"The Making of Black Harvest" and the Rights of Anthropologists

Recently in my ethnology class here at Luther College, we watched a film trilogy about the Ganiga tribe in Papua New Guinea. This trilogy is a series of documentaries created by the anthropologists Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson, which focus on the introduction of western culture to the indigenous Ganiga tribe. The first film, First Contact, centers on the exploration of inner Papua New Guinea by the Leahy brothers in the 1930s. While there, they encountered a group of indigenous people who had never seen white people before. First Contact tells this story by using actual footage from the 1930s expedition in addition to interviews gathered 50 years later from people who were there when the Leahy brothers arrived. The second film, Joe Leahy’s Neighbors, tells the story about the son of one of the explorers and a Ganiga woman, Joe Leahy, and his interactions with the local people. This film focuses especially on how Joe has assimilated into white culture and the troubles that creates. Black Harvest is the last film in this trilogy and it focuses on a business deal between Joe Leahy and the Ganiga where they enter a cooperative business agreement to co-own a coffee farm. Unfortunately, the coffee prices drop significantly, which produces incredible tension between Joe Leahy and the Ganiga, ultimately, causing him to leave the area by trying to move to Australia.

One of the most striking things about this series, especially in the last two films, is the technique used by anthropologists Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson. Instead of having a script, they let the events naturally unfold and tried to film them whenever possible. As one article puts it, “Their breakthrough observational film is so good that most Australian documentary filmmakers wish they had directed it themselves.” Very rarely do you hear the anthropologists themselves speaking. Instead, there are numerous interviews with Joe Leahy and other Ganiga tribe members in addition to images from their everyday life which tell the story. The final effect is a very moving documentary that lets the images and the people speak for themselves.

Although these films received rave critical reviews, the filmmakers themselves were unsure about whether they had the right to go in and document these people’s lives. A recent book by Bob Connolly, Making Black Harvest, explores the concept more in depth with the help of diaries recorded at the time of filming. In this book Connolly describes the guilt he and Robin Anderson felt in trying to remain objective and wanting things for the good of the movie even when it conflicted with the good of the people. He also writes about how when one of his friends was wounded during a fight, one of the first questions he asked was, “Can we film?” He says that this question still haunts him.

The issue of trying to remain objective while living with and learning about a group of people is something that almost all anthropologists must think about. Where do you draw the line between collecting objective data and becoming an actual member of the community? What gives anthropologists the right to enter these people’s culture and document it? This is still an issue that I myself have trouble with. On one hand, I think that it is important to learn about people of other cultures in order to better understand the world and our own lives. Yet, I think that by becoming part of a community, there are certain responsibilities that conflict with being an objective observer. For instance, I think that it is a breach of friendship and respect to use information you gather to advance your own career, especially when nothing is given back to the people being studied. Oftentimes the people being studied receive little to no benefits and do not even see the final product. Also, being an objective observer can conflict with helping others in need or to put the anthropologist’s needs and wants above that of the people being studied. This can be seen in Making Black Harvest, when Anderson and Connelly wished for the coffee prices to remain low in order to help their movie’s plot. Although Connelly and Anderson later feel guilty for wanting this, it just further illustrates the fine line between being an objective observer and being an active member of the community being studied.