TOWARDS A REVERSE GRAPHIC ANTHROPOLOGY: DRAWING AND KNOWLEDGE IN ANTHROPOLOGY

Abstract

In this study I propose to reflect on drawing as a technique of looking and producing knowledge from a relational point of view in dialogue with the work of Taussig and the literature on the relation between anthropology and drawing since the beginnings of the discipline. In the second part of this study, I show how this was a reciprocal drawing, together with the Huni Kuin, that enabled them to teach me to see images in a radically different way than I had been used to until then. I suggest some theoretical consequences of this graphic discovery which show a relational ontology in which relations precede the forms they help to constitute, thus contributing to a ‘graphic anthropology’ that is attentive to the other ontologies that manifest themselves when we learn to invert our gaze because we find as many ontologies of the image as theories about the being of the world.

Keywords:
Drawing; Field notes; Graphism; Taussig; Reverse anthropology