Most arguments for a rediscovery of the body and the senses hinge on a critique of visualism in our globalized, technified society. This approach has led to a lack of actual research on the processes of visual enskillment. Providing a comprehensive spectrum of case studies in relevant contexts, this volume raises the issue of the rehabilitation of vision and contextualizes vision in the contemporary debate on the construction of local knowledge vs. the hegemony of the socio-technical network. By maintaining an ethnographic approach, the book provides practical examples that are both accessible to undergraduate students and informative for an academic audience.
Cristina Grasseniis a Professor of Anthropology at Leiden University (the Netherlands).
I found the volume to be consistently stimulating and was excited by a new visual anthropology dwelling not in the image but in how people actually look and see&and important and timely volume that does much to further our understanding of vision. It will be of great interest to researchers and students concerned with studies of sensory perceptions.?????Social Anthropology
List of Figures
Introduction
Cristina Grasseni
PART I: SKILLED VISIONS AND THE ECOLOGY OF PRACTICE
Chapter 1.To have the world at a distance: Reconsidering the Significance of Vision for Social Anthropology
Rane Willerslev
Chapter 2.Good Looking: Learning to be a Cattle Breeder
Cristina Grasseni
Chapter 3.Icons and Transvestites: Notes on Irony, Cognition and Visual Skill
Francesco Ronzon
PART II: POSITIONING GESTURES OF DESIGN IN ART, ARCHITECTURE AND LABORATORIES
Chapter 4.Seeing and Drawing: the Role of Play in Medical Imaging
Simon Cohn
Chapter 5.Learning witlS)