[csaa-forum] Keyan Tomaselli talk on work with San Bushmen - Murdoch 6 Nov

[Mark Gibson]

Stories to Tell, Stories to Sell: Hidden Transcripts, Negotiating Texts

Keyan Tomaselli
University of Natal

Monday 6 November, 11.00am
EH2.21, Murdoch University




The paper develops an argument for Œreverse cultural studies¹, discussing
problems in fieldwork, academic access and research accountability. It
reflexively analyses tensions and contradictions set in motion by writing on
observer-observed relations within both San Bushmen communities themselves
and between myself and development and other agencies working in one of
these areas. Questions addressed relate to ownership of information, the
relationship between the local/particular and the national/policy, and on
how to ensure campfire dissemination/involvement of, and popular access to,
the written product by a-literate and non-English-speaking communities.


Keyan G Tomaselli is Senior Professor, School of Literary Studies, Media and
Creative Arts at the University of Natal at Durban. He is author of Where
Global Contradictions are Sharpest: Research Stories from the Kalahari
(Rozenberg, 2005), Writing in the San/d (Altamira, forthcoming), and
Appropriating Images:  The Semiotics of Visual Representation (Intervention,
1999).  This presentation is based on his 12 year Kalahari San field
research project, "The Semotics of the Encounter", in which he and his
students are researching issues of participatory methodology, development
communication, cultural tourism, representation and community-Lodge
partnerships.  Tomaselli is editor of Critical Arts:  a Journal of
South-North Cultural and Media Studies.  His other books include
Encountering Modernity:  20th Century South African Cinema (Rozenbeg, 2006)
and he was series editer of Critical Studies in African Media and Culture
(International Academic Publishers). He is a Fellow of the University of
KwaZulu-Natal and also of the International Communicological Institute.
Tomaselli is in Australia at the invitation of the Film and History
Conference where he is delivering a keynote address entitled, "Indigenous
Film Making:  From Amateur Adventurism to Advocacy - John Marshall".
Tomaselli has consulted for a variety of state bodies:  he was media expert
on the Minister of Health Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS, and drew up a
national media and education campaign applied in the late 1990s;  he
co-wrote the Film White Paper, and is a founder member of the KwaZulu-Natal
Film Commission.  He has consulted for UNESCO, UNDP, the Durban Metro, the
National Research Foundation and the Human Sciences Research Council.
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