Classification and fantasy in the photographic construction of caste and tribe

Much of the photographic record of caste and tribe in India beginning in 1840 formed part of a positivist system of classification which took external characteristics encoded in the bodies of photographic subjects as indices of cultural and political characteristics. Because of the prevalence of endogamous caste groupings India was held to be uniquely suited to this anthropometric investigation and photographic vision came to stand as a metaphor for the process through which the peoples of India became the objects of anthropological knowledge. However, alongside this ocular domination lay a parallel fabulous language which inverted positivist goals and created an unknowable secret arena beyond the power of sight.