Sensory Ethnography, Filmmaking, the Archive, and West Africa: Mapping the Field

Spring 2015 Grant Recipient

Graduate Student

Bremen Donovan (Anthropology) I am a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology (socio-cultural subfield) with a formal and practiced background in film. My dissertation research focuses on youth experience in West Africa and deals methodologically with sensory ethnography in relation to contemporary practices of filmmaking and archive. With the CGII graduate student research grant, I will spend the summer of 2015 in France, conducting archival research in Paris at collections including the Cinémathèque Afrique at the Institut Français, the Archives de la Planète at the Fondation Albert-Kahn, and the Cinémathèque Française. I will also meet personally with scholars and practitioners to explore theoretical and methodological questions related to my dissertation project.