Embodied reflexivity: Sharing and transformation in teaching visual anthropology

The integration of the content and critical reflection of the production of documentaries into teaching visual anthropology can enhance and transform students’ learning as well as their own video productions. Using the three positions of spectator, co-creator and protagonist in relation to video production in the community of Ängsbacka in Sweden I reflect on the relationship between sharing and embodiment and its value in teaching. Encouraging this pedagogical approach, I suggest it offers transformative opportunities for students to experience reflexivity, share insights and work collaboratively in ways that inform their projects and from which they can act with greater confidence and glean significant insights through making a short anthropological documentary. In conclusion, if embodiment is the ‘existential basis of self’, then speaking and acting from embodied experience can be regarded as a methodology and vital mode of communication.