Ethnofiction


Ethnofiction is a subfield of ethnography which produces works that introduce art, in the form of storytelling, "thick descriptions and conversational narratives", and even first-person autobiographical accounts, into academic works.
In addition to written texts, the term has also been used in the context of filmmaking, where it refers to ethnographic docufiction, a blend of documentary and fictional film. It is a film type in which, by means of fictional narrative or creative imagination, often improvised, the portrayed characters play their own roles as members of an ethnic or social group.

History

Ethnologist Jean Rouch is considered to be the father of ethnofiction, with Robert Flaherty as an ancestor. Rouch discovered that a filmmaker interferes with the event he registers: the behavior of the portrayed individuals, the natives, will be affected by the camera's presence. Contrary to the principles of Marcel Griaule, his mentor, Rouch considers it impossible for a non-participating camera to record "pure" events in ethnographic research.
An ethnographer cameraman, in this view, will be accepted as a natural partner by the actors who play their roles. The cameraman will be one of them, and may even be possessed by the rhythm of dancers during a ritual celebration and induced in a state of cine-trance. Rouch thus introduced the actor as a tool in research.
Ethnofiction has also been developed in Portuguese cinema. Ethnic films have been common in Portugal since the 1930s, particularly from the 1960s to the 1980s and in the early 21st century. The remote Trás-os-Montes region in Portugal and the former Portuguese colonies of Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde islands are common subjects of such films. These films depict local realities along with legends and surreal imagery, producing works of ethnofiction.

Chronology

1910s