An Epistemology of Play: Provocation, Pleasure, Participation and Performance in Ethnographic Fieldwork and Film-making

Authors

  • Johannes Sjöberg Drama, SALC, Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3138/anth.2018-0061

Keywords:

play, role play, projective improvisation, ethnographic film, Jean Rouch, anthropology of performance

Abstract

Drawing on previous and ongoing research on ethnofiction films, this article suggests new perspectives on ethnographic fieldwork and film-making, where play stands at the centre of the epistemology. Projective improvisation in ethnofiction shares common denominators with play and especially role play, in which provocation, pleasure and flow motivate the performance. The article presents co-creative role play as a valid ethnographic method, based on the assumption that mimicry gives access to the implicit information of the play world, making it explicit through a reflexive approach.

Downloads

References

Bateson, Gregory. 1979. Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. New York: Dutton.

Blue, James. 1967. “Jean Rouch in Conversation with James Blue.” Film Comment 4(2–3): 85.

Boal, Augusto. 1995. The Rainbow of Desire: The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy. London: Routledge.

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bregstein, Philo. 2007. “Jean Rouch, Fiction Film Pioneer: A Personal Account.” In Building Bridges: The Cinema of Jean Rouch, ed. J. ten Brink, 165–180. London: Wallflower Press.

Caillois, Roger. 2001 [1958]. Man, Play and Games. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Carlson, Marvin. 2004. Performance: A Critical Introduction. New York: Routledge.

Crapanzano, Vincent. 2004. Imaginative Horizons: An Essay in Literary-Philosophical Anthropology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. 1975. Beyond Boredom and Anxiety: Experiencing Flow in Work and Play. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

D’Angour, Armand. 2013. “Plato and Play: Taking Education Seriously in Ancient Greece.” American Journal of Play 5(3): 293–307.

Eaton, Michael. 1979. “Chronicle.” In Anthropology, Reality, Cinema: The Films of Jean Rouch, 1–34. London: British Film Institute.

Fink, Eugen. 1968. “The Oasis of Happiness: Toward an Ontology of Play.” Yale French Studies 41: 19–30. https://doi.org/10.2307/2929663.

Geertz, Clifford. 1973. “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.” In The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, 412–453. New York: Basic Books.

Grimshaw, Anna. 2001. The Ethnographer’s Eye: Ways of Seeing in Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Harris, Mark, and Nigel Rapport (eds). 2015. Reflections on Imagination: Human Capacity and Ethnographic Method. London: Routledge.

Hegel, C.W.F. 1802. “Introduction on the Essence of Philosophical Criticism Generally, and Its Relationship to the Present State of Philosophy in Particular.” Kritisches Journal der Philosophie 1(1): iii–xxiv. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/cj/introduction.htm.

Henley, Paul. 2009. The Adventure of the Real: Jean Rouch and the Craft of Ethnographic Cinema. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Huizinga, Johan. 1955 [1938]. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon.

Karpatschof, Benny. 2013. “Play, but Not Simply Play: The Anthropology of Play.” In Children’s Play and Development: Cultural-Historical Perspectives, ed. I. Schousboe and D. Winther-Lindqvist, 251–264. London: Springer.

Kazubowski-Houston, Magdalena. 2010. Staging Strife: Lessons from Performing Ethnography with Polish Roma Women. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Loizos, Peter. 1993. Innovation in Ethnographic Film. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

MacDougall, David. 1998. Transcultural Cinema. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Malaby, Thomas M. 2009. “Anthropology and Play: The Contours of Playful Experience.” New Literary History 40: 205–218. https://doi.org/10.1353/nlh.0.0079.

Milgram, Stanley. 1963. “Behavioral Study of Obedience.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67(4): 371–378. http://doi.org/10.1037/h0040525.

Moreno, Jacob L. 1987. The Essential Moreno: Writings on Psychodrama, Group Method, and Spontaneity, edited by by Jonathan Fox. New York: Springer.

Morin, Edgar. 1985. “Chronicle of a Summer.” Studies in Visual Communication 2(1): 1–37.

Plato. 2014 [ca. 380 BCE]. The Republic. n.p.: Black and White Classics.

Rapport, Nigel. 2008. “Gratuitousness: Notes Towards an Anthropology of Interiority.” Australian Journal of Anthropology 19(3): 331–349. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1835-9310.2008.tb00357.x.

Rouch, Jean. 1957–67. Jaguar. France: Films de la Pléiade.

Rouch, Jean. 1958. Moi, un noir. France: Films de la Pléiade.

Rouch, Jean. 1961. La pyramide humaine. France: Films de la Pléiade.

Rouch, Jean, with Enrico Fulchignoni. 2003. “Ciné-Anthropology.” In Ciné-Ethnography, ed. S. Feld, 147–187. London and Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Rouch, Jean, and Edgar Morin. 1960. Chronique d’un été. France: Argos Films.

Schechner, Richard. 1988. “Playing.” Play and Culture 1(1): 3–19.

Schechner, Richard. 2002. Performance Studies: An Introduction. London: Routledge.

Sjöberg, Johannes. 2007. Transfiction. Brazil, Sweden, and UK: FaktaFiktion Sweden and University of Manchester.

Sjöberg, Johannes. 2008. “Ethnofiction: Drama as a Creative Research Practice in Ethnographic Film.” Journal of Media Practice 9(3): 229–242. https://doi.org/10.1386/jmpr.9.3.229_1.

Sjöberg, Johannes. 2011. “Transgendered Saints and Harlots: Reproduction of Popular Brazilian Transgender Stereotypes through Performance on Stage, Screen and in Everyday Life.” In The Handbook of Gender, Sex and Media, ed. K. Ross, 344–362. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

ten Brink, Joram. 2007. “La pyramide humaine: Nadine Ballot.” In Building Bridges: The Cinema of Jean Rouch, ed. J. ten Brink, 135–144. London: Wallflower Press.

Thompson, Christopher. 2007. “Chance and Adventure in the Cinema and Ethnography of Jean Rouch.” In Building Bridges: The Cinema of Jean Rouch, ed. J. ten Brink, 181–188. London, Wallflower Press.

Thompson, James. 2003. Applied Theatre: Bewilderment and Beyond. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang.

Turner, Edith. 1988. “Performing Ethnography.” In The Anthropology of Performance, ed. V. Turner, 139–155. New York: PAJ.

Turner, Victor. 1964. “Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage.” In Symposium on New Approaches to the Study of Religion: Proceedings of the 1964 Annual Spring Meeting of the American Ethnological Society, ed. June Helm, 4–20. Seattle: American Ethnological Society.

Turner, Victor. 1982. From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. London: PAJ.

Downloads

How to Cite

Sjöberg, J. (2018). An Epistemology of Play: Provocation, Pleasure, Participation and Performance in Ethnographic Fieldwork and Film-making. Anthropologica, 60(2), 403–412. https://doi.org/10.3138/anth.2018-0061

Issue

Section

Thematic Section: Ethnography, Performance and Imagination