The visual Anthropologie is a branch of the Cultural anthropology, applied in the study and the production of images, in the fields of the Photographie, the Cinéma or, since half of the years 1990, in that of new the Média used in Ethnographie. The Cultural anthropology, with the Physical anthropology (the study of the biological Man), is a junction of the Anthropologie, as a general Science of the Homme. (See the article Visual anthropology in English)

This Concept includes the anthropological study of the Représentation, in the Rituel, with the Spectacle, the cinema, the Musée, in Art or in the production and reception of the means of communication of masses, the Média.

This Expression is used to reinforce the idea of the presence of the Réel seen in the Image as being more faithful than than one enttend in the Parole or the Discours.

The predecessor of visual anthropology is Spencer Poch, which is useful by the first time of a Caméra of cinema in its forwardings in Africa, recording the practices of the Aborigène S for the creation of files in Germany. He is also the first to realize it of the distortions caused by the simple presence of the tool on the behavior of people represented. Visual anthropology is cultivated, in various styles, by Robert Flaherty (a Cinéaste, not a Scientifique, but the inspirer of the movement) by Margaret Mead, by Gregory Bateson - Trance and Dance in Bali - article in English ), Marcel Griaule, Germaine Dieterlen, Jean Rouch, this one in a less conventional register which, much its works, interferes documentary Fiction and , thus opening new doors with anthropological research and the modernity of the cinema. There are images (it always A of it there) where it real transfigures itself in Art, by exposing the Beauté Vrai.

To essence, the Concept of visual anthropology, so that intended to apply in direction restricted for the scientific Method, also applies, in general direction, to indicate an important concern of the Homme since he is man: that of its Representation by the Image,

Applications

• Photography

• scientific (like tool)
• artistic (like object of study)

• Cinema

• Documentary film
• film of Fiction (like object of study)

• Media

Scientific tools

• Camera, camera of Cinema, Video camera, in supports Silver S or Numerical S

Objects of study

• the Real

• the Contained of the Image
• the eye
• the Visual perception
• the Analysis of image
• the Interpretation
• the Icon

External bonds

• French company of visual anthropology

• Society for Visual Anthropology
• Visual Anthropology.net
• Visual Anthropology, in Encyclopedia off Farming Anthropology, article of Jay Ruby
• Watching Anthropology Films and Videos, University off South Dakota
• digital Visual anthropology in the mirror: Computer-assisted visual anthropology, article of Michael D. Fischer and David Zeitlyn, University off Kent At Canterbury.