A lens into the everyday: visual ethnographies and making a multi-storied film in North-eastern Sri Lanka

Abstract

Film and visual methods have increasingly become significant focus areas of International Relations (IR) and feminist research. Feminist filmmakers have put particular emphasis on co-production and participatory filmmaking as more symmetrical approaches to research, which can provide visibility for marginalized voices and can challenge dominant perceptions. In this article, I reflect on my experience of making Hidden Voices, an eighty-minute documentary film about everyday experiences of living with disappearances in North-eastern Sri Lanka and the complex ways in which individuals and communities navigate legacies of violence and recovery. I emphasize the ethnographic value of film in bringing out the less visible relational and embodied everyday. As part of this, I discuss film as a type of ‘tour’, which can open opportunities for self-direction from participants and can offer a unique affective medium and way of seeing. While some present film narratives as a ‘microcosm’ of specific local experiences, I used Hidden Voices to explore diverse experiences and at times diverging standpoints. I also highlight the ongoing dialogical and didactic social value of film. While visual methods can be powerful tools for ethnographic research, I also discuss ethical and epistemological tensions inherent in making a research-based film.