various texts of the time such as the General instructions pour les recherches anthropologiques From 1879 it is possible to find instructions on how to take photographs for ethnographic studies:
By means of photography, the following will be reproduced: 1st, bare heads, which will have to be, always and without exception, taken "exactly from the front", or "exactly from the side", since the other points of view are not very useful; 2 °, full-length portraits, taken exactly from the front, with the subject standing, naked if possible, and with the arms hanging on each side of the body. However, full-length portraits with the characteristic clothing of the tribe are also important (Broca in Naranjo, 2016: 80).
The great ethnic variety of Mexico offered an ideal space to put this new instrument into practice and the visions about the "photograpable" from science were manifested in instructions such as those set forth in the Broca quote, where the "objective" record stands out ( and objectifying) of naked heads and bodies, although “with the characteristic clothing of the tribe they are also important”, because “the other” is being characterized and with it “the other”. In this sense, Dorotinsky (2013) draws attention to the ethnographic work that was carried out with the help of photography on the Lacandon peoples at the end of the century xix, and thus prior to Malinowski's famous 1915 work in the Trobriand Islands:
Maler's investigations were followed by those of Karl Sapper near the end of the century. xix, and between 1902 and 1905 those of Alfred Tozzer […] It is that work of Tozzer, A Comparative Study of the Mayas and the Lacandones, published in 1907, the first scientific ethnographic study on this group. As part of this properly ethnographic comparative study, that is, more focused on cultural practices than on anthropometric measurement, statistical calculation or somatology, the photographs and illustrations form an important set, since they bear witness to the ethnologist's appreciations (Dorotinsky, 2013: 81-83).
There is also the case of Frederick Starr, who worked between 1895 and 1901 with funding from the National Museum and the University of Chicago, where he founded the department of anthropology (Del Castillo, 2005). Another example is that of the naturalist scientist León Diguet, who between 1896 and 1898, financed by the French Ministry of Public Instruction, studied various indigenous groups, although his main work was developed with the Huichols: “Photography played an important role in their texts, conceived as a methodological support for data recording, predominating posed images and an anthropometric gaze ”(Del Castillo, 2005: 66).
According to Del Castillo (2005), the photographic work of these first scientists contributed to academic reflection, as it was disseminated in the most important anthropology magazines, such as the Journal of the Société des Américanistes of Paris, the Scientific American, the Archives of the Societto Italian of Anthropology and Ethnology and the Archiv für Anthropologie und Völkerforschung.
Much of these works form what Roussin calls “a second discovery of America” (1993: 98) developed during the 19th century, which began with the opening of the Spanish empire and ended with the excavations of the Mayan sites in Yucatán in the late 19th century. century, and in which the intervention of photography and photographic travelers played a primary role.
In this panorama of the beginning of the use of photography in the social sciences, particularly in anthropology, Villela (1998) proposes three periods of linking the photography of travelers with Mexican anthropology:
- The pioneers, traveling photographers throughout the century xix.
- The photographers who after the revolution established the symbolic elements of the Mexican.
- Those that contribute new aesthetic approaches and that influence the work of Mexican photographers (Paul Strand, Cartier-Bresson, Edward Weston, Tina Modotti).
What photographers like Paul Strand or Tina Modotti, who were pillars of the documentary of the century xx, made in their work in Mexico from the 1930s, they break with the pictorial tradition and with a whole form of representation of an idyllic country and open the way to new aesthetic contributions that place photography in other forums and make it begin to be taken into account as a form of artistic expression. However, the work of these authors is also taken up for the study of indigenous populations in our country and today it is possible to find it in the collections that have this axis.
The first ethnographic maps in Mexico
Three major projects marked the development of ethnographic photography in Mexico. The first, the Historical-American Exhibition in Madrid, at the end of the century xix, in which Mexico participated and for which exhibition materials were generated, since in addition to historical and archaeological objects, an important part of what was exhibited were the photographs that showed places and the ethnic diversity of the country's indigenous populations. According to Casanova (2008), Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, director of the National Museum and commissioner for the project, was a member of the Mexican Photographic Society and, thus, sensitive to the possibilities that photography offered, for which he actively promoted its use .
The photographs that participated in that exhibition and the information that was established about them in the catalog reveal significant uses of this medium and its interpretation as a recording tool for Mexican ethnography in a period when it is not yet immersed in the practice of ethnography. anthropometric photography (Rodríguez, 1998: 125).
Georgina Rodríguez (1998) points out that the exhibition was academic in nature, which represented an opportunity to show Mexico in this European setting and, at the same time, carried out several national research projects, such as expeditions, acquisition of private collections that directly benefited Mexico. anthropology and ethnography, especially through the use of the photographic record in field research. To specify the exhibition that would take place in Madrid, the National Museum was the operational center of the commission and responsible for the investigations, for which it also enabled the photography workshop, which meant the incorporation of a support technique that It emerged at the same time as anthropology and was registered as a valuable tool in its consolidation (Ramírez, 2009).
The photographs shown in the exhibition were collected or taken by commercial photographers commissioned by the governors of the states who responded to the call made by Del Paso and Troncoso, or obtained in special scientific expeditions such as the Cempoala Scientific Expedition, in Veracruz. , which for eight months documented the surroundings of the area and its inhabitants,
And although they tried to objectify the photographed subjects, stripping them of their individuality, they were not - objectified -, as in the anthropometric register. Because they are taken outdoors, they record the environment, and by relying on the descriptions, surely made or provided for the catalog directly by the photographers, the result offers a fairly complete ethnographic approach (Rodríguez, 1998: 131).
On the other hand, Rodríguez (1998) mentions that there was another group of photographs close to the anthropometric registry with which a form of photographic registry was announced that anticipated a form of control and a scientific practice for the ethnic registry that would be carried out in Mexico . Del Castillo (2005) and Ramírez (2009) reiterate what Rodríguez (1998) pointed out when they indicate that these are the origins of the first ethnographic map made in Mexico, with the help of photography, which showed ethnic diversity. In addition, “it must be emphasized that the Historical-American Exhibition in Madrid was one of the first in which Mexico participated with a massive presentation of photographic materials with which the archaeological and ethnological aspects were documented and illustrated, a practice that became common from there. henceforth ”(Casanova, 2008: 78).
The second project that strengthens the photography-anthropology relationship in Mexico was, in 1895, the xi Americanist Congress, which presented an exhibition at the National Museum having as a background the work and materials used for the exhibition in Spain. For Del Castillo (2005) this event had a greater weight in Mexico than the Historical-American Exhibition, not only because it took place in the country but also because of the coverage given by the press of the time and, once again, in the exhibition mounted in this Congress, the photograph had an important weight, since 500 images of different ethnic groups were shown.
Ramírez (2009) finds that these exhibitions mark the guidelines that guided the beginning of anthropology in our country, since as a result of these events an important collection of archaeological objects was obtained that were presented in the exhibition in Spain, in addition to a large quantity of photographs that formed the archive of what would be that first ethnographic cartography of the country and, in addition, the habilitation of the photography workshop that was used later. In addition, as a result of the Historical-American Exhibition and the xi Americanist Congress remodeled the historical and archaeological department and new rooms were opened, including one for anthropology and ethnography. On the other hand, a new photographic collection was created that included “1,645 images, of which 478 were of indigenous types and cultural aspects of various ethnic groups in the country and 1,167 recorded some aspects of the material culture of said groups, as well as such as animals, plants, rock formations and panoramic views of communities and ranches ”(Ramírez, 2009: 299). With this, the museum opened its doors to anthropological studies that complemented archaeological and historical studies. Ramírez (2009) points out that this was the seed from which the institutionalization, development and professionalization of Mexican anthropology arose, whose consolidation space was the National Museum, which in 1905 the Ministry of Public Education authorized as a formal teaching center where history, archeology, ethnography and Mexican language were taught.
The third major project that was directly related to ethnographic photography in our country was the Ethnographic Exhibition of the Institute of Social Research (iis) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (unam).
In 1939 Lucio Mendieta y Núñez took the direction of the iis of the unam and, among the changes and lines of action, it warns that for the Institute it would be a priority to carry out an applied sociology in the complex and extensive Mexican social environment; For this, the organization of the Institute would contain five sections, the first one on sociology, and it was declared that "sociological studies and research will be carried out in its broadest sense [...] studies of an ethnological, ethnographic, statistical and demographic nature" (Mendieta, 1939: 9). Lucio Mendieta (1939) also announced at that time a great ethnographic project that would be carried out with the help of photography, the Ethnographic Exhibition of the iis of the unam. The aim was to carry out a systematic investigation on what was for him a subject still unknown in the country: the indigenous population of Mexico. "The Exhibition will consist of a series of batches of photographs on physical type, room, clothing, small industries, production tools and objects produced from all the indigenous races that inhabit the Mexican territory" (Revista Mexicana de Sociología, 1939: 63). This work would yield a methodically obtained and ordered material that would also be a contribution to the indigenous work of President Cárdenas, to whom the project was sent and who would be the sponsor of the exhibition that would be presented at the end of that year of 1939. This The exhibition also had plans to convene "small indigenous industrialists" to hold a contest for their products with the intention of publicizing their work, since "the humble economic activity of the indigenous" was always despised and forgotten (Revista Mexicana de Sociología, 1939: 64), intellectuals interested in the study of ethnic "problems" would also be invited to give lectures on sociological issues.
The Institute, declared Lucio Mendieta (1939), aspired with the Exhibition to create the basis of an ethnographic museum that until then did not exist. For Dorotinsky (2007) this project crystallized the value of photography at the time and justified the creation of an archive to fulfill the function of conservation in the face of an idea of extinction:
These scientific, typologizing, collector, museum and promotional purposes derive from the value that was given to the photographic image in its role as a document […] they clearly express the purpose of exhibiting, showing and articulating that reality in front of the eyes of a non-indigenous public. of unknown Mexico with a double project: to save and show, and to conserve and expose (Dorotinsky, 2007: 69).
The exhibition was not held at the end of 1939, but the project continued until 1946, when it was presented for twenty days at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. Before this, the forum to show the images of the project that was the Ethnographic Exhibition was the Revista Mexicana de Sociología, also created in 1939 as an organ of dissemination of the iis.
The exhibition was sponsored by the unam in 1946. According to Mendieta, only a minimal part of the collection obtained by the Institute's researchers in this project was shown, for budgetary reasons:
The ethnographic exhibition Indigenous Mexico It is made up of a collection of photographs and data arranged in synthetic tables on the forty-eight ethnic groups that inhabit the territory of the Mexican Republic, to give in graphic, plastic, objective form, an approximate idea of the state of culture that in this time keep these racial groups, of the social problem that they represent and of their possible solutions (Mendieta, 1946a: 315).
For Mendieta, the material in the collection was unique, “abundant and rich in scientific and art suggestions” (1946a: 315), although the photographs shown were chosen for their documentary value to make a national appeal to remember that “en la entraña viva of the homeland there are multiple human groups of primitive or backward culture that vegetate on the fringes of civilization and constitutes, for that very reason, a serious racial, economic and cultural problem that must be resolved ”(Mendieta, 1946: 457).
Dorotinsky (2007) pointed out that the photographic archive created as a result of the ethnographic exhibition project has had different moments and readings, as it was shown first in the 1946 exhibition and later in 1989, with a new exhibition called Signs of identity, of which a book-catalog was published:
Forty years later, the Institute of Social Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico returns to the same venue to exhibit a new sample of that ethnographic archive made up of almost five thousand negatives. They highlight the perseverance of the photographers Raúl E. Discua and Enrique Hernández Morones, who did not limit themselves to following the instructions of the researchers on their tour of the country, but with the camera lens they covered much more than what was requested and showed a reality that today, from a distance, we can already see with another look: one that allows us to go beyond its original purpose of giving a constricted point of view, because without the mediation of words and with the language of images it is possible to change our vision of the indigenous world (Martínez, 1989: 9).
Undoubtedly, these forums were important to publicize the investigation of the iis, although, as already noted, the first moment of diffusion was in the Revista Mexicana de Sociología and the discussion generated there, also establishes an important starting point for scientific work with images and very influential in one of the later types of approach, which built the otherness characterized by exoticization, objectification and the stereotype from an officiality that prevailed in The next years.
Peering into the photographic archives allows us to identify, from a distance, forms, contents and practices that today provide information not only about the images themselves, but also about their producers and their environments.Another very important collection is the one that currently guards the Nacho López del National Indigenous Institute (ini), today the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (cdi), which has also been studied, as will be seen later.
The critique of ethnographic photography in the investigations of the new century
At the dawn of the century xxi A critique of ethnographic photography made in the two preceding centuries stands out in anthropology and in the social sciences. The forms of representation that were used in the ethnographic work homogenized very diverse populations, with which they created imageries from which the indigenous world in our country has been investigated.
From communication and culture, Sarah Corona (2007, 2011) has produced some critical research around indigenous photography carried out in different areas. A work in this line is the one that he elaborates from a discursive analysis of the photographs that “name” the indigenous person in the fields of art, school and science, from which the mainly anthropological use that has been given to photography (Corona, 2007). The researcher observes the elements that the images contain and connects them with photographic and artistic traditions: "the same outfits and accessories ... the portraits were made in the studio ... three-quarter posed, facing forward" (Corona, 2007: 86), " in his photos of the sectioned and faceless indigenous body, with a closer look at the details… ”(Corona, 2007: 90). In this, Corona finds the need for studies that allow reflection and analysis of communicative proposals, in this case visual ones, through which those represented are “correctly named”.
As has been pointed out, the relationship between anthropology and photography in our country can be followed in different collections, such as the Fototeca del ini-cdi that Corona (2011) has also studied.
The National Indigenous Institute was founded in 1948, following the lines marked by the nationalist anthropology that dominated academic thought and political disposition in the country at that time. Distinguished anthropologists such as Manuel Gamio, Julio de la Fuente, Alfonso Caso and Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán participated in this process, who with their work also contributed to the creation of what would later become the photo library of this institution (Corona, 2011).
Corona (2011) analyzes the photographic archive of this institution and focuses its attention on the images contained in five commemorative publications. The published photographs are artistic or anthropological and seem to follow a single way of photographing, with framing and similar elements in the content, in addition to not presenting contextual or technical data. Under this guide, he finds generic accommodation data that does not provide further clues to the images: “956 photos of Lacandones, 378 of Mays, 631 of Tzotziles, 2,937 of Purépechas, 3,068 of Huichols, 5,117 others” (Corona, 2011 : 124). In this account, Corona observes that the author of the images is the ini-cdi since the names of the authors are mentioned only when they are recognized artists, officials or researchers, but most of the photographs do not have data in this regard. Neither does the territorial location or technical data of the image, photographed situation or comments from the director appear; what does appear generally is the date, even when the precise reference is not available (it is clarified with the acronym chaosf) because “the date simulates an objective quality”, so important in the scientific tradition.
In the initial period of the Fototeca (1948 to 1976) the photographs came from donations and the work that different anthropologists carried out on their projects for the institution during those years (Corona, 2011). The author finds in the analysis of the images that during this period the predominant shots are general shots in which the indigenous people are observed in activities promoted by the Institute with a modernizing intention: “By privileging institutional work, the images show the indigenous as conquerable and incorporable into the modern nation: a subject that can be educated, shaped and modernized. In other words, the indigenous person who fits in the institution is photographed and exhibited ”(Corona, 2011: 112). This selection and that treatment of the images that are preserved at the same time account for the registration purposes they had and allow us to interpret the ideological support of the motivations and photographic records.
Along these lines, the anthropologist Scott Robinson (1998) testifies to the coloniality of Mexican visual anthropology, which devoted itself, without being entirely conscious, to building otherness and maintaining social distances in favor of the powerful. For Robinson, the very poorly defined field of Mexican visual anthropology practiced, especially since the seventies, an official anthropology, sponsored by government entities that marked the thematic and aesthetic limits of Mexican cultural otherness:
We constitute a union with an institutional function: anthropologists in search of images to ratify our ambiguous office as connoisseurs of Indians […] We were expropriators of the image of that otherness, and some of us built our offices based on those expropriated images, supposed representations of Mexico Indian, valued among a certain elite, and in itself a social construction that arises as a function of the cultural coordinates of the receiving public and the human obsession to represent others as an exercise to reaffirm power and self-identification (Robinson, 1998: 96 ).
Corona (2011) takes up a publication of the ini In 1978, in a second stage, an area dedicated to the audiovisual record of the different aspects of the indigenous population was created in the Institute, and by that time the function of photography was recognized:
Towards the end of the 1970s, the role of photography as a registry of national heritage was established, and it was thought of as a means to contribute to raising awareness in the ethnic groups of the country in general about the values of indigenous cultural heritage, as well as well as the need to preserve, disseminate and defend it (Corona, 2011: 114).
The same motivation expressed in the quote is found, forty years ago, in the project of the iis of the unam materialized in the ethnographic map of the country that gave rise to the Ethnographic Exhibition presented in 1946 at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. On the other hand, in a moment of rethinking indigenism, Corona (2011) identified in a 1988 publication the concern of the ini for the indigenous to be incorporated into the design and elaboration of audiovisual materials; This concern, for Robinson (1998), became more acute in the six-year term of 1988-1994, and in his opinion it is one of the ways in which visual anthropology could be decolonized, but that would mean producing with independent resources or, if anything, from the universities.
The criticism expressed in the work of Corona (2011) on how the indigenous is recognized in anthropological photography is based in part on the absence of theoretical approaches and the lack of questioning of homogeneous visual discourses that, as a whole, did not allow the development of its own proposal in this discipline. Similarly, Robinson's (1996) reflection on these official guidelines that skewed the images created by institutional anthropologists clearly reflects the concerns presented by some other anthropological works from the beginning of the century, of which I will mention two collective publications below. whose axis was the analysis of anthropological photography.
The first is De fotógrafos y de indios (Bartra, Moreno and Ramírez, 2000), which presents a reflection on the photographs of the anthropological photography contests organized by the enah since 1981. The institutional guideline in the work of Mexican visual anthropology that Robinson (1996) pointed out in some way can be verified in these photography contests of the enahTherefore, finally, summoning under a certain theme skews the materials that are collected and that are labeled as anthropological images and that, later, in a historical analysis, are the ones that will be retaken as a result of the investigative work of certain periods.
The analysis guides of the authors' reflections revolve around the themes summoned in 20 years of competition (1981-2000); Beyond the guidelines imposed by the institution, the presences and absences in the photographs, the ways of photographing, the imagery reflected, the thematic, formal and ideological constants that can be found are reviewed and, as Ramírez points out, “the distance between reality and its representation ”(2000: 111). In this sense, the concept of the Indian is discussed, how his “concept-image” was historically formed (Bartra, 2000: 103) and how, in the specific case of ethnographic photography, until the end of the century xx The indigenous person is an "object" of cultural and artistic research, never a subject with a voice that is active and is the author of his or her own image. Along these lines, for example, Moreno (2000) wonders if the indigenous world of the late 1990s is the same as that of a hundred years ago or if there are no indigenous people who participate in the artistic or political world.
The authors of this book observe timelessness as constant in this collection of images. For Moreno (2000: 15), these images seem “from another era” and could be from anywhere and from any time; what the sisters is “nostalgia for pristine, calm and harmonious natural paradises, for cyclical traditions and identities that are proof of irruptions, for immobile times that access a calm daily life, for resistance –despite regrets–, for stubborn survival, of a possible past, of a lost and founding childhood ”(Ramírez, 2000: 57).
Part of the observed timelessness has to do with the fact that the indigenous people are homogenized, they are “men-hats; faces without age and without time ”(Moreno, 2000: 15). For Bartra, the indigenous "have been constructed plastically, but also as a sociological and anthropological object, as pictorial, film and literary material and as cultural merchandise and as political booty" (2000: 105). Ramírez (2000) points out that at the end of the century xxIn society and its practices, identity distances were shortened, but this does not seem to be the case in photography, as there is resistance to moving away from an archetypal image of the indigenous.
The intention of changing the position of indigenous people from being visual objects to creators of their own representations is in tune with the postmodern crises of the social sciences and the questioning of their ways of doing, and with it, finally, a new inclusive vision responds to the new scientific currents that today we cannot yet evaluate; we will have criticism in the future.
Despite the changes in ideologies, mentalities and institutional objectives identified, there is a visual hegemony in photographic images of indigenous people, a situation also later identified by Corona (2011). The perfectly defined periods that Corona (2011) points out in the work of the ini coincide with the description of indigenous photography made by Ramírez (2000) in the observations derived from the review of the archive of the photography contests of the enah, first the idyllic image of the indigenous as representative of a glorious past, then the assimilable indigenous, in the process of integration, and finally the indigenous who begins to have a voice through audiovisual resources.
It is pertinent to point out that through photography and its development in a discipline, we can analyze not only the dominant currents of thought in it at certain times, but also the amalgamation between political-institutional-scientific sectors and their changes in a country.
The second example to which I will refer is a work detached from an exhibition on the ethnographic photography of Frederick Starr mounted at the Manuel Álvarez Bravo Photographic Center in Oaxaca, of which in 2012 a book coordinated by the anthropologists Deborah Poole and Gabriela Zamorano was published. , with the intention of motivating reflection on the historical and aesthetic value of images that were originally captured under a scientific vision, and was, according to the publishers, "an experiment in dialogue between art and anthropological research" (Poole and Zamorano, 2012: 10). This compilation brought together texts by historians, art historians, researchers in fine arts and aesthetics, and anthropologists, each writing about some aspect of Starr's photographic work, about him as a character, and about his scientific work. This book includes, in addition to some photographs of Starr, contemporary “visual responses”, current portraits taken by two Oaxacan photographers invited to the exhibition.
The reflections of the articles have the constant idea of the approach to a body of work that reflects the ways of doing science at the end of the century xix and early xx, following colonialist currents, such as anthropometry, which are now in disuse and have been strongly criticized.
For Poole (2012), the review of Frederick Starr's photographs shows the attempt to establish a desired imaginary, a homogeneity in the indigenous population that would adapt to the ideas of anthropology of the time and to be found in the currents of anthropology the physical way of studying indigenous groups, of establishing the Oaxacan phenotype; However, the racist search for a typicality was unsuccessful and today, a hundred years away, these images represent other possibilities, since visual anthropology analyzes them as samples of a past that it tries not to repeat.
Along these lines, Pérez (2012) points out the ambiguity implied by the term “visual anthropology”, since with this distinction it would seem that some non-visual anthropology would not imply the observation that has the view as a bridge. Regarding the collection of Frederick Starr, he considers that when looking at the images they look back at us, since "photography helps to understand and look at the other, but it also helps to understand what one is looking at and why" (Pérez, 2012: 37).
The anthropometric method for which racial photography was a fundamental resource was practiced by Frederick Starr with precision, says Vélez (2012), since in his way of working he was to measure 125 people from the studied population to select the one from among them. He depicted “tribal types” and then portrayed her from the front and in profile, in a five-by-seven-inch format. These photographs are the ones that today allow other readings and question another era, its society, its researchers and the individuals investigated.
On the other hand, Dorotinsky reflects on our rethinking these images, which are a sample of a non-indigenous project to study ethnic cultures, not a representation of visual cultures, where the implication has to do with their study to understand our intellectual concerns more than making a point of what a colonialist anthropology was, and also, “turning our gazes towards documentary photographs of the past implies a series of reflections that are related to research in the history of ideas, ways of seeing and historiographic review ”(Dorotinsky, 2012; 79).
For Poole and Zamorano, this project proposed the reflection on "to what extent our different approaches to the photographic image of the indigenous are also nuanced by stereotypes, aesthetic idealizations and pictorial genres with which the imagery of the Mexican indigenous peoples has been built" ( 2012: 13).
The horizon
These recent projects are established in a critical review of the use of photography as a methodological tool within anthropology and in other areas of the social sciences. Reflection within the anthropological discipline is perceived as a form of apology for the practices of a colonialist science, but above all as the attempt to establish a division between the currents that originated it (now in disuse, at least in the past). discourse) and current approaches, which in some of the works mentioned is not entirely clear. In this line, the lack of defined horizons is observed and with it the exploration of new ways that allow the development and understanding of visual tools, not only of photography, which are of great support to the discipline.
Perhaps approaching a communicative approach would be a contribution to these new sought-after guides in the anthropological visual endeavor. A communicative approach to photography implies understanding it as a medium that allows communication at different levels. Photography is the bearer of a message in itself, but a message made by someone with a certain intention (or without it), and beyond trying to get to the bottom of its meaning, it would be necessary to consider that the very act of establishing an approach by this medium is already analyzable for research.
A large part of the criticism of past ways of doing ethnographic photography has to do with an objectification of the "others" that did not allow us to see them reflected in the materials that were produced on them, and in this turn of the page the new trends have as axis to give them a voice, to investigate with them and not about them, seeking to establish a horizontal dialogue (Corona, 2012). In this panorama, photography becomes, more than an image with meanings to be deciphered, a tool to give voice and establish communication based on the message that is shared through this medium, through the visual forms that those involved chose.
Working with photography from a communicative approach with indigenous communities is not an unexplored terrain in Mexico; there are solid examples from the late nineties of the last century (Duarte, 2001; Corona, 2002 and 2011a). Taking up these proposals to explore one of our own that adapts to the particular research interests of each discipline will provide a new perspective that continues to support this field in the construction of research work that uses photography as a methodological tool for anthropology and the social sciences. usually.
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