Ilisa Barbash

Ilisa Barbash is an American visual anthropologist, documentary filmmaker, and author. She is the Curator of Visual Anthropology at Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.^[1]

Career

Barbash’s work focuses on ethnographic filmmaking and visual anthropology. She co‑directed Sweetgrass (2009), which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and received critical acclaim.^[2] Her earlier film, In and Out of Africa (1992), explores the African art market and questions of authenticity and cultural ownership.^[3]

In print scholarship, Barbash is the author of Where the Roads All End: Photography and Anthropology in the Kalahari (2016),^[4] which won the John Collier Jr. Award for Still Photography from the Society for Visual Anthropology.^[5] She is also a co‑editor of To Make Their Own Way in the World: The Enduring Legacy of the Zealy Daguerreotypes (2020).^[6]

Barbash has taught courses in ethnographic film production and theory at institutions such as San Francisco State University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Colorado Boulder.^[7]

Filmography

• In and Out of Africa (1992) – co‑director, producer
• Sweetgrass (2009) – co‑director, producer

Selected bibliography

• Where the Roads All End: Photography and Anthropology in the Kalahari (Peabody Museum Press, 2016). ISBN 0873654099 – author
• To Make Their Own Way in the World: The Enduring Legacy of the Zealy Daguerreotypes (Aperture, 2020). ISBN 1597114782 – co‑editor