Witnessing Marginal Identities

Chair: Joe Hickinbottom

“Heteroglossic discourse: Articulating Roma narratives on screen” by Tamsin Graves

Focusing on two key films from the so-called ‘Gypsy trilogy’ by Tony Gatlif; Latcho Drom (1993) and Gadjo Dilo (1997), this paper will seek to identify the ways in which the marginalised and displaced subject is constructed through voice, music and discourse.

Applying the Bakhtinian concept of heteroglossia (many-languagedness) allows for a nuanced understanding of the multiple voices and histories that vie for attention within the text. Robert Stam states that ‘Bakhtin promotes the subversive use of language by those who otherwise lack social power’ . Evidently, this method of analysis allows for close attention to be placed on the marginality of the subject, and functions as a way of ‘restoring voice to the voiceless’.

As a francophone filmmaker of Adalucian Gypsy and Algerian origins, Gatlif is ideally placed to engage with the issues of representation surrounding marginalised communities. My paper offers a crucial analysis of the act of rendering visible (or audible) the personal and collective cultures and histories of marginalised and displaced communities on screen, and seeks to complicate our understanding of the Other by drawing out voices that otherwise remain latent within the film text.

“Promoting the Status Quo or Community Empowerment?: Theatre for Development and Politics of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) in Uganda” by Keneth Bamuturaki

The relationship between Theatre for Development (TfD) and political establishments has always been an adversarial one. This is because, in most cases, effective TfD practice will always threaten the status quo. This paper shall discuss the relationship between theatre for development and politics of the National resistance movement, the party currently reigning in Uganda. Grounded in the understanding of effective TfD practice as a cultural action for freedom, the paper shall examine selected theatre experiences in order to ascertain the extent to which they provided opportunities for effective community empowerment. As the title reveals, the paper seeks to determine whether TfD has been used to promote the status quo instead of being put to the service of effective community empowerment.

“Once Upon a Time in Colonial Korea” by Jake Bevan

My paper investigates the ways in which a number of films produced in the past decade represent Korea’s colonial past. In contrast to a focus on the destructive and traumatic aspects of the era, this project considers the ways in which a number of modern films have constructed a conflicted view of the period. Films such as Blue Swallow (Yoon Jong-Chan, 2005), Modern Boy (Jung Ji-woo, 2008) and Once Upon A Time In Corea (Jeong Yong-ki, 2008) contrast despair over the loss of national sovereignty with an exuberance for the spectacles of modernity which accompanied the Japanese occupation. By situating their narratives upon the lives of individuals in this period, as opposed to the political master narratives, these three filmmakers focus on the slippage of identity between the positions of the coloniser and the colonised required of citizens of the time, thus challenging rigid and binary definitions of national identity.

I also explore how these films have emerged amongst a growing number of others looking back towards the colonial period. In considering the state of Korean-Japanese relations at the times of these films’ releases, I look at the ways in which the cultural and political spheres interact, moving beyond a traditionally hierarchical approach. In short, suggesting that cinema is influenced by the political landscape, and in turn affects this very same landscape in a cyclical relationship.