This research looks at the production of media in Ghana, specifically, film produced in the “Glamour” style or Western-style tradition that originates in its capitol of Accra. The film industry in Ghana, known as Ghallywood, is a vibrant and prolific field in which content is produced and distributed throughout the country for local consumption. Research on production practice, rather than content, can show cross-cultural differentiation in visual media production and also offers a lens through which to explore Ghanaian culture. The following research questions frame this study: What are the production practices of Ghanaian video films? How do Ghanaians communicate the process of creating Ghanaian video films? How do the practice and discourse of the video film production work to create and reinforce messages from the producers to the audiences? This research necessarily departs from looking primarily at the content of films, instead exploring the processes behind the creation of those products. Nick Couldry recognizes practice as an emerging theme in media research and this work focuses on his theory of media practice, in which the focus shifts from a content analysis to what people are actually doing in relation to media and its production. Using visual techniques and on-camera interviews, this work supplements a documentary about Ghanaian filmmaking and the voices that characterize the industry. This research and its visual product show the processes and conflict within the industry, including several different players who are often at odds with one another: students learning film from either academic or trade institutions, professional filmmakers who are either academically trained or self-taught, as well as scholars who provide their perspective on the industry as a whole. This research shows that filmmaking in Ghana is characterized by many competing elements, including a rift in what is known as “Ghallywood.” Two separate industries actually exist: the Accra “glamourwood” industry and its highly localized “kumawood” counterpart based in Kumasi, Ghana. This research also introduces concepts of how Ghanaians see the world and reproduce it in film, with the use of long takes and wide shots. This work illustrates the value of understanding production practices of media products cross-culturally as a departure from the more traditional approach to media studies of content. The attention given to a supplementary visual product in the form of a documentary aims to raise awareness of visual methodology and the value of visual and public anthropology in research and its applications to dissemination to mass audiences beyond academia.

This thesis is centred on a group of initiated donso hunters in Burkina Faso. It proposes an ecological approach to their knowledge to make sense of the presence of donso hunters across a diversity of languages, ethnic groups and ecological transformations. I suggest that the knowledge of donso hunters is made of a set of specific relationships with their environment, which differentiate them from other villagers and from uninitiated hunters. Central to my approach is the assumption that knowledge is not just a set of notions but is enacted in an ecological system that encompasses a non- dualistic individual and his environment - in its human and non-human aspects. This way donsoya encompasses procedural and propositional knowledge, materiality and meaning, enskilment and initiatory knowledge. I have looked at all these dimensions through the lens of apprenticeship, as a focal interest and as a methodological device, through my own initiation and practice of hunting. The film Kalanda - The Knowledge of the Bush, which accompanies and constitutes part of this thesis, is an audiovisual counterpart to the dissertation. It narrates the apprenticeship providing an overview of the multifaceted knowledge of donsoya, in a collaborative work that involved the filmmaker in the role of student and the hunters in the roles of teachers. I recommend watching the film before approaching the written text.

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This paper seeks to explore the early twentieth century trend of ethnographic adventure filmmaking. A subgenre of the ethnographic film, these works blended ethnographic observations with scripted and staged adventure stories, advancing popular tropes of indigenous first contact and the superiority of Western civilization. Focusing on a 1931 expedition to the Amazon which resulted in the creation of the first sync-sound ethnographic adventure film, titled Matto Grosso: The Great Brazilian Wilderness, I argue that despite flaws in its conception, production, and media coverage, this film serves as an example of how non-academic sources of knowledge production can still create important primary documents for indigenous source communities. / Master of Arts / This paper examines the history and importance of ethnographic adventure films. Ethnographic adventure films, which were especially popular during the 1920s and 1930s, were a type of film that mixed scientific study with fictionalized accounts of adventure and romance in order to capture the attention of general audiences. I am particularly interested in the role that museums played in producing these films, as there appears to be a history of mutually beneficial collaborations between them and filmmakers; museums received valuable scientific material (especially plant and animal specimens) and access to remote locations, while filmmakers received institutional funding and an air of scientific legitimacy that impressed their audiences. Throughout this paper I explore a 1931 expedition to the Mato Grosso region of Brazil, an area covered mostly by the Amazon Rainforest, which resulted in the creation of an ethnographic adventure film titled <i>Matto Grosso: The Great Brazilian Wilderness</i>. Building off of research done by scholars such as Kate Pourshariati and Alessandro Pezzati, among other, I argue that this expedition serves as an example of how a commercial enterprise can serve a dual, unintended purpose as a source of remembrance and cultural heritage for indigenous communities.

Thesis (DPhil (Drama))--Stellenbosch University, 2009. / The purpose of this study is to examine critically the phenomenon of participatory video and to situate within this the participatory video project that was initiated as part of this study in the informal settlement area of Kayamandi, South Africa. The overall objective of the dissertation is to consider the potential of participatory video within current-day South Africa towards enabling marginalised groups to represent themselves and achieve social change. As will be shown, the term ‘participatory video’ has been used broadly and applied to many different types of video products and processes. For the preliminary purposes of this dissertation, participatory video is defined as any video (or film) process dedicated to achieving change through which the subject(s) has been an integral part of the planning and/or production, as well as a primary end-user or target audience. The two key elements that distinguish participatory video are thus (1) understanding video (or film) as a tool for social change; and (2) understanding participation by the subject as integral to the video process. An historical analysis thus considers various filmmaking developments that fed into the emergence of participatory video. These include various film practices that used film as a tool for change -- from soviet agitprop through to the documentary movement of the 1930s, as well as various types of filmmaking in the 1960s that opened up questions of participation. The Fogo process, developed in the late 1960s, marked the start of participatory video and video advocacy and provided guiding principles for the Kayamandi project initiated as part of this dissertation. Practitioners of the Fogo process helped initiate participatory video practice in South Africa when they brought the process to South African anti-apartheid activists in the early 1970s. The Kayamandi Participatory Video Project draws on this background and context in its planned methodology and its implementation. Out of this, various theoretical issues arising from participatory video practice contextualise a reflection and an analysis of the Kayamandi project. Lastly, this study draws conclusions and recommendations on participatory video practice in South Africa.

Esta dissertação é resultado de pesquisa acerca da representação da violência em alguns filmes das décadas de 80 e 90. Discuto, inicialmente, a especificidade da experiência cinematográfica, algumas abordagens antropológicas de filmes ficcionais, relações entre cinema e sociedade e mecanismos de produção, circulação e consumo de mercadorias visuais. Em seguida, introduzo a problemática da construção midiática da violência, situando os filmes neste contexto imagético e narrativo mais amplo. A abordagem interpretativa dos filmes selecionados identifica nesta produção recente a presença da violência não apenas como tema, mas na própria forma das imagens: imagens-violência. Através da análise fílmica e da montagem de fragmentos das obras, apresento seus discursos — ora irônicos, ora metalingüísticos — sobre o homem contemporâneo e sua relação com a comunicação visual reprodutível e a violência. / This dissertation is the result of a research about the violence representation in some 80’s and 90's movies. I discuss inicially the specificity of the cinematographic experience, some anthropological approaches on fictional films, relations between movie and society, and production, circulation and market mechanisms of visual merchandise. Next, I introduce the problem of mediatic construction of violence. The interpretative approach of the selected movies identifies, in this recent production, the presence of violence not only as a theme, but on the very form of images: image-violence. Through film analysis and montage of film fragments, I present its discourses – sometimes ironic, sometimes metalinguistic – about the contemporary man and his relation with the reproductible visual comunication and the violence.

Esta tese se propõe a pensar sobre o lugar da infância no cinema curdo de Bahman Ghobadi e tem como objeto de estudo os filmes Life in fog (Zendegi da Meh, 1999), A Time for Drunken Horses (Zamani barayé masti asbha, 2000), Turtles can Fly (Lakposhtha parvaz mikonand, 2004), Life on the Border (2015) e A Flag Without a Country (2015). Minha hipótese é que em seus filmes o lugar que a criança ocupa é de agência, pois as crianças deixam de ser seres passivos, para se tornarem agentes sociais. Isso transparece tanto nos personagens construídos quanto em suas funções durante a realização dos filmes, quando atuam também enquanto coautoras, pois o método de direção de Bahman Ghobadi dialoga com as etnoficções criadas por Jean Rouch, que conta com a colaboração dos sujeitos filmados. A opção de Ghobadi por fugir das normas convencionais de se fazer cinema, além de ser uma opção estética, é também política, e efetiva-se como um cinema de resistência, que se assume enquanto um cinema curdo. Para entender quais infâncias Ghobadi aborda e o que significa para essas crianças serem curdas, procuro descobrir os contextos nos quais elas estão inseridas. Realizo isso através de um panorama do cinema curdo e seu diálogo com a sociedade, que investiga os temas que esse cinema utiliza, as guerras que essas crianças enfrentam, o uso do idioma, a censura e a relação com os países hospedeiros. / My hypothesis is that in Ghobadis movies children are invested with agency, for they are not passive beings, but social agents. This surfaces in the constructed characters as well as in their engagement as coauthors of the films, because Bahman Ghobadis directing method dialogues with Jean Rouchs ethnofictions, both relying upon the collaboration of the subjects on screen. Ghobadis choice to skip the conventional movie making rules is more than an aesthetical one, it is also a political one, accomplishing a cinema of resistance, claiming itself to be a Kurdish Cinema. To understand witch childhoods are approached by Ghobadi and what does it means to those children to be Kurdish, I investigate the context they dwell. This investigation is carried out by presenting a Kurdish Cinema panorama and its dialogue with the society, investigating the themes presented by this cinema, the wars those children face, the uses of language, the censorship and the relation with the host countries.

O termo nerd tem circulado há algumas décadas em meio aos mais variados lugares e circunstâncias, e seu significado tem oscilado conforme o contexto de seu emprego. Atualmente tem gradativamente deixado de lado um aspecto necessariamente pejorativo em detrimento a uma conotação mais branda, cada vez menos ligada a processos cognitivos (principalmente em âmbito escolar, acadêmico, científico) ou à capacidade de interação social e cada vez mais ligada à relação com um universo de bens culturais específicos. Essa mudança de concepção do termo, contudo, não é repentina e absoluta. Trata-se de um processo de transformação que articula signos distintos, com barreiras que nem sempre são nítidas. Considerando o termo nerd como categoria de autoafirmação e partindo de uma concepção que o interpreta como o indivíduo que possui uma estreita relação com um determinado conjunto de bens culturais específicos, esta dissertação se propôs a investigar a maneira como esses nerds interagem entre si por meio da apreciação compartilhada de bens, sobretudo, audiovisuais. / The term nerd has been circulating for a few decades around the most different places and circumstances, with its meaning oscillating according to the context of its use. Currently, it has been gradually keeping aside a necessarily offensive aspect to move over to a softer connotation, less connected to cognitive processes (specially on academic and scientific environments) or the ability to perform social interactions and more connected to the relationship established with specifics cultural goods. This change regarding the conception of the term, however, is not sudden e absolute. It is a process of transformation that articulates distinct signs, with barriers that are not always clear. Considering the term nerd as a self-affirmation category, and based in a conception that interpreted it as the individual that has a strict relationship with a certain set of specific cultural goods, this dissertation intended to investigate the way those nerds interact with each other through a shared consumption of goods, specially, audiovisual.

Esta dissertação apresenta uma etnografia do ritual de preparação da beberagem ayahuasca realizado pela Irmandade Beneficente Natureza Divina, grupo inserido no processo de transformações e reinvenções que vem ocorrendo no uso urbano dessa substância nas últimas décadas. Mobilizando um extenso conjunto de fotografias sobre o feitio, nome dado ao processo de preparo da decocção, abordo como as relações que os integrantes deste grupo estabelecem com estas imagens permitem circunscrever os sentidos atribuídos à experiência com a ayahuasca e delinear os principais elementos que compõem a sua cosmologia. Através de um percurso que problematiza o uso da imagem fotográfica na produção do conhecimento antropológico e o seu lugar na escrita etnográfica, discuto como a desconstrução de alguns paradigmas adotados pela disciplina, alicerçados principalmente na concepção da fotografia como um referente do real, permite adentrar os aspectos mais subjetivos de um ritual que engaja diferentes modos de percepção para transitar por realidades distintas e se comunicar com os seres que as habitam. As reflexões confluem para tomar a fotografia como um feixe de relações que reifica e revela o constante movimento de interpretações e ressignificações que caracterizam os modos de conhecimento operados pelo grupo no preparo da ayahuasca. / This research is an ethnography of the brewing ritual of the beverage known as ayahuasca performed by a group called Irmandade Beneficente Natureza Divina, which is inserted in a wider process of transformations of the urban use of this substance in the last decades. Using an extended set of photographs taken in the feitio, the name given to the decoction making process, I discuss how the relation of the group members with these images circumscribes the main meanings related to ayahuasca experience and describes some elements of their cosmology. Thinking about how photography has been producing anthropological knowledge and its role in ethnographic writing, I discuss how the deconstruction of some paradigms adopted by the discipline, based mostly on the conception of the photography as a copy of reality, help to understand the most subjectives aspects of a ritual that engages different ways of perception to transit between distinct realities and to communicate with its spirits. The argument leads to assume photography as a web of relations that reifies and reveals the constant movement of interpretation and production of new meanings that characterizes the ways of knowledge used by this group while preparing ayahuasca.

O velado e o revelado: imagens da Festa da Congada é resultado da investigação de processos de percepção atribuídos ao olhar que se reportam ao mundo visível, mas também ao mundo invisível, cuja apreensão e compreensão abarcam códigos, modulação e educação dos sentidos de ordem diversa e específica. A partir da pesquisa de campo com imagens, a Festa de Congada de São Sebastião do Paraíso, MG, foi pensada por meio da sincrônica descrição etnográfica cotejada aos recortes conceituais diacrônicos que ofereceram elementos importantes à compreensão desta festa em sua especificidade de imbricar heranças africanas de religiosidade às práticas católicas. Esse foi o caminho para pensar a Congada e sua dinâmica conceitual nativa sobre imagens, formas, e tudo aquilo que é visível e invisível na festa. / Guarded and revealed: images of the Feast of Congada is a result of the research on processes of perception attributed to the look that report to the visible world, but also to the invisible world, which apprehension and understanding includes codes, modulation and education of senses diverse and specific. Based on fieldwork with images, the Feast of Congada of São Sebastião do Paraíso, MG has been thought through synchronic ethnographic description compared with diachronic conceptual elements that offered important insights in order to understand this festivity in its specificity of implicating African religious heritage to Catholic practices. This was the way to render the Congada and its conceptual dynamics of native images, shapes, and all that is visible and invisible at the party.