Browsing by Author "Cain, Julia"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Family, archive, and the posttraumatic imaginary: an analysis of the role of archival material in the personal documentaries stories we tell, the Imam and I, and grandpa Ernest speaks
    (2022) Bazil,Madeleine; Cain, Julia; Shamis, Khalid
    My short documentary, Grandpa Ernest Speaks (2021), is the creative research portion of my master's degree submission. The film is heavily influenced by post-structuralist theory regarding the archive as an experiential entity as well as posttraumatic cinema discourse (in particular, Joshua Hirsch's phases of posttraumatic cinema). This critical reflection therefore investigates the intersection of these two theoretical paradigms: looking at how archival materials may specifically be used in personal documentary films dealing with family/ancestral trauma and posttraumatic memory, and positing that these films' engagement with the archive fits into the larger framework of posttraumatic cinema. I reflect on Grandpa Ernest Speaks in conversation with two other personal posttraumatic documentaries, The Imam and I (dir. Khalid Shamis, South Africa, 2011) and Stories We Tell ( dir. Sarah Polley, Canada, 2012). I conduct a semiotic and content analysis of portions of all three films in order to both situate them within the posttraumatic imaginary-specifically, within Hirsch's second phase-and examine the role of the archive and artefacts in each. In doing so, I confront the question of record vs. representation in documentary, and argue that-in the archival-based posttraumatic documentary-the distinction between the two lies in the way that the artefact is interpreted or contextualised via meta-textual captioning. This study demonstrates that posttraumatic memory may be nonlinear and non-chronological. The analysis of my film and the two additional case study films examines how this complication of past and present, archival and contemporary, is articulated onscreen: conveying the transmutation of memory as well as the ongoing and self-reflexive act of contributing to the familial archive.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Representing aspiration in South African television: negotiating space, movement, and value
    (2022) Rikhotso, Matimu Freddy; Cain, Julia
    The rural South African environment in its many representations across television and documentary forms part of a continuously complex conversation. The ways in which fictional shows such as Generations (SABC1), compared to shows like Giyani: Land of Blood (SABC2) and The Herd (Mzansi Magic) have approached the representation of the rural environment, creates a new lens from which to look academically at the representation of rural areas in South Africa. Furthermore, the representation of aspiration in Giyani: Land of Blood and The Herd speaks to a unique shift in the treatment of the fictional stories we have seen in the past in local television shows. This paper analyses these two shows in conversation with my documentary film, Ndhawu which facilitates a conversation around space, identity and aspiration. This qualitative investigation seeks to look critically at the content of Giyani: Land of Blood, The Herd and my documentary film Ndhawu through textual analysis. This analysis, and the critical reflection on Ndhawu, will be steppingstones to supporting the argument that there is a new type of representation that we not only see of rural South Africa, but also of the aspirations of the inhabitants of those areas
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    Thinking Safety: Making the Familiar Strange and the Strange Familiar: Body/Space Investigations of Womens Safety in Cape Town
    (2022) Ajak, Abul Oyay Deng; Cain, Julia
    In this mini-dissertation, I investigate the manifestation of the political is personal, or rather the structural as personal, by examining what women's experiences within the city of Cape Town reveals about structural, social, and political structures as they relate to safety. This is done through critically reflecting upon both the participatory creation process and conducting a qualitative content analysis of each episode of the web series Thinking Safety that I produced as the creative research component of this masters dissertation. The creation of this series used an interdisciplinary design-based ethnographic research methodology to prompt actionable discussions around the physical manifestations of the lack of structural safety. This paper explores the ways in which this methodology renders women's experiences more perceptible in its exploration of the tangible aspects of how safety and unsafety is experienced. The creative research explores the space between participants' realities and an imagined space of absolute safety and deliberates upon their responses that frame their experiences in relation to social, structural constructs, and spaces. Participants answer specific pre-researched questions that inquire upon safety, spatial navigation, responsibility and design and these responses are creatively compiled in the experimental web-series Thinking Safety which is reflected upon in this paper. This research reveals how the lack of structural safety has led to a distortion of the notion of responsibility as both patriarchal culture and state neglect has exacerbated the unsafety of women in Cape Town. Structural constructs are also viewed as being deliberately created, through the existence of harmful social-cultural norms and this neglect of structural responsibility. Safety mechanisms are then derived from the participant's responses, which deliberate upon imagination, responsibility, visibility, and ethical interdependency as mechanisms for safety creation. This conceptual imagination of safety co-creation is then presented as a purposeful idealisation of democratised and co-developed futures. This paper therefore explores the democratic potential of participatory design-based ethnographic filmmaking, in its expressions of the supressed aspects of our experiences and the potentials for their transformation.