The Legacy of Early Ethnographic Film

Alison Griffith’s work is the last, summarizing chapter of her book on the history of anthropology and its collision with visual culture in the late nineteenth, early twentieth century. In the conclusion she gives a brief historical survey of all those pioneer-anthropologists whose innovations seem to answer the questions posed by contemporary representational politics. She also points out the changes in memory and identity politics which motivate authors to reuse early ethnographic films and photos in new critical interpretational framework.