MA, School of Music, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand / In 2003 I made a documentary film called Karoo Kitaar Blues with South African
songwriter and guitarist, David Kramer, on the rare musicians, music, and
instruments of scattered coloured communities in the Northern Cape. When I set
out, seven years ago, to make the film I had no intention of making an
ethnographic film or producing a visual ethnography in the anthropological
sense (I am a documentary filmmaker), but two academic reviews, critical of its
lack of ‘ethnographic context’ caught my intention. This dissertation attempts to
respond to their critique. I explore the territory of visual anthropology and
ethnographic methodology in order to understand why my film, with hindsight,
is and is not ‘ethnographic’, and to establish how ethnographic practice could
enhance my work as a filmmaker. I use Karoo Kitaar Blues as my visual
monograph and examine the differences between ethnographic film and
documentary (in the observational mode) with reference to ethnographic
methodologies and theory in ethnomusicology, and consider how film can be
used ‘as’ ethnography or ‘in’ ethnography. I conclude that Karoo Kitaar Blues film
lies somewhere between ethnographic and observational filmmaking.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/10137 |
| Date | 21 June 2011 |
| Creators | Key, Liza Jane |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf, application/pdf, application/octet-stream |
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