One image, two stories: Ethnographic and touristic photography and the practice of craft in Mexico

Cant, A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7549-0062 (2015) One image, two stories: Ethnographic and touristic photography and the practice of craft in Mexico. Visual Anthropology, 28 (4). pp. 277-285. ISSN 0894-9468 doi: 10.1080/08949468.2015.1052308

Abstract/Summary

Although tourists and ethnographers take photos with different intentions and for different uses, the images they produce may be essentially similar. I explore this matter in reference to a photograph I took during research in Oaxaca, Mexico, one that is also commonly taken by tourists who visit the woodcarving workshops there. While this photo is persuasive within touristic discourses that frame Oaxaca as reflecting authentic indigenous culture, the story it tells within my ethnography is more complicated. In discussing the space between these stories, I suggest that photographs of craft practices may in turn reconstitute artisans’ practices themselves.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/86152
Identification Number/DOI	10.1080/08949468.2015.1052308
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Department of Archaeology
Publisher	Taylor & Francis
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