“Photography had played a central role in the emergence of anthropology as a discipline in the late colonial period. Despite this, why is it that photography is not taken seriously in contemporary mainstream social anthropology and sociology in South Asia—and, to a great extent, in the rest of the world—as a possible way of conducting research or as an object of research?

The Fear of the Visual? explores this question through a study of the histories of anthropology / sociology and photography. The author studies past and present practices of photography – including contemporary practices such as the ‘selfie’, and the framing of social / familial events such as wedding photography – and possibilities with regard to theorising the visual.”

[Source: Orient Blackswan]