{"title":"遥远苦难的风景:质疑人道主义纪录片对“有害”文化习俗的再现","authors":"Dorothy Atuhura","doi":"10.1080/13696815.2021.1984216","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Although a wide range of media interventions have been at the forefront of global humanitarian campaigns aimed at eradicating cultural body modification practices categorized as “harmful” in global health and development policy, such practices continue to persist. In this article, I single out one such domain of intervention – transnational humanitarian documentaries – to interrogate how they visualize the spatial landscape within which women and girls participate in these practices and the implications of such visualization for interventions aimed at eradicating them. I articulate the landscape as: the body which is the ultimate inescapable place where women and girls must live, and as a geo-spatial location where that body lives. With illustrations from documentary films on one specific “harmful” practice, female genital mutilation, I show how the visual framing of the landscape engenders: a (mis)conception of the harmed body as only a dystopic place, thus foreclosing the utopic dreams that motivate persistence of mutilation as a path to inhabiting (an)other (heterotopic) place; a spatialized hierarchy of coercive paternalistic interventions with counter-productive effects that have not only compromised the efficacy of mediated eradication campaigns, but have, by extension, inadvertently contributed to the very persistence of those “harmful” practices.","PeriodicalId":45196,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Cultural Studies","volume":"34 1","pages":"343 - 356"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2021-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Landscapes of Distant Suffering: Interrogating Humanitarian Documentary Film Representation of “Harmful” Cultural Practices\",\"authors\":\"Dorothy Atuhura\",\"doi\":\"10.1080/13696815.2021.1984216\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"ABSTRACT Although a wide range of media interventions have been at the forefront of global humanitarian campaigns aimed at eradicating cultural body modification practices categorized as “harmful” in global health and development policy, such practices continue to persist. In this article, I single out one such domain of intervention – transnational humanitarian documentaries – to interrogate how they visualize the spatial landscape within which women and girls participate in these practices and the implications of such visualization for interventions aimed at eradicating them. I articulate the landscape as: the body which is the ultimate inescapable place where women and girls must live, and as a geo-spatial location where that body lives. With illustrations from documentary films on one specific “harmful” practice, female genital mutilation, I show how the visual framing of the landscape engenders: a (mis)conception of the harmed body as only a dystopic place, thus foreclosing the utopic dreams that motivate persistence of mutilation as a path to inhabiting (an)other (heterotopic) place; a spatialized hierarchy of coercive paternalistic interventions with counter-productive effects that have not only compromised the efficacy of mediated eradication campaigns, but have, by extension, inadvertently contributed to the very persistence of those “harmful” practices.\",\"PeriodicalId\":45196,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Journal of African Cultural Studies\",\"volume\":\"34 1\",\"pages\":\"343 - 356\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.9000,\"publicationDate\":\"2021-10-15\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Journal of African Cultural Studies\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"90\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1080/13696815.2021.1984216\",\"RegionNum\":2,\"RegionCategory\":\"社会学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"CULTURAL STUDIES\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of African Cultural Studies","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13696815.2021.1984216","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"CULTURAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
Landscapes of Distant Suffering: Interrogating Humanitarian Documentary Film Representation of “Harmful” Cultural Practices
ABSTRACT Although a wide range of media interventions have been at the forefront of global humanitarian campaigns aimed at eradicating cultural body modification practices categorized as “harmful” in global health and development policy, such practices continue to persist. In this article, I single out one such domain of intervention – transnational humanitarian documentaries – to interrogate how they visualize the spatial landscape within which women and girls participate in these practices and the implications of such visualization for interventions aimed at eradicating them. I articulate the landscape as: the body which is the ultimate inescapable place where women and girls must live, and as a geo-spatial location where that body lives. With illustrations from documentary films on one specific “harmful” practice, female genital mutilation, I show how the visual framing of the landscape engenders: a (mis)conception of the harmed body as only a dystopic place, thus foreclosing the utopic dreams that motivate persistence of mutilation as a path to inhabiting (an)other (heterotopic) place; a spatialized hierarchy of coercive paternalistic interventions with counter-productive effects that have not only compromised the efficacy of mediated eradication campaigns, but have, by extension, inadvertently contributed to the very persistence of those “harmful” practices.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of African Cultural Studies publishes leading scholarship on African culture from inside and outside Africa, with a special commitment to Africa-based authors and to African languages. Our editorial policy encourages an interdisciplinary approach, involving humanities, including environmental humanities. The journal focuses on dimensions of African culture, performance arts, visual arts, music, cinema, the role of the media, the relationship between culture and power, as well as issues within such fields as popular culture in Africa, sociolinguistic topics of cultural interest, and culture and gender. We welcome in particular articles that show evidence of understanding life on the ground, and that demonstrate local knowledge and linguistic competence. We do not publish articles that offer mostly textual analyses of cultural products like novels and films, nor articles that are mostly historical or those based primarily on secondary (such as digital and library) sources. The journal has evolved from the journal African Languages and Cultures, founded in 1988 in the Department of the Languages and Cultures of Africa at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. From 2019, it is published in association with the International African Institute, London. Journal of African Cultural Studies publishes original research articles. The journal also publishes an occasional Contemporary Conversations section, in which authors respond to current issues. The section has included reviews, interviews and invited response or position papers. We welcome proposals for future Contemporary Conversations themes.