Edinburgh Napier University

  Knowledge, Culture, Social Change, University of Western Sydney, “I Film Therefore I am: Process, Practice & Participation in Community Media.”

The paper seeks to interrogate how community media channels the situated-ness of knowledge and identity with reference to creative practice fieldwork in Govan in Glasgow, and on the Isle of Bute on the west coast of Scotland. It advocates a practice led methodology, where the research engages directly with the process of filmmaking and draws reflexively and practically on the researcher and participants’ experiences to create “production ethnographies” (Dornfield). This involves a critical reflection on the filmmaking & research processes, seeking to locate both media & research production in negotiated social spaces.

The paper presents participation in community filmmaking as part of an ongoing process of production, which exists beyond the end product of the actual media itself, in the situated social experiences of its participants and audiences. Following the work of Banks, MacDougall and Grimshaw, the paper will invite comment on the nature of engaged collaborative creative (visual) practice and how this can inform research.