[Commlist] CFP: Indigenous Cinemas from South Asia: Agency, Mediation, Representation

    CFP: Indigenous Cinemas from South Asia: Agency, Mediation,
    Representation

Deadline for submissions:
October 1, 2024
Name of organization
Studies in World Cinema
contact email:
(swapna.gopinath /at/ simc.edu) <mailto:(swapna.gopinath /at/ simc.edu)>
Since the 1990s, the impact of transnational flows in technology, 
finance and knowledge have significantly altered the trajectories of 
filmmaking from South-Asian countries. Among the new developments is 
indigenous cinema, in a multitude of linguistic varieties and cultural 
diversities. South Asia is home to several indigenous communities, with 
India alone having 104 million Adivasi communities across the nation, as 
per the 2011 census data (Adivasi being the collective term for 
indigenous groups in India). These communities share certain features, 
their heterogeneity being the most striking. Many of these communities 
belong to the margins, with minimal resources and social capital to 
ensure their wellbeing.

  Although Indigenous communities have often been misrepresented in 
earlier forms of cinema, including in ethnographic and mainstream 
South-Asian cinemas, they have become more vocal and visible in the 
contemporary, globalised arena, narrating their own stories and making 
their creative presence felt as filmmakers or technicians within the 
industry, raising a new set of questions around their agency and 
representation. South Asian indigenous cinemas often attempt to 
refashion indigenous representations by shattering former constructs of 
indigeneity. Practices from the margins are foregrounded in the 
aesthetic and narrative style of these films that seek to reclaim 
Indigenous identities and experiences. Among striking developments are 
films like /Dhabari Quruvi/ (2022) from India, which has an exclusively 
indigenous cast, or /Mor Thengari/ (2015) from Bangladesh, the country’s 
first film in the Chagma language, or /Numafung/ (2001) from Nepal which 
addresses patriarchy among the Limbu people and has amateur actors from 
that community acting in the film.

  Both nonfiction and fiction films by indigenous filmmakers make use 
of their own languages and chronicle their lived experiences. Since 
their art is often an expression of their everyday life, it also 
potentially becomes a subversion of hegemonic practices, detailed in 
forms and methods particular to their culture, albeit mediated by new 
technologies and the cultural industries that partake in their 
production and distribution. South Asian film festivals showcasing 
trends in indigenous cinema, such as the Nepal International Film 
Festival, bear witness to the profusion of indigenous cinematic 
expression. They are notable for being archives of microhistories, 
enabling voices of resistance and assertion of identities by Indigenous 
communities that strive to preserve their cultural practices from the 
homogenising patterns of modernisation.

  Research into Indigenous cinema and Indigenous filmmakers’ creative 
processes, along with the study of their reception within the popular 
cultural domain, aids the communities and their artists in their 
practices of self-assertion as indigenous collectives. In their 
introductory chapter to the edited book /Global Indigenous Media: 
Cultures, Poetics and Politics/, Wilson and Stewart claim that these 
cinematic practices are themselves counter-discourses, thereby creating 
counter-publics who will initiate conversations on indigenous 
epistemologies. Schleiter and de Maaker also explore the paradigm shifts 
in production and dissemination in the larger media landscape and speak 
of the “valorisation of indigeneity” through the regionalising and 
localising of content (Schleiter and de Maaker 2020, 12). However, while 
other Indigenous cinemas – for example, of North America, Australasia 
and the Arctic (Wood 2008, Columpar 2010, Pearson and Knabe 2015) and of 
Latin America (Salazar and Cordova 2008, Gonzalez Rodriguez 2022) – have 
been widely studied, in the South Asian context, there is a paucity of 
research that explores indigenous cinema and its varied dimensions, its 
dynamics within the hegemonic structures of the nation and its role in 
depicting a community’s lived experiences.

  Hence, this special issue will address the politics of representation 
and the influence of creative industries on the filmmaking process in 
Indigenous cinemas from South Asia, contextualising them within the 
larger social, economic, technological and institutional structures and 
factors influencing film production and distribution. Positioning these 
films within a national / transnational cinema framework, it seeks 
different ways of reading these indigenous cinematic stories and their 
depiction of the rhythms of distinctive lifeworlds and spatial 
realities. We therefore invite explorations of indigenous cinemas from 
multiple perspectives, including textual analysis, audience research, 
decolonial theories, haptic visuality and rhythmanalysis. Additionally, 
we actively seek contributions from scholars based in the Global South. 
Practitioners are also welcome to submit articles reflecting on their 
practice.We invite contributions related to, but not limited to, the 
following topics:

  * Indigeneity in national cinema and/or within the national cinematic
    imagination
  * Specificities and commonalities among Indigenous cinemas in South
    Asia and beyond
  * Archiving Indigenous cinemas
  * Documentaries/docufictions on Indigenous experiences
  * Opportunities and limitations offered to Indigenous filmmakers by
    creative media industries
  * Film festivals and Indigenous cinemas
  * Use of Indigenous languages in cinema and/or linguistic identity in
    Indigenous cinemas
  * Narrative styles adapted for Indigenous cinemas
  * The role of Indigenous cinemas within wider popular culture
  * The archiving of Indigenous experiences within cinema

*Timeline for contributions*

Proposals, consisting of a title, a 300-400-word abstract and a brief 
author’s bio, should be sent to Swapna Gopinath ((gopinathswapna /at/ aol.com) 
<mailto:(gopinathswapna /at/ aol.com)>) and Shohini Chaudhuri 
((schaudh /at/ essex.ac.uk) <mailto:(schaudh /at/ essex.ac.uk)>) by 1 October 2024. 
Notifications of acceptance or non-acceptance will be sent out by the 
end of November 2024.

The submission deadline for completed articles (max 8,000 words) is 1 
September 2025. All contributions will then undergo double-blind peer 
review. Publication is planned for spring 2026.

There will be no Article Processing Charges for this special issue/journal.

Any queries should be addressed to Swapna Gopinath 
((gopinathswapna /at/ aol.com) <mailto:(gopinathswapna /at/ aol.com)>) and Shohini 
Chaudhuri ((schaudh /at/ essex.ac.uk) <mailto:(schaudh /at/ essex.ac.uk)>).

***References*

Columpar, Corinn. 2010. /Unsettling Sights: The Fourth World on Film/. 
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press

Gonzalez Rodriguez, Milton Fernando. 2022. /Indigeneity in Latin 
American Cinema/. London: Bloomsbury, 2022.

Knabe, Susan and Wendy Gay Pearson, eds. 2015. /Reverse Shots: 
Indigenous Film and Media in an International Context/. Waterloo: 
Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

Salazar, Juan Francisco and Amalia Córdova. 2008. “Imperfect media and 
the poetics of indigenous video in Latin America.” In /Global Indigenous 
Media: Cultures, Poetics and Politics/, edited by Pamela Wilson and 
Michelle Stewart, 39-57. Durham: Duke University Press.

Schleiter, Markus and Erik de Maaker, eds. 2020. /Media, Indigeneity and 
Nation in South Asia. /New York: Routledge.

Wilson, Pamela and Michelle Stewart. 2008. “Indigeneity and indigenous 
media on the global stage.” In /Global Indigenous Media: Cultures, 
Poetics and Politics/, edited by Pamela Wilson and Michelle Stewart, 
2-35. Durham: Duke University Press.

Wood, Houston. 2008. /Native Features: Indigenous Films from Around the 
World/. New York: Continuum.


---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ commlist.org)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------