Paper short abstract:

My paper connects different notions of slowness, tempo and duration as integral to understanding and realization to different forms and phases of fieldwork in Java, including dance practice, and two kinds of slowness in filmmaking.

Paper long abstract:

My paper connects different notions of slowness, tempo as integral to practice (a la Bourdieu), and duration as integral to understanding and realization (a la Camus) to different forms and phases of fieldwork in Java. Non-Javanese Indonesians invariably refer to the slowness as being at the heart of Javanese culture, but slowness has been central to my research and film practices in different ways. The pace and timing of research within one's anthropological life also changes. These include dance practice in fieldwork, slow techniques in filming, and the protracted process of making a film with Indonesian, editing across time and space. I will refer to early research when embodied participation in dance classes to test previous claims about movement and meaningfulness; to attempts to impose an experience of performative slowness on film audiences through a style of shooting and editing; and to my last research project , a collaborative film lasting 6 minutes which took nearly one year to complete. I will conclude with some comments about anthropology as resistance in the marketised world of Higher Education in relation to other manifestations of slowness and transition in western society.