Principles of visual anthropology, review

Abstract

The importance of the original publication in 1975 of Paul Hockings' Principles of Visual Anthropology cannot be underestimated. Along with Karl Heider's Ethnographic Film (1976), Hockings' collection is regarded by people outside of the field as the best representation of visual anthropology. This is troubling at times. If one uses a keyword search on the two most popular terms in our field, visual anthropology and ethnographic film, the Hockings/Heider title domination always appears. While these texts serve as excellent historical markers in the field, their continued presence as contemporary standards is disheartening. The purported status of the second edition of Hockings' text as a new standard reflecting the development of visual anthropology is not fully reflective of the field over the last several years. It is this dilemma that will be addressed primarily in this review.