Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
open access
Bonaire became part of the Netherlands as a special municipality on the 10th of October 2010. Since this institutional change, Bonaire has experienced an influx of Dutch immigrants, leading to...Show moreBonaire became part of the Netherlands as a special municipality on the 10th of October 2010. Since this institutional change, Bonaire has experienced an influx of Dutch immigrants, leading to significant transformations on the island which has sparked debates about the loss of Bonairian authenticity. This thesis explores these cultural differences through the concept of acoustemology, as proposed by Steven Feld. The perception of noise and sound is culturally dependent. This division between noise and sound contains a hierarchy of sounds, that is parallel to the hierarchy in the dominant meaning-making process that comes from a European Dutch hegemony on the island. What is considered noise on Bonaire is shaped through a Western lens. This implies that immigrants who relocate to Bonaire unknowingly bring their cultural perspectives on noise and sound with them. However, they do this unknowingly, which is the result of what Gloria Wekker calls white innocence. Drawing on two months of fieldwork, this research explains these connections through the lived experiences of several Bonairian Locals. Their realities from the base of the practice of soundscaping that is used to illustrate how perspectives on sound may differ between cultures. These soundscapes were placed on a map to contextualise Bonaire as an interconnected space. The research adopts a multimodal approach in another way, featuring an ethnographic film that highlights the issues faced by local participants and explores the evolving relationship between them and the European Dutch researcher, employing visual ethnographic methods. The study employs self-reflexivity to analyse this dynamic. The argument made is that an understanding of the local Bonairian lived experience can be obtained through the lens of analysing sound and this understanding is essential in the building of relationships between Bonairian locals and Dutch immigrants.Show less
ABSTRACT: Contemporary society recently faced the introduction of a new phenomenon: the post-truth era. Terminology often used conjunctively with, amongst others, “alternative fact,” “fake news,”...Show moreABSTRACT: Contemporary society recently faced the introduction of a new phenomenon: the post-truth era. Terminology often used conjunctively with, amongst others, “alternative fact,” “fake news,” and “misinformation.” The term “post-truth” was coined in 1992 by Steve Tesich, to describe American society’s proneness to accept government lies. However, since its incorporation into the Oxford Dictionary in 2016, post-truth is defined as “circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” This research aims to analyze, in what way, in a regimes of post-truth world, alternative meaning is established, and what role photography plays in this process. An extensive framework of literature is operationalized for the analysis of two case studies, both of photographs in a post-truth context. Subsequently, as the concept of meaning in the post-truth society is fractured, the potential, for the documentary language of images, to suture is explored.Show less
The theory of objectification, which regards the visual representation of women, and occasionally men, sheds light on many current debates concerning the sexist portrayal of the female gender in...Show moreThe theory of objectification, which regards the visual representation of women, and occasionally men, sheds light on many current debates concerning the sexist portrayal of the female gender in modern society. Such debates shift from analysing the role women are bound to hold within society, to the way they are portrayed through different types of media, such as television. In my research I will analyse the way women are often depicted in society, especially through media, and how this affects their political integration. To do so I will focus on the role Berlusconi played in the representation of Italian women, not only through his leadership as Italian Prime Minister, in which he remained for two decades, but also due to his role as media tycoon.Show less
The 2008 uprisings in Tibet have had a profound impact on Sino-Tibetan relations. This thesis looks at the Han-Chinese point of view on these uprisings as seen in a series of documentaries...Show moreThe 2008 uprisings in Tibet have had a profound impact on Sino-Tibetan relations. This thesis looks at the Han-Chinese point of view on these uprisings as seen in a series of documentaries broadcasted by CCTV. The thesis shows how the use of documentary film steers public opinion and how the documentaries fit into a broader hegemonic discourse.Show less
Given the growing number of important works over the past two decades that have used the medium of film to produce pieces that can be labeled as documentaries, this study examines recent...Show moreGiven the growing number of important works over the past two decades that have used the medium of film to produce pieces that can be labeled as documentaries, this study examines recent contemporary artists’ use of this approach as well as its impact on contemporary art. This study lays out the different regimes of truth through which the documentary form has evolved throughout film history, as well as their effect on the use of the approach within contemporary art during the past 15 years. In order to examine the current state of the documentary form within contemporary art, an analysis will focus on two recent works: the “Cardboard Walls” video installation by Aernout Mik (2013) and the “Crude Economy” film program by Florian Wüst (2013). Mik’s work is crucial to this study because of its use of reenactment and the documentary strategy, both of which have become increasingly popular among artists since the advent of the new documentary movement in the early 1990’s. By associating this particular work to Jacques Rancière’s concept of the emancipated spectator, it is possible to observe the relation to images that the documentary offers to its viewer and its possibilities to be an alternative to other media sources by combining individual and collective memory. The second case study introduces the film program as a new art form by a questioning of the contemporary role of the curator, as well as the influence of the documentary form in such works created by film montage. The two case studies establish the main esthetic and social characteristics of the current documentary approach by questioning its relation with history and demonstrating its potentiality to be a reflexive artistic form that can rethink and assist in the development of the position of the film medium in contemporary art.Show less
Ever since the foundation of the online video platform YouTube in 2006 and the online social media platforms Facebook (2004) and Twitter (2006), the mass spreading of the animal rights...Show moreEver since the foundation of the online video platform YouTube in 2006 and the online social media platforms Facebook (2004) and Twitter (2006), the mass spreading of the animal rights organisations’ undercover footage over the Internet has caused a lot of controversy and has resulted in for example the dismissal of certain animal products by major companies under the pressure of the media. Evidently, these photographs and videos do affect people. This observation was the starting point of my research and lead me to the main research question: Which characteristics of the media photography and film are exploited in three approaches to footage shot in factory farms by undercover investigators of animal rights organisations?Show less
Archaeology on television has been a widely debated subject amongst academic archaeologists. Perhaps the dilemma that archaeologists face is that archaeology – its practice, its interpretations and...Show moreArchaeology on television has been a widely debated subject amongst academic archaeologists. Perhaps the dilemma that archaeologists face is that archaeology – its practice, its interpretations and the archaeological record it studies – is much like television, in that they both require high degrees of involvement to give them meaning. Thus concerns arise over the validity and ambiguity of the television programme’s information, and the archaeologist’s authority in discerning the past. However, should archaeologists be concerned about portrayal of archaeology in television documentaries? To provide answers to this question, the presentation of archaeological research, sites, objects and researchers in nine documentaries on the National Geographic Channel in the Netherlands in 2013, that were produced in 2012 and 2013, were analysed through ethnographic content analysis. The documentaries mainly focused on the practice of research, including the scientist’s fascination with research. Sometimes research methods were repeated before the camera after it initially had taken place, or they were shown ‘live’ and its results were analysed first-hand. However, the appearance and discussion of the research processes varied per type, possibly due to the structure of the method. In particular, archaeological fieldwork is a difficult process to capture on film, but the process of archaeological interpretation was often embedded in the entire storyline. Amongst other researchers, archaeologists appeared few in number. However, the archaeologists had a specific authoritative role as guides in understanding the past, and they would appear several times in a documentary to provide context or to interpret research results. It was found that certain narrative styles enabled, or disabled, involvement in the research and interpretation processes. There were many cases in which archaeology was presented in an open, yet informative way, while regarding the archaeologists (and researchers in other fields) as authorities. However, research can also be faked or appear unauthentic and authority can be abused. Therefore in communicating archaeology to the public a high degree of transparency is key.Show less
The aim of this thesis is to investigate how contemporary documentary is appropriating certain strategies that are traditionally only used in art, to question the difficulties of giving an accurate...Show moreThe aim of this thesis is to investigate how contemporary documentary is appropriating certain strategies that are traditionally only used in art, to question the difficulties of giving an accurate documentation of the world. A world that is never transparent or simple, conflicts and situations that are never black or white. For this I will look at the photographs by documentary photographer/artist Richard Mosse, as an example for the wider phenomenon in contemporary documentary, and investigate what strategies he uses to address the problems of documenting atrocities in Eastern Congo and narrating its complicated story to the viewers. I will investigate how the boundary between documentary and art in these strategies (and because of these strategies) is shifting, what the implications are and what effect this has on the viewers. For this thesis I will examine three main strategies Richard Mosse uses in his photographs: first, the use of a certain pre-determined concept and the negation of the decisive moment, as was long (at least until the 1980s) the characteristic of documentary photography and photojournalism. Second, the aesthetization of the documentary photograph and its increasing relationship to art and, third, the presentation of the work in both an installation form as well as the placement of these projects within a cultural and art institutional environment.Show less
