Participatory Ethnographic Filmmaking: Transcultural Collaboration in Research and Filmmaking

Abstract

This paper introduces an approach of Participatory Ethnographic Filmmaking I developed by making films together with rural dwellers in Namibia, Botswana and Angola. Grounded in the field of ethnographic filmmaking, it aims at making anthropologically informed films together with groups of people with no previous filmmaking experience. Workshop participants shape the form and content of the film and contribute to its practical making. In this paper, I explain how such films can be made in a wide range of different settings. Participatory Ethnographic Filmmaking gives the participants the possibility to shape their own media image and generates new forms of collaborative knowledge.