Film Studies

Abstract:

This chapter offers three perspectives on questions of methodology raised by film and related media. Section ‘Evolutions in Film Analysis: Visualizing Indigenous Erotic Sovereignty’ discusses political sovereignty, visual sovereignty, and feminist and two-spirit gender and erotic sovereignty. Section ‘Theorizing ‘African’ ‘Indigenous’ Film: A Post-Categorical Methodology’ considers a post-categorical method of theorizing which begins with the film itself, rather than with pre-existent, post-colonial, and problematic categories such as ‘African’ and ‘Indigenous’. The aim is for researchers to take their theoretical cues from the work of art, engaging in a deconstructive, post-structural, and de-centralized analysis in which theory is allowed to perpetually create and recreate itself as data changes. Section ‘Teaching Indigenous Religions and Films’ comprises a pedagogical reflection on Indigenous religion and film methodologies, attending to key points raised in the first two sections, namely the evolution of Indigenous film analysis and the complex issues involved with categories such as ‘Indigenous’ and ‘religion’.