Fundamentally, humans perceive and understand the world through their eyes.
“Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.” John Berger. Way of seeing, 1973
Likewise, anthropologists and sociologists use their “eyes” as the central point for perceiving the worlds of others (ocularcentrism). The act of “being there,” along with the method of participant observation within the studied group, is the process of seeking knowledge through fieldwork to understand “others.”
To see, know, and remember, “light” is essential for humans.
Various cultures regard light as the source of knowledge and wisdom. Socrates’ Allegory of the Cave describes a man who breaks free from his chains and walks out to see the sun with his own eyes. It is the ascent into the world of truth. The 18th-century European Age of Enlightenment was known as the Century of Light and Reason or le Siècle des Lumières which followed the passing of “Dark Ages.”
In Buddhism, darkness is ignorance (avijja), and light is wisdom (panya). “Seeing” a corpse, when done with mindfulness, is considered a “supreme vision” because of “the eye of wisdom” (“the eye seeing the Dharma”) according to the belief of Hinduism. In addition to the importance of light, the act of “devoutly watching” the Lord, much like the Nandi sculpture devoutly watches the god Shiva from the entrance of a temple, is considered an action that will receive his mercy.
To convey their “understanding of others” in an empirical manner, anthropologists and sociologists use “words” or “writing,” a practice known as “ethnography”. This term means “writing” (graphy means ‘writing’ in Greek) about “others” (ethno). However, a significant critique is that such “writing about others” only tells a partial truth.