17th World Congress of the IUAES

Page 1 of 4

Home

Venue

Register

Accommodation

About IUAES

Contact

Login

Congress Agenda
General Organization Tracks and Panels Plenary Sessions Visual Anthropology Exhibitions Meetings Social Events This congress is sponsored by:

Evolving humanity, emerging worlds

Display as: List Tree Views: All Panels All Tracks Plenaries Panels Being Human General Life and death Producing the Earth Survival and extinction The world of the mind and the mind in the world Movement, mobility and migration Other Museums Visual Authors Convenors

Manchester, UK; 5th-10th August 2013

(V03) The use of audio-visual media in ethnographic research: a Latin American perspective Location Chemistry G 51 Date and Start Time 07 Aug, 2013 at 09:00

Convenors
Angela Torresan (University of Manchester) email Carlos Flores (Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Morelos, Mxico) email Mail All Convenors

Short Abstract
This panel will offer a forum for Latin American social scientists and other scholars working in the region to discuss how and whether the use of audio-visual media in their research has elicited new forms of ethnographic connections, political engagement, and regional aesthetics.

Long Abstract
We aim to bring together Latin American anthropologists and scholars from other disciplines working on the region who have been actively using, and reflecting on the use of audio-visual media in their research: be it as a probing tool, a catalyst of knowledge and relationships in the field, a means of increasing collaboration with interlocutors and political engagement, or to present research findings. The specific themes of research are open, for our interest is to discuss, from a Latin American perspective, how and whether the use of audio-visual technologies can provoke the development of new regional aesthetics, subject matters, political activism, narratives, and theoretical approaches. The papers selected will explore the diverse ways in which images can trigger new connections and rearticulate old ones in order to capitalise on the creative power of different social phenomena in Latin America. In this respect, we seek to explore how images are helping anthropologists and other social scientists to engage with alternative understandings of reality that are currently flourishing in Latin America. This panel is closed to new paper proposals.

Papers
Appropriations and alternative visual aesthetics: from Afro-Colombians to the National Museum of Colombia Author: Sofia Natalia Gonzalez Ayala email Mail All Authors

http://www.nomadit.co.uk/iuaes/iuaes2013/panels.php5?PanelID=1632

21-5-2013

17th World Congress of the IUAES

Page 2 of 4

Short Abstract
I will discuss possible aesthetic relationships between the set-up and design of a travelling exhibition about AfroColombians' spirituality, and the audiovisual materials produced and used by its organizers, in a context of both form and content (desired) widening in museums.

Long Abstract
The exhibition Velorios y santos vivos. Comunidades negras, afrocolombianas, raizales y palenqueras (Wakes and living saints. Black, Afrocolombian, Maroon and Islander communities), open to the public in the National Museum of Colombia from August to November in 2008, showed how a lot of Afro-Colombians celebrate their mourning rituals and vigils to patron saints. It displayed videos and photographs collected during fieldwork and from archives in television screens and walls, next to several objects and seven altars designed by members of those communities. Later on and to the present, a travelling version began to go around Colombia in the form of 21 panels with photographs and texts, some objects, videos and printed materials, most of the times including new altars designed and constructed on site. Furthermore, local coordinators of the exhibition continuously and independently use audiovisual tools to document its development. Amidst these politics of representation (Kratz, 2002), what possibilities arise from productions which may many times be perceived as inappropriate or ad hoc (Deger, 2006)both the local exhibition versions and the audiovisual materials Afro -Colombians involved produce to document Velorios y santos vivos? What do they have to offer to the use of audiovisual material in museum exhibitions and to the participation of previously absent groups, particularly in the National Museum of Colombia? What alternatives do these appropriations (Schneider, 2006)or idiosyncratic practices (Geismar and Tilley, 2003), offer if, following Bennett (2006), museums help shape ways of seeing, as well as understanding what is seen, and who knows what and how to see? Capturing the fish: images and relations with the environment in Brazilian Amazonia Author: Carlos Sautchuk (University of Brasilia) email Mail All Authors

Short Abstract
Setting out from the visual record of catching arapaima fish with harpoons in the lakes of Brazilian Amazonia, this text discusses the relation between the acts of filming/photographing and fishing as a particular mode of ethnographic knowledge.

Long Abstract
The present work discusses the use of visual recordings in the study of arapaima harpoon fishing in lakes along the Amap coast, a state located on the north-eastern littoral fringe of Brazilian Amazonia. Inspired by Ingold's ideas concerning technique and hunting, combined with Rouch's notion of cine-trance and the perspective of Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera, the text explores the potential for a mode of anthropological knowledge based on the association between the technical processes of capturing animals and those involved in capturing images. The work describes how the ethnographic experience related here inevitably transforms the connection between the film camera and the harpoon between their rhythms and characteristics - into a primary means for apprehending the three main dimensions of this activity: the coupling of fisherman and harpoon, the perception of the signs of the fishs presence and the gesture of the actual moment of the catch. The camera is conceived here as a kind of weapon, therefore, echoing the relation between predator and prey, and eliciting a second-order apprehension: a capture of the capture. Elaborating this point, the text also discusses the consequences of the animist mode of relation with other species characteristic of the caboclo population under study, especially in terms of the value and meaning attributed to visual representation, along with its quotidian uses. Change of perspectives - shared anthropology with Buenos Aires wastepickers Author: Henrike Neuhaus email Mail All Authors

Short Abstract
This paper shows how young female wastepickers generate an alternative narrative and topics of what is focused in the popular media.

Long Abstract
Due to the economic crisis in Argentina increased the figure of people who are collecting informally recyclable material in Buenos Aires. This growing phenomenon in the beginning of the millennium elicited the formation of groups pushing forward negotiations with the government to formalize waste picking. Specially the groups travelling from the Suburbs in the "white train" to the centre of the capital were focussed by the media. Being disappointed that their situation of poverty was exposed and used by the journalists from just one perspective, most members of the cooperatives distrust now film projects. During my fieldwork with a group I noticed a lot of young women working regularly. In the moment of giving the camera out of my hands, they began to record the environment from their perspective focusing on their children. Analysing the material it gives clues on the identity as mother and wastepickers. This film project shows an alternative

http://www.nomadit.co.uk/iuaes/iuaes2013/panels.php5?PanelID=1632

21-5-2013

17th World Congress of the IUAES

Page 3 of 4

aesthetic to the image build up by the popular media in Argentina in the framework of shared and collaborative Anthropology. Collaborative research and filmmaking among Cocopah people in Baja California Author: Alejandra Navarro (Universidad Autnoma de Baja California) email Mail All Authors

Short Abstract
In 1993, fishing camps in Cocopah territory were included in the core zone of a Biosphere Reserve, therefore making them illegal. Legal arguments are used both by indigenous to defend their right to fish and by authorities to prohibit it. This paper explores the role of cameras in the hands of Cocopah and the anthropologist within a collaborative research.

Long Abstract
Cocopah indigenous people are defending their right to fish in their historic territory. In 1993, fishing camps within Cocopah territory were included in the core zone of the Biosphere Reserve of the Gulf of California and Colorado River Delta. Authorities of the reserve argue for the conservation of endemic species that contemporary fisheries may be overexploiting. In this complex scenario, legal arguments are generated both by indigenous peoples to defend their right to fish and by authorities to make their fishery illegal. A collaborative research project using filmmaking was developed to produce ethnographic, legal and biological knowledge about Cocopah fishing practices, currently used by Cocopah people against governmental policies affecting their everyday life. This paper explores the role of videocameras in the hands of Cocopah people and the anthropologist, and also in the development of their collaborative relationships. Cultural policies, narratives and aesthetic of an identity: an analysis of Mayan audiovisual productions in Yucatan, Mexico Author: Francisco Fernandez-Repetto (Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan) email Mail All Authors

Short Abstract
Cultural policies, narratives and aesthetics are part of a new scenario when promoting the production of videos among mayan people of the Yucatan. We analyze this scenario and the implications of a collaborative research when producing the videos,

Long Abstract
In recent years in Yucatn, Mexico there has been an important number of audiovisual productions, promoted by state policies in order to maintain and disseminate a particular representation of the Maya and the Mayans. These include not only Mayan language as a key element to assume that the videos are of and about Mayan peoples but also, that these videos are a Mayan perspective of their socioeconomic problems and identity. Here we analyze how Mayan peoples' narratives, representations and identities are negotiated in a number of videos that are part of this audiovisual offer produced under the technical guidance of the National Council for the Development of the Indigenous Communities (CDI). We also take into account how this analysis is affected when dealing in a collaborative research. Maya Law and Community Video: Negotiating visual intertextuality in Quich, Guatemala. Author: Carlos Flores (Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Morelos, Mxico) email Mail All Authors

Short Abstract
This paper reflects on indigenous video, legal pluralism, intertextuality and collaborative anthropology. It presents the results of a shared anthropological project with indigenous mayors in Santa Cruz del Quich, Guatemala.

Long Abstract
This paper reflects on indigenous video, legal pluralism, intertextuality and collaborative anthropology. It presents the results of a shared anthropological project with indigenous mayors in Santa Cruz del Quich, Guatemala. The project arose following the discovery of an archive of videos documenting dispute procedures within "Mayan law" which was filmed by indigenous actors themselves; this later formed the basis of two documentaries elaborated with the input of the anthropologist. The material presented here refers to the possibilities and difficulties involved in the collaborative project which extended from the negotiation in the field of community and academic interests to the production of hybrid visual texts and their varied reception by different audiences. Photographic images, ethnography and educational dialogues: possible itinerary from popular identity narratives Author: Leandro Pinheiro (UFRGS) email Mail All Authors

http://www.nomadit.co.uk/iuaes/iuaes2013/panels.php5?PanelID=1632

21-5-2013

17th World Congress of the IUAES

Page 4 of 4

Short Abstract
This research aims to understand how trash pickers, female workers in solidarity economy, and Hip Hop youths use photography in the characterization of their everyday lives. Thus, we have been considering the image production as an ethnographic tool and a social educative process.

Long Abstract
This research presents some analyses related to the production and use of photographic images and highlights some of their contributions to the ethnographic approach and educational practices in poor communities. Emerging from long dialogues with trash pickers, female workers in solidarity economy, and Hip Hop youngsters, this paper aims to evince how the subjects use photographic images in the characterization of their everyday lives and as identity reflexive narratives. Looking at the trajectories and the sociability/solidarity networks, which make up the act of narrating, we invited different people from poor neighborhoods in Porto Alegre, Southern Brazil, to make some photographic sessions. Then, conversations about the photographs taken by them were established. The discussion about the photographical authorships, in collective and individual meetings, has shown us that the images evoke distinct information from the traditional interviews, when we discuss what "should" be registered and censured, what is beautiful and important in their daily activities, or rather, the relation between the image verisimilitude and the reality construction. Also, this reflexive process has been contributing for the subjects that reorganize their social memories and rethink their community relations. A formation practice which considers the relationship among social education, research and production of images is glimpsed by the subjects' recognition of the cultural specificities of their photographs. In public exhibitions, we have been trying to value this people's experiences and their discourse regarding different issues: work, music, urban life, etc. This panel is closed to new paper proposals. Views: All Panels All Tracks Plenaries Panels Being Human General Life and death Producing the Earth Survival and extinction The world of the mind and the mind in the world Movement, mobility and migration Other Museums Visual Authors Convenors
Copyright 2010 John Gledhill for UK National Committee of the IUAES About the UK Committee | Main IUAES Website | The Congress Blog

http://www.nomadit.co.uk/iuaes/iuaes2013/panels.php5?PanelID=1632

21-5-2013