- Convenors:
-
Blake P Kendall
(HKMW)
Pavel Borecký (University of Bern)
Send message to Convenors
- Format:
- Panel Discussion
- Start time:
- 23 March, 2021 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
In this panel we explore the promise of geopoetics in the realm of visual anthropology and subsequently aim to instigate the formation of a new collaboration / creative collective. How do we create geopoetic films today?
Long Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic invigorated the “bordering regimes” present in Europe with a renewed intensity. What the momentum exposed in glaring light, was a vision of the world in which political borders are mobilised as “immune systems” (Roberto Esposito), that keep biologically and culturally “contagious bodies” at bay, and whereby the nation states gradually drift towards “new nationalism”, promising the protection of public health and the physical survival of the nation (Agamben). These politicised narratives of “movement”, the precarity of systemic collapse, and the concerns of these material threats to life, are the contextualising catalysts, to which we respond.
In this panel we explore the promise of geopoetics in the realm of visual anthropology and subsequently aim to instigate the formation of a new collaboration / creative collective. How do we create geopoetic films today?
Firstly, by aligning ourselves with the project of making the planet a truly meaningful scale, we subscribe to Latourian response to the outdated global/local modus and the nation state as the mediator between the two. Working consciously towards the “immediate realm” of the “terrestrial” (Latour - Back to Earth 2017). By doing so, we want to find routes and thematic connections between field sites on a global scale. We invite researchers and practitioners from all disciplines and diverse backgrounds, to prefigure the creative response to Global Crisis through “terrestrial vision-making”.
This panel is the invitation to collaborate and form creative collectives. We reflect on the significance of the Disappearing World series, and ask if terrestrial narratives of scale, and webs of ethnographically rooted connection were to be re-visited? We believe in the significance of interdisciplinary “contamination” of ideas and practice and we want to treat this panel as the meeting place. With both research findings and aspirations, within the panel we wish to explore and wrestle with the symbiotic entanglements of the terrestrial: life and life as an extension of non-life. How do we make films of the terrestrial? And how do we do it together?
We invite you to join us in vision making.
Episode 1 : Ingkenteme (Following in the Footsteps)
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
This paper introduces the thematic threads of dialogue within the panel, by introducing the key concepts of the session's dialogue, through the ethnographic case studies of the water crisis in Jordan and the Climate Changing futures of Borneo.
Paper long abstract:
How do we connect? The formation of a collaboration holds political weight with its response to neo-liberal individualism, but apart from its ideological connotations, the pragmatic question of collective action's form in the contemporary zeitgeist is held to question. What does it look like? With processes of alienation and commodification as symptoms of the "supermodern", this paper seeks to introduce processes of re-connecting. This paper reflects on the motivations for developing 'Disappearing Worlds' and inviting researchers to collaborate. Key themes such as geopoetics and the Latour's concepts of the terrestrial are expanded upon with examples presented from Jordan and Malaysia. This paper seeks to introduce the key aspects of the panel of presentation, and prepare everyone for the journey ahead.
In the wild space of the imagination, built on contingencies and speculations, one never knows what the future will hold. In the process of collective "vision-making" the only semantic framework to establish is "where do we meet?" We do not know what will come, both with the panel and afterwards. However, what we can attempt to articulate is where we meet. This reflexive presentation, aligns the values of the panel with propositions and invitations for methodological experimentation.
An Invitation.
Paper short abstract:
Fifty years on from the first episode of the landmark Granada TV Disappearing World series this paper asks what would it mean to critically and responsibly revisit the series and for what purpose.
Paper long abstract:
The landmark forty-nine episode Granada TV Disappearing World series, broadcast from 1970 to 1993, brought ethnic groups from all of the world into UK living rooms and lecture rooms. It transformed public perceptions of tribal peoples and the discipline of anthropology, and inspired many other TV series. Each episode was emergent out of distinct collaborations between filmmakers and anthropologists, and many featured individuals who continue to be remembered. Fifty years on from the first episode on the Panare- ‘A Clearing in the Jungle’- this paper asks what would it mean to critically and responsibly revisit the series: Would we go back to the people, and see what has happened to them, as some filmmakers have done with particular groups? What multi-modal form would we use and for what contemporary purpose, if not entertainment? What themes and questions would guide our revisitation? Where should we focus to explore the lasting impact of the making and circulation of the episodes? How can we do justice to the value of the series for contemporary audiences in relation to contemporary crises, cognizant of social media saturation and the vernacular value of video? What is our responsibility to the constellation of ethnic groups, anthropologists and filmmakers to the gift of privileged access we learnt from? Nostalgia, responsibility and hope will orient my imagined revisiting of several select episodes.
Paper short abstract:
The Dogon population who has been studied, filmed and exhibited in the world's most prestigious museums, is currently facing a bioclimatic crisis and unprecedented political destabilisation. A dancer company is taking up the challenge to combat this situation by dancing in the markets.
Paper long abstract:
Jean Rouch, who has made films in which poetics allowed him to offer us a way to access funeral rituals in Dogon country, has also been strongly criticised for the same reason. And yet, as time goes by, these films allow us to grasp the richness and complexity of the rituals that are now threatened with extinction.
Since 2012, this population has had to resist both climatic uncertainties and repeated attacks by armed groups. Secular schools have been closed, and some teachers have been kidnapped, harvest and villages burned... If the media can regularly report on the fighting and clashes, it is more often a matter of promoting the bravery of the troops than of soliciting international aid. The museums that were the first to display the legendary statues remained surprisingly silent.
Faced with this situation, I concentrated my efforts on agricultural projects. At the same time, I also established a collaboration with a team that promotes contemporary dance in the markets. This collective of dancers campaigns in favour of exchange with the populations in order to awaken consciousness and strengthen the cohesion of the community around a common imaginary, a dream. "Because Man needs spaces of freedom in the face of the disruption and anguish of life...". Lab Don Sen Folo. Is poetry our only hope?