insider - outsider

[weekly blog via London, http://anthropologistabouttown.blogspot.com]

Anthropologist About Town

Diary for August 7th to August 13th 2008 TUESDAY AUGUST 12TH - Strangers abroad On Saturday I'll be putting my feet up and relaxing in front of 'The Thirties in Colour', a television series recently shown on BBC4 and now available to view online using the iplayer. It focuses on the first colour films made (only by by those wealthy enough to afford the expensive past-time), and how they saw the world around them, both domestically and in faraway places. Many of their observations are steeped in the perspective of the day, with a very superior view of the 'exotic tribes' they saw on their travels. Yet for the early images alone the films are fascinating for their representation of the interaction between westerners and indigenous peoples. For an alternative point of view, you could also try getting hold of 'Cannibal Tours', an excellent ethnographic film that investigates the prejudices of those who embark on invasive tourism - the film's tagline is "There is nothing so strange in a strange land, as the stranger who comes to visit it'.

movies encompassing the planet

for a sense of the whole planetary scope of human activity (and its absence):
 
Matt Harding collected clips of his happy jigging all over the world.
This set this to music. A simple but powerful statement. It is hard not to smile.
  http://youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY
 
For anyone interested in geography, energy - water - air/space, and the places around the world, this Flash movie is vivid and powerful. www.greatdanepro.com/Blue%20Bueaty [that spelling error is part of the link]