This section used to be called Visual Anthropology. Its new name-Multimodal Anthropologies-reflects changes in the media ecologies we engage as anthropologists, changes that have broadened our perspective to include other forms of media practice, while remaining inclusive of visual anthropology. Many of these changes can be linked to three developments: (1) the (relative) democratization and integration of media production; (2) the shift toward engagement and collaboration in anthropological research; and (3) the dynamic roles of anthropologists vis-à-vis both the profession and the communities in which they work. Together, these changes suggest a new framework, multimodal anthropology, by which we mean not only an anthropology that works across multiple media but one that also engages in public anthropology and collaborative anthropology through a field of differentially linked media platforms. This is not, however, a decisive "break" with the past. Many of us already practice multimodal anthropology (Collins and Durington 2014;Cool 2014;Edwards 1997;Pink 2011;Postill 2011;Stewart 2013). When we consider the different opportunities and possibilities for engaging with ethnographically intended media in the age of diverse tools and platforms, we see multimodal anthropology. When we look at the transmedia installations of Ethnographic Terminalia, we see articulations of multimodal anthropology. Multimodal anthropology is also encapsulated within the numerous visual, aural, and tactile media that anthropologists produce, post, and share-the growing decoupage of social media that is one symptom of a changing anthropological practice. Multimodal practice is not limited to self-identification as a visual anthropologist. Rather, it encompasses this subdiscipline and also invites practitioners from within and outside anthropology. Finally, we see multimodality in the ways communities of nonanthropologists interact with us, from para-anthropological productions to critique and commentary. In what follows, we lay out our vision and ever-expanding areas of interest for this section as we explore the transformative potentialities of the multimodal. It is meant less as a provocation than an invitation to submit works that engage multimodal possibilities.
Based on my encounters with the Indian censor board while trying to get my films approved for broadcast on Indian television, I explore how bureaucratic institutions such as the Indian Central Board of FilmCertification (CBFC) operate as instruments of the nation-state to control speech, regulate culture, and stifle dissent in the interest of advancing the Indian government's nationalist, paternalist, heteronormative agendas and policies. I also look briefly at how nongovernmental actors like special interest religious and political groups attempt to regulate even the transnational domains of media circulation online, which offer some possibilities for transcending the regulatory mechanisms of the nation-state. Citing my experiences to show how ethnographic films and scholarship are continuously shaped by the various mediascapes within which they circulate, this article opens up a conversation about what it means to submit our scholarship for sanctioning by the nation-state in which we carry out our research. [censorship, ethnographic film, gender, India, sexuality]
The American ethnographic film canon remains dominated by straight white men. As anthropology takes on the task of confronting the riddle of white supremacy, this might be a good time to consider who remains missing from popular taxonomies of anthropological cinema and to bring them into the canon. Unsurprisingly, the voices of immigrant diasporic queers of color are absent. By revisiting the ethnographic cinema of four such filmmakers—Marlon Riggs, Pratibha Parmar, Frances Negrón‐Muntaner, and Richard Fung—I call for an expansion of existing histories and a renewed focus on queers‐of‐color erasure. Their films challenges orthodox definitions of visual anthropology. Making films around the same time that some of the most canonical ethnographic films were released, these filmmakers anticipated current discussions of affect and autoethnography. Their work offers unique and productive insights into our understandings of race, gender, sexuality, and power relations. Questioning the limits of what counts as “documentary,” these filmmakers rethink colonial frameworks of ethnography itself. Confronting the patriarchal white supremacy of anthropology demands attention to these important works. [ethnographic film, visual anthropology, transnational, diaspora, queers of color]
This article explores what it means to be a Punjabi Sikh man in an era of transnational migration. I look at how Sikh men from India access global migrant flows and negotiate the formal and informal sets of requirements for moving across national boundaries. Upon learning that different travel itineraries necessitate different embodied practices, what kinds of transformations do migrant men undergo? In anticipation of transnational travel, Sikh migrants often cut their hair. Yet, many continue wearing their turbans from time to time, especially when returning to their familial homes in rural Punjab. Detached from its traditional association with Kesh (unshorn hair), the turban as mobilized by Sikh migrant men no longer simply represents an emblem of Sikh identity. Rather it operates as a flexible symbol of cultural citizenship and gendered belonging, an integral part of the process by which these migrants reincorporate themselves into the landscape of their homeland.
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