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Dear colleagues, Please share this with any filmmakers, anthropologists, or artists you think may be interested. Thank you, Emily Hong Ethnocine Collective *AAA 2017 ROUNDTABLE CFP: COLLABORATION AND FILMMAKING IN AN ERA OF ALTERNATIVE REALITIES* Co-Organizers: Elena Guzman and Natalie Nesvaderani (Cornell University) Discussant: Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan (Goldsmiths) Chair/Discussant: Faye Ginsburg (NYU), t.b.c. In her 1998 essay on the future of visual anthropology, Faye Ginsburg argues that anthropologically informed film and video can offer their own epistemologies while also providing “critical insights into how culture and social relations are being mediated through cinema, television, and video” (184). By privileging the epistemological value of ethnographic film and photography, this roundtable asks: How does a deeply sustained collaboration, or as Jean Rouch terms, anthropologie partagée, challenge problematics of ethnographic authority, blurring the line between subjectivity and objectivity in processes of knowledge production? We also consider the ways in which the line between ethnography and fiction can be a productive space to push the boundaries of anthropological knowledge. For Rouch, there is no observation without participation: the filmmaker integrates himself/herself into the ritual, taking part in a “strange kind of choreography, which if inspired, makes the cameraman and soundman no longer invisible but participants in the ongoing event” (Rouch [1973] 2001:99). This roundtable interrogates the dyad of “participant-observation” in collaborative filmmaking, bringing anthropologie partagée into conversation with feminist, queer, and indigenous epistemologies committed to collaboration as praxis. Our roundtable will showcase visual work in conversation with approaches to collaborative film and photography in the field. We welcome applications from anthropologists, filmmakers, and artists whose collaborative engagements may address, but are not limited to, one or more of the following questions: · How does film contribute to feminist and/or queer ethnographic praxis and methods, and how does feminist praxis influence filmmaking? · What is the role of anthropologists as producers, catalysts, and activists in relation to “indigenous media” and how do they blur the line between participant observation and cultural activism (Turner 1991; Ginsburg et al 2002)? · How do relationships among researchers, activists, interlocutors, and filmmakers develop and d/evolve during the process of collaborative image-production? · What kind of methodological advancements and challenges, in terms of “audiovisual reciprocity,” have the projection of footage and techniques of anthropologie partagée (Rouch [1973]2001:44) brought about? · What is revealed in the space between ethnography and fiction and what potentialities might images hold in facilitating such revelations? · How do researchers, activists, and makers navigate the politics of image-production and distribution in different sociopolitical contexts? This roundtable discussion is organized by Ethnocine, a collective composed of visual anthropologists engaged in feminist and queer research combining the cinematic techniques of verité and sensory ethnography with the collaborative tools of ethno-fiction and anthropology partagée across a range of landscapes including the United States, Burma, Chile, Palestine, Iran, Turkey, Romania, India, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. In order to expand our knowledge of and engagement with activist and social justice issues at the site of this year’s AAA meeting, we are partnering with the D.C.-based #FilmandFriends for a community screening of ethnographic films at The Lookout DC, a co-working and screening space (15 minute walk from the Marriott Hotel) dedicated to filmmakers and creatives in Washington D.C. *Please send a link to your film sample (unfinished works are welcome) along with a short explanation on how your visual work fits within this roundtable’s line of inquiry to Natalie (**[log in to unmask]* <[log in to unmask]>*) and to Elena (**[log in to unmask]* <[log in to unmask]>*) by April 8th. * References: Ginsburg, Faye. 1998. “Institutionalizing the Unruly: Charting a Future for Visual Anthropology.” *Ethnos* 63 (2): 173–201. Ginsburg, Faye D., Lila Abu-Lughod, and Brian Larkin, eds. 2002. *Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain*. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rouch, Jean. c2003. *Ciné-Ethnography /*. Edited by Steven Feld. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Turner, Terence. 2006. “Anthropology as Reality Show and as Co-Production Internal Relations between Theory and Activism.” *Critique of Anthropology* 26 (1): 15–25. ************************************************************* * Anthropology-Matters Mailing List * http://www.anthropologymatters.com * * A postgraduate project comprising online journal, * * online discussions, teaching and research resources * * and international contacts directory. * * To join this list or to look at the archived previous * * messages visit: * * http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/Anthropology-Matters.HTML * * If you have ALREADY subscribed: to send a message to all * * those currently subscribed to the list,just send mail to: * * [log in to unmask] * * * * Enjoyed the mailing list? 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