Paper short abstract:

Over the last 18 months, the Covid and Care Research Group has collected ethnographic insights aimed at rendering visible this impact of the pandemic on inequality in the UK. In this paper, we explore how filmmaking can enable marginalised communities to convey their own narratives of resilience.

Paper long abstract:

During the Covid-19 pandemic disproportionate transmission and mortality, discriminatory government policies and stigmatising media narratives have worked to exacerbate existing forms of inequality and generate new forms of marginality across the UK. Over the last 18 months, the Covid and Care Research Group has collected ethnographic insights aimed at rendering visible this unseen impact, particularly on communities who have had to ‘turn-inwards’ to survive. These research efforts have been targeted at shaping policy at national and local level, but have drawn deeply on participatory, creative and citizen science methodologies at every stage of the process. We present insights and a short film from one such project, a participatory film-making process led by citizen anthropologist Suad Duale, a Somali psychologist, single mother and community activist from Birmingham. Together Duale and the LSE team sought to render visible the resilience and suffering of the Somali community. In this paper we reflect on core ethical concerns that arose in the process of filmmaking – how can participatory filmmaking be a rapid means through which people are able to convey their own narratives of resilience? What kinds of relational work are necessary to democratise the film-making process? In what ways do institutions have a role in legitimating these stories, and to what effect? Finally, how does the draw upon theories of visual representation and marginality to help embody the participants’ experiences?