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Paper short abstract

In this paper, we will present how we in the Sahel on Sahel project work with community-generated filmmaking as ethnographic action, working with river nomads in the Malian side of the Niger River

Paper long abstract

Wherever you are along the Niger River, the Bozo people, the river nomads, have their settlements. Walking along the riverbanks, you will see the slender pirogues with a man at the front ready to cast the net with graceful movements, in search of the river's wealth.

The crisis in Mali has forced many Bozo from the central parts of the country into Bamako. The city is growing rapidly, the river is polluted, the demand for sand as building material is high, and the Bozo are now engaged in sand transport and gold mining on the riverbed. The living conditions for spawning fish are being destroyed.

In the establishment of a visual anthropology institutes in Niger, Cameroon and Niger, is the Sahel on Sahel project providing newly graduated anthropologists the opportunity to engage with their local communities and environments they know, in search of stories to tell by visual means. These young Malians know the communities. They know where to look, they know who live lives that carry stories.

In this paper, we will present how we in the Sahel on Sahel project work with community-generated filmmaking as ethnographic action to depict and analyze these phenomena.