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Two decades ago the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology (GCVA) at the University of Manchester, U.K., was created. Since then it has become one of the most acclaimed postgraduate visual anthropology schools in the world, providing a space for theoretical debate and training in ethnographic filmmaking techniques. Conceived originally as a master's program under the sponsorship of Granada Television and the University of Manchester, it has now extended training to the Ph.D. level to students from around the world. In this interview, Professor Paul Henley, GCVA‘s director since its inception, reflects on the last 20 years of the Granada Centre, ethnographic filmmaking, the state of the art in theory and practice in visual anthropology, and new possibilities and challenges for the future. [Keywords: visual anthropology, ethnographic filmmaking, documentary, Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the role of indigenous video, shared anthropology, and collaborative filmmaking among Maya-Q'eqchi'communities in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. The subjective and historical conditions that provided the context for collaborative video production between local filmmakers, communities and a visual anthropologist are analyzed, as are the implications these had both for the Q'eqchi'and for my own anthropological practice. I argue that this community-based video project provided important ethnographic insights about an indigenous group and its transformations. It also provided the communities with new mechanisms for sociocultural reconstruction and awareness after an intensely traumatic and violent period of civil war. In this context, the video documents produced provided a space within a wider practice of shared anthropology where each party could advance its own goals through hybrid products. The project represented an opportunity to explore ways in which anthropology and ethnographic filmmaking could, simultaneously, be of use to the researcher and to the communities studied. It also highlighted the contradictions and complexities of collaborative or 'shared' anthropological practice in the sphere of applied visual anthropology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association on November 15-19, 2006. The role of anthropology in transnationalism, violence, war, and conflict was outlined in this meeting. Also given consideration in this gathering is the growing interest on virtual worlds, mass media, and visual anthropology.

Information about several topics discussed at the conference titled "Beyond Text: Image, Voice, Sound, Object - Synaesthetic and Sensory Practices in Anthropology" in Manchester, England from June 2 to July 2007 is presented. It focuses on the non-textual communication of anthropological knowledge and the sensorial dimensions of being. The conference ranged from enlightening expositions that opened new avenues of anthropological enquiry to those describes as a perplexing anthropology.