Eliane de Latour makes documentaries and features, as part of her work as an anthropologist, which also involves texts and photographs. We are interested in this practice because it promises to redress or even dissolve the borders between disciplines. De Latour has said that she fixes her gaze on the closed worlds behind a geographical or social border. CONTES ET COMPTES DE LA COUR (Tales and Tallies, 1992) portrays the four wives of a marabout in Niger. They are enclosed in the eponymous courtyard of a building complex, but manage to develop micro-economic strategies to form relationships with the exterior world. “Through the circulation of objects, they continue to participate in social life,” wrote Latour who spent weeks with the women in the courtyard. “There was no difference between the moments when I filmed and those when I just listened.” (HaFi) (9.1.)
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