Editing Visual anthropology (section)

{{Short description|Subfield of social anthropology}}
{{for|the academic journal|Visual Anthropology (journal)}}
{{Anthropology of art}}
{{Anthropology}}
'''Visual anthropology'''  is a subfield of [[social anthropology]] that is concerned, in part, with the study and production of [[ethnography|ethnographic]] photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, [[new media]]. More recently it has been used by historians of science and visual culture.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Eddy|first=Matthew Daniel|title=The Shape of Knowledge: Children and the Visual Culture of Literacy and Numeracy|journal=Science in Context|date=2013|volume=26|issue=2|pages=215–245|url=http://dro.dur.ac.uk/17467/1/17467.pdf|doi=10.1017/s0269889713000045|s2cid=147123263 }}</ref> Although sometimes wrongly conflated with [[ethnographic film]], visual anthropology encompasses much more, including the anthropological study of all visual representations such as dance and other kinds of performance, museums and archiving, all visual arts, and the production and [[reception theory|reception]] of [[anthropology of media|mass media]].  Histories and analyses of representations from many cultures are part of visual anthropology: research topics include [[sandpainting]]s, tattoos, sculptures and [[relief]]s, [[cave painting]]s, [[scrimshaw]], jewelry, [[hieroglyphics]], paintings and photographs. Also within the province of the subfield are studies of human vision, properties of media, the relationship of visual form and function, and applied, collaborative uses of visual representations.

[[Multimodal anthropology]]<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Varvantakis |first1=Christos |last2=Nolas |first2=Sevasti-Melissa |date=2019-07-04 |title=Metaphors we experiment with in multimodal ethnography |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13645579.2019.1574953 |journal=International Journal of Social Research Methodology |volume=22 |issue=4 |pages=365–378 |doi=10.1080/13645579.2019.1574953 |issn=1364-5579}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Westmoreland |first=Mark R. |date=2022-10-24 |title=Multimodality: Reshaping Anthropology |url=https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-anthro-121319-071409 |journal=Annual Review of Anthropology |language=en |volume=51 |pages=173–194 |doi=10.1146/annurev-anthro-121319-071409 |hdl=1887/3515029 |issn=0084-6570|hdl-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2018-03-27 |title=Entanglements that matter |url=https://entanglementsjournal.wordpress.com/entanglements-that-matter/ |access-date=2025-01-24 |website=Past issues |language=en}}</ref> describes the latest turn in the subfield, which considers how emerging technologies like immersive [[virtual reality]], [[augmented reality]], mobile apps, social networking, gaming along with film, photography and art is reshaping anthropological research, practice and teaching.