Скачать или смотреть Interview with Alan Macfarlane in February 2014

Beginning in 1983, Alan Macfarlane, Professor Emeritus and Life Fellow of King’s College, University of Cambridge, began what would become one of the most comprehensive visually ethnographic inquiries into modern thought. An interview series emerged entitled “Interviews with Leading Thinkers,” in which Alan Macfarlane sat down with scholars of anthropology to better understand the discipline. The project quickly grew to consider all areas of academic inquiry outside of the social sciences, from the humanities to biological and physical sciences. Over 200 interviews later—conducted with distinguished anthropologists, several Nobel laureates, and junior scholars alike—Alan has retired to his office in King’s College, Cambridge, but remains as intellectually productive as ever.
I visited Alan in King’s for the first time in 2012 on the recommendation of my mentor and his former mentee, Mark Turin, who remained emphatic that Alan be interviewed in a fashion most similar to his series, “Interviews with Leading Thinkers.” Reflecting on both the history and future of visual anthropology, history, and the role of technology within anthropological inquiry, I sat down with Alan in his office replete with mementos – including several cameras -- from his previous interviewees in February of 2014, during which he and I discussed his upbringing and childhood; his early years as a university and D.Phil. student; his fieldwork; his collaborations and inspirations in Nepal, India, and China; and, most relevant here, his unyielding interest in film and video technology, which he sees as an ethnographic method, a pedagogical tool, and, most recently, as an area in which to experiment with representational strategies in anthropology.

Interview recorded by Hunter Snyder. An edited iteration of this interview appears in American Anthropologist #151.

For further information about the author and his work, please see: www.alanmacfarlane.com.