Paper short abstract:

In this paper I discuss the filmic representation of my own enskilment and apprenticeship in donsoya, a form of initiatory hunting in Western Burkina Faso. I approach film as technologically-mediated learning and potentially a sensory apprenticeship for the viewers/listeners.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I discuss the filmic representation of my own enskilment and apprenticeship in donsoya, an initiatory society that joins hunting with knowledge of herbal medicine, divinatory practices and amulet-making.

I approached the knowledge of donsoya through apprenticeship, as a focal interest and as a methodological device, with my own initiation and practice of hunting in Burkina Faso. A documentary film - Kalanda - The Knowledge of the Bush (kalandafilm.com) - is part of the outcome of the research. The film narrates the apprenticeship providing an overview of the multifaceted knowledge of donsoya, in a collaborative work that involved the filmmaker in the role of student and the hunters in the roles of teachers.

My engagement with donsoya during fieldwork presented a series of epistemological, practical and ethical challenges. I will detail how I addressed these through a) the technological strategies I devised to evoke the enskilment of my perception in the viewers/listeners; b) the narrative devices I employed to condense a year's apprenticeship; c) the collaborative methods I put in place to ensure I respected the restrictions on the knowledge of donsoya.

The making of the film often became a form of technologically-mediated learning, with the hunters teaching to me as they performed for the camera. But the film as a product was also conceived by them as a form of teaching, reaching beyond West Africa to uninitiated audiences.