Glamorgan Dspace
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“Handing Down Time – Cameroon” At Kenya International Film Festival
No full textResearch Context“Handing Down Time” forms part of a programme of practice-based research with a wider agenda to redefine and counter cultural misrepresentations of Africa through creative documentary film practice. It is about continuity, change and a journey of awakening. The film highlights affirmative aspects of indigenous cultures defining the cultural diversity of Cameroon, a country often referred to as ‘Africa in miniature’.Research Imperatives“Handing Down Time” aimed to observe and frame aspects of oral tradition within the filmic space. The film investigates how such filmic framings inform and connect notions of ‘homeland’ and belonging from the perspective of an artist situated in the Diaspora. An underlying question is whether these images provide a faithful window to audiences in a global context of transnational discourses where ideas about globalisation and migration are underpinned by nostalgia for connecting to the homeland.Project methodsThe research uses documentary film as a mode of inquiry to present a portrait of the varied aspects of intangible cultural heritage and living traditions within Cameroon’s diverse cultures. The research asks whether such a social and cultural document can offer new ways of imagining the nuances of orality in traditional African cultures? Traditional African cultures are usually orally composed and transmitted. Documenting the oral tradition on film provides a locus for collective and social memory, history and identity, offering a strong sense of visibility as well as preserving important aspects of the living cultures that are intangible and ephemeral in nature.The research strategy was to construct an anthology of the different cultures held together by an overarching oral narrative structure by griots - traditional storytellers, poets, praise singers and musicians. This strategy was used in order to experiment with mise-en-scène, montage and self-referential storytelling strategies such as mise-en-abyme on an aesthetic and epistemological level
Redefining screwball and reappropriating liminal spaces: the contemporary bromance and Todd Phillips’ The Hangover DVD
No full textThis article argues that the central drives of the screwball genre are renegotiated in the recent spate of ‘bromance’ films, amongst them the aptly titled I Love You, Man (Hamburg 2009), Apatow’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) and Funny People (2009), and, most recently, Gordon’s Horrible Bosses (2011) ); and that Todd Phillips’ The Hangover (2009) in particular - with its doubly trangressional contrivance of a road trip and weekend in Vegas - marks the zenith of a genre compelled by a distinctly Bakhtinian ‘grotesque body’. Moreover, this article suggests, Phillips’ fragmented narrative and reappropriation of the DVD text’s liminal spaces (primarily its closing credit sequence and ‘extras’) may have significant ramifications for readings of contemporary ‘bromantic’ relations
“Cameroonian Women in Motion” At Shoe Shop Festival, Braamfontein, South Africa
No full textResearch Context“In many narratives of the nation, it is women who are symbolically the nation, the bearer of tradition and culture... she is the unsung who makes the song.”Teshome Gabriel (2000)“Cameroonian Women in Motion” is a mosaic portrait of women engaging in a variety activities and events. It uses the documentary mode to visualise factual representations of women’s images in different social, economic and cultural contexts. This documentary is part of the evolution of a body of research-as-practice, mainstreaming African women’s images and lived experiences by documenting their stories and experiences and thus, increasing their visibility. It is an attempt to embed in digital form some of the social realities of women’s experiences in Cameroon.Research ImperativesThe film is part of a larger project, the broad objective of which is to present expanded cultural representations of African women by offering images that define them as agents of their actions. A specific aim is to document women’s lives outside of defined spaces of the ‘home’. The research proceeds by using documentary film as a mode of examining the African woman in contemporary life - outside of the home, pre-occupied with things other than children, away from her husband, and thus evoking other dimensions of women’s lived experiences and realities in her community and society at large
Mapping the vulnerability of older persons to disasters.
No full textOlder people sit at the centre of a unique constellation of factors that combine to increase their vulnerability to the negative effects of catastrophic events. The aim of this paper is to explore some of the factors that underlie this vulnerability. Attention will be directed at three broad factors that will be discussed in some depth, namely poverty, long standing health conditions and psychological trauma. The aim is not, however, to provide a comprehensive systematic review of existing research evidence regarding the older person and disasters. This is due in part to the paucity of studies that take as their primary focus the older population and disasters. Whilst poverty, chronic illness and psychological issues are discussed in this paper as separate issues, they are interconnected. A map of the synergies between factors is presented that places the older person at the centre of a network of vulnerabilities. Recommendations for strategic planning and clinical practice are made that address this complex problem. The hope is that with insightful preparation the older population can be spared then worse consequences of a disaster when it strikes
Far South
No full textMulti-platform novel with web-based components at www.far-south.org, www.realandpresent.org http://farsouthproject.tumblr.com/ Far South: Gerardo Fischer is a theatre director who has disappeared from an artists’ colony in the sierras of Cordoba in Argentina in January 2006. Juan Manuel Perez is an ex-cop, now a private investigator who is hired to find him. His investigation leads into the dark heart of Argentina’s recent past, and into hitherto unknown parts of his own. The text is made up of Perez’s casebook, witness statements he records, a diary in the form of a graphic novel drawn by one of the witnesses, and is supplemented by web-based documents including film, image and text. The life of the novel continues via websites, blogs and Twitter. To reflect the collaborative nature of the development of the form and content, the author is named as David Enrique Spellman, the translator and editor of Juan Manuel Perez’s evidence and notebooks. Altogether, around forty people participated in the web-based materials including actors, musicians, photographers, and web-designers. Chance and found objects played a major part in the development of the plot
Conscious processing and the process goal paradox.
No full textAbstract The three experiments reported here examined the process goal paradox, which has emerged from the literature on goal setting and conscious processing. We predicted that skilled but anxious performers who adopted a global movement focus using holistic process goals would outperform those who used part-oriented process goals. In line with the conscious processing hypothesis, we also predicted that performers using part process goals would experience performance impairment in test compared with baseline conditions. In all three experiments, participants performed motor tasks in baseline and test conditions. Cognitive state anxiety increased in all of the test conditions. The results confirmed our first prediction; however, we failed to find unequivocal evidence to support our second prediction. The consistent pattern of the results lends support to the suggestion that, for skilled athletes who perform under competitive pressure, using a holistic process goal that focuses attention on global aspects of a motor skill is a more effective attentional focus strategy than using a part process goal
The Steelman Stories
No full textResearch ContextThe research context for this project was built upon collaborative approaches to the ‘act of making’ (a curator, a poet, a filmmaker and members of the public). “The Steelmen Stories” was commissioned as a contribution to the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. As such, it is part of a substantial body of research producing hybrid documentary films. The end result was informed through process and discovery. Research ImperativesThe works centre on the people/players of Ebbw Vale Rugby Club (Praxis theme) and the output was to be a poetry/documentary hybrid (Praxis form) the exact nature of which would evolve through the process of making. This approach to widening definitions of documentary practice was a creative collaboration between Morris and poet Owen Sheers - the ‘writer in residence’ for the Welsh Rugby Union. The risk factor in terms of setting out on this collaborative project (to create a number of undefined works, based on unresolved processes) was both invigorating and highly productive
My Life: Children of the Road
No full textResearch Context“My Life: Children of the Road” arises from a long-term programme of research (1989-2013) concerned with ways of documenting the changing nature of childhood (Praxis theme) and the effective distribution and/or delivery of documentary television content for children (Praxis form). The research context for this project is built upon a desire through the act of making to create work that is honest in its approach to its subject. “In every honest bit of writing in the world…. there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love.” (1938 journal entry by John Steinbeck included in the introduction to ‘of mice and men’ Steinbeck, J. (1984) London: Penguin)Research ImperativesThis particular work “Children of the Road” is an intimate documentary portrait of three Irish traveller children, prior to their eviction from Dale Farm in Essex. The film offers unique access and a rare glimpse into the lives of children on the margins of society and excluded from the mainstream. The film acts as a counterpoint to programmes such as ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’ and attempts to produce a fresh narrative, generated through explicit and implicit documentary storytelling. The key concepts and thematic concerns underpinning this project to be broadcast within the children’s television time zone include identity, gender, prejudice and representation
Researching workplace bullying:the benefits of taking an integratedapproach
No full textThis paper explores the difficulties encountered by researchers attempting tomeasure the prevalence of negative workplace behaviours and how these might beovercome. Drawing on the first stage of a major ESRC-funded study of workplacebehaviours in Britain, we demonstrate the importance of improved sampling anddata collection methods. We show how judicious use of qualitative data derivedfrom cognitive testing of survey questions can improve substantially the reliabilityand validity of data. In particular, we explain how a battery of questions devisedby social psychologists and used as a standard measure in surveys was tested andrevised following a series of 60 in-depth interviews. These revisions ranged fromfairly minor changes in wording, in order to make questions better understood, tothe elimination of questions which our qualitative work persuaded us were notcapturing data in the way that other researchers might have assumed they did