Visual Anthropology Review Issue 30 Number 1
Special Issues on new ethnographic film in China Maris Gillette has edited a special issue of VAR, featuring five research articles and film reviews of recently completed ethnographic films about China directed by anthropologists: Writing in Water, by Angela Zito; Chaiqian/Demolition by J.P. Sniadecki; Broken Pots, Broken Dreams by Maris Gillette; Bored in Heaven, by Kenneth Dean, and my film, 农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness. The issue provides a broad look across a range of filmmaking practices and subjects, as well as a sense of how extensively anthropologists have been using film and filmmaking as a means of ethnographic analysis and knowledge production, particularly in the context of contemporary China. My hope for this issue is that it will help spur more conversations about the how anthropological research can think through filmmaking, as a means of research and analysis. My article, titled "Fieldwork, Film, and the Tourist Gaze: Making 农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness" can be downloaded here. A thoughtful review of the film, by Laurie Kain Hart (Haverford College), is available here. I'm chairing the selection committee for the 2014 David Plath Media Award, given by the Society for East Asian Anthropology. The deadline for submissions is May 1, and I strongly encourage everyone who has produced a film, audio project, and/or multimedia project (i.e. a website) on any aspect of East Asian anthropology to consider submitting their work! Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
More information here: http://www.aaanet.org/sections/seaa/awards/david-plath-media-award/ http://aesonline.org/meetings/spring-conference/
This week, I'll be in Boston at the American Ethnological Society Spring Meeting which is being co-organized with the Society for Visual Anthropology. There's a packed schedule of events, including film screenings, keynote lectures, and paper sessions, and I'm really looking forward to this event! My paper will be on Friday, April 11, at 3 p.m. The title and abstract are below -- the session is a special "Media Makers" panel, with presentations that will feature substantial video and image-based work. Looking like the real thing: Surfaces and stereotypes in ethnic tourism Jenny Chio Emory University Paper abstract: Tourism to, and of, ethnic minority communities capitalizes on the experience of difference and, in particular, differences that can be experienced visually. This paper discusses the relationships between material, tangible surfaces and perceived (or anticipated) stereotypes in ethnic tourism in rural China. My aim is to move the analysis of imagery and representation in tourism beyond studies of tourist photography and the debates over authenticity, in order to consider the politics of appearance in ethnic tourism and the work involved in creating, maintaining, and presenting an ethnic reality that looks real to tourists. To do so, I draw on scenes and excerpts from my ethnographic film on tourism in rural ethnic China, 农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness (Chio dir. 2013), in order to illustrate how clothing, architecture, and other material surfaces are discursively understood by village residents as the real things that legitimate and demonstrate their ethnic distinction, and by extension their economic value, in the contemporary tourism industry. These surfaces are carefully crafted by village residents, tourism developers, and international development agencies to simultaneously meet and exceed existing stereotypes in a cyclical process of affirmation and appreciation, thus reinforcing Chinese state discourse of ethnic unity and global nostalgia for consumable heritage. The first good news I have to share is that my book, A Landscape of Travel: The Work of Tourism in Rural Ethnic China, is hot off the press and now available for purchase from the University of Washington Press, Amazon, and other retailers. Contact me if you'd like a flyer and a discount code!
Second, for anyone attending the 2014 Society for Applied Anthropology Meeting in Albuquerque soon, I'll be screening my film, 农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness, on Saturday, March 22, at 12 p.m. in Alvarado G (inside the conference venue, the Hotel Albuquerque Old Town). I'm really eager to share this film with scholars working in applied anthropology in order to broaden my own perspectives on tourism studies. There's also going to be a special plenary session on the Anthropology of Tourism, coordinated by Valene Smith, on Friday, March 21, which I'm looking forward to attending. It feels strange, and great, to have these two pieces of work out in the world...and to hope that they will create some space for new conversations and discussions in anthropology, tourism studies, China studies, and related fields. The Contributing News Editors of the Society for East Asian Anthropology (SEAA), graduate students Heidi Lam (Yale) and Yi Zhou (UC Davis), recently invited me to write a short reflection essay on the anthropology of tourism and ethnographic filmmaking in China. This essay is now published online on the Anthropology News website (the news outlet for the American Anthropological Association) and the SEAA website.
Writing this essay was a challenge, not only because I want to situate the film more broadly within scholarly conversations about tourism, rural social transformations, and contemporary understandings of ethnicity in China and elsewhere, but also because I still have trouble "detaching" myself from the personal stories and everyday details of life in Ping'an and Upper Jidao villages. This is what I try to get at in the final paragraphs of the essay -- the difficulties and necessity of positing more general, or generalizable, questions through ethnographic research, writing, and filmmaking. Increasingly, I'm convinced that the only way to do this is to do more of all of these things: to make films about research, to write about films, and to think more critically about how we write and how we film. And on a related, but tangential note, I am now serving as the chair of the 2014 David Plath Media Award committee and I'm excited to see what new media/visual projects are out there in East Asian anthropology! Submissions are welcome until the deadline of May 1, 2014. For details, visit the Award page here. I just received an advance copy of my book, A Landscape of Travel: The Work of Tourism in Rural Ethnic China, which is now featured on the University of Washington Press website and in the Spring 2014 catalog. It's amazing to see this project finally coming into being as a book. I'm really looking forward to sharing it with my friends and collaborators in China, as well as discussing it with colleagues, students, and anyone else interested in tourism, labor, and ethnicity in contemporary China. The Tourism Studies Working Group at UC Berkeley has just added announced my book on their website too! Visit the page and learn more about TSWG here. Carol Clark, of Emory's eScienceCommons blog, has just published an article on my research about tourism's impact in rural Guizhou and Guangxi.
Read all about it here: http://esciencecommons.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-close-look-at-tourisms-impact-in.html I had a great conversation with Carol last December about my work in China, and I'm pleased to be featured (along with some of my photographs) on the blog! I'm very happy to learn that my film, 农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness, will be screened in a special session during the 2014 Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in March! I'll be there in person for a post-film q&a.
The theme of this meeting is "Destinations," and I'm looking forward to discussing my work with professionals and scholars working on tourism, cultural heritage, preservation, and related issues across the academic and applied spectrum. There are also plans for panels, lectures, and related events on tourism studies in anthropology, so it'll be a great chance for me to engage more fully with current work in the field. The details for the screening are: Saturday, March 22, 2014 12-1:20 Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town www.sfaa.net
The call for papers is now closed, and we are excited to have received an unexpected number of submissions! I have been working closely with the organizers in AES and the SVA to pull together a number of sessions that will feature extended video presentations. A preliminary program is now available online.
I'm really excited that my film, 农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness, was awarded the 2013 David Plath Media Prize, given by the Society for East Asian Anthropology [SEAA]. The prize was presented during the 2013 SEAA Business Meeting, during the AAA Annual Meetings in Chicago.
According to the SEAA, this award goes to "the best work (film, video, audio, and multimedia) on any aspect of East Asian anthropology and/or East Asian anthropology's contribution to the broader field." It's a huge honor to have my film recognized by the section, and hopefully this will encourage more anthropologists to consider the possibilities of film and video making in anthropological research. The 2013 committee wrote of my film: This documentary explores the backstage efforts of locals in the world of ethnic tourism. Chio observes and documents interactions between locals and tourists with a focused yet easy rapport with members of local communities. A variety of perspectives, views and experiences are presented with appreciation for the dilemmas faced by individuals and groups who seek more stable income, material comfort and dignified living in ancestral villages. These concerns are situated against a backdrop of increased surplus disposable income and leisure time among China’s middle class....A kinder, gentler version of Dennis O’Rourke’s acerbic Cannibal Tours, Chio’s film shows how residents negotiate with visiting Han tourists and their idealized projections of ethnic minorities. And now that this film finally feels like it is "done," I need to start thinking about what new projects are in store for me... |
Archives
April 2024
|