RoundTrip: Filming a Return Home

Abstract

Visual anthropologists are aware that we can effectively use cameras (photo or video) as methodological devices. We can document events, create relationships, and present our findings in visual format. But few of us have discussed the conceptual capacity of the images we create in ethnographic research. Taking MacDougall's argument that images produce a different kind of knowledge, I use the example of a film I made about a Brazilian immigrant in Lisbon to explore how the process of filming has helped me to conceptualize some of my ethnography. I contend that the double potential of images (as indexes and icons) can result in a specific mode of analytical approach. In the case I highlight here, filming Eugenia's first visit back home has made us both realize the transformative nature of this event to her perception and practice of homemaking.

Ethnocinematographic Theory. How to Develop Migration Theory Through Ethnographic Filmmaking

“…For migration scholars who wish to use filmmaking as a research tool, an important benefit is the possibility to link and compare observations of situations in the "here" and the "there" through translocal montage. Other migration scholars, too, have filmed return trips of migrants to their country of origin, and have found that filming has helped them not merely to observe, but also to conceptualize transnational migration experiences (Torresan, 2011). The contribution of Living like a common man to the field of migration studies stems from its empirically grounded commitment to middle-range theorizing -the film draws on close observations of transnational migration experiences, and uses montage to constitute an audio-visual argument about how to interpret these experiences.…”

Reflections on Migration through Film: Screening of an Anthropological Documentary on Indian Youth in London

“…Reception studies of anthropological films have mainly dealt with two categories of audience, ''self-seeing'' audiences and ''specialized'' audiences [Baudry 1996]. With regard to self-seeing audiences, visual anthropologists have elicited reactions from informants by showing them footage of themselves, and by asking for verbal responses to their own (filmed) behavior [Banks 2001: 96-99;De Maaker 2000;Engelbrecht 1996: 171;Henley 2000: 221;Lewis 2004: 116-120;Nijland 1989;Pink 2006: 89;Postma and Crawford 2006;Torresan 2011;Vávrová 2014]. The purpose of this film elicitation technique is to distil additional information about the topic of the film that will give insights for further research and=or help in the editing process.…”

Fieldwork, Film, and the Tourist Gaze: Making 农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness

“…After all, David MacDougall has written, “pictures and writing produce two quite different accounts of human existence, however much filmmakers and writers strive to describe the same things” (:246). If we recognize these fundamental differences, then, as Angela Torresan has argued, anthropologists must “go beyond our preoccupations with the hierarchies between images and text to embrace the special kind of theoretical connections that we can re‐create with ethnographic films” (Torresan :119).…”

“…Torresan, in further arguing for a more careful consideration of the possibilities of film production in anthropological research, writes, “[a film] is rather part of our process of discovering and theorizing. The new relationships it engenders, the new fiction it creates, and the new story it shows and tells are loaded with both historical and theoretical connections, even if those work mostly by inference and allusion” (:127).…”