Visual Anthropology and Jean Rouch’s “Mad Masters”

Abstract

The film of the French anthropologist Jean Rouch “Mad Masters” ("Les Maitres Fous", 1954) became the document testifying how supporters of a trance obsession cult perceived the colonial power in the Western Africa (in the period of its disintegration). Today, as well as at the moment of its release, this film allows researchers to rise important questions about the relationship between culture, power and identity, and about the interaction between social and humanitarian knowledge in anthropological research.