Dix, Benjamin and Kaur, Raminder (2019) Drawing-writing culture: the truth-fiction spectrum of an ethno-graphic novel on the Sri Lankan civil war and migration. Visual Anthropology Review, 35 (1). pp. 76-111. ISSN 1058-7187

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Abstract

With our focus on an “ethno‐graphic novel” on the Sri Lankan civil war and the forcible displacement and migration of Tamil survivors, we make two main propositions while reflecting on the “graphic narrative turn” that has emerged in anthropology in recent years. First, we inscribe drawing into the “writing of cultures” where words have held a superior status in ethnographic representations. Rather than seeing drawings as perceptive tools for recording scenes in fieldwork alone, we extend them to a representational practice where they can have a deep, intricate, and equivalent entanglement with words to create synchronous affective intensities among a larger audience. Our second proposal follows Jean Rouch on cinéma vérité to interrogate assumptions about truth and fiction as portrayed by film representations. We propose a theory and practice for graphic novel production that we have termed vérités graphiques (literally, graphic realities). This describes the collaborative and interactive engagement with people's contributions and views, and their distillation and fictionalization through the ethno‐graphic form. We diverge from cinéma vérité, however, by highlighting a truth‐fiction spectrum that further challenges the presumed objectivity of what is seen, experienced, co‐created, and revealed.

Item Type:	Article
Schools and Departments:	School of Global Studies > Anthropology School of Global Studies > International Development
Research Centres and Groups:	Sussex Centre for Cultural Studies
Depositing User:	Sharon Krummel
Date Deposited:	19 Oct 2018 12:11
Last Modified:	21 Jan 2021 15:14
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/79591

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