‘‘uninhabitable.’’ This is a point to which she does notreturn sufficiently in her analyses of each genre, so thatwhen she returns to it in the conclusion, the reader is leftas unclear as she seems to be. What are these other ste-reotypes? Do they not still exist on more retrogradeprograms? How does each kind of program render themuninhabitable? She does not address these questionsclearly enough for each kind of program, perhaps be-cause her analyses reveal an ambivalence toward thesestereotypes in the various series. More time may be nec-essary in order to determine the impact these programswill have on media portrayals of women, some of whichhave only very recently ended.

Redesigning Women offers the beginnings of a newkind of feminist media analysis for a new era of televi-sion programming, one that includes more sophisticatedroles for women than ever before. Although she may notanswer all of her initial questions, Lotz does demonstratethe need for a reformulation of older theoretical andmethodological tools. Her textual analyses of programsare detailed and sensitive, yet appropriately critical. Al-though the format and information of the book is quiterepetitive, this is mitigated by Lotz’s consistently clear,easy-to-read prose. Sections of the book could be usefulfor their content and also as examples of textualanalyses of TV programs in courses on gender studies,popular culture, and media studies at both the under-graduate and graduate level. The accessible languageand familiar programs should make it popular in theclassroom. Overall, this is an enjoyable study aboutwhat I remember as an enjoyable time in television forwomen.

Reflecting Visual Ethnography: Using theCamera in Anthropological Research

Metje Postma and Peter I. Crawford, eds. Leiden: CNWSPublications, 2006.

Jonathan S. MarionCalifornia State University–San Marcos and San DiegoState University

Reflecting Visual Ethnography is based on the Evaluat-ing Visual Ethnography conference held at LeidenUniversity (September 21–24, 1999) in honor of anthro-pologist and ethnographic filmmaker Dirk Nijland. Thebook elaborates upon two themes central to Nijland’swork and the conference alike: the use of the camera inanthropological research, and the relationship betweenanthropological knowledge and visual ethnography.

Attempting to tack between written and filmic anthro-pology, the 17 chapters in this volume, as well as theincluded DVD of film-fragments, are arranged into fivesections based on themes that arose in the conference:(1) Acting and Seeing; (2) Analysis and Elicitation; (3)Sociality; (4) Ritual Space and Time; and (5) Narrative.

The first and shortest section, ‘‘Acting and Seeing,’’explicates the interrelationships between ‘‘visual per-ception and bodily engagement in the process of culturallearning and emotional embodiment’’ (6). This task isaddressed by Nijland’s exploration in chapter 1 of theneurological and psychological linkages between visualperception, action, and emotion.

The second section, ‘‘Analysis and Elicitation,’’ dealswith the use of visual materials in eliciting and analyz-ing rituals. Chapter 2, by Nijland, and chapter 3, by JosPlatenkamp, both deal with their film Tobelo Marriage(D. J. Nijland, in cooperation with J. D. M. Platenkamp.Rijksuniversiteit, 1985). Nijland’s chapter highlights theutility of ethnographic film for eliciting the Tobelo peo-ple’s own understandings of their filmic images, whilePlatenkamp focuses on the significance of visibility tothe Tobelo, for whom it is ‘‘an index to human socialityin contradiction to the invisibility of the dead’’ (79). De-lineating the process of making a film about the Teyyamritual in chapter 4, Erik de Maaker discusses the rich dataprovided via feedback sessions while arguing that eth-nographic films must interpret and not merely recountcultural materials. Chapter 5, by Yasuhiro Omori, andchapter 6, by Jan van Bremen, both deal with Omori’sfilm The Seven Young Gods of Fortune: Fertility Rite ofDosojin (Y. Omori, The National Museum of Ethnology,1983). Omori’s chapter suggests that ethnographic filmsshould include both research footage and anthropologi-cal analysis because the qualities of filmFwhen wellcontextualized and executedFallow for intuitive un-derstandings. Van Bremen’s chapter locates Omori andhis work within the landscape of Japanese anthropology,noting the prominence of visual anthropology thereto,and noting its corpus of ethnographic films largelyunrecognized in Western anthropology.

The third section, ‘‘Sociality,’’ explores the relation-ships between those behind and in front of the cameraduring filming, as well as cultural understandings ofpersonhood and status underlying social processes.Chapter 7, by Jean Lydall and Ivo Strecker, is one of thestrongest in the volume. Emphasizing the role of the re-lationship and rapport between filmmakers and thosebeing filmed, and succinctly addressing key topics re-vealed by the authors’ use of film in ethnography, thischapter takes an important step toward demystifying themultiplexed roles and agendas of all participants inethnographic filming. Chapter 8, by Carla Risseeuw,

Book Reviews 81

stresses the importance of indigenous understandings ofsociality, here linking these understandings to perfor-mance as a way of unpacking the efficacy of healingpractices in West Kenya. Concluding this section ischapter 9, by Rosella Ragazzi, wherein cultural notionsof visibility and feedback on previously shot footageare revisited, here in the context of migrant children’sexperiences in a Parisian primary school.

The fourth section, ‘‘Ritual Space and Time,’’ exam-ines both the anthropological and methodologicaldilemmas of representing the content of rituals, as wellas the relationships between content and form. Chapter10, by van den Hoek, Nijland, and Shresta, and chapter11, by Heider, both deal with the 1997 film Sacrifice ofSerpents: The Festival of Indr�ayan�i, Kathmandu 1992/1994 (Nijland, Shresta, and van den Hoek. 108 min.Betacam SP, 1997). Chapter 10 richly describes the pro-cess of making this film, but also reads as somewhatdefensive to the appeals for greater contextualizationvoiced by both Heider (chapter 11) and Steven Parish(see ‘‘Film Review ‘Sacrifice of Serpents: The Festivalof Indr�ayan�i, Kathmandu 1992/1994’,’’ American An-thropologist, 101(1):170–172, 1999). Chapter 12, byWanono, and chapter 13, by Luning, both addressWanono and Lourdou’s 1997 film, In the Shadow of theSun (N. Wanono and P. Lourdou. 83 min. DocumentaryEducational Resources, 1997). Wanono’s chapter inves-tigates the intriguing dilemma of trying to film rituallysignificant space, and productively differentiates be-tween space as object and background. Luning’s chapterchallenges the assumption that ethnographic contentshould always determine visual representations, sug-gesting that visual media can also be used to helpevoke cultural understandings and processes inimical tofilming.

‘‘Narrative,’’ the final and strongest section, is dedi-cated to exploring ‘‘narrative in reality and narrativestructure in film and how these should or could coin-cide’’ (6). Chapter 14, by Peter Crawford, explores therelationships between film as language and as record,and richly demonstrates the potential of ethnographicfilm for exploring, showing, and telling. Among thehighlights of this collection, chapter 15, by Metje Post-ma, meticulously details the differences betweenethnographic description and presentation she dealt within editing her 1998 film, Of Men and MaresFWork-horses in Zeeland (M. Postma. 90 min. 1988). In chapter16, Colette Piault argues that the ethnographic film-maker’s task is to identify stories deemed pertinent bythe community, and that much of the filmmaker’s pre-paratory work transpires in the imagination. PaulHenley’s concluding chapter, among the most persuasiveof this collection, argues for greater attention by visual

anthropologists to narrative possibilities and styles instructuring ethnographic films, and emphasizes that‘‘the making of an ethnographic film does not consist ofholding a mirror up to the world, but rather entails theproduction of a representation of it’’ (394).

The 17 chapters in this collection can be taken to-gether as examples of highly successful visualethnographic research and filmmaking. Each chapterprovides interesting materials for continued consider-ation, with those by Lydall and Strecker, Postma, andHenley being particularly rich. This volume does lacktheoretical and methodological consistency between itsauthors, but nonetheless provides an important body ofreference material for those interested or involved invisual ethnographic research.

Where this book most falls short is in living up to thepromise of its subtitle: Using the Camera in Anthropo-logical Research. At the very least this is misleading, asonly Postma’s chapter devotes any attention to the use ofstill photography. While there are abundant photosthroughout the 17 chapters, the included photographsare never directly referenced in the text (with the oneexception of Postma), and there is no discussion as totheir inclusion, representativeness, or significance. Thereis, however, extensive reference to the included film-fragments. Thus, as a whole, the volume portrays anunfortunately uneven understanding of visual anthro-pology and ethnography, one limited to video. As such,‘‘using the video camera in anthropological research’’may have provided a more accurate description of thecollection, even if an equally limited conceptualizationof visual anthropology. Notwithstanding this strongcaveat, and minor editorial miscues such as the intro-duction jumping from chapters 9 to 12 before addressingchapters 10 and 11, and the film Sacrifice of Serpentsbeing misidentified as a 1988 film (15), there is stillmuch to recommend this book.

The authors do successfully live up to the promise ofthe book’s main title: Reflecting Visual Ethnography. Thedual themes of camera use in anthropological researchand the relationship between visual ethnography andanthropological knowledge are well met in two ways.Firstly, many of the sections involve paired chapterswherein ethnographic filmmakers’ comments offer con-trasting perspectives on the same topic and even on thesame film. Secondly, and further bolstering the utility ofthis approach, is the included DVD of the film-fragmentsdiscussed throughout the text. Taken together, thesecontrasting perspectives on specific examples and theincluded film-fragments offer diverse reflections of vi-sual ethnography. Heider’s words (in his case directed tothe authors of chapter 10) would seem to apply to theoverall significance of the chapters collected in this vol-

82 VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY REVIEW Volume 25 Number 1 Spring 2009

ume: ‘‘they have brought no closure but opened newthinking . . . and also they have stimulated our thinkingabout ethnographic film in general’’ (250).

The Abu Ghraib Effect

Stephen F. Eisenman. London: Reaktion, 2006.

Nicholas MirzoeffNew York University

In The Abu Ghraib Effect, renowned historian of 19th-century art Stephen F. Eisenman asks a series of far-reaching questions as to the impact of the now notoriousphotographs taken in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq bymilitary police in 2003 and 2004. He begins by suggest-ing that the photographs themselves have not beenstudied in sufficient visual detail and then argues thatthe tools created by art history for the interpretation ofimages have much to offer toward this (10). Specifically,he revives an idea of early 20th-century scholar AbyWarburg, known as the Pathosformel or pathos formula,which describes how Western art has long made a centralfigure out of the victim of torture who appears to colludein their suffering. Arguing that Western art should be re-evaluated in this light leads Eisenman to critique thenotion of the West itself. All this in 122 pages! Eisenmanis to be commended for taking such a wide-ranging ap-proach to this crucial issue and turning it around to askhard questions of the academy, rather than presumingour own innocence in this matter.

The book is a polemic, not a scholarly, tome. As isperhaps inevitable in a short, timely response of thiskind, The Abu Ghraib Effect raises as many questions asit answers. I engage them here in what I take to be thespirit of Eisenman’s enterprise to create a collectiveresponse to the problem. That is to say, if we hold a de-bate in the wake of The Abu Ghraib Effect, the book willhave achieved its purpose even if we disagree with itsmain proposals. For it cannot be entirely true to say, asEisenman does, that there has been ‘‘very little seriousconsideration’’ of the visual content of the Abu Ghraibphotographs (15), particularly when one recalls theworks of Dora Apel, Hazel Carby, Allen Feldman, W. J. T.Mitchell, or even the present reviewer. The oddest omis-sion from this text is Susan Sontag’s widely discussedvolume Regarding the Pain of Others (Picador, 2003),given that her New York Times essay on Abu Ghraib iscited and discussed.

Sometimes the insights generated by a comparisonwith art history do not convince. Eisenman points to

Francisco Goya’s painting Third of May, 1808 (1814),which depicts the shooting of a revolutionary for hisinvolvement in the uprising against Napoleon, as a pre-cursor to the notorious photograph from Abu Ghraib of ahooded man standing on a box with outstretched armsconnected to wires (19, 20). The victim in the Third ofMay is shown with outstretched arms to make a visualhomology with the Crucifixion. Some have suggestedthat the Abu Ghraib photograph of the man on the boxshould be interpreted along the lines of this Christiantradition as well. I would suggest this is only the casebecause crucifixion was itself a form of torture. Holdinglimbs in what the military likes to call ‘‘stress positions’’is well known to become intensely painful after a briefperiod without leaving marks of duress. By the same to-ken, the sandbag on the prisoner’s head has been pressedinto service as a blindfold across Iraq, but bears noresemblance to Ku Klux Klan hoods that were used toterrify their victims (13), not blind them. Eisenman con-cludes that such art historical references are indeed‘‘fundamentally mistaken’’ (39) but then turns the dis-cussion inward to the history of art, rather than towardthe visualized depiction of torture.

The book then develops Eisenman’s identification ofa tradition in Western art in which ‘‘tortured people andtormented animals . . . appear to sanction their ownabuse’’ (16), ranging from classical art via Michelangeloto Goya and then the Abu Ghraib photos. That there is acertain pleasure to be seen in figures such as Michelan-gelo’s Dying Slave and its Greek and Roman antecedentsis well demonstrated by Eisenman. Can it be sustained,though, that the Abu Ghraib photographs ‘‘depict tortureas if it were something erotic, or at least pleasurable forthe victims’’ (44), as he goes on to claim? The sexualizedhumiliations inflicted upon the prisoners were designedto ‘‘break’’ them more quickly and make them ‘‘talk.’’ If itwere the intention of the unnamed U.S. governmentagencies in Abu Ghraib that directed these investigationsto increase the humiliation by a degree of complicity inthe carrying out of acts such as mock fellatio, it cannotbe visually deduced that prisoners gained any pleasurefrom this. It would have been interesting to see Eisenmancompare his assessment to the idea of homo sacer, theperson who can be killed but not sacrificed, which hasbeen widely circulated following Giorgio Agamben’s1998 book of the same title.

Indeed, the ‘‘pathos formula’’ developed by AbyWarburg, and promoted here, emerged from the samescholarly conjuncture of classics and anthropology thatprovided for certain equivocations between the idea ofhomo sacer and Polynesian notions of tapu in the early20th century. The ‘‘pathos formula’’ was defined byWarburg as a ‘‘heritage stored in the memory,’’ and

Book Reviews 83