Procesos de memoria y antropología visual

CONICET Project

Carmen Guarini

-Analysis of the theoretical-methodological relationship that runs through the process of audiovisual research in all its stages: development of the theoretical framework, field work, development of audiovisual results and their dissemination.

Reflection on the relationship between cinema and anthropology, since the image is a product and a cultural process at the same time. Nowadays, the film or video camera or multiplatforms cannot be thought of as an object independent of the conditions of knowledge production, but rather as part of processes that allow the construction of both an image and relationships involving researchers, filmed subjects and audiences (spectators; Internet users, etc.)

-Analysis of concepts that are incorporated from the field of film theory and allow us to work on the theme of the "gaze" in the construction of knowledge in audiovisual research: "staging" (of memory and forgetting), "performativity", main concepts that traverse the way in which the places where the processes of production of memory and forgetting unfold, take on different meanings and are put in tension

-Critical reflection on the relationships and places that subjects occupy or are relegated to in audiovisual recordings (both in memory films and in other audiovisual research).

-Analysis of the elements acting in the role of “memory builder” in which the anthropologist-filmmaker is inscribed.

-Modalities and dilemmas in the audiovisual representation and writing of the processes of memory and forgetting.

The production of images is constitutive of the practices and identities of groups that sustain a struggle for the installation of memories. In its broadest concept (and in its multiple formats) it is strongly linked to the processes of memory construction in the last thirty years and is crossed by aspects of a performative nature that delimit and shape the staging of memory.

The use of the word image in my research refers not only to what is produced in terms of result but also in terms of process, and its performative nature is part and result of specific social practices

Some researchers see the need to reconceptualize the field of work of AV and in this case it becomes essential:

1. use the different expressive structures of the audiovisual medium as opposed to those originating in expository prose (this would allow a move away from educational or journalistic-television films). The visual medium, especially cinema, has developed its own conventions over the last hundred years that involve the temporal arrangement of image and sound. But these are conventions that change and evolve, even more so today with the expansion of digital systems and hypertextual and interactive structures that daily transform our framework for understanding (and acting) in the world

2. develop forms of anthropological knowledge that do not
depend on the principles of validated scientific methodology. This proposal means taking a more radical step because it requires changing the patterns of logic and demonstration that come from the natural sciences. It is a challenge to the principles adopted by anthropology in its search for truth and as a discipline. In this direction, the postmodern paradigm and the critique of cultural studies have made some difference, but this has not yet found its counterpart in audiovisual research. (Some isolated experiences of questioning from the visual can be found in the deconstructivist works of Trinh T Minh ha, for example, or in those of Stéphane Breton.)

3. explore the areas of social experience in which the audiovisual medium demonstrates a certain expressive affinity, such as topography, time, body, and personal. This third principle would consist of identifying conceptual domains that seem to be particularly appropriate to AV. Without trying to establish an exclusive zone, this would call for mapping new topics of research and reflection in AV without fear of departing from the anthropological commitments of studying patterns of life and experience in diverse societies.

New technologies provoke new practices and roles, and at the same time force us to propose new concepts to think about their uses and the way they are transformed, and we must think about the way we do science today. What should be the most appropriate strategies then, to carry out film research and thus be able to study and account, in audiovisual form, for this idea of ​​memorialization that appears in multiple forms?

Another aspect that this research explores is therefore new avenues for audiovisual research, working on the one hand with the reflexive modality (in order to account for the contexts of interpretation of film records) and on the other through participatory production modalities that allow us to expand the possibilities of our field of audiovisual research.

The image can be used not only to investigate the processes of memory construction but also to contribute to the process of resignification and political relocation of past and present actors active in these memory processes. It can also be used to delve into the forms of audiovisual exploration and representation of the processes of forgetting.

Other elements that are worked on in our research:

1. Tensions researcher-filmmaker;
2. Critical perspectives on testimonial voices in audiovisual records
3. Reflexivity
Collaboration