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Paper short abstract

Based on two collaborative film projects, this paper frames Commons-Film as a reflexive visual method for making shareable what interdisciplinary research often leaves untold: hesitation, disagreement, withheld voices, and judgments negotiated through iterative co-editing and consent.

Paper long abstract

Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research is often presented through polished outputs such as articles, conference papers, models, or policy recommendations. In this process, much is edited out: hesitation, awkward negotiations, unresolved disagreements, shifting judgments, and voices that cannot be fully made public. These are often treated as noise outside the result, yet they are central to how collaborative knowledge is actually produced.

Drawing on two projects carried out through my own research and filmmaking practice, this paper proposes Commons-Film as a reflexive visual method for making such untold margins shareable. Extending participatory and collaborative visual methods, Commons-Film is based on shared footage, repeated access by multiple participants, iterative co-editing, negotiated consent, and the possibility of retaining multiple unresolved versions rather than forcing one authorized account. In this process, moving images function as boundary objects through which different actors negotiate meaning, visibility, and responsibility.

The paper examines two cases. In “In the Margins of Kathmandu,” researchers from different disciplines collaboratively re-edited footage around an international conference, bringing into view peripheral exchanges and hesitations usually excluded from formal presentation. In “Young Muslim’s Eyes: Crosswork between Arts and Studies,” participants joined the filmmaking process itself, destabilizing the distinction between researcher and researched and leaving questions of authorship, permission, and public visibility productively unresolved. Commons-Film is thus framed as a reflexive and ethical method for examining what collaborative research leaves untold, including experiences not easily recognized as data within formal accounts of interdisciplinarity.