{"id":30536,"date":"2018-09-21T13:16:53","date_gmt":"2018-09-21T13:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/encartesantropologicos.mx\/wordpress\/?p=30536"},"modified":"2023-11-17T19:07:06","modified_gmt":"2023-11-18T01:07:06","slug":"fotografia-antropologia-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/encartes.mx\/en\/fotografia-antropologia-mexico\/","title":{"rendered":"Three snapshots of the relationship between scientific photography and anthropology in Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abstract<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keywords: Anthropology<\/a>, Photography<\/a>, research<\/a>, methodology<\/a>, scientific practices<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

Three Snapshots Of The Relationship Between Scientific Photography And Anthropology in Mexico<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keywords: Photography, anthropology, methodology, research, scientific practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Presentation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

T<\/span>his article is derived from the research I did for my PhD thesis.\nThis article is derived from the research I did for my PhD thesis.\n1<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The anthropology-photography link in Mexico<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/em>, will allow to lay the foundations for a greater knowledge of human becoming (1998: 106).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debroise (2005) points to Fran\u00e7ois Aubert as the first to photograph the Mexican population in their different activities and thereby carry out a work on \u201cpopular types\u201d; however, Villela (1998) places as his predecessor C. Th\u00e9odore Tifereau, who in 1845 began to photograph the populations of Mexico.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Aubert, Fran\u00e7ois (1864\u201369), Architectural Study in Mexico. Retrieved from: https:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/art\/collection\/search\/285901 via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.<\/div>
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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Lumholtz, Carl (1892). Tarahumara Woman Being Weighed. Barranca de San Carlos (Sinforosa), Chihuahua. Retrieved from http:\/\/www.nybooks.com\/articles\/2016\/11\/24\/indians-slaves-and-mass-murder-the-hidden-history\/ via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.<\/div>
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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 Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 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 f\u00fcr Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte was founded (Guti\u00e9rrez, cited in Villela, 1998: 113).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, in various texts of the time such as the General instructions pour les recherches anthropologiques <\/em>From 1879 it is possible to find instructions on how to take photographs for ethnographic studies:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u00b0, 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).<\/p>\n\n\n

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Lumholtz, Carl (1895). Native american from the Sierra Madre mountains in Mexico. Retrieved from https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Sierra_Madre_indian_-_Carl_S._Lumholtz_1895.png. Public domain.<\/div>
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Lumholtz, Carl (1892). Two Tarahumara males. Tuaripa, Chihuahua, Mexico. Retrieved from https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Tarahumaras1.jpg. Public domain.<\/div>
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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 \u201cwith the characteristic clothing of the tribe they are also important\u201d, because \u201cthe other\u201d is being characterized and with it \u201cthe other\u201d. 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<\/span>, and thus prior to Malinowski's famous 1915 work in the Trobriand Islands:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maler's investigations were followed by those of Karl Sapper near the end of the century. xix<\/span>, and between 1902 and 1905 those of Alfred Tozzer [\u2026] It is that work of Tozzer, A Comparative Study of the Mayas and the Lacandones<\/em>, 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).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 Le\u00f3n 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: \u201cPhotography played an important role in their texts, conceived as a methodological support for data recording, predominating posed images and an anthropometric gaze \u201d(Del Castillo, 2005: 66).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des Am\u00e9ricanistes <\/em>of Paris, the Scientific American<\/em>, the Archives of the Societ<\/em>to Italian of Anthropology and Ethnology <\/em>and the Archiv f\u00fcr Anthropologie und V\u00f6lkerforschung<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of these works form what Roussin calls \u201ca second discovery of America\u201d (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 Yucat\u00e1n in the late 19th century. century, and in which the intervention of photography and photographic travelers played a primary role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. The pioneers, traveling photographers throughout the century xix<\/span>.<\/li>
  2. The photographers who after the revolution established the symbolic elements of the Mexican.<\/li>
  3. Those that contribute new aesthetic approaches and that influence the work of Mexican photographers (Paul Strand, Cartier-Bresson, Edward Weston, Tina Modotti).<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    What photographers like Paul Strand or Tina Modotti, who were pillars of the documentary of the century xx<\/span>, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The first ethnographic maps in Mexico<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    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<\/span>, 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 .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    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 (Rodr\u00edguez, 1998: 125).<\/p>\n\n\n

    \"Exposici\u00f3n<\/a>