Jacknis

It was interesting to see what Mead & Bateson planned to accomplish during their two year study in Bali. Like all recorded documents, it seems that, although carefully thought out, the two were unable to completely remove bias in their studies. In the conclusion, Meade and Bateson refer to “disciplined subjectivity,” and Meade goes on to talk about how “there is no such thing as an unbiased report … it is comparable to a color-blind man reporting on a sunset.” As two professionals in their field, the two went through great lengths to document honestly (not necessarily in an unbiased manner). They carefully noted photographs, whether they were posed, whether the observer was aware of the photographer’s presence, whether the event was a reenactment… I thought technology had a big role in this methodology, and the study would yield much different results if conducted today, rather than with World War I era technology. The essay mentioned certain events taking place during the day when traditionally they occurred at night, and how “three rolls of film” were used during one event. With complex night-vision cameras, modern unobtrusive lighting, image stability, and the ability to capture thousands of more images with each “roll” of film would definitely alter both their actions and the project’s results. Three films, as implied by the passage, was a lot for one event, and the crew had to call for more film. But what if the photographers could instead snap continuously, capturing the “in-between” scenes, and gathering background data that they otherwise could not afford to record?

Jacknis

Jacknis and Ginsburg both stressed the impact that Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson had on anthropology during their two-year study of the Balinese people. The married couple used photographic stills and film to record what they studied while living there. Film and photos were used in anthropology before, but Mead and Bateson were revolutionary with their work because they used visual anthropology as a primary recording device rather than just illustrations. Mead and Bateson had a team split up in different locations, which came together for a final product. Mead organized her work through “running field notes” that were observations shown in a chronological narrative and were supplemented with daily diaries.

Mead and Bateson found that objectivity in portraying the Balinese people was still out of reach with photographs and film, but they recorded as much of their biases as they could. The fact that anthropologists were in the village with cameras changed the Balinese people’s daily life, but the cameras were around so often, it was hard for the subjects to be conscious of the cameras all the time. They wrote down if the subject knew photos were being taken and if the photographer posed the subject or not. The anthropologists showed the Balinese people the films they took, and sometimes they filmed the subjects watching the films of themselves, which was “film elicitation.” Mead and Bateson recognized that their work wasn’t objective, but by writing down the context and ways the material was recorded, they tried to document the biases they had. This was a start to “disciplined subjectivity,” which is described considering the role of the observer instead of ignoring him or her completely.

Mead always tried to circulate her work into the public eye, and made six different films focusing on character formation, but since there were no film guides, there was no clarification on details or contexts. Mead believed visual anthropology was important to capture the “ethos of culture,” things that couldn’t be expressed by the written word. Is it possible for anything made to be completely objective? Is an ethnography more objective just because the observer has stated his or her role?

Jacknis

Jacknis is pointing out the dilemma of anthropology, which is objectivity. Mead and Bateson tried to avoid or solve this problem by using still and cine photography in Bali. They were very efficient in taking notes and recording. However, the reason why they headed to Bali was to study children and the “missing type” which Mead thought the Balinese exhibited. Yes, they wanted to try to document or record cultural themes or behaviors exhibited, but that was their main intent. Going in with this in mind, you will be biased in what you look at and record.

Bateson took the photos and Mead would be a director pointing out interesting behavior to be filmed. The article said that this was because it would have been things Bateson might have missed with his eye to the viewfinder. However, this reasoning proves that this was biased.

Firstly, the fact that Mead was pointing out things that he should make sure to record suggests that they did pick things that would fulfill their thoughts or hypotheses when they first started their research their. Secondly, the pictures being taken are biased because the person using the camera chooses where to aim it, how to aim, and when to click the shutter button. Different things are especially interesting to different people and the person will be drawn to these things and focus on them more than collecting a general overview of every aspect of culture. Thirdly, the use of the camera made the cameraman miss things because their eye is always in the viewfinder ready to get the next shot. So one can possibly argue that one who writes notes from observation can argue that they will have better judgment from this because they can observe to the best of their ability and then assess the situation fully. Lastly, the difficulty with visual anthropology in my opinion is that because it appeals to the most popular and useful senses, those viewing it can take it to be real. Photographs, still and cine, are figments of the real world. They are a representation and this representation sometimes, if not all times, cannot be accurate. Without providing supplemental text and background to the photograph, the viewer can make judgments and their own conclusions, which can be the wrong ones.

I agree with the first paragraph on page 173 in the fact that film is not a copy of something. The medium itself is subjective because we decide where we point the camera and it is a form of communicating our observations and ideas in the world. There is no pure ethnographic truth in my opinion in, no matter how you choose to document it—on paper or with a camera. It is almost like an oxymoron in a way because the people going to study have a specific purpose for and when they are there they influence that culture, too. as we saw with the recording of the trance dance, they had them do it during the day because it could not be filmed at night because they needed more light and it was only something around two or three hours long when in reality it took upwards of eight hours. They also asked women to participate for the film when they normally don’t. This would, therefore, have the viewer be mislead to a certain extent. This also changed the culture in that from then on women were always included.

The conclusion of this article argues that this, however, is not a bad thing. They were subjective and the finished product was definitely biases but it is a “disciplined subjectivity.” The use of visual anthropology is good because it is something that can be taken back for other experts and anthropologists to analyze. So the study does not only happen in fieldwork and is not a two-way interaction between the anthropologist and the culture being studied firsthand. There can be secondhand analyses. This can be a bad thing though because the medium itself is not a copy and is not as accurate sometimes in my opinion as something is firsthand. There are so many different factors that can change our view of something. For example, the angle at which something is taken can change the feeling a viewer gets from the picture. If something is taken from below looking up, the subject can be seen as superior or also in a very negative light because it can be unflattering, etc.

Because the general viewer tends to think that photographs and films represent the real world and that the subject in the photograph and the actual real person are one and the same. What often happened early on is that a whole culture would get sized up from a small collection of photographs, which can be kind of insulting. Photographs and films are almost too accessible now and this realness, as the trance dance film example in the article suggests, can be really dangerous when being used as an accurate document and can be confused as it being the real thing.

Jacknis Reading Response

As I'm reading the beginning of the article by Ira Jacknis entitled "Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson in Bali," I am reminded of the trance-like chanting performed by the aboriginal Australian women, as we saw in the film we watched during class. Jacknis mentions that with the Bali culture, "they seemed to have culturally institutionalized dissociative and trance-like behavior, which in our culture is regarded as schizophrenic." (Jacknis 161) Mead and Bateson, as a married couple and an anthropological team worked together using new methods of research and technologies to capture the culture of the Bali people, with a focus on child development.
Meade used her personal method of "running field notes" to study the Bali culture, that went along with the photographic recordings and films, and a daily diary. Meade's early methods of anthropological studies of a culture clearly influenced the future of cultural anthropology and changed the ways in which people studied other cultures, using new technologies to gather their data. I think it is important to note Meade's gathering of native visual documents, such as paintings and carvings, which in a way defined the culture itself. The new technologies used by Mead included a hand-powered projector, which allowed the Balinese to watch the people of their society and comment on authenticity of a trance, among other things. The fact that they were able to watch what the anthropologists had documented was a major breakthrough in the ethnographic studies of other cultures because they were able to gain perspective, and give feedback to the anthropologists themselves. This technique was called "film elicitation" (Jacknis 165).
Another way in which they allowed the Balinese to give an accurate portrait of themselves was their candid use of photographing the people of Bali, in a natural setting as to give a realistic portrayal of their culture. It's interesting that Meade tried to eliminate any kind of "observer bias..." using " long, middle-distance shots, presented with minimal editing" (Jacknis 172) from her observations and recordings, in order to gather the most natural data and information of the Bianese culture. To me, this is one of the most important things about ethnographic films, to eliminate any kind of bias or opinion towards the given culture to project onto the viewers, instead capturing the culture in what is considered to be their natural state, without posing them in situations or positions or editing the film in a manner that gives a certain forced perspective on the studied individual/culture.
The editing itself if very important in ethnographic films because every shot, in a sense, gives the viewer a specific perspective as presented by the filmmaker. As Sol Worth wrote regarding Mead and her work with visual anthropology, "Film is not a copy of the world out there but someone's statement about the world." (Jacknis 173) Overall, it is evident that Mead's work with ethnographic film was a breakthrough in the world of visual anthropology because it focused on the subjects, and not a certain perspective on the subject. It is important that she recorded a culture based on "ethnographic truth" and filmed and photographed her subjects in a natural state.