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Understanding Film and Video As Tools for Change

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Understanding Film and Video As Tools for Change UNDERSTANDING FILM AND VIDEO AS TOOLS FOR CHANGE: Applying Participatory Video and Video Advocacy in South Africa by Julia Cain TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ................................................................................................... iii Abstract ..................................................................................................................... iv Opsomming ................................................................................................................v Chapter 1: Introduction ...............................................................................................1 1.1 Background and purpose of the study ...........................................................1 1.2 Overview of the dissertation ..........................................................................3 1.3 Supplementary materials.............................................................................10 Chapter 2: Background to Kayamandi participatory video project ............................11 2.1 Introduction to Kayamandi informal settlement area....................................11 2.2 Habitat for Humanity International ...............................................................13 2.3 South African housing policy .......................................................................17 2.4 Initiating the Kayamandi Participatory Video Project ...................................21 Chapter 3: Historical context for emergence of participatory video..........................28 3.1 Emergence of non-fiction film as a catalyst for change (1917–pre-WWII)...32 3.1.1 Dziga Vertov and Soviet agitprop cinema .............................................33 3.1.2 Developments in non-fiction film in the 1930s.......................................36 3.2 New directions and issues of participation from the 1960s..........................50 3.2.1 Ethnographic filmmaking / visual anthropology.....................................54 3.2.2 Cinema vérité vs. direct cinema ............................................................65 3.2.3 Social documentary / Radical documentary / Film collectives...............74 3.2.4 Contributions from the Third World, particularly Latin America .............79 3.2.5 Feminist filmmaking ..............................................................................84 Chapter 4: Participatory video: .................................................................................87 The Fogo process and the South African context.....................................................87 4.1 The birth of participatory video: Challenge for Change and Fogo process ..88 4.1.1 Challenge for Change ...........................................................................89 4.1.2 The Fogo Island Film and Community Development Project ................90 4.1.3 The Fogo process .................................................................................95 4.2 The South African context ...........................................................................99 4.2.1 Historical developments........................................................................99 4.2.2 Contemporary context.........................................................................104 Chapter 5: Kayamandi Participatory Video Project.................................................111 5.1 Context of the video project within the dissertation....................................111 5.2 Background to the methodology................................................................112 5.3 Project methodology..................................................................................114 5.4: Project Implementation: “The complex mechanics of collaboration”.............129 Chapter 6: Key theoretical issues: ..........................................................................153 Participatory video and the Kayamandi Project ......................................................153 6.1 Participation / Collaboration.......................................................................154 6.2 Representation / authorship.......................................................................167 6.3 Reflexivity / reception ................................................................................178 Chapter 7: Conclusions and recommendations ......................................................189 Bibliography............................................................................................................196 Filmography............................................................................................................213 Appendix 1: Activity Diary......................................................................................218 Appendix 2: Video interviews: Questions and format ...........................................231 Appendix 3: Evaluation questionnaire (English version)........................................232 Appendix 4: Evaluation results summary...............................................................233 ii Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the support and goodwill of my supervisor, Dr Edwin Hees, and particularly his assistance in facilitating the upgrade of this dissertation. Thanks also in this latter regard to Professor Hauptfleisch. I received valuable input on the writing of this dissertation at key periods from several individuals. I would like to extend a special thanks to Susan Levine for pointing me in the direction of key authors and for overall conceptual input at the very start of this process. Big thanks to my long-time friend, Larry Swatuk, who tracked down various articles for me in Canadian universities and then read the final draft and gave his ever insightful feedback. Debbie Andrews at Memorial University library (Newfoundland, Canada) was very helpful in sending me a great deal of documentation on the Fogo process. Clemencia Rodriguez replied to my queries on her work on participatory video with various articles of her own and others that provided insight into the exciting work being done in this field in Latin America. Keyan Tomaselli responded with interest to my work and prompted me to make a presentation at the 2005 SACOMM conference where he kindly introduced me to other graduate students in his department at UKZN. The Kayamandi video project was inspired by Mercy Ndamase and largely facilitated by her and I am indebted to her for both. Malibongwe Gwele was of great assistance in the implementation of the project and every conversation with him stimulated critical thought. I am grateful to the entire Sinomonde Committee for their collaboration on this project. I am also grateful to the Kayamandi Zone J Committee that for providing valuable insight in the initial phases of the project. Thanks also to Grant Edkins at Habitat for Humanity who supported this project from its outset. I would also like to thank Thomas Waugh, who really inspired my interest in non- fiction film when I first went to film school many years ago. Thanks also to my friend Elizabeth Lescheid who introduced me to the Fogo process when we were both on our way to southern Africa for the first time with WUSC in 1995. Finally, I have received support and interest in this work from my circle of friends in Stellenbosch – mostly ‘working mothers’ -- over the last four years and I am most appreciative of that. And last, but certainly not least, I am grateful to my husband, Phillip Ravenscroft, who enabled the privilege of returning to academia in mid-life in the first place; applied his formidable brain to whatever problems I presented him with; and did a great deal of parenting our beautiful boys when I needed time to write. iii Abstract The purpose of this study is to examine critically the phenomenon of participatory video and to situate within this the participatory video project that was initiated as part of this study in the informal settlement area of Kayamandi, South Africa. The overall objective of the dissertation is to consider the potential of participatory video within current-day South Africa towards enabling marginalised groups to represent themselves and achieve social change. As will be shown, the term ‘participatory video’ has been used broadly and applied to many different types of video products and processes. For the preliminary purposes of this dissertation, participatory video is defined as any video (or film) process dedicated to achieving change through which the subject(s) has been an integral part of the planning and/or production, as well as a primary end-user or target audience. The two key elements that distinguish participatory video are thus (1) understanding video (or film) as a tool for social change; and (2) understanding participation by the subject as integral to the video process. An historical analysis thus considers various filmmaking developments that fed into the emergence of participatory video. These include various film practices that used film as a tool for change -- from soviet agitprop through to the documentary movement of the 1930s, as well as various types of filmmaking in the 1960s that opened up questions of participation. The Fogo process, developed in the late 1960s, marked the start of participatory video and video advocacy and provided guiding principles for the Kayamandi project initiated as part of this dissertation. Practitioners of the Fogo process helped initiate participatory video practice in South Africa when they brought the process to South African anti-apartheid activists in
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