("Tuamotuan Conception of the Cosmos", by Paiore, 1820)

Recently looking at how to shape ethnographic results in an adequate form for designers, reading Dori Tunstall's post about how "anthropology has always been visual" is very relevant. She points to this Flickr pool entitled "Great Diagrams in Anthropology, Linguistics, & Social Theory". As she says:

"I have always bristled at the notion that anthropologists are more textually-oriented than visual, that somehow there is no culture of the visual in the field. Having misspent my youth trying to figure out the subtleties of kinship diagrams, mastering the art of reading archaeological site maps, and illustrating the distinct morphology of early hominids (pre-humans), I knew that to be empirically untrue. So I am happy to have the vindication through visual documentation that Anthropology has always been visual."

Why do I blog this? currently looking, by personal interest (i.e. not linked to a specific project so far), the diversity of material which can be generated by ethnographic material. sort of thinking about how to use more visual representation (as opposed to the textual format). Of particular interest to me is this sort of spatial diagrams (would have been helpful in the home ethnography project I did in july):

(Kabyle House or The World Reversed - Bourdieu, 1972)