Through lens and text: constructions of a 'Stone Age' tribe in the Andaman islands

Abstract

The inhabitants of the North Sentinel Islands in the Bay of Bengal have for long been described as one of the last surviving Stone Age tribes of the world. The �truth value� of this assertion has been reinforced over time through a complex and often collusive representational order sustained by for instance the institutions of the Indian state, the global media, travel writers, anthropologists and the non-tribal communities of the Andaman Islands. This paper examines the visual and textual practices that constitute this representational order and pits against it the historical and ethnographic realities that render it vulnerable to radical inquiry. With its critical focus on the truth-bearing propensities of photographic images and their accompanying texts, this paper seeks to interrogate received ethnographic certitudes about an imputed Stone Age people and ponders the possibilities of acknowledging them as historical actors.