For this discussion, read and watch the below materials on National Geographic’s acknowledgment of their racist’s past and the controversy/responses by Native American artists around Edward Curtis’ photographs and think about the quote by British anthropologist and colonial administrator Everard im Thurn “primitive phases of life are fast fading from the world in this age of restless travel and exploration, and it should be recognized as almost the duty of educated travelers in the less known parts of the world to put on permanent record before it is too late, such of these phases as they may observe”

Discuss

• The debate surrounding the documentation of indigenous life: the importance of recording and/or how may National Geographic or ethnographers perpetuate visual tropes of “savage” or “uncivilized” indigenous communities. (Note: It is okay not to take ‘sides’ in the debate, and instead speak about the complexity to the discussion.