Abstract

SALETTA, María José. Photographs of indigenous people in argentinian school textbooks: visual representations and textual connotations. Intersecciones antropol. [online]. 2012, vol.13, n.1, pp.181-195. ISSN 1850-373X.

The aim of this paper is to analyze photographs of native people in Argentinean primary and secondary school textbooks published by two companies, Santillana and Aique. Results from quantitative and qualitative analyses of 93 images taken from 38 school text books published between 2000 and 2005 are presented. Type of image used, presence of autochthonous material culture, use of epigraphs, and the ethnic adscription of the subjects portrayed are analyzed. It is concluded that there is differential representation in favor of those images showing native people with their material culture, although the use of language that contains derogative terms such as "aborigen" (i.e., native people) at the same time clearly indicates an homogenizing bias. Images are used mostly denotatively, while textual connotation is privileged over visual connotation. Information on the epigraphs and texts accompanying an image do not fulfill the requirements of thoroughness and accuracy, thus reducing the images to illustrations rather than useful documents.

Keywords : Photographs; Denotation; Connotation; Objectivity; Aborigen.

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