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How Does Edmund Carpenter Fit Into The Anthropology Of Media?

The anthropology of media is a relatively new topic within the field of anthropology on the whole. It is, however also a very important topic, due largely to the high relevance of media in our modern lives. It is also a topic which is larger than some may think. Much work was done before the anthropology of media was recognised as a field, which today is of great importance to the subject. For example the work of Ruth Benedict in World War Two, (she of course used anthropology to try to help the U.S war effort, by in one case studying Japanese cinema.) At the time there was no subject labelled ‘anthropology of media’, but today this work can be included in the subject.

It is baffling that the subject in question was not recognised at an earlier date, when media is clearly so influential on people’s lives. Even before the spread of television, cinema, and the internet, the media was still responsible (an always will be) for the distribution of information. However this oversight may be explained by the reluctance of anthropologists to study their own, or cultures equally as developed as their own. The focus of anthropologists was until relatively recently so based on studying the forager and the tribe, that media seemed almost irrelevant; because it was irrelevant to the subjects of study. It is ironic that the very definition of these subjects could be summarised by the fact that they were untouched by the media; they lived how they did because the media was not there to dictate how to live. Carpenter sums up this idea with the sentiment “media swallows cultures”.

The stereotypical division between the anthropologist from the developed western world and the untouched cultures they study has been broken down. Today anthropology covers a much wider variety of topics. Carpenter embodies this; he is one of the forerunners in the topic anthropology of media, he was one of the first to study the effect of film and photography on tribal peoples. He was the first anthropologist to host a national television program and he headed the first anthropology department which focused on filmmaking, (at the University of Toronto). Carpenter is a pioneer; this has been made evident time and time again throughout his career, the adventures spirit extending so far as even his ethnographic studies; Carpenter went to the Arctic to study the Inuit in 1950 when very few others were interested in doing so. This was to be an experience which had an immense impact on Carpenter.

Carpenter’s first visit to the Inuit (which took place between spring 1950 and winter 1951) was during a time of famine. Carpenter was so affected by his time with the Aivilik of Southampton Isle that he would try to visit them again in 1955. However the community had been decimated by famine, Carpenter was to discover that famine had also affected other Inuit communities. He was shocked by what he saw; “I’d never seen anything like that before. I’d gone through the war, the Marine Corps. I certainly saw people die, but I didn’t see an entire community die.” (Prins 1998, cited in Edmund Carpenter: Explorations in Media and Anthropology, Harold Prins and John Bishop, Visual Anthropology Review, Fall-Winter 2001-2002) This experience heralded a shift in Carpenter’s focus, from archaeology (his doctorate dissertation was on Northeast prehistory) to the destruction and preservation of cultures. Carpenter acknowledged the power of the media; it was something which was capable of annihilating entire cultures. Today we live in an increasingly globalised world; this is due in no small part to the similarities of media across the world. If we are all told the same information and all choose to believe it, we will become the same. Just like the famine Carpenter saw within the Inuit, media potentially has the power to destroy a community or culture.

But why is media capable of such things? Firstly, even within our society, modern forms of media are often blamed for ruining our culture. It is shocking to think that in the small amount of time television has been around, (compared to say literature) it has become so dominant in today’s culture. Now imagine for a moment the effect of something like television on a culture that has never seen it before. In fact we don’t have to imagine, in Bishop and Prins biographical film on Carpenter, ‘Oh, What a Blow That Phantom Gave Me!’ (2002) we see the impact of photography and film on the Biami of New Guinea. This group of people was particularly interesting because of their isolation; they had never before encountered cameras, recording devices, or even mirrors. These people were totally oblivious to media history. They had existed in essentially the same manner for hundreds of years. Carpenter was quoted as saying, “We could step in and out of different worlds, different periods of time where you could actually see literacy coming in and how it was first handled, people trying to make up their own alphabets, their own glyphs to cover their language.” (Prins 1998)

Carpenter elaborates on this with the delightful example of excited Papuas handing him writings they had proudly created, that made absolutely no sense. Carpenter, bringing this supposedly wonderful thing to the Papuas was treated well. He and his party were given respect and adoration. From being allowed to use a revered canoe to get around, to permitting a woman to witness and film a sacred initiation ceremony in the village of Kandangan, these ‘foreigners’ were respected. The reactions of the Papuas to seeing themselves on film or in photographs were extraordinary. The initial shock gave way to individuals becoming attached to their photograph, even going so far as to sticking the image of themselves on their foreheads. Carpenter declared from their reactions the following; “Once they understood that they could see their soul, their image, their identity outside of themselves, they were startled. Invariably, they would cover their mouth, and sometimes stamp their foot, and then turn away. And then take the image and look at it again, and hide, and so forth.” (Prins and Bishop 2000:207)

However this exposure to electronic media was to have consequences for both the Papuas and for Carpenter. For the Papuas it led to the inevitable loss of innocence. Thousands of years of their isolation was to be broken by Carpenter, he himself said,

“It was possible at that time to simply go up a river and encounter people who were still using stone axes. It didn’t last long. But, for one brief moment you could step into the past; you could be captain cook and encounter 10,000 years of media history. We saw things that, if we hadn’t recorded them, there would be no record that they existed.” (Prins 1998)

But there was also to be consequences for Carpenter. His plans to make an ethnographic film based on his experiences in New Guinea, had to be sidelined due to objections from other anthropologists (specifically Marvin Harris). It was claimed Carpenter was unethical, that what he had done constituted experimenting on people. These concerns are understandable; Carpenter himself became disillusioned with the work he was doing in New Guinea, he introduced something completely alien and unnatural to somewhat untouched people. He was supposedly producing a report on ‘applied media research in New Guinea’ for the Australian government, and, Carpenter admitted that the governments aim “of electronically tying Papua New Guinea’s multiple tribal cultures posed some disturbing ethical problems.”

(Edmund Carpenter: Explorations in Media and Anthropology, Harold Prins and John Bishop, Visual Anthropology Review, Fall-Winter 2001-2002)

So where does this leave Carpenter within the anthropology of media? Do his interests lie in protecting cultures and peoples from harmful exposure to media? Or, has he (maybe inadvertently) furthered the significance of media in a modern world? Well, Carpenter certainly differs from theorists such as Kelly Askew, who presents the anthropology of media in a somewhat analytical manner. Askew argues that; “The value of anthropological approaches lies in a shared understanding of media as simply one aspect of contemporary social life, no different in essence from law, economics, kinship, social organization, art, and religion.” (1996: 10) Whereas Carpenter does not focus on wondering about the importance of media, his views were made clear, he felt it was more powerful than many other aspects of social life; media could tear down cultures and annihilate peoples beliefs. The potent example is of the Biami volunteering to abandon an age old compulsory initiation ceremony for young men, in favour of screening a film of the practice.

Carpenter showed that media could be used as an ethnographic tool (as an alternative or companion to the traditional process of writing up fieldwork). In this way he furthered the ‘interests’ of media. But, Carpenter did not want to impede media, he did however become aware that it was potentially a dangerous tool. Perhaps Carpenter was different, he does not fit in, because he does not apply anthropology to media, he applies media to anthropology.

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