Original scientific paper
Rethinking the traditional in ethnographic film. Representation, Ethics and Indigeneity
Etami Borjan
; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu
Sarah Pink
; RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Michaela Schauble
; Social Anthropology, University of Manchester, UK
Tanja Bukovčan
orcid.org/0000-0003-1970-8044
; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu
Sanja Puljar D'Alessio
; Odsjek za kulturalne studije Sveučilišta u Rijeci
Aleksej Gotthardi-Pavlovsky
; HRT-Hrvatska radiotelevizija
Abstract
Cinema has been an important instrument in the colonialist production of the ethnographic Other.
Images create concepts as well as embody cultural concepts. They enact symbolic forms of power.
Ethnographic film is not only a representation of reality but also a construction and an interpretation
of another reality based on cultural conventions from the filmmaker’s culture. THerefore we are
challenged to discuss whether it is possible to present cultural knowledge “differently”; that is, to
question historically, culturally, politically and ideologically bound hierarchies implicit in colonial
culture? Do images embody cultural knowledge as Sol Worth and John Adair (1972, 1981) claimed?
Whose knowledge do they present? What values images have in Western cultures as opposed to non-
Western worlds? Do images necessarily “victimize” the Other (Ruby 1991; Kuehnast 1992; Hall
1993)? Ethnographic film theory has been an ongoing discussion of issues of objectivity, subjectivity,
realism, and ethical questions of representation. In recent years ethnographic filmmakers have looked
for solutions, and new approaches to documentary filmmaking have provided some answers to these
questions.
Keywords
ethnographic film; ethics; representation; Other
Hrčak ID:
111888
URI
Publication date:
12.12.2013.
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