Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology
Film-making for Fieldwork: a practical short course
Please note: all places on this course have now been taken. Those who would like to be offered a place in the event of a cancellation may add their names to a list of 'reserves' for 2009. In view of the strong demand, we are exploring the possibility of offering the course again at the same time next year, 2010.
The Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology was founded in 1987 and has established an international reputation for its practice-based approach to teaching in visual anthropology. In recent years, the Centre has been developing a range of interests that go beyond the purely visual aspects of social life. It was in order to promote research into the full range of these interests that EIDOS was set up. The name of this research unit refers to the Greek term which combines references to 'sight' and 'idea'. But EIDOS is also an acronmyn standing for 'Ethnography, Images, Documents, Objects, Sounds, Senses'. Whereas the GCVA has largely been concerned with teaching, EIDOS will act as a vehicle for both practice-based and text-based research activities.
Teaching
The Granada Centre forms part of the Social Anthropology Discipline Area at the University of Manchester and plays a central role in the delivery of a number of postgraduate programmes in visual anthropology. Its flagship one-year taught Master’s programme, the MA in Visual Anthropology, now has two pathways, Ethnographic Documentary, which gives to particular emphasis to practical film-making and Film and Sensory Media, which also includes practical film-making, but in the second semester broadens out to include photography and acoustic ethnography. For further details and application procedures for the MA, please click on the Taught courses Navigation bar.
The Centre also contributes to the delivery of three research degrees, the MPhil in Ethnographic Documentary (one year), the MPhil in Visual Anthropology (one year) and the PhD in Social Anthropology with Visual Media (3-4 years). All these programmes involve fieldwork incorporating some element of film-making or other practical projects in image-making or sound-recording.
For further details and application procedures, click on the Research degrees navigation bar
Research
Individual members of the academic staff of the Granada Centre are actively engaged in their own research projects. But with the launching of EIDOS, the intention is to give this more of a collective focus. At the heart of EIDOS will be a collection of masterworks of ethnographic documentary cinema. But EIDOS will also serve as the vehicle for the production and distribution of ethnographic documentaries made in conjunction with established anthropologists who will be attached to EIDOS through a system of Visiting Fellowships.
For further details about the activities of EIDOS please click on the navigation bar on the left.
Networks
The Granada Centre is at the heart of a series of networks, both locally and internationally. This work will now be further developed in conjunction with EIDOS.
It plays a leading role in the international network of visual anthropology. On three occasions (1990, 1992 and 2007), it has acted as the host of the International Ethnographic Film Festival of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Granada Centre staff have given seminars and film-screenings or run workshops all over the world and have advised in the established of similar Centres both in China and Brazil.
Until recently, the Centre received sponsorship from Granada Television, a once-regional production company that has now become part of the largest commercial broadcast company in the UK, ITV. Although this sponsorship has now ceased, relations with ITV Granada remain close. The Centre has also built many other links with the television industry, particularly the independent sector that services Channel 4, BBC2 and BBC4.
At a more local level, the Granada Centre has hosted the Forman Lecture, given on an (almost) annual basis since 1988 by a distinguished film-maker working in anthropology or a related field of social documentary. Initially sponsored by Granada Television, the lecture has drawn a large local audience. EIDOS now plans to take over this event.
In a more practical sense, the Centre has collaborated in a number of participatory projects involving the making of films with local communities in Manchester.
