Seeing Politics by Harman Sophie;

Author:Harman, Sophie;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Published: 2019-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

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Gatekeeping and Patronage in the Politics We See

The politics of seeing is about what stops us from seeing and how film and film production help us see hidden and informal politics. This politics of seeing is most starkly exemplified at the level of the state, primarily with regard to how states engage in gatekeeping practices to control the stories that are told and the way in which women such as Pili are seen. However, film production does more than this; film as method opens up new ways of seeing the working practices of the state and how gatekeeping and patronage manifest at every level of society. In over ten years of working in Tanzania as a researcher and a trustee of an NGO I was never bribed by a co-worker, extorted by local immigration officials, asked for money, or detained at an airport by police. In the production of Pili all these things happened. This chapter details these events and situates them within the very specific context of film production. Film production reveals new insights on state behaviour that is born of a combination of the need to control the stories that are told and the way the state is seen, and the potential for personal, group, and state material gain. As chapters 1, 2, and 3 suggested, film as method has an aesthetic of wealth and the potential for audience and rupture; state and individual actors are aware of this and use formal and informal practices to negate and benefit from the process. Combined, these factors produce an acute form of state gatekeeping and patronage that can be seen and is reproduced at every level of society.

The intent of this chapter is to explore the role of states in preventing audiences from seeing women such as Pili and the way in which the process of film production enriches the understanding of the gatekeeping practices within the state, by seeing the informal and embedded nature of such practices at every level of society. In so doing, the chapter develops the themes of the previous chapter with regard to what stops us from seeing politics, the role of temporality and agency in the co-production process, and how film as method reveals new insights on traditional questions in IR. The chapter pursues this intent by first outlining the debates over gatekeeping and patronage politics and the way in which these concepts relate to the state in Africa in general, and Tanzania in particular. It then outlines the government agencies and structures that represent the gate, controlling the films and Tanzanian politics that are seen. The third section of the chapter critically examines how I navigated the gate to make Pili and how such gatekeeping exacerbated the cyclical nature of gatekeeping and the precariousness, risk, and distrust it involved. This section reflects on how patronage and gatekeeping work in practice and how the outsider is not distinct but is embedded in the practices of going around the gate. Finally, the chapter concludes with

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