Cinema as a tool for research, participation and shared anthropology: a ‘vision laboratory’ to learn about, share and rework the migrant experience – considerations from a dissertation
The research I carried out in Bologna during the summer of 2018 (with
a group of individuals from West Africa) is supported by two considerations that I want to expose from the beginning of this article, in which I propose to critically review the path of the research and its results: cinema can be a valid and powerful knowledge tool in anthropological research, a tool of discovery and self-determination/empowerment; and moreover, in participatory research the process is as important as the final product. The issues that will be discussed in the article involve the dialectic of material culture, the consideration of a certain cinema as a cinema of resistance and the importance of investigating the visions of a film. Furthermore, the experience of film viewing will be taken into consideration as engaging, multisensory, embodied, eliciting memory and imagination. Last but not least, the importance of sensory research will be emphasized, as will the power of the participatory (visual) research process.
History
Publication status
- Published
Journal
Visual EthnographyISSN
2499-9288Publisher
Visual EthnographyIssue
1Volume
11Department affiliated with
- Anthropology Publications
Institution
University of SussexPeer reviewed?
- Yes