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Paper short abstract

In this presentation, I describe how the “Filmmaking for Fieldwork” approach articulated by Andy Lawrence impacted my research practices and theorising of nationhood by allowing for a richer multisensorial account of how we experience, practice and communicate nationhood through music performance.

Paper long abstract

This presentation is based on my experience using ethnographic filmmaking as part of a multimodal approach during my PhD research on music performance in La Escena Independiente (The Independent Scene) in Lima, Peru. The main argument of my thesis is that music performance is a means to imagine the nation, affording the participants – musicians and audiences alike – a social space to re-produce and co-articulate how they envision community.

In this presentation, I will discuss the impact of ethnographic filmmaking, as proposed by Andy Lawrence, on my understanding of nationhood. In the “Filmmaking for Fieldwork” (2020) approach, the filmmaker does not work with a predefined script but elaborates on it during filming and editing, emphasising the social processes, interactions, and practices observed. This allows the analysis of the footage not only as a representation but also encourages the researcher to critically asses their position and learning process. It highlights the collaboration of knowledge production between the researcher and participants. Throughout the research, my understanding of ethnography shifted fundamentally through the use of the camera, learning about its advantages and challenges, and, more importantly, understanding the centrality of the researchers’ experience and embodied knowledge for theorising. This approach was highly informative and fundamentally shaped and enriched my analysis. Still, it also posed challenges, especially in writing the thesis illustrating the limitations of each medium - film and text - and how these two complement each other, allowing for a richer account of the multisensory experience of music performance and nationhood.