Introduction to Filmic Anthropology

• In Event: New Visions of Ethnographic Films from Asia

Abstract

The paper reflects on philosophic root of anthropology and cultural contexts of the discipline, and picks up the concept of Ciné-anthropology proposed by Jean Rouch and at first systematically constructs an elementary theory of filmic anthropology. Filmic anthropology is an independent discipline born out of modern and postmodern anthropology. Filmic anthropology is not pure knowledge; filmic anthropology is not empirical knowledge; filmic anthropology is not combination of pure knowledge and empirical knowledge. Filmic anthropology is knowledge of re-reason which is prior to the former three kinds of knowledge and whose practical reason is being-together-of-diversity proposed by Fei Xiaotong. The paper also proposes two particular lines of filmic anthropology, i.e. Trans-cultural Personal Collaboration highlighted by Nanook of the North and films by Da-La-Rou-Ta and Ethnography of Brotherhood highlighted by Minjipian民纪片, the documentary film series on Chinese minorities made from 1957 to 1981, which is regarded as classic works of Chinese ethnographic film.

Author

• Jiang Bao, Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences