Directions and Diversions in Visual Anthropology
A course by Isaac Marrero-Guillamón.
This site makes available a course I taught as part of the MA in Visual anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London, between 2015 and 2021. During the COVID-19 pandemic I had to rethink my teaching for an online context, and I have now decided to make those lectures publicly available and facilitate a space for guided self-learning.
The course is divided into ten lectures, originally taught over so many weeks. The first half of the course investigates the role that images play in the production and reproduction of relations of power and affect. The second half aims to contribute to another visual anthropology. It centres Black and Indigenous modes of practice and theorisation with a view to foster a decolonial line of flight for the field.
As a lecturer, I am committed to the ongoing task of decolonizing anthropology. I understand this to be a multifaceted task which involves challenging the canon, centrering people of colour’s contributions, experimenting with pedagogical forms that question authority, recognizing and valuing forms of knowledge and practice that are not part of the hegemonic formations, and cultivating an anti-racist sensibility. This a work that is never over; I thing of this course as a small step in that direction, to be followed and complemented by many more.