Questions of vision and knowledge are central to debates about the world in which we live. Developing new analytical approaches toward ways of seeing is a key challenge facing those working across a wide range of disciplines. How can visuality be understood on its own terms rather than by means of established textual frameworks? Visualizing Anthropology takes up this challenge. Bringing together a range of perspectives anchored in practice, the book maps experiments in the forms and techniques of visual enquiry.

The origins of this collection lie in visual anthropology. Although the field has greatly expanded and diversified, many of the key debates continue to be focused around the textual concerns of the mainstream discipline. In seeking to establish a more genuinely visual anthropology, the editors have sought to forge links with other kinds of image-based projects. Ethnography is the shared space of practice. Understood not as a specialized method but as cultural critique, the book explores new collaborative possibilities linked to image-based work.

Anna Grimshaw studied Anthropology at Cambridge. She published a personal memoir of her doctoral fieldwork, Servants of the Buddha (1992); and recently completed a book about anthropology and cinema, The Ethnographer's Eye (2001). She is Associate Professor of Visual Culture, Emory University, USA.

Amanda Ravetz trained as a painter at the Central School of Art and Design and later completed a doctorate in Social Anthropology with Visual Media at the University of Manchester, where she also lectured. She is currently an AHRB Research Fellow at MIRIAD, Manchester Metropolitan University.