Understanding the traditional customary law of the Yi people via ethnographic film – collaborative ethnographic film making process

Abstract

This paper will take the film The Rules from Ancestors as the basis to discuss the “writing” process of ethnographic film, addressing how a contemporary visual ethnography can be realized through the presentation of a film on ethnic culture. The Rules from Ancestors is an anthropological film about the Traditional Customary Law of the Yi people in China, produced by the author of this paper in 2006. As an integrated anthropological film, its theoretical basis is the “holism” and “legal pluralism” of legal anthropology, and its stories are narrated through objective observation and interactive collaboration. The author attempted to construct an “intermediary context” within the film’s narrative structure. The aim was to establish an experimental visual ethnographic expression that progresses from “complicity” to “sharing”, to replace the traditional ethnographic mode of expression, localized fieldwork. In so doing, I hoped to explore the possibilities of collaborative knowledge production between the photographer, the subject, and the audience, as well as a non-unidirectional methodology for the flow and transfer of knowledge. Through the exploration described above, this paper attempts to respond to the ongoing debate on the relationship between visual anthropology and written anthropology. Is anthropological film a “self-contained system reaching the same goal with different methods”, or simply an “auxiliary tool” of written anthropology? Based on an ethnographic introspection on anthropological filmmaking practices, this paper will provide explicit support to the former standpoint, as well as a discussion on methodology.