Reading Animation through the Eyes of Anthropology: A Case Study of sub-Saharan African Animation

Abstract

This article aims to present an argument for why anthropology could provide animation studies with a new set of critical models that move away from the dominant paradigms that currently circulate in Western academic discourse. The author discusses how these models can be drawn upon when reading animation and she utilizes supporting examples of sub-Saharan animations to promote the benefits of an interdisciplinary approach to reading animation. This approach is bidirectional, flowing from anthropology to animation studies and the reverse. Where this article shows how animation theory stands to gain from anthropology, it will also illustrate how one can include animation in the visual anthropologist’s methodology.

Keywords

African animation African studies animation studies animation theory anthropology festival curatorship the ‘Other’visual anthropology

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

African Digital Art (2009) Interview with Just a Band on Kenyan animation and music. African Digital Art: Pushing Digital Boundaries, September. Available at: http://www.africandigitalart.com/2009/09/interview-with-just-a-band-on-kenyan-animation-and-music/ (accessed 18 March 2011).

Askew

Wilk

(eds) (2002) The Anthropology of Media. London: Blackwell.

Banks

Murphy

(1999) Rethinking Visual Anthropology. London: Yale University Press.

Barlet

(2008) African cinema: a short history. In: Hale

(ed.) Africa Now: Emerging Talents from a Continent on the Move. Washington, DC: The World Bank Group, 66–85.

Bazzoli

(2003) African Cartoons. Milan: Editrice Il Castoro.

Bendazzi

(2004/2005) African cinema animation + il cinema d’animazione africano. EnterText 4(1), Winter: 10–26.

Boughedir

(2000) African cinema and ideology: tendencies and evolution. In: Giovanni

(ed.) Symbolic Narratives/African Cinema; Audiences, Theory and the Moving Image. London: British Film Institute, 109–121.

Briscoe

(ed.) (2006) Animating Africa: Madrid’s Animation Festival pays tribute to the work of sub-Saharan creators with 20 films. El Pais, Features, 29 September: 5.

Buchan

(2006) Editorial. animation: an interdisciplinary journal 1(1): 1.

10.

Callus

(2010a) Animation as a social political commentary: an analysis of the animated films of Congolese film director Jean Michel Kibushi. Journal of African Media Studies 2(1): 55–72.

11.

Callus

(2010b) Jean Michel Kibushi with Paula Callus. In: Bonetti

Seag

(eds) Through African Eyes: Conversations with Directors, Vol. 2. New York: African Film Festival Inc.

12.

Cholodenko

(2009) The Illusion of Life II: More Essays on Animation. Sydney: Power Publications, University of Sydney.

13.

DelGaudio

(1997) If truth be told, can ‘’toons’ tell it? Documentary and animation. Film History 9(2): 189–199.

14.

Edera

(1993) A la découverte d’un cinéma meconnu: Le cinéma d’animation africain. In: Annecy: Festival International du Cinema d’Animation, Annecy.

15.

Enwezor

(1999) Between worlds: postmodernism and African artists in the Western metropolis. In: Oguibe

Enwezor

(eds) Reading the Contemporary: African Art from Theory to the Market Place. London: InIva, 245–275.

16.

Fabian

(1996) Remembering the Present: Painting and Popular History in Zaire. London: University of California Press.

17.

Faris

(2002) The gaze of Western humanism. In: Askew

Wilk

(ed.) Anthropology of Media. Oxford: Blackwell, 77–91.

18.

Finnegan

(1992) Oral Traditions and the Verbal Arts: A Guide to Research Practices. London: Routledge.

19.

Furniss

(1998) Art in Motion: Animation Aesthetics. New Barnet, Herts: John Libbey.

20.

Furniss

(2009) Animation – Art and Industry. New Barnet, Herts: John Libbey.

21.

Gan

(2009) To be or not to be: the controversy in Japan over the anime label. Animation Studies, Peer Reviewed Online Journal for Animation History and Theory 4, ISSN 1930–1928. Available at: http://journal.animationstudies.org/category/volume-4/sheuo-hui-gan-to-be-or-not-to-be-anime-the-controversy-in-japan-over-the-%E2%80%9Canime%E2%80%9D-label/ (accessed 3 November 2011).

22.

Ghazala

(2009) ASIFA Prize Laureate 2009; Moustapha Alassane. ASIFA News – Past Prize Winners, ASIFA: Annecy. Available at: http://asifa.net/asifa-wp/congratulations-celebrations/moustapha-alassane-asifa-prize-laureate-2009/ (accessed 28 July 2010).

23.

Ginsburg

(1994) Embedded aesthetics: creating a discursive space for indigenous media. Cultural Anthropology 9: 365–382.

24.

Gotz

. (2008) Gender in children’s television worldwide. TelevIZIon Journal, 21 (2008) E: 4–10.

25.

Hall

(1992) The West and the rest: discourse and power. In Hall

Giben

(eds) Formations of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 275–230.

26.

Haynes

(1999) African filmmaking and the postcolonial predicament. In: Harrow

(ed.) African Cinema: Postcolonial and Feminist Readings, Eritrea. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 21–45.

27.

Honess Roe

(2011) Absence, excess and epistemological expansion: towards a framework for the study of animated documentary. animation: an interdisciplinary journal 6(3): 215–230.

28.

Imamura

(1953) Japanese art and the animated cartoon. Quarterly of Film Radio and Television 7(3): 217–222.

29.

Iwabuchi

(2004) Feeling glocal: Japan in the global television format business. In Moran

Keane

(eds) Television across Asia: Television Industries, Programme Formats and Globalization. London: Routledge, 21–35.

30.

Jacknis

(1988) Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson in Bali: their use of photography and film. Cultural Anthropology 3(2), May: 160–177.

31.

Jackson

(2002) The Politics of Storytelling: Violence, Transgression and Intersubjectivity. Copenhagen: Museum Tuscalanum Press.

32.

Jacquemin

(2003) Kibushi Ndajte Wooto: Cinéaste (Les Carnets de la Création series). Montreuil: Les Editions de l’oeil.

33.

King

Lugo-Lugo

Bloodworth-Lugo

(2010) Animating Difference: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Contemporary Films for Children. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

34.

Kulick

Willson

(1994) Rambo’s wife saves the day: subjugating the gaze and subverting the narrative in a Papua New Guinean swamp. Visual Anthropology Review 10(2): 1–13.

35.

Leslie

(2002) Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant-Garde. London: Verso.

36.

Linde

(2006) List of annual SAS conference papers (1989–2000). Society of Animation Studies, SAS. Available at: http://gertie.animationstudies.org/index.php?option=content&task=category&id=31&Itemid=181 (accessed 1 November 2011).

37.

(2009) What race do they represent and does mine have anything to do with it? Perceived racial categories of anime characters. animation: an interdisciplinary journal 4(2): 169–191.

38.

Mahon

(2000) The visible evidence of cultural producers. Annual Review of Anthropology 29: 467–492.

39.

McMillin

(2010) Media globalisation and diversity: mutually exclusive or compatible? TelevIZIon Journal 23: Zentralinstitut für das Jugend- und Bildungsfernsehen (IZI): 22–24.

40.

Mhando

(2009) Globalization and African cinema: distribution and reception in the anglophone region. Journal of African Cinemas 1(1): 19–34.

41.

Mudimbe Valentin

(1992) More on African art and authenticity. African Arts 25(4): 20, 22, 24.

42.

Mwampwembwa

(2005) Personal interview on African animation.

43.

Oguibe

(2004) Play me the Other. In: Oguibe

(ed.) The Culture Game. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

44.

Ondengo

(2005) Sub-Saharan Africa’s father of animation speaks out. ArtMatters.Info, 30 Dec. Available at: http://artmatters.info/?p=1974 (accessed 3 August 2010).

45.

Picton

(1992) Desperately seeking Africa. Oxford Art Journal 15(2): 104–112.

46.

Pink

(2001) Bringing anthropology and film together? The 7th International Festival of Ethnographic Film, SOAS, 16–18 December 2000. Anthropology Today 17(2), April: 24–25.

47.

Quigley

(2005) Women Do Animate: Interviews with Ten Australian Women Animators. Melbourne: Insight Publications.

48.

Rall

(2011) Traditional mythmaking: new Asian design ideas for animation. Animation Studies; Peer Reviewed Online Journal for Animation History and Theory 6. Available at: http://journal.animationstudies.org/category/volume-6/hannes-rall-tradigital-mythmaking-new-asian-design-ideas-for-animation/ (accessed 28 October 2011).

49.

Rozenkrantz

(2011) Colourful claims: towards a theory of animated documentary. Film International: Thinking Film since 1973. Available at: http://filmint.nu/?p=1809 (accessed 23 December 2011).

50.

Said

(1985) Orientalism reconsidered. Cultural Critique 1, Autumn: 89–107.

51.

Stoller

(1992) The Cinematic Griot: The Ethnography of Jean Rouch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

52.

(2009) Reaching out to touch: animation and Aboriginal children in Taiwan. Animation Studies; Peer Reviewed Online Journal for Animation History and Theory, Animated Dialogues Conference 2007, ISSN 1930-1928. Available at: http://journal.animationstudies.org/category/animated-dialogues/ (accessed 1 November 2011).

53.

Tomaselli

(1999) Towards a theory of orality in African cinema. In Harrow

(ed.) African Cinema: Postcolonial and Feminist Readings. Eritrea/Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 45–75.

54.

Tomlinson

(1991) Cultural Imperialism. London: Continuum.

55.

Vinograd

(2010) Kenya launches country’s first viral music video. The Wall Street Journal, WSJ Blogs Digits, 24 March. Available at: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/03/24/kenya-launches-country%E2%80%99s-first-viral-music-video/ (accessed 10 August 2010).

56.

Vogel

(1991) Africa Explores: 20th Century African Art. New York: Centre for African Art.

57.

Ward

(2006) Some thoughts on theory–practice relationships in Animation Studies. animation: an interdisciplinary journal 1(2): 229–245.

58.

Wells

(1997) The beautiful village and the true village: a consideration of animation and the documentary aesthetic. In Wells

(ed.) Art and Animation. London: Academy Group/John Wiley, 40–45.

59.

Wells

(1998) Understanding Animation. London: Routledge.

60.

Wells

(2002) Animation and America. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

61.

Wilson

(1983) Comments on work with film preliterates in Africa. Studies in Visual Communication 9(1): 30–35.