On Technical Images in Social Sciences

Abstract

The review article of the anthology David ČENĚK – Tereza PO- RYBNÁ (eds.), Vizuální antropologie – kultura žitá a viděná [Visual Anthro- pology – Culture Experienced and Seen]. Pavel Mervart: Červený Kostelec 2010, 332 pp., identifies several tendencies that shape the role of technical images in the contemporary social sciences. The first part of the review sums up the content of the anthology and contextualize it within the debates in visual social sciences. Subsequently, it discusses mainly three following issues: the critique of the subject-object relation and the proposals for its transformation; the emergence of the so-called participatory methods; and the claims for the produc- tion of outside-text representations and the constitution of shared anthropology. The article proceeds by the following order: first it describes and illustrates an issue as it is dealt with in the reviewed anthology and then it outlines the broader discussions within social sciences. Finally, the review article focuses on the consequences of digitization and hypermedialization for the discussed issues.