Paper short abstract:

Anthropology's renewed interest in the senses stands as the epistemological cornerstone of current experimental approaches to ethnographic cinema - but is it possible to move towards the realm of thought without capitulating to verbalism? Can experimental ethnographic films think, as well as feel?

Paper long abstract:

Although anthropology has long incorporated filmmaking to its repertoire, its proper status within the discipline is still a matter of great contention. Central to these debates is a fundamental disagreement apropos the aptness of images and sounds to independently create knowledge - hence, voice-over narration, title cards, and subtitled interactions/interviews were considered essential for a film to convey any scholarly meaning. However, while the primacy of word over image once decidedly governed the discipline's relationship to films, renewed interest in the senses by contemporary anthropology stands as the epistemological cornerstone of current experimental approaches to ethnographic cinema. But is it possible to devise a theoretical framework that moves beyond the senses and towards the realm of thought without capitulating to verbalism? Can experimental ethnographic films think, as well as feel?

Combining analyses of existing films - as well as of the debates that gravitate around them - with reflections springing from the editing processes of multiple experimental ethnographic films, this paper seeks to reorient the relationship between images, sounds, and words in ethnographic cinema at the intersection between semiotics, film theory, psychology, and the anthropology of thought. Ultimately, this paper urges scholars and practitioners to more systematically approach experimental ethnographic filmmaking beyond a purely sensory paradigm in order to broaden and refine our understanding about rhetorical strategies specific to film and assess their appropriateness to the anthropological discourse.