Визуальная антропология: Новые взгляды на социальную реальность (review)

Abstract

383 Ab Imperio, 1/2011 hind. Secondly, the metamorphosis that the mindset and culture have experienced amongst the postSoviet generation(s), together with the significant transformation of everyday life, cannot be comprehended without a thorough study of one’s Soviet genealogy (P. 19). More so, the new way of life since 1990s remains under a strong Soviet legacy in various forms, be it consumption patterns, way of thinking, habits of leisure, cultural propensities, etiquettes or the practice of public meetings. Hence, the Soviet past continues to live in the individual’s conscious and sub-conscious. Although ‘the monolith’ was broken, its splintered elements will continue to remind about themselves for long through the attributes that remained unchanged. Thirdly, while identities and sets of values and beliefs may change quickly, mentality is something that changes slowest of them all. Those who were born in the Soviet period “scan” the realities differently. Above all it will be difficult to pull down the curtain woven with past memories, though many have undergone through a process of collective amnesia, conscious and un-conscious erasing the traumatic past (P. 22). The section on “Image and Memories: The Angles of Photo Views” (“Obraz i pamiat’: rakursy fotovzgliada”) includes an article by Olga Boitsova examining the Najam ABBAS Визуальная антропология: Но- вые взгляды на социальную реаль- ность. Саратов: “Научная книга”, 2007. 528 с. (=Библиотека жур- нала исследований социальной политики). ISBN: 5-9758-0247-4. This book illustrates how the comparatively new subject is evolving across multiple disciplines, exploring new approaches and generating new content for visual research among Russian academics.The book consists of 26 papers distributed in four sections over 528 pages and reflects the breadth and depth of ideas being generated by scholars and researchers of visual anthropology in Russia and the Baltic states. In the section entitled “Visual Anthropology and Visual Studies,” a paper by Al’mira Usmanova, “Soviet Visual Culture as a subject of Anthropological Research,” offers the following important observations : Firstly, the term visual anthropology brings ideas of anthropology and provides a use of visual tools to examine certain cultural realities. The cultural “other” continues to intrigue and excites the students of anthropology and cinema studies. Hence casting a look on the Soviet feature films as material for visual anthropology allows peeking into the Soviet past from a new angle and at the imprints it has left be- 384 Рецензии/Reviews her attention on the particular use of pictures in the construction of biographical narratives. A team of researchers in Sociology of Culture at Russia’s Udmurt State University created an electronic archive of amateur photos. They then combined a number of photographs selected from a family album with a biographical narrative. The research sought to address the question “What does it mean to talk about the photographs ?” So in the first phase, their task was to see the way people talk about the photographs from their family collection (P. 133). Some photographs prompt their owners and onlookers to storytelling, triggering an emotional response, most often when referring to one’s own childhood pictures. The memories of childhood in its own carry a deep emotional baggage, while childhood experiences captured by the camera generate a high degree of emotionality. This is reflected in the content and presentation of verbal comments. The researchers also noted that the narrator reconstructs sometimes the relationship with the characters seen in the photographs (P. 137). In general, the pilot project aimed at studying the biographical narrative through the family photo album enables researchers to focus on certain points: appropriate strategies and approaches of accumulation of individual and collective memory; level of biographical significance atplace of photographs in the modern urban wedding. She analyzes what these photos illustrate; specific practices observed by those being photographed; and what function collection of such photographs play in the lives of urban Russian citizens . The wedding photos document the rite of passage and preserve its memory (Pp. 78-101) and capture the participants at different stages of the process. The photographs also show how the couple and their parents and family express their identity and cultural orientation.As Boitsova finds out, the set of outdoor pictures thus reflects a departure of practices of the present generation from the earlier generations. For the newlyweds in the Soviet era, photographs were taken traditionally at...