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- Convenors:
-
Willy Sier
(Utrecht University)
Sanderien Verstappen (University of Vienna)
Send message to Convenors
- Formats:
- Panel
- Mode:
- Face-to-face
- Location:
- Facultat de Geografia i Història 102
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 23 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Madrid
Short Abstract:
This panel brings together conversations about participatory filmmaking and the common concerns approach, asking: How can insights gained through participatory filmmaking further the development of an anthropology focused on common concerns?
Long Abstract:
The recently launched common concerns approach in anthropology takes people’s worries, concerns, and questions as a research starting point and aims to develop language, concepts, and ideas to reflect on those “common concerns” (Xiang 2022). In back-and-forth conversation with society, scientists aim to create language that helps people reflect on their lives and understand the roots of their concerns. In visual anthropology, researchers have employed participatory methods as part of conversations about decolonizing anthropology and co-creating knowledge (Gubrium and Harper 2013). They have used participatory media production to involve participants in the research process, improve the connection between researcher and society, and create outputs that invite a broad audience for further shared reflection.
This panel brings together conversations about participatory filmmaking and the common concerns approach, asking: How can insights gained through participatory filmmaking further the development of an anthropology focused on common concerns? And how does the focus on language in the common concerns approach resonate or contrast with practices of visualization and storytelling in participatory filmmaking? Panelists are invited to share ongoing and finished participatory media projects to reflect on the use of media technologies for making anthropological research more equitable, democratic, and relevant for a broad public. The panel inspires thinking on how to connect theoretical conversations in the discipline to initiatives aimed at achieving public mobilization through anthropological research.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 23 July, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
Based on reflections of different people involved in a collaborative film project conducted in the summer of 2023 in Wuhan and Shenzhen, this paper discusses the (ethical) dilemmas and questions raised through co-producing a short documentary entitled "Baby Stress in China".
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, I discuss the dilemmas and questions raised through co-producing a short documentary entitled Baby Stress in China (2024) with an anonymous interlocutor-turned-researcher in China. The project, conducted in the summer of 2023 in Wuhan and Shenzhen, involved research participants in the research process and started from my interlocutors’ most widely shared common concerns: Should I have a baby? How? When? Exploring these questions together by collaborating on a visual project shed new light on the gendered social dynamics behind China’s rapidly decreased birth rate. However, the method also raises questions about how relevant research questions are formulated and by who? How do inequalities and relations of power play out within the context of collaborative research projects? What are the ethical questions that need to be considered in this type of research, for example, in relation to research credit and anonymity?
Based on reflections of different people involved in this film project, including the collaborative partner, people who were filmed for the project, and myself, this paper investigates how participatory, visual methods can contribute to making anthropological research more equitable and democratic, as well as increasing the discipline’s mobilizing force by making the insights it reaps accessible for a broad public.
Paper short abstract:
This article explores the diverse collective experience of nine women researchers in Portugal, through a collaborative video project. Here the camera is merely the means through which we access embodied experiences and the variegated stages of our academic work and careers.
Paper long abstract:
This article explores the diverse collective experience of nine women researchers in Portugal, through a collaborative video project. Here the camera is merely the means through which we access embodied experiences related to motherhood, migration, homemaking, political engagement, and the variegated stages of our academic work and careers. Despite our differences, and throughout the filming (in its planning, execution and derushing phases) we discovered a profound connection through our shared identity as both women and researchers.
From the narrow interstices of life, our collaborative video effort resulted in a short film. In an effort of demigrantising migration studies, this project proved successful in bringing together both migrant and Portuguese female academics to create alternative futures together. Yet it is precisely these multiple viewpoints that unveil the importance of presence, the potential of solidarity and the complexity of resisting persisting power relations at university and the precarization of academia.
Drawing inspiration from our individual narratives, we joined forces (and part of our lives) to create a film beyond mere documentation. It became a medium of sharing, a canvas for collective expression, capturing the essence of our multifaceted identities as women in and beyond academia. The rhythms, sounds, and images superpose to create a poetic manifesto. In essence, this article serves as a reflection on the intricate patchwork (Cardoso et al., 2021) of our collective narrative - a narrative woven with threads of shared (i)mobilities, struggles and resistances, resilience, and the beauty found in embracing the complexity of our in-between spaces.
Paper short abstract:
This presentation is based on a research project, the final product of which is the book: Tirando el Corte: Cine Comunitario y Antropología Audiovisual.The results will be presented from a child and youth perspective on the representation of territories through the creation of participatory films.
Paper long abstract:
This presentation is based on a research project, the final product of which is the book: "Tirando el Corte: Cine Comunitario y Antropología Audiovisual", financed by the Ministry of Cultures and Arts of Chile.The results will be presented from a child and youth perspective on the representation of territories through the creation of participatory films.
Community cinema is proposed as an object of study for audiovisual anthropology, both because of the participatory methodologies it includes and because of the films it produces, which express alterities that have had limited access to self-representation.
Among its methodologies, Community Cinema proposes a horizontal perspective, where facilitators and participants share knowledge for an audiovisual production. No role is more relevant than another, promoting integrality and the value of collaboration. As a collective practice, this type of cinema strengthens community ties and regenerates the social fabric (Zirión, 2015),promoting productions that make Chile's problems visible.
From its languages, Community Cinema emerges as a device to promote critical reflections on what affects the people who inhabit the territories, thus the approach of Common Concerns (Xiang, 2022) acquires strength and value, since through the creation of participatory audiovisual pieces, concerns that are multiplied and repeated throughout the territory are filmed. This disposition allows analyzing Community Cinema as a discursive proposal that politically represents marginalized, underrepresented or ignored collectivities (Gumucio Dragón, 2014).
The hypothesis is that Community Cinema fosters reflexivity among the participating communities, since it promotes communicative processes that include the perspectives of those who live these realities.
Paper short abstract:
In this presentation I discuss my attempts to develop a visual anthropology of cycling and cycling city-making. Based on research in Vienna, I discuss how I use filmmaking and film elicitation to investigate what drives people to transform themselves and others into cyclists.
Paper long abstract:
Since the reports of a global “bicycle boom” in the pandemic year 2020, I have started to observe what happens in initiatives that promote sustainable urban mobility. This line of research has so far included participant observation in Vienna’s lively bicycle advocacy scene, meetings with cyclists and cycling activists in other cities, and experiment with different approaches to filmmaking and film elicitation in spaces where people meet around the bicycle. In this presentation I discuss the short research film Women on the Move (Helen Vaaks 2023), which I use as a prompt in elicitation interviews with the trainers and learners of cycling courses in Vienna to discover what drives them to transform themselves and others into cyclists, which questions matter to them and what their interests in the topic are. The film was recorded in 2022 in collaboration with members of the Viennese cycling school FahrSicherRad and the social organization Caritas Wien.
The method of elicitation has a long history in visual anthropology as a tool of co-interpreting situations and co-evaluating and re-editing films. Drawing on the recently articulated common concerns approach, I suggest that the method can also be productively used as a tool of investigating common concerns in the exploratory stage of a research project.