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- Convenor:
-
Elena Guzman
(Indiana University Bloomington)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 7 March, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This multimedia panel brings together the written and visual to explore the power of autoethnographic film as a site of self-making and healing. The panelist's short films and analysis will offer a nuanced take on the futures of autoethnographic filmmaking through a feminist filmmaking lens.
Long Abstract:
This multimedia panel brings together the written and visual to explore the power of autoethnographic film as a site of self-making and healing. Autoethnography is a critical feminist method that harnesses the power of personal experience as a critical form of knowledge (McClaurin 2001). As Catherine Russell notes in her critical work (1999) the power of autoethnography lies in its ability to not only foreground the personal but also to combat vectors of oppression. Thus autoethnography, when oriented in this way, can be a powerful tool for reclamation and self-making. This panel brings together three women of color scholars whose autoethnographic films are used as tools to counter-narratives of racism, queerphobia, sexism, and xenophobia as they seek to visually reconcile and disrupt their spatiotemporal realities through their own borderlands (Anzaldua 1989). The process of shooting, creating, and showcasing a film are all critical spaces in which the autoethnographic is enacted and visualized. At the same time, the process of creating autoethnography allows for each person to create experiences, realities, and spaces of healing. In using visual tools of filmmaking each panelist visualizes feminist futures that become actualized through the process of making and watching their films. When brought together, each of these films and written reflections offer a nuanced take on the future of autoethnographic filmmaking through a feminist filmmaking lens.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 7 March, 2023, -Paper short abstract:
Using a self-reflexive approach in my autoethnographic film, The Spaces in Between, I argue that a desire to return to a past and spatial dislocations of the present can be negotiated in the imaginary of a future which locates 'self' in fragmentations of displacement, identity, and transformation.
Paper long abstract:
The idea of home has multiple meanings. For some it's a memory, a longing for a past, a place of belonging, and for others home is fragmented in nationality, citizenship and documents. As Kakali Bhattacharya (2017) in her essay 'Coloring Memories and Imaginations of "Home": Crafting a De/Colonizing Autoethnography', argues that romanticized notions of home represent a colonial and patriarchal notion of home, thereby, concealing experiences of trauma, oppression, and alienation thus, making the idea of returning to a home complicated and unsettling.
Building on Bhattacharya's argument, in this paper, I use an autoethnographic practice-based approach by holding two subjectivities - that of the camera and of the subject - to explore how the notion of home becomes fragmented due to borderlands, immigration laws, spatiotemporal distances, documentation, and nationhood. By using the metaphors of the meeting of land and sea as both a site of a peaceful union and as a site of a violent clash as Gloria Anzaldua (1987) puts it, I seek to use autoethnography to navigate through the fragmentations of the idea of home. As a result, using a self-reflexive and non-linear approach for my film, The Spaces in Between, I argue that the various temporalities of the memories of past, the spatial dislocation in the present can be negotiated in the imaginary of the future in which the 'self' is neither here, nor there, neither an insider, nor an outsider. Instead, the self is in a space of belonging that also includes displacement, identity, and transformation.
Paper short abstract:
The Eroticism of Self-Love: Pole Dancing as a form of Healing takes an autoethnographic view of how the art form of pole dancing can be used to explore themes of trauma and healing. This takes an interdisciplinary approach blending film, anthropology, Black studies and performance studies.
Paper long abstract:
The Eroticism of Self-Love: Pole Dancing as a form of Healing takes an autoethnographic view of how the art form of pole dancing can be used to explore themes of trauma and healing. This takes an interdisciplinary approach blending film, anthropology, Black studies and performance studies as sites of inquiry. Set against the backdrop of the song "Let Me Know" by Brent Faiyaz, this work seeks to answer the questions 1) what does it mean to heal, 2) what is the role of embodiment in promoting healing, 3) and in what ways does society hinder our ability to show up as our full selves.
Paper short abstract:
How to Use Home Movies as a Rememory Tool is a creative piece detailing Essence London’s approach to autoethographic filmmaking. The accompanying screening is her film matriline ritual, which contains footage of her family’s 1999 Kwanzaa celebration & is currently in the post-production phase.
Paper long abstract:
Home movies as a genre of media is evolving, whether you include viral tiktoks & videos “collecting dust” deep in our 21st century phones or not. Artist Essence London believes this is the time to also reconsider the function of home movies regardless of the year or method they are captured. They can be more than historical record, more than an entrance to nostalgia. With attention & intentionality, home movies can be used as rememory tools that facilitate reflection & healing. London details how she does this in her autoethographic filmmaking process. The accompanying screening is her film matriline ritual, which contains footage of her family’s 1999 Kwanzaa celebration & is currently in the post-production phase.
Key Terms: rememory, home movies, quantum home movie