This article explores the works of the late anthropologist Frank Cancian, specifically considering Another Place (1974), Orange County Housecleaners (2006), and Lacedonia – An Italian Town, 1957 (2016). Re-reading his works together reveals Another Place as a point of departure that concretised Cancian’s vision of documentary photography as a vocation. In particular, the article explores the implications of an exchange with none other than John Collier Jr. that followed the publication of Another Place. This moment reveals Cancian’s orientation towards visual ethnography as toolkit to mobilise a version of cultural relativism and demonstrates Cancian’s resistance to any rigid notions of scientific visual anthropology. The article therefore argues that, in essentially separating the products of his photographic practice (e.g., photobooks) from his ‘professional’ anthropology, Cancian sought new modes of expression through photography. In so doing, he thus confronted an enduring problem for visual scholars – how to engage the world analytically vs. aesthetically. Especially for this reason, bringing Cancian out of contemporary obscurity is useful for visually oriented scholars today.

本文探讨了已故人类学家 Frank Cancian 的作品，特别考虑了《另一个地方》（Another Place ，1974 年）、《奥兰治县清洁工》（Orange County Housecleaners ，2006 年）和《拉塞多尼亚 – 意大利小镇，1957 年》（Lacedonia – An Italian Town，1957 年）（2016 年）。一起重读他的作品，发现《另一个地方》是坎西安将纪实摄影作为一种职业的愿景具体化的出发点。这篇文章特别探讨了《另一个地方》出版后与小约翰·科利尔 (John Collier Jr.) 进行交流的影响。这一刻揭示了坎西安对视觉民族志的定位，将其作为动员某种文化相对主义的工具包，并表明坎西安对任何科学视觉人类学的僵化观念的抵制。因此，文章认为，坎西安在本质上将其摄影实践的产品（例如摄影书）与他的“专业”人类学分开，通过摄影寻求新的表达方式。在这样做的过程中，他面临着视觉学者们一个持久的问题——如何以分析的方式与美学的方式接触世界。特别是出于这个原因，将坎西安带出当代的默默无闻对于今天以视觉为导向的学者来说是有用的。