Visual Psychological Anthropology and the Lived Experience of Disability

Abstract

Ethnographic film is a powerful medium currently under-used and under-theorised in psychological anthropology and the cross-cultural study of disability. Using a process oriented analysis of The Bird Dancer, an ethnographic film about a Balinese woman with Tourette syndrome, this chapter provides a novel exploration of how anthropologists can render the lived experience of disability onscreen, capturing and communicating both the richness of the lives of people with disabilities and the sociocultural dynamics that limit them. A reflective consideration of the key narrative strategies used in the film illustrates how critical disability concepts can be applied in transnational contexts by combining visual and psychological anthropology methodologies. The insights offered have implications for educational and translational documentary film and the cross-cultural study of disability.