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2008 IVSA CONFERENCE
Buenos Aires, Argentina
August 6-8, 2008
SPACE, TIME and IMAGE
ESPAÇO, TEMPO e IMAGEM
ESPACIO, TIEMPO e IMAGEN
Inés Dussel
Keynote Speaker
 Inés Dussel is a researcher at the Education Area of Flacso (Latin American School for the Social Sciences)/Argentina. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and has done research in Germany and Mexico. She has written several books and chapters on pedagogy, history, and culture. For seven years now, she has been part of a team that works on education, images, and media, including the production of eight educational documentaries and programs for teacher education. More information is available at: www.flacso.org.ar/educacion
The visual culture of teachers: Is there something new on the blackboard?
Abstract: What kind of visual culture do teachers have? Which senses of time and space shape its configurations? In a course on images and pedagogy with teachers from different Latin American countries, we asked them to choose a 'powerful image,' that is, an image that stands as significant in our cultures. Through an intentionally broad formula, we wanted to know which kind of visual materials and events were cited, and which definition of culture was at stake. The selection of images performed by our students, however, was quite narrow, and shows that there is a 'visual global Esperanto' (Mirzoeff) whose topics and icons are provided by contemporary media. There is a remarkable spatial fluidity: the series refers to Albania, Irak, Africa, as well as South America, in a selection that shows complex negotiations over the locality and perspective of the images. Interestingly, teachers' images also refer to the gendered culture of redemption that characterizes modern schooling. Children and mothers appear repeatedly as part of a spectacle of suffering that combines the melodrama of media with the educational goal of salvation. There is a paradox in these images that are purported to defy time and yet are ephemeral in their links to current events. For these and other reasons, I will argue that the interrogation of visual culture gives relevant hints about political and ethical dispositions, and constitutes an important tool for researchers.
Roderick Coover
Film Presentation + Q&A
 This documentary presents panel and roundtable conversations with leading documentary filmmakers, artists and ethnographers about visual ethnographic practices and its trajectories. The targeted conversations raise questions, among others, of collaboration, aesthetics, uses of new media, and how to build a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges methods of the social sciences, humanities and fine arts. Uniquely, participants came together from across the disciplines to join in discussion about what the agenda for interdisciplinary visual anthropology might look like in this era of globalization. The responses range from the theoretically provocative to the practical. Symposium participants include Phillip Alperson, Kelly Askew, Rebecca Baron, Michel Brault, Kathy Brew, Roderick Coover, Jayasinhji Jhala, Paul Stoller, and Lucien Taylor, as well as roundtable discussants Warren Bass, Noel Carroll, Kimmika Williams and others.
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