Conference: 'Experience, Sense and the Lens':

'Experience, Sense and the Lens':

 Ethnographic filmmaking, visual documents and transcultural knowledge 

The conference ‘'Experience, Sense and the Lens' Anthropological filmmaking and transcultural knowledge’ is held in conjunction with the annual Nordic Anthropological Film Association (NAFA) film festival, at the University of Tromsø, Norway, 23-26 August 2012.  

Social anthropology, the mother discipline of ethnographic film and visual anthropology has been inextricably described as and based on notions like ‘translation’, ‘mediation’ and ‘comparison’ since its inception around a century ago. Great attention has also been focused on the challenge of creating shared understandings between people with different systems of ‘sense’. In spite of that, and in spite of the ‘reflexive turn’, the challenge of mediation and success in translation between different life worlds and of creating reciprocal understanding in and with ethnographic films has been left rather unexplored.

The conference aims at understanding why this is the case. In order to accomplish this we will discuss and analyse ethnographic films and other kinds of visual documents in relation to different audiences’ interpretations, to their outreach and their societal impact. 

Morning sessions will be devoted to conference papers and presentations. The NAFA film festival will be running during the afternoon and evening sessions. For more information and program http://uit.no/nafa2012

Academic responsibility:   Ass. Prof. Ida W. Winther, University of Aarhus, Denmark

                                    Ass. Prof. Trond Waage, University of Tromsø, Norway

The conference is a collaboration between University of Tromsø, University of Aarhus, the Nordic Anthropological Film Association (NAFA) and the NordForsk-funded research network, Nordic Network for Digital Visuality (NNDV).