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- Convenors:
-
Yasuhiro Omori
( National Museum of Ethnology & the Graduate University for Advanced Studies)
Kazuyo Minamide (St. Andrew's University)
- Discussant:
-
Tadashi Yanai
- Location:
- 304
- Start time:
- 15 May, 2014 at
Time zone: Asia/Tokyo
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
This panel will focus on the role of ethnographic film making in scientific research. Since the integration between natural and social science has been aimed, how the visual anthropologists could collaborate with others? The panel will appreciate both film screening and paper presentation.
Long Abstract:
As the globalization by the flow of people and culture has been accelerated, the ethnology is threatened its role, even its existence, since it had been interested in the uniqueness/identity of each ethnic group or universality of human being as origin. Our everyday lives in interact each other are nowadays consisted not only with the socio cultural knowledge but with the exchanges of scientific knowledge. The trend of the integration between natural and social science explains that it is impossible to understand our modern lives without that collaboration. Could we, the anthropologists, view such comprehensive human activities including the fusion of the knowledge?
Ethnographic film/video should also spread its interest to natural science. In the demand of the integrated sciences, can visual anthropologists focus on science itself? In this panel, we would like to discuss the possibility of "Science Ethnography" through filmmaking. Both paper presentation and film screening will be welcome.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
Nowadays, the demand for science communicators has been growing in both the natural sciences and humanities. I will introduce the educational practices of film-making and discuss the possibility of scientific films as a method of recording the research, both the outcomes and the researchers in person.
Paper long abstract:
Since 2001, I have been holding the seminar for ethnographic film-making for the course of graduate students. The seminar has been participated by the students of humanities as well as by those of natural science. It has been intended to not only record the outcomes of the scientific research, but also focus on the researchers in person who practice that research. Although the natural science tends to be apart from the human emotion, filming researchers can breathe the personal aspects to science which is originally conducted by human beings. In my presentation, I would like to discuss how to take advantage of science film-making with examples.
Paper short abstract:
I compare a traditional coming-of-age Eboshi-Gi rite of the young man in Shizuhara, a village in Japan's Kyoto province from an investigation of the chronological order of 30 years. And I would like to discuss the inheritance fruits of scientific research achievement in ethnographic film.
Paper long abstract:
In 1979, Yasuhiro Omori recorded the traditional coming-of-age Eboshi-Gi rites in Shizuhara, a village in Japan's Kyoto province and the local youth association. This ceremony that had been succeeded from the Muromachi era (16th century) is established by preparations with young man and youth association. In 2011, Takami Suzuki recorded and compared the same ceremony Eboshi-Gi between 30 years.
In this film, the difficulty of maintaining social organization and traditional ceremony becomes clear. And details in the ceremony clarify the meaning of a growth of the mind and body for modern Japan.
This film inherits the scientific knowledge in ethnographic film through 30years and presents possibility of ethnographic film through filmmaking with anthropologists as archives of scientific research achievement.
Paper short abstract:
This presentation will introduce the educational practices for filmmaking. At my institute, students have been conducting interviews and recording with video to the academic researchers, namely their teachers. Through the opportunity of filmmaking, students could play a part in the science communication.
Paper long abstract:
This presentation will introduce the educational practices for filmmaking. At my institute, students have been conducting interview and recording with video to the academic researchers, namely their teachers. Students who major in media- information science have to interview professors of intentionally different special fields from their majors: like, biochemistry, dermatology, dietetics, materials engineering, clinical psychology, or sociology of area studies. They could get interested in the different fields through the practice, and it could be also opportunity for the researchers to review their basis through the process of answering the interviews. Because the students are unprofessional, they could sometimes show unprecedented ideas or be motivated to pursue further interest. Through the opportunity of studying filmmaking, students could play a part in the science communication.
Paper short abstract:
A Life with Slate vividly conveys the intimate relationship between human beings and the material world in which they live and toil. The film shows geological structure of the slate, miner's knowledge and technological process of slate production.
Paper long abstract:
Alampu is a beautiful and exceedingly remote village in Nepal. The majority of the villagers are Thami, one of the indigenous group of Nepal. More than 90% of Alampu's Thami are involved in the local slate mine as slate miners, contractors and porters. The film follows a team of slate miners in different social arenas: at home, in the village, at the mine and on a slate carrying trip. The film includes technical details about slate production in the mountainside mine and how the slate is worked scientifically prior to distribution. The geological structure of the slate, miner's ideas of expansion of the slate spectrum and implementation of local tools demonstrates the productive power of indigenous environmental knowledge and scientific technology. The film also shows the social relationships and co-operation between the miners, and the intimacy of the mining families. The film also describes the socio-cultural life of the village and its interaction with the environment. The film convey a meaningful connection between natural science and social science, and how visual ethnography can be utilized as a method to research and communication of natural science.
Paper short abstract:
Filming children could show their growth, and when they look back at themselves in the film, they could build their self-understanding of their personal history. I will present my case study/film on Bangladeshi children and discuss the possibility of visual anthropology on childhood.
Paper long abstract:
When we film children who are remarkably growing day by day, it should be the provisional record of them. When it is shown as a film product, however, they could be no longer quite different from themselves. The advantage of this shift, children could objectify themselves through watching their record and build their self-understanding of their personal history.
I have been conducting anthropological fieldwork focusing on children's growth in Bangladeshi rural society and film-making on them every few years. My informants who were primary school students at that time are around 20 years old now, most of the girls have been married and many of the boys have migrated to work in Dhaka or overseas. When I show my video which I had recorded their childhood, they look back and discuss their past and show their landscape of childhood. Their image in my film plays the "mirror" for them.
In my presentation, I will discuss the possibility of visual anthropology on childhood with showing my case study/film. If we could consider their reflection on editing the final work, the work can include a perspective of children themselves.