Presentation by Christine Douglas
3rd October, Goldsmiths
My PhD applies the theories of shared visual anthropology and the methodologies of shared visual ethnography to explore experiences of breast cancer. Nine individuals diagnosed with breast cancer within the past 3 years (of the research starting) were given cameras and invited to film whatever was important to them for a period of 3 - 6 months (actual filming times have been 4 - 18 months). I was not present during filming unless invited into the frame. The research material has been edited into 9 individual films in collaboration with the participants. An installation of the films will take place early 2015.
Determining the theoretical framework and content for my final chapter has been (and continues to be) a lengthy and iterative process.
Referencing Jean Rouch’s assertion that: “No matter whether the story is plausible, no matter the camera or the mike, or the director, or whether a film was born or not, more important is what happened around the camera…” [V/O La Pyramid Humaine 1959] my final chapter theorises processes interior to the films within the context of the research encounter and the wider culture that envelopes the disease. I theorise how each participant has interpreted the research and related to their camera, and the process of audio-visual inscription. Within this framework, I also evaluate what the participants prioritised in the absence of a researcher-led thematic or interview based methodology, and what questions these issues and the “open” research position raise.
There are 3 key areas I will address on Friday:
1. Cecilia Sayad’s book Performing Authorship has made me think again about how to frame the process of the participant’s audio-visual inscription. In analyzing the films it interesting to read their inscriptions as performance and to analyse what shape it takes.
2. The filmmaking process as therapeutic - strong but conflicting evidence has emerged from my research.
3. I struggle to write in the first person and to be reflexive beyond an analysis of how I have influenced the knowledge produced in the research but even that has been difficult, largely because I regard writing, whether subjectively or objectively, about vulnerable individuals who are ‘identifiable’ (and not anonymised as is the norm in health/medical research) as an ethical minefield. In addition in my reflexive writing I revert frequently to empirical statements to clarify my arguments - the ‘I’ of my writing soon morphing into (for me, I am ashamed to say the reassurance of) theoretical norms and also I cannot shake off the belief that expressing how I feel about ‘me’ and breast cancer (which I have not been diagnosed with) is self indulgent in a way that undermines my deep respect for what the participants have been through and continue to experience. Aspects of my work and writing though do (very consciously) revert and conform to a what might be regarded as a ‘scientific’ framework - for example my desire for a reproducible, repeatable methodology, and how I have situated myself in relation to the participants. So is there an undefendable gap - or is it an interesting tension?
Next session: Friday 7th November at 10.30am in MRB Screen 3, Goldsmiths.
Filmmaker Miranda Pennell presents her work using the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP) Archive.
3rd October, Goldsmiths
My PhD applies the theories of shared visual anthropology and the methodologies of shared visual ethnography to explore experiences of breast cancer. Nine individuals diagnosed with breast cancer within the past 3 years (of the research starting) were given cameras and invited to film whatever was important to them for a period of 3 - 6 months (actual filming times have been 4 - 18 months). I was not present during filming unless invited into the frame. The research material has been edited into 9 individual films in collaboration with the participants. An installation of the films will take place early 2015.
Determining the theoretical framework and content for my final chapter has been (and continues to be) a lengthy and iterative process.
Referencing Jean Rouch’s assertion that: “No matter whether the story is plausible, no matter the camera or the mike, or the director, or whether a film was born or not, more important is what happened around the camera…” [V/O La Pyramid Humaine 1959] my final chapter theorises processes interior to the films within the context of the research encounter and the wider culture that envelopes the disease. I theorise how each participant has interpreted the research and related to their camera, and the process of audio-visual inscription. Within this framework, I also evaluate what the participants prioritised in the absence of a researcher-led thematic or interview based methodology, and what questions these issues and the “open” research position raise.
There are 3 key areas I will address on Friday:
1. Cecilia Sayad’s book Performing Authorship has made me think again about how to frame the process of the participant’s audio-visual inscription. In analyzing the films it interesting to read their inscriptions as performance and to analyse what shape it takes.
2. The filmmaking process as therapeutic - strong but conflicting evidence has emerged from my research.
3. I struggle to write in the first person and to be reflexive beyond an analysis of how I have influenced the knowledge produced in the research but even that has been difficult, largely because I regard writing, whether subjectively or objectively, about vulnerable individuals who are ‘identifiable’ (and not anonymised as is the norm in health/medical research) as an ethical minefield. In addition in my reflexive writing I revert frequently to empirical statements to clarify my arguments - the ‘I’ of my writing soon morphing into (for me, I am ashamed to say the reassurance of) theoretical norms and also I cannot shake off the belief that expressing how I feel about ‘me’ and breast cancer (which I have not been diagnosed with) is self indulgent in a way that undermines my deep respect for what the participants have been through and continue to experience. Aspects of my work and writing though do (very consciously) revert and conform to a what might be regarded as a ‘scientific’ framework - for example my desire for a reproducible, repeatable methodology, and how I have situated myself in relation to the participants. So is there an undefendable gap - or is it an interesting tension?
Next session: Friday 7th November at 10.30am in MRB Screen 3, Goldsmiths.
Filmmaker Miranda Pennell presents her work using the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP) Archive.
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