Framing Question:
This week's readings have revolved around the ramifications and critiques of indigenous film movement's transfer of the power of production over to the subjects of the film. Although this allows for an authentication of ethnographic media, in so far as the structuring of the text is a self-interpretation and presentation, this mode of communication arguably "inherits the theoretical burdens of representation - problems that are, after all ours, not theirs" (Moore, 127). Tied to this burden is the questionable stake the western world has in facilitating an interaction/contract which allows for the giving over of an ostensibly empowering technological faculty (to the Kayapo and Navajo tribes, as examples from the reading). This teaching relays not only the mechanical information for visual documentation but also an awareness of the potential for cultural expresion. While survival prior to the Kayapo video project encouraged a westernizing trend in activity and appearence, self-documentation augments the political benefits of indigenous ritual performance. The motive of the filmmaker/speaker is therefore a redemption of their political/cultural clout through the filmic image. And the motive of viewership arguably becomes a redemption of the filmic image through authentic primitive archival, rather than determining what is exactly being structurally communicated through indigenous film. Although this access to 'authentic representation' is an obvious desire for handing the camera over to the other, who does this authority of the image belong to and how can we benefit/take pleasure in it? Additionally, do the political motives for the performance of alterity disturb this authenticity/authority?
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I want to apologize for getting this response up nearly a week late. Because of this, I would like to not only address the issues you introduce Annie but also to reflect on how they can offer us some insight into the notions and theoretical frameworks brought up in this week's readings.
ReplyDeleteIn citing Moore's point surrounding the occidental "theoretical burdens of representation," you make a productive move in pointing towards the "authority" of representation and its "authenticity." I think that it is also interesting that you suggest and point to a problematic between the "ritual performance" and objective "authentic" primitive captured I think this is precisely where we need to call Moore's suggestion into question. Representations, like writing (and perhaps all media, as all media are really specific forms of representation), have power in that they both encourage, instigate, and foster real world effects. Representations can even carry material effects. In viewing representational forms in this light, Frota's transcriptions of Megaron, the Kayapo leader, that the "camera is like a weapon that we can use to protect ourselves," cannot be taken more seriously. Not only do these representations serve a political agenda but one that functions in the realm of the material world and policy. I think in this way it would be imperialist and degrading to assume that the the "theoretical burdens" were outside the of indigenous' thought or should not be of indigenous' concern.
I think that your inquiry into the effects of the political motivations of the performance on the authenticity/authority of the filmic image are especially relevant to this idea of the effects of representation that I attempted to make clear. In addition, I think that we can find productive ground if we consider this question through Rey Chow's discussion of the stereotype. Once again I would like to return to the notion of the Kayapo indians and their performed (or exaggerated) claims of violence and warrior spirit. In this way the Kayapo are certainly performing and while their historical and cultural identity as a warrior people may or may not lead to an authentic image of the Kayapo I think it speaks to the power in representations and the power of the stereotype used as a site or instance of political "potential" like Derrida, thus enables a power in self-represenation for the Kayapo indians.
Beyond this I would like to consider how media forms in their own right serve as the mechanisms of discourse, in the way that a discourse functions in Foucault's HoSvol1. Thinking of how media technologies were used to capture and make inferior the other how as a discursive practice do these media technologies also serve in alternative functions as a resistant practice. There is clearly power in representation but is it too reductive to think of media in Foucault's framework?