Ethics and Integrity in Visual Research Methods by Savannah Dodd;

Author:Savannah Dodd;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781787694217
Publisher: Emerald Publishing
Published: 2020-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

FOLLOW UP RESPONSIBILITIES

After the film was produced and exhibited, we had to acknowledge the lack of response on the lobbying front. We decided to revisit Bois Neuf to offer the opportunity for participants to each make a short film about an issue they felt was important – we brought small, easy-to-use cameras, with the intention of lending them to the participants for several days and then organise local hands-on editing sessions. This was the occasion referred to previously when we were told to leave abruptly, so instead we all moved to a nearby empty school and the participants decided to there-and-then make short to-camera pieces. In order to restore some agency to the participants, we invited them to select their own theme, for example, a digital memory of their loved one, which we felt would provide a lasting memorial, or maybe an address to the UN. To our slight surprise they unanimously decided to directly address the UN, which reflected their on-going grief, frustration and anger at the damage and silencing, even 10 years later. These appeals to justice and restitution can be seen at https://itstayswithyou.com/updates/. We made these short films with the assistance of two young Haitian filmmakers, who were brought in for a workshop to teach filming and editing to the participants, but, given the circumstances of having to leave abruptly, instead they provided the technical assistance to produce the to-camera pieces and took still photographs that we later used on the website; for these short films, it was decided that Jeanty Junior Augustin and Pierre Moise have director credits in order to acknowledge their crucial input at a difficult time. We sent these individual testimonies to the UN Secretary General and Under Secretary-General for Peacekeeping, as part of our on-going commitment to bring the survivors’ allegations and request for investigation to the attention of the UN, but to date have had no response.

The project has confirmed for us that it is important to allow space for audiences’ emotional reactions to such painful stories, before engaging in law and policy debates on how to address the problems presented. An important way to communicate with film audiences, on any subject, is to engage with the emotions that lie just under or even on the surface of such testimony-giving, and also be aware of the risk of re-traumatising audiences who may have suffered their own painful experiences. Our responsibility to audiences therefore is to provide advanced information about the difficult nature of the subject, which we ensure in our promotion material and at the beginning of the film – using text to set out the issues and context.6 When we premiered in Port-au-Prince, space was given to frustration and anger at the on-going political instability in the country; in Toronto, the Haitian diaspora shared the hurt and pain of the participants; at Harvard, the chair asked for a moment of reflection after the screening followed by a sharing of personal responses from the audience before the panel of experts began their discussion – in order not to lose the sense of community engagement.

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