Sunday, July 4, 2010

Response to Through Navajo Eyes

This film explores the experiment with a culture reluctant and unfamiliar to technology. A trio of anthropologists and ethnographers set out to film this indigenous population along with two other groups in Brazil. Preserving their culture identity without the power of film destroying it, the group does get a look into this culture and their way of life in the “modern society”.

Looking at this film I was interested in the way the Navajo people kept their original culture roots even though technology was on their land. To clarify in Monica Frota’s reading, Frota explains, “Because the Navajo did not find film to be of any particular relevance to themselves, the project fell outside the most fundamental parameter that defines the existence of indigenous media experience”. From my understanding, the ethnographer filmed this culture in their familiar setting doing everyday tasks without the use of technology disturbing their lives or the environment around them.

Further, even though this film was an experiment through indigenous cultures the main question of keeping the line of culture identity and self-representation throughout the whole film. Language is not the issue with the group; moreover it is the approach and understanding of why ethnographers wanted to study this culture. They are not out to “prove” anything, they are out to find a culture and to see how they experience technology through their eyes, as well as are that we take for granted, sometimes everyday and exploring that phenomenon further.

1 comment:

  1. Laura: as I hope the reading clarifies amply, the films you had to view for class were produced by individual members of the Navajo with whom the study was conducted, not by the ethnographers themselves, as your response seems to suggest ("From my understanding...")

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