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- Convenors:
-
Christine Moderbacher
(Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Halle)
Michael Karrer (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg)
Marcelo de Jesus
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- Chair:
-
Eva Theunissen
(Masaryk University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Lanyon Building (LAN), 0G/049
- Sessions:
- Thursday 28 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel invites papers that critically discuss ways of working with people who challenge the anthropologists and/or filmmakers' personal, political and/or ethical convictions in times of societal and political rupture, using visual tools.
Long Abstract:
While media and political discourses increasingly deploy a rhetoric of rupture that leads to harsh divisions within society, ethnographic fieldwork is still expected to be based on mutual sympathy. Likewise, research with the camera has not been given much attention when it comes to challenging relationships in the field. But what, to quote Jean Rouch "if our research partners say things we don't like? Will we break our camera?". The panel invites papers that seek answers to these questions by exploring new and creative ways of working with people who challenge the anthropologists and/or filmmakers' personal, political and/or ethical convictions, e.g. how can new methods and forms of visual anthropology combined with filmic approaches bring new perspectives to the topic and its ethical challenges? How can conducting research with the camera help establishing more nuanced readings of people we work with but we don't necessarily agree with and where are its limitations? Which approaches and tools can we borrow from filmmakers who are increasingly engaging with political "otherness" as well as difficult relationships within one's familiar settings, like one's own family (e.g. on the topic of Covid vaccination, political and religious differences …). We are interested in papers that offer new insights into the topic and discuss how we could represent the perspective of the "other" without serving as a multiplicator for their purposes.
The panel welcomes contributions that ally up with other disciplines (film studies, art etc. ...) and incorporate visual, aural and other sensory materials in their presentation.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 28 July, 2022, -Eva Theunissen (Masaryk University)
Paper short abstract:
With the support of audio notes and a small set of images, in this presentation I reflect on the representational reversal that followed my fieldwork in a BDSM studio in the Netherlands. What does it mean to be caught in an archive of bodies that I, the researcher, will never have access to?
Paper long abstract:
Between January and August 2017, I conducted fieldwork in a BDSM studio in the Netherlands. Working together with two elderly BDSM studio owners, a filmmaker and a visual artist/photographer, the aim of my research was to gain insight into the roles digital images play in this scene. BDSM scenes generally overflow with images that depict, imagine and co-create a wide range of intimate and erotic practices, fantasies and scenarios. I am not a filmmaker; and instead of making images as part of fieldwork, images were quasi-constantly made of the scene, and very often also of me. In the studio, and during fieldwork, the video camera was always on. The two participants I worked with safeguarded a vast archive of still and moving images of BDSM sessions with the people they invited into their studio. As one of "my" participants told me, “video and photography are a form of fetishism.”
As fieldwork progressed, however, the relationship between my research participants and me grew increasingly tense. One night in August 2017, after a violent confrontation that compromised my safety, I decided to terminate fieldwork. In this presentation, with the support of audio notes and a small set of images, I reflect on the awkward and affective implications of this representational reversal. What does it mean to be caught and, as it were, “colonized” in an archive of bodies that I, the researcher, will never have access to?
Marcelo de Jesus
Paper short abstract:
This paper presents reflections on the documentary "Behind the line of shields", featuring Brazilian police. Through the limits encountered in conversations with policemen, I investigate the possibilities of documentary cinema to contribute to the formation of what I call an agonistic community.
Paper long abstract:
The paper presents reflections on Brazilian police looking at the documentary "Behind the line of shields". Filmed in 2017 and presented soon after as a test version, the film is still being edited. The making of this documentary proved to be a delicate exercise, dealing with a configuration of antagonistic otherness and finding out how to position oneself against it, while recognizing the political and social urgency of the project.
Because the police is militarized (a legacy of the former Brazilian authoritarian regimes), they follow a rigid doctrine and are subject to a hierarchy where they seem unable to express their own opinions. How can one talk to people like this? How to disagree with them? And how to do this while trying to recognize the social-political conditions in which they are inscribed as subjects?
Through the limits encountered in these conversations, the paper questions the possibilities of documentary cinema to contribute to the formation of what is called an agonistic community - a community where people can question each other and disagree - a political gesture presupposed by democracy. But is the possibility of an agonistic community compatible with a militarized institution, a space where otherness appears as an enemy to be fought and eliminated?
The reflections are guided by Chantal Mouffe's approach to politics, as well as by the contributions of filmmakers Avi Mograbi and Rithy Pahn, on filming subjects in situations of antagonism.
Markus S. Enk (Universite Libre de Bruxelles)
Paper short abstract:
The paper discusses how a research project based on cinema workshops with the indigenous Matis was abandoned to join the political protest of the neighboring indigenous Kanamari leading to the occupation of the DSEI-VJ in the Brazilian Amazon
Paper long abstract:
The paper will address the ethical challenges, its consequences, and filmmaking decisions when a visual ethnographic research project based on cinema workshops in the Brazilian Amazon was abandoned to join a political protest to occupy the city of Atalaia do Norte’s Special Indigenous Sanitary District of the Vale do Javari (DSEI-VJ). It counts on three moments: the first is the critique posed by the indigenous Matis interlocutors as to their position as ethnographic subjects and their rejection of anthropological endeavors during the cinema workshops. Secondly, the political protests organized by the neighboring Kanamari, which emerged in response to governmental negligence regarding indigenous healthcare assistance. This movement led to the occupation of DSEI-VJ for 19 days, which was under attempts of being undermined by local indigenous groups trying to remain in the local political arena and by the arrival of State’s representatives from Brasilia. Finally, the paper will discuss the role of the filmmakers, including the Kanamari and Matis collaborators, that of the camera and that of editing until the completion and release of a collaborative triptych documentary film. The juxtaposition of these three situations allows for reflections to be made about the situated politics of anthropology and that of visual ethnography when facing unexpected situations, as when the interlocutors reject to be of ‘anthropological interest’ or the rise of interethnic conflict in a situation of struggle for the improvement of a communality such as access to basic healthcare assistance.
Michał Sita (Adam Mickiewicz University)
Paper short abstract:
Could grotesque be a valid anthropological tool, facilitating research on conflicting values? The paper discusses "History of Poland Exercise Book vol. 1". The photobook, published in 2021, is part of ethnographic research on the social usage of history in contemporary Poland.
Paper long abstract:
The historical pageant of Murowana Goślina in Western Poland is a mix of theme park entertainment, open-air spectacle, participatory art event, and historical reenactment. Up to 400 volunteers embody episodes of Polish history, aiming at enhancing conservative values, Catholic faith and reshaping the social imagination of the past. My work among actors provides ethnographic insight into the new historicity emerging here, a social strategy of using the past that Marcin Napiórkowski recently labeled "turbo patriotic".
The paper comments on photographic practice parallel to this anthropological research. "History of Poland Exercise Book vol. 1" [https://michalsita.com/en/history-of-poland/] is the first of a series of photobooks intended to research values and imagination at work in the pageant's orbit. Images depicting stage rehearsals are composed into an open-ended narrative. The meaning of the events and actors' gestures is not immediately clear. Viewers confronted with grotesque scenes interpret these as anything between harmless fun and propaganda manipulation. The point is providing ground for confronting values shaping social usage of the past. Such was the point of several public displays, where „History of Poland Exercise Book vol. 1" was discussed with pageant actors and the external public.
The paper makes two methodological comments: 1/ When conducting art-based research at home, grotesque, as a defamiliarization strategy, may have the potential of questioning pre-existing prejudice. It could provide insight into conflicting worldviews and values. 2/ Visual research strategy is most useful within anthropological practice when autonomous, i.e. provoking exchange rather than illustrating the findings.