Exile, Return, Record Exploring Historical Narratives and Community Resistance through Participatory Filmmaking in 'Post-conflict' Guatemala
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2651956 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tessa Boeykens (Ghent University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 3 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 30-56 |
| Publication date | 2019-07-23 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Extreme Anthropology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2535-3241 • E-ISSN: 2535-3241 |
| Publisher | University of Oslo Library (PUBLISHER • NO) |
| DOI | 10.5617/jea.6705 |
| OpenAlex | W2963788594 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 13 |
Following previous experiences of violence and forced displacement, 'the returnees' from the Guatemalan campesino community 'Copal AA la Esperanza' are now defending their territory against the construction of a hydroelectric dam. The returnees unexpectedly mobilized me as a Belgian historian to 'make' their 'shared history' and produce a documentary about their past and present struggle. The aim of this article is to reflect on how and why I developed a participatory, filmmaking-based methodology to tackle this challenge. I focus on filmmaking, participation and knowledge production to demonstrate the epistemological and ethical benefits of a dialogue between disciplines and methodologies as much as between academic and community practices and concepts. As such, I exemplify my visual participatory approach through its engagement with post-colonial histories and the co-creation of shared knowledge at the intersection of community and research interests. Moreover, I demonstrate how filmmaking can be developed as a grounded, visual, and narrative approach connecting media activism with 'performative ethnography'. Combining insights from participatory action research (PAR) with Johannes Fabian's notion of 'performance', I argue for 'nonextractivist methodologies'; 'knowing with' instead of 'knowing-about'. From being a side project and a matter of research ethics, participatory filmmaking turned for me into an investigative tool to explore the collective production and mobilization of historical narratives. I argue that participatory research should not be limited to communities participating in research projects; researchers can equally participate in community projects without this obstructing scientific research. In sum, participatory visual methods challenge us to reconsider the role of academics in (post-conflict) settings
Aesthetics · Citizen journalism · Filmmaking · Literature · Media studies · Narrative · Participatory action research · Performative utterance · Political science · Public relations · Sociology · Visual arts · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Law · Participatory Visual Research Methods
The Palgrave Handbook of State-Sponsored History After 1945
The Action Research Planner
Doing Visual Ethnography
Legacies of conflict and natural resource resistance in Guatemala
Place-Making, Provisional Return, and Well-Being
Celebrating Local Histories and Defining Neighbourhood Communities
Narrative and the Real World
The defence of territory and local struggle for more democracy in post-war Guatemala
Politics of Displacement in Guatemala
Purity and Exile
My Life is Like a Movie
Decolonizing Methodologies
Mobile Orientations
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |