Drawing flies: artwork in the field

Architectural Documentation Through Thick Description

“…Anthropologists including Evans-Pritchard (1940), Lévi-Strauss (1963), and Malinowski (2014) have used drawings as well as paintings as part of their research methodology and utilize two-dimensional graphical mediums to accompany their ethnographic writings. Today, anthropologists have addressed the significance of drawing in their studies (Hendrickson 2008;Nakashima Degarrod 2010;Taussig 2010;Causey 2012). Taussig (2010), for example, advocated that drawing allows him to develop more intimacy with the subject being depicted, as "drawing tends to be a mute conversation with the thing drawn and can involve prolonged and total immersion."…”

Anthropology with a Paintbrush: Naturalist–Realist Painting as “Thick Description”

“…Bronislaw Malinowski, Claude Lévi‐Strauss, Edward Evan Evans‐Pritchard, and Julio Caro Baroja are examples of “classical” anthropologists who produced drawings and paintings as part of their ethnographic research, and sometimes also used them to illustrate their texts. Today, Andrew Causey (), Rudi Colloredo‐Mansfeld (), Carol Hendrickson (), Lydia Nakashima Degarrod (, , ), Manuel Joao Ramos (), and Michael Taussig (, ), are among the few anthropologists who have published their reflections on the process of drawing or painting as part of their ethnographic and anthropological research. They noted that their different modes of drawing and painting enabled them to develop more intimacy with the subject being depicted in a unique form of collaboration: more “corporeality” (Taussig :274), “becoming one with what is drawn” (273), “embodied participation” (Errington :541), and “embodied knowledge” (Nakashima Degarrod , :128).…”

“…Taussig also noted how drawing provided “a measure of control over what was seen, a sort of barrier or zone of mediation, while also providing the need to mark and serve as witness” (:271). Similarly, Causey wrote that his drawings in the field facilitated “an effort to see something deeply and carefully” and “more intensely and perceptively” (:171). Nakashima Degarrod also reflected on how her paintings served not just for recording or illustrating written data, but as “a medium through which new knowledge and critiques may be created” (2010:131).…”

A antropologia pelo desenho: experiências visuais e etnográficas

“…Sua discussão densa de autores atuais como Geismar (2014), Ballard (2013), Taussig (2011) e Ramos (2004 e outros) nos mostra o potencial do desenho não só para representar algo graficamente, mas para revelar modos de ver, de se comunicar e de registrar utilizados por antropólogos em campo. Destaque-se também a boa recuperação da argumentação gráfica em Gell (1975), das experiências etnográficas com desenhos como as de Colloredo-Mansfeld (2011) e Causey (2012), do debate com a antropologia visual contemporânea mais ampla, a partir de Grimsham & Ravetz (2015) e a da já mencionada distinção téorica vs. etnográfica na abordagem do tema por Ingold (2011 e outros) e Taussig (2011). É muito bem colocado pela autora a mistura de "empolgação e dúvida" que acompanha o ressurgimento do desenho na prática antropológica, destacando com humor seu lugar de "novidade velha".…”