Picturing Development
ANTH 31977–INTL 31977
Stuart Wright
Department of Anthropology, Gender Studies, and International Studies, City College of New York (CCNY), City University of New York (CUNY).
Fall 2021.
Course description: How do images – in photographs, paintings, film, and more – shape the way people think about international development? In this class, we will explore how visual materials both construct knowledge and raise ethical concerns. We will also examine the origins of visual anthropology, depictions of “exotic” peoples and places in publications such as National Geographic, tourist and travel photography, and the use of visual materials by international development NGOs. While primarily devoted to reading and writing about these issues, the course will also include a practical element, including experimenting with the creation of visual materials.
1. Introduction
2. What is International Development?
3. Picturing Poverty: From ‘Humanitarian Activism’ to ‘Poverty Porn’, ‘Compassion Fatigue’, and ‘Humanitarian Consumption’
4. Anthropology and Ethnography
5. Visual Anthropology: Photography as Salvage Ethnography
6. Visual Anthropology in a Discipline of Words
7. Art or Science? Photographic Style from ‘Pictorialism’ to ‘Realism’ and Beyond
8. On Photography, Poverty, and the Great Depression
9. Reading the Signs of the Spoken Image
10. Reading the Signs of the Spoken Image (part 2)
11. “The Camera Never Lies…But is it Real or Photoshopped?”
12. Postmodernism: The Crisis of the Real
13. Ethics, Responsibilities, Representation, and Privilege
14. The West and the Rest, Orientalism, Discourse and Power
15. Reading National Geographic (1): Comfortable Strangers
16. Reading National Geographic (2): An Intersection of Gazes
17. The Honorific and the Subjugated Portrait
18. Documentary Photography and Humanitarian Photojournalism
19. International Development Agencies and Academic Development Studies
20. International Development Agencies: The People in the Pictures
21. Tourism: In Search of Paradise?
22. What to do with the Visual in Social Research?
23. Stop Filming Us
24. Photography as a Research Method
25. Seeing like a Satellite: Aerial, High Vantage Point and Drone Photography, and GIS Mapping as Research Methods
26. Visual Projects and Photo Essays
27. Contemporary Ethnographic Film
28. Picturing Development: Assignments, Questions?