Ethics in Visual Anthropology - Part 2

Ethical considerations in ethnographic filmmaking go beyond informed consent. An ethics of representation ensures your editing provides a fair and faithful account of your participants; reflexivity ensures transparency about the filmmaker’s own positionality and the impact of offscreen relationships and events. An ethics of intervention determines when to simply document dangers and struggles and when to step in. Anthropologist and filmmaker Robert Lemelson illustrates these ideas through his own work and case studies of NOVA’s infamous documentary Warriors of the Amazon and Kevin Carter’s Pulitzer Prize winning photograph The Vulture and the Little Girl.

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Resources:

Faubion, J.D. (2011) An Anthropology of Ethics. London: Cambridge University Press.

Hegel, G.W.F. (1991) Hegel: Elements of the Philosophy of the Right. London: Cambridge University Press.

Laidlaw, J. (Ed) (2023) The Cambridge Handbook for the Anthropology of Ethics. London: Cambridge Anthropology of Ethics.

Lambek, M. (2010) Ordinary Ethics: Anthropology, Language, and Action. New York: Fordham University Press.