Indigenous Media

We Don't Need a Map opens with a provocation. "G'day Australia. How you goin'?" Australian Aboriginal cinematographer, filmmaker, and artist Warwick Thornton asks, in voiceover. We hear children singing the national anthem and see an inky black cosmos pierced by tiny, racing splinters of light. These could be stars, we realize, if we were traveling through space at a great speed. "We are standing here with our chest out, wrapped in the Australian flag and the Southern Cross," Thornton muses. He is referring to the most distinctive constellation in the Southern Hemisphere, also a feature of the national flag. It is a symbol that has recently been co-opted in the service of a xenophobic nationalism in Australia. "Are we a monoculture with a potato up our bum? Are we worried that someday someone's gonna steal our barbecues and beer?" Thornton's tone is irreverent, his language idiomatic, and he is speaking to a non-Indigenous Australian audience. A feverish title sequence follows, rapid cuts propelled by the tempo of punk rock. Backlit shots of metal figurines, including a horse and rider rearing over the camera, are played at dizzying speed. Light trails from traffic, and landscapes in time-lapse are juxtaposed with handheld shots of the Southern Cross on flags, on bumper stickers, and tattooed on a man's pale shoulder. Thunder claps, sparks fly, and dogs growl. The result is unsettling: things are out of balance; something is not right. The final two images are of a small Aboriginal child sitting in a canoe, crying with rage, and two metal dingoes, animated by an invisible puppeteer (Thornton, as the film will soon make clear), fighting on the sand.

An exploration of the rhizomatic character of Indigenous Futurism. I attend here to an examination of two forms of aesthetic technique in the visual medium: "imbrication," refashioned from the historian Coll Thrust, and "adornment," derived from a meditation on maaʔíbcaa, A Híraaca (Hidatsa) verb meaning "to bead." In each case, I am tracking an aesthetic technique oriented toward revising the American pop-cultural edifice, thereby creating an "imposition" into the field of expectation within which American popular culture does its work. These aesthetic strategies impose themselves within cultural contexts wherein Indigenous presence is typically constrained or wholly absent by revising and unsettling the imputed futurescape of, in this case, the American pop-culture SF franchise Star Wars.

This article examines the evolution of Maori filmmaking since the 1980s and explores the Indigenous cinema in the context of developments in the New Zealand film industry. It does so by focusing on the predominantly state-funded production of Maori feature films while having Barry Barclay’s idea of Fourth Cinema in mind. This essay is divided in three parts. The first part traces the beginnings of Maori cinema back to the 1970s and introduces the first three feature films directed by a Maori filmmaker, Ngati (Barry Barclay, 1987), Mauri (Merata Mita, 1988), and Te Rua (Barry Barclay, 1991). The second part discusses the mainstream success of Once Were Warriors (Lee Tamahori, 1994) and the film’s paradoxical contribution to Maori cinema in the 1990s. The third and final part explores the intensified course of state-funded Maori filmmaking since the 2000s and addresses some of the opportunities and challenges facing the Indigenous cinema in the current environment of institutional and commercial globalization.

In the summer of 1966, seven Navajo community members from Pine Springs, AZ were the subjects of one of the most provocative experiments in cognitive and visual anthropology, the Navajo Film Project, resulting in Sol Worth and John Adair’s seminal work Through Navajo Eyes and seven short films produced by Navajo filmmakers that garnered worldwide attention.  In 2011, the films were repaired and returned to the Navajo Nation for public screenings, the first step in a process of repatriation and resignification that mirrors the repatriation of other visual media to Navajo and indigenous communities.  The return of the films offers a unique opportunity to reexamine the meanings of the films and the project, reframing the discussion in terms of their role in context of visual sovereignty, community reengagements, and “reclaiming” Diné/Navajo histories.

The currency acquired by popular culture in the long history of cultural studies can be charted by the increasing commercialization of culture through the democratization and indigenization of global media technologies. The emergence of film in 1895 signalled the popularization and commercialization of the already existing culture, thereby fuelling elitist condemnations of the exponential growth of film as a medium for meaning making. This paper establishes the emergence of popular culture within the context of film and global media indigenization. By so doing, the audiovisual media landscape is situated as a precursor of the rise of popular culture. It is found that film is a material popular culture factory.

Analiza el problema de conectividad en la región de las Américas y presenta aportes para la creación de un marco jurídico adecuado para las redes comunitarias. Presenta un análisis de la región en torno a sus marcos regulatorios en materia de redes comunitarias.

In the last few years, Native filmmakers have begun drawing explicitly on the science fiction genre. Engaging recent short films depicting noncolonial encounters of the third kind and alternative utopian–dystopian futures, I argue that Native science fiction film provides a creative subversive mode of representation, uniquely positioning indigenous filmmakers to vividly reimagine a multiplicity of futures for their communities while critically addressing contemporary issues. Synthesizing scholarship in visual anthropology, afro and feminist futurism, and indigenous methodologies, I attempt to further develop an indigenous futurist analytical framework as part of a larger argument for increased anthropological engagement with Native futures.

Building upon Philip Deloria’s notion of “Indians in unexpected places,” this paper explores the ideologies and practices involved as Navajo cultural producers make films in the Navajo language.  For some contemporary Navajo filmmakers, there is a compulsion to produce films in Navajo, although neither the director nor the actors may consider themselves to be fluent speakers of the language.  The filmic site, on-set, during casting, rehearsals, and shooting, is where cultural producers often have a heightened awareness of representational practices and their implications, especially linguistic representations.  Film is the medium and impetus for language learning as filmmakers negotiate their cultural productions with an eye towards linguistic authenticity and shared sociality for themselves, their Navajo speaking audiences, and for historical accuracy.

Over the past century, anthropologists have claimed primary authority regarding authentic filmic representations of indigenous peoples. The emergence of indigenous films since the 1980s—as well as changes within the discipline— have challenged the ethical grounding of such ethnographic representations of the “other.” Unlike the emphasis of ethnographic filmmakers on cultural explanation, many indigenous filmmakers currently engage a critical identity discourse that effectively addresses the complex historical and contemporary contexts of indigenous peoples. This paper contrasts Dustinn Craig’s (White Mountain Apache) experimental film, 4 Wheel War Pony, with anthropologist Jerry Leach’s Trobriand Cricket in order to demonstrate how indigenous and ethnographic films can differ strikingly in their treatment of similar subject matter. With complex hybrid subject positions, indigenous filmmakers are often well positioned to critically engage the most challenging issues facing native communities today. These films also highlight limitations of disciplinary notions of the insider-outsider distinction, ethnographic holism, and objectivity in visual anthropology.

The Sfakian Screen is a photographic exhibition that explores social landscapes of the White Mountains, as they are visualized by people living in the Sfakia region of Crete today. Sfakia is an area that has been historically photographed by dozens of professionals (photographers, folklorists, musicologists, etc.) and other visitors who often focused on rugged geography, pastoralism and the idea of tradition. The Sfakian Screen engages this legacy and its themes which have historically conversed with local social aesthetics, but also departs from it, as it is the first show centred on local visual practitioners, rather than urban specialists visiting the area [...]


https://youtu.be/vuG1e3S7rs0

What does the Cretan village signify in contemporary Greece during the so-called crisis? How do national constructions of the village clash with Sfakian residents' vision of what the village is about? How do locals' visual practices, ranging from children's drawings to digital photography, create political possibilities that disrupt dominant hierarchies? In this paper I explore what the Cretan highland village means for people and what experiences it generates in contemporary Greece. I think through these experiences in relation to nationally normative concepts of the village which conjure specific materialities (e.g., a square with stone houses). By focusing on residents' perspectives and on those of tourists and cultural producers, I examine the ruptures, but also the dialogues and continuities, that exist between locals and external onlookers around what the village is and what it can look like. I further unpack the signification of Crete as an epitome of the demotic in the context of Greece's bailout deal with the EU and IMF and examine the centrality of the village for a range of actors with different political sensibilities. Finally, I look at local digital photographic practices and assess how these constitute political breaks with previous androcentric visions of village life, while conforming to other normativities that operate in the context of global social media iconographies.

Cover Photo by the author

Access here: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/754260#info_wrap

Adoptée par l’Assemblée générale de l'ONU en 2007, la Déclaration sur les droits des peuples autochtones reconnaît leur droit à l’autodétermination, c’est-à-dire à la libre recherche de leur développement, tel qu’ils l’entendent et le définissent. Le droit à créer leurs propres médias y fait l’objet d’un article spécifique, montrant à quel point ils sont importants pour garantir les droits des peuples autochtones et leur permettre de se défendre en tant que minorités.
Tout un mouvement d'« autochtonisation » des médias a débuté, en ce qui concerne l'Amérique latine, dès les années 1960. En s'appropriant les techniques de communication, les populations autochtones ont mis en place des médias communautaires qui répondent à leurs besoins spécifiques : porter à la connaissance du plus grand nombre leurs différentes revendications dans les domaines territoriaux, religieux, etc. ; s’informer sur leurs difficultés réciproques, partager leurs expériences et se conseiller quant aux solutions possibles à apporter à des problèmes communs ; mais aussi tout simplement exister dans le paysage médiatique, valoriser leurs cultures et leurs points de vue, conserver la mémoire et transmettre les traditions, tout en ouvrant la voie au dialogue interculturel et à la découverte de l’autre. Finalement, c'est une certaine décolonisation de l’information qui s’opère et qui est d’ailleurs revendiquée comme telle, à travers le renversement du regard.

In relation to my article in Visual Anthropology Review, this set of activities is meant to be a teacher-led pedagogical tool for provoking undergraduates to engage their perceptions of Indigenous futures. It is hoped that this will help to disrupt the ways in which Native peoples have become representationally embedded within Western media and imaginations as anachronistic.

Although literacy and print were essential tools of the New Zealand colonial project ultimately designed to ‘amalgamate’ Māori into the modern Pākehā-dominated world, ironically they also helped in the evolution of a collective Māori consciousness. This collective sense of being manifested itself in such pan-Māori movements as the Kīngitanga, Kotahitanga and Te Aute College Students Association. Māori were not passive recipients of print culture, and each of these movements utilized newspapers as a means of disseminating their discourses. Utilizing aspects of Benedict Anderson’s theory on the role of print in the formation of national consciousness, this essay looks at how Pākehā-run newspapers assisted in the development of a collective Māori consciousness, and how each of these movements projected this identity in their own publications.

Edited by Marco Armiero, Federica Giardini, Dario Gentili, Daniela Angelucci, Ilaria Bussoni

The environmental crisis that has been declared for several decades strongly challenges the human and political sciences. Not only because they are called to measure themselves against economic and political issues and to rethink the sustainability of human forms of life and their impact on the planet, in relation to which the intense debate on the Anthropocene was an example. But above all because the complex of political thought has the opportunity to innovate the categories and tools through which it has focused on objects such as modernity, development, changes ... For some years, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world but not only, It is possible to identify a new area of ​​academic research, which arose between different political and social disciplines, which has strongly innovated the way of understanding the relationship between forms of human life as a whole and ecological issues. This has made it possible to overcome the barriers between life sciences and social sciences, introducing an observation point which, starting from the world of plants, from institutions among animals, from the crisis of the environments, has made it possible to innovate ecological thinking and relationships. among the living beings of this planet.

The first volume of this anthology dedicated to Environmental Humanities, or rather the human environmental sciences, collects and translates the most significant texts of these new ecologies, capable of re-establishing that political thought that from modernity onwards has delivered us to the current crisis and planetary emergency. The authors summoned here are among the major international exponents.

Texts by Frédérique Aït-Touati, Stefania Barca, Jane Bennett, Paola Berenstein Jacques, Hannes Bergthaller, Deborah Bird Rose, Rosi Braidotti, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Matthew Chrulew, Emanuele Coccia, Stuart Cooke, Rob Emmett, Malcom Ferdinand, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, Amitav Ghosh, Agnes Kneitz, Donna Haraway, Tim Ingold, Matthew Kearnes, Goda Klumbyte, Bruno Latour, Simon Lewis, Susanna Lidström, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Mark Maslin, Shane McCorristine, Achille Mbembe, Jason Moore, Emily O'Gorman, Isabel Pérez Ramos, Dana Phillips, Johns-Putra, Kate Rigby, Libby Robin, Thom van Dooren, Chad Weidner

Trans. by Elisa Bosisio

Pese a ser uno de los realizadores más célebres del cine boliviano y latinoamericano, gran parte de la filmografía de Jorge Sanjinés sigue siendo poco conocida. Cineclubista, autor comprometido, revolucionario e intelectual orgánico, Sanjinés –junto con su Grupo Ukamau– ha desarrollado una propuesta sumamente original de realización, exhibición y teorización cinematográficas en el seno de las comunidades indígenas, obreras y estudiantiles que han sido sus principales colaboradores y protagonistas a lo largo de más de medio siglo de creación audiovisual.

El espectador pensante: El cine de Jorge Sanjinés y el Grupo Ukamau es la primera monografía que analiza el conjunto de su obra, desde sus primeras incursiones en la realización fílmica y la promoción de la cultura cinematográfica en la década de 1950; pasando por su labor al frente del Instituto Cinematográfico Boliviano en la siguiente década y su subsecuente surgimiento como referente clave del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano; hasta sus más recientes largometrajes que piensan el lugar de lo popular en la transición democrática y el proceso de cambio. Al hacerlo, el libro rastrea el cuidadosamente trazado camino estético que ha llevado a Sanjinés a mediar entre sectores populares y diversos regímenes políticos, y entre las lógicas culturales de sus colaboradores andinos y las formas y narrativas del cine moderno europeo con el que sus películas han dialogado en el escenario internacional.

Las radios comunitarias han sido utilizadas de manera estratégica por las clases populares como canal para la amplificación de sus demandas y como vehículo de información alternativa a los medios de comunicación dominantes vinculados al poder político-económico. Este es el caso de las emisoras comunitarias del Consejo de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras (Copinh), utilizadas como elementos estratégicos de lucha y resistencia en un contexto de alta conflictividad, violencia y
despojo. Este trabajo analiza las prácticas comunicativas de las radios comunitarias del pueblo indígena lenca en Honduras con el objetivo de determinar los elementos que componen el enfoque de una comunicación alternativa en estas emisoras. Para ello se lleva a cabo un estudio exploratorio-descriptivo de los contenidos Canasto de palabras y Ecos Opalaca, programas de actualidad informativa y producción propia de la emisora lenca Radio Guarajambala. Con el fin de analizar el enfoque comunicacional de las emisoras, se identificaron los temas principales de cada programa y se examinaron diferentes elementos, como temas, enfoques, fuentes, géneros radiofónicos, cuñas y música. Los resultados evidencian la importancia del enfoque crítico para la elaboración de una comunicación alternativa en la que destaca una perspectiva transversal de género, clase y transformación social, y la participación de la comunidad en la construcción de las narrativas.

Inspired by essay films meditating on time, travel and ceremony and informed by cinematic cartography, my short dance film, sing them home (2020), travels the specific bodies of water that form the route that Atlantic Salmon once journeyed as they migrated to Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg territory. Rooted in Nishnaabewin and Indigenous food sovereignty, toward a vision of the collective continuance of Michi Saagiig aki miijim, the film uses movement to activate sites in and on the shores of these lakes and rivers in the present while remembering the past and future of this waterway and her kin. This photo essay documents the film's journey and invites you to consider the making of this dance film as a prayer for the salmon to return.

Collectively authored by seven members of the Northern Australian based Miyarrka Media, Phone & Spear is one of the most creative and unique anthropological texts to be published in recent memory. Proposing a Yuta, or "new," anthropology from Yolngu perspectives, the full color photo quality pages interweave a discursive collage of images, artwork, commentary, dialogue, and analysis that is simultaneously ahead of its time and long overdue. The two most prominent voices in the book include Yolngu elder Paul Gurrumuruwuy and Jennifer Deger. Their decade of collaboration-culminating in various art installations, films, and this book-is described by Gurrumuruwuy as a Yuta anthropology that aims to "bring different worlds into relationship," rather than what they note is the more common ethnographic goal of "revealing one world to another" (11). Deger states that at its core, this project is about how "my Yolngu friends and family use mobile phones as a technology with which to tap into-and amplify-the push-and-pull of life" (9). Crucially, she asserts that it "is a book that performs its argument; it does not simply analyze relations, it seeks to make them" (20). Thus, the form and content of Phone & Spear are deeply intertwined. While it could certainly be described as both multi-modal and polyvocal, it also pushes the boundaries of these approaches. Indeed, Deger notes that her own role more closely resembles curation than writing. While originally imagined through a dialogic structure, she describes how the book organically emerged into a Yolngu anthropological experiment in which images, textual analyses, and authorial voices are not simply juxtaposed, but

This paper rescues the way narrative and communication were dealt with by the Tupinamba people, the original nation of Rio de Janeiro, Bahia and Maranhão up until the 16th century. By stemming from the frameworks of Communication studies, History and Anthropology, this pre-colonial society‟s symbolic constructions about their understanding of narrative are examined in the light of the “decolonial turn.” In this sense, it is tried here to move away from the anthropocentrism of Cartesian matrixes and to bring onto the center of the stage the Tupinamba idea of poranduba – “news”, “lie”, or any narrative whatsoever – not taken by what is said (or uttered), but by what is heard. |||

O trabalho propõe recuperar a maneira de lidar com a narrativa e a comunicação para a cosmovisão do povo tupinambá, habitante originário das terras onde hoje são o Rio de Janeiro, a Bahia e o Maranhão até meados do século XVI. A partir de referenciais da Comunicação, da História e da Antropologia, resgatam-se construções simbólicas dessa sociedade pré-colonial sobre as noções de narrativa, no marco da “guinada descolonial”. Neste âmbito, aqui se propõe afastar-se do antropocentrismo das matrizes cartesianas e dar centralidade à concepção tupinambá de poranduba – “notícia”, “mentira”, ou toda narrativa – não por aquilo que se diz (ou se enuncia), mas a partir daquilo que se ouve.

Esta pesquisa propõe uma análise do processo de apropriação de ferramentas audiovisuais entre os Manoki, povo indígena de tronco isolado que vive ao noroeste de Mato Grosso, e suas correlações com os discursos nativos sobre a história. A partir de uma etnografia mediada pelo vídeo – utilizado pelos indígenas de forma proeminentemente prospectiva em estratégias de registro e autorrepresentação –, chega-se a diversos temas próprios da etnologia indígena, como relações intergeracionais, concepções sobre tempo, ritual e escatologia. Ao conjugar as abordagens antropológicas sobre audiovisual e povos ameríndios, a análise pretende levar em consideração a perspectiva nativa a propósito das transformações em seu mundo e o papel que o registro audiovisual pode ter para os Manoki.

A new wave of community arts projects has opened up exciting areas of cross-cultural creativity in recent years. These collaborations of local people, arts facilitators, anthropologists and supporting organisations represent a flourishing new form of arts-based collaborative anthropology that aims to document the stories and cultures of local people using creative art forms. Often focusing on social and cultural agendas, from education and health promotion to advocacy and cultural heritage preservation, participants bring together methods historically linked to anthropology with those from the arts and community development. Side by Side? – The Challenge of Co-creativity investigates these creative projects as sites of significant cultural creation and potential social change. Through the exploration of a range of diverse collaborations, the common threads and historical contexts in this domain of cultural creativity are examined. The role that creative arts collaborations can have in disrupting existing hierarchies of social power and knowledge creation is analysed, as are the potential futures, historical and cultural implications of these co-creative practices. Drawing on the experiences and reflections of over 30 facilitators from more than 7 countries, and written by an experienced collaborative arts practitioner and researcher, this exciting forthcoming book will play a defining role in the emerging critical discourse on collaborative art and collaborative anthropology. It is essential reading for collaborative anthropologists, arts facilitators and others who aim to collaborate cross-culturally, as well as students of Art, Anthropology, and related subjects. " This is a timely, creative, and exciting discussion of the possibilities for collaboration that are thrown up when anthropology and various contemporary art practices collide in cross-cultural contexts. Haviland's definition of 'art-based collaborative anthropology' should serve as a paradigm for much of the new kinds of work emerging in this field. It is also a work of real passion and engagement that presents a compelling argument for considering the essential co-creativity of anthropology, and the role that both anthropology and art-practices can play in documenting cultures. As such it is essential reading for anyone interested in working cross-culturally."

This collection of essays engages the ways in which anthropological understandings of Indigenous media can be expanded and reimagined through a focus on futurity. Throughout, the contributors pose two distinct yet interconnected questions: What does the future of Indigenous media hold? And, how is the future itself being increasingly asserted through Indigenous media production? In a sense, then, the collection serves as both retrospective and opening. We reflect on the history of Indigenous media scholarship in tracing the trajectory of emerging forms and content, while also considering how the future is mobilized as a means for establishing temporal sovereignty in relation to anachronistic pasts. In doing so, we aim to provoke new questions about the histories, politics, and futures of Indigenous self-representation.

Male music artistes have been observed to sexualise women in their songs, especially when commenting on societal problems. Employing van Dijk's Socio-Cognitive Approach of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this paper examined skin bleaching and women sexualisation in the lyrics of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (Fela Kuti) and Ayinla Omowura. Both songs: Yellow Fever by the latter and Oro kan je mi logun (a matter concerns me) by the former were purposively selected based on popularity and thematic preoccupation, and analysed using linguistic and argumentative strategies. Findings showed persistent sexualisation of women in the songs that were meant to teach morals in the society. Therefore, this exposes the artistes as incurably prejudiced in spite of their best intention.

El presente artículo describe la especificidad histórica, política y ontológica de una de las autonomías indígenas de jure más antiguas del planeta: la comarca de Gunayala (antes denominada San Blas) en Panamá. A partir de los datos obtenidos tras un trabajo etnográfico de largo recorrido (2000-2019), se abordan ocho grandes ejes que estructuran las negociaciones en torno a la autonomía guna: la defensa territorial, el turismo, los grandes proyectos de inversión, los medios de comunicación, la educación bilingüe intercultural, la propiedad intelectual de conocimientos y expresiones culturales tradicionales, la seguridad pública y el desarrollo de la agricultura. Sin embargo, la centralidad de estos temas en los procesos de negociación política con el Estado panameño y los agentes transnacionales no debe ser entendida como una adaptación al mundo de los wagas (no indígenas). Tal y como se muestra en la última parte del artículo, en la construcción y concepción de la autonomía guna conviven elementos de distintos órdenes ontológicos que confieren a la comarca un gran dinamismo interno y que no deben ser ignorados.

South Pacific media face a challenge of developing forms of journalism that contribute to the national ethos by mobilising change from passive communities to those seeking change. Instead of news values that have often led international media to exclude a range of perspectives, such a notion would promote deliberation by journalists to enable the participation  of all community stakeholders. Deliberative  journalism is issue-based and includes diverse and even unpopular views aboutg the community good and encourages an expression of plurality.  Chapter 24 in Robie, D. (2014). Don't Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific (pp. 321-343)
ISBN 9781877484254

The impact of crowdsourced data visualization in the Missing and
Murdered Indigenous Women (#MMIW) movement over the last
decade reveals how institutional systems of organizing and
representing space present a key obstacle to the cause. Activists’
digital crowdmaps express an ethos of Indigenous data
sovereignty, or self-determination in data collection and
application, that interrogates settler data procedures relative to
gender violence. These tactical maps resonate with the circulation
of location-tagged photographs via social media campaigns like
#ImNotNext and #RedDressProject to similarly critique the
datasets of government agencies. This article conceptualizes both
media forms as informatic images that intervene in settler
cartographic practice as part of an ongoing decolonization of
digital mapping tools. Informatic images precondition the ways
that users interact with data through hypermediated visual
systems. Here, digital mapping and locative media practices
focalize a relationship between violence, biased data and space,
through various methods of layering, compositing and linking.
Settler computational structures undergird these affordances, yet
in a tactical context mapped images are reconstituted by user
interaction with an oppositional dataset to intervene in that
framework. Users’ emergent data of presence and absence plot a
distributed landscape of settler violence in accordance, instead,
with relational Indigenous knowledges.

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Based on 15 months of ethnographic research in the city of Alto Hospicio in northern Chile, this book describes how the residents use social media, and the consequences of this use in their daily lives. Nell Haynes argues that social media is a place where Alto Hospicio’s residents – or Hospiceños – express their feelings of marginalisation that result from living in city far from the national capital, and with a notoriously low quality of life compared to other urban areas in Chile.

In actively distancing themselves from residents in cities such as Santiago, Hospiceños identify as marginalised citizens, and express a new kind of social norm. Yet Haynes finds that by contrasting their own lived experiences with those of people in metropolitan areas, Hospiceños are strengthening their own sense of community and the sense of normativity that shapes their daily lives. This exciting conclusion is illustrated by the range of social media posts about personal relationships, politics and national citizenship, particularly on Facebook.

The twenty-first century has signalled the explosion of documentary film practices in India. Based on anthropological fieldwork conducted between 2007 and 2009, this article analyses contemporary documentary film festivals in India conceived as a combination of cultural performance and cultural activism. Through a combination of first person experience in the field and historical research, it argues for identifying a legacy of contemporary documentary film festivals not only in the most recent history of political activism and filmmaking, but also in early cinematic practices of film exhibition during the colonial period of the Indian subcontinentthat is, when documentary films were part of an already existing public entertainment.