A New Reflexive Turn: Glitches, Carbon Footprints, and Streaming Videos in Visual Anthropology

Abstract

AbstractThe global climate crisis demands an ethical account for the environmental costs of anthropology. Anthropologists who trouble the boundaries between art and anthropology often ignore the damage done by their mediums. Digital streaming accounts for one percent of global emissions. The increasing reliance on a nearly invisible media provokes a new reflexive turn. This chapter outlines reflexive media in anthropology and beyond. Following the call for ‘patchwork ethnography’ where ethnographers conduct slow fieldwork, glitchy visual anthropology can also decolonize the energy-consuming, anthropologist filmmaker as hero. There are multiple opportunities for visual anthropologists to conduct ethnographies of a new reflexive media—an anthropology that is not anti-aesthetic. Such a reflexive turn explores eco-conscious streaming as part and parcel of ethnographic art, method, and outcome.