Collaborative film-making as process, method and text in mental health research

Cultural Geographies

Volumn 14, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 114-138

  Parr, Hester ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF DUNDEE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Film making; Mental health; Participative social geographies; Rural discipline

Indexed keywords

FILM; MENTAL HEALTH; METHODOLOGY; RESEARCH WORK; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; VIDEOGRAPHY;

EID: 33846479430     PISSN: 14744740     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1474474007072822     Document Type: Article

References (126)

1. The poem was read out in an interview by participant A and then transcribed in such a way as to reflect a Dundee accent. Permission to use the poem was given verbally in the interview, but the written structure of the poem is my interpretation of the spoken version.
2. S. Kindon, 'Participatory video in geographic research: a feminist practice of looking?', Area 35 (2003), pp. 142-53. The terms 'film' and 'video' are used interchangeably in this paper, although there are technical and cultural distinctions between these art forms. Kindon discusses 'video', whereas LUNA, the arts and mental health group that features in this paper, identify their practice as filmmakers and their products as films, partly because they have been reproduced and shown in a variety of mediums, including in a cinema context.
3. Ibid., p. 143.
4. S. Pink, Doing visual ethnography (London, Sage, 2001).
5. Kindon, 'Participatory video', p. 144.
6. R. Pain, 'Social geography: participatory research', Progress in human geography 28 (2004), pp. 5-12,
7. H. Parr, 'Mental health, the body and ethnography', Area 30 (1998), pp. 28-37;
8. H. Parr, 'The politics of methodology in "post-medical geography": mental health research and the interview; Health and place 4 (1998); pp. 341-53;
9. H. Parr, 'Negotiating access in different ethnographic contexts and building geographical knowledges', in C. Dwyer and M. Limb, eds, Qualitative methodologies for geographers (London, Arnold, 2002), pp. 165-85;
10. H. Parr, 'Ethnographic fieldwork: feeling, reading and making the body in space', Geographical review 91 (2001), pp. 158-67.
11. The use of 'text' throughout the paper refers primarily to the process of film-making itself (an ethnographic process-as-text) but also to the finished art-object: 'the film'. The former is the key focus for this paper, and the content of the film as a representational text is not discussed. The paper does make some comments about the dissemination of the film via a cinema showing which could be argued to privilege the latter meaning of the term 'text' as described above. To clarify, however, any comments about the immediate 'audiencing' of the film in the context of a single cinema showing is argued to be part of a process of filmmaking itself, rather than relating to broader questions of the textual representation of the film content perse. The film-makers featured in this paper certainly saw the cinema showing as a final part of the making process.
12. H. Parr, 'The arts and mental health' (unpublished report, 2005);
13. H. Parr, 'Mental health, the arts and belonging', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 31 (2006) pp. 150-66;
14. Arts Agency, 'Arts, health and healing for inner West End Newcastle' (Newcastle, West End Resource Centre Trust, 1996);
15. J.H. Baron,'Art in hospitals', Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of London 29 (1995), pp. 131-44;
16. Centre for Arts and Humanities in Health and Medicine (CAHHM), Arts and adult mental health literature review (Durham, University of Durham, 2003);
17. S. Hogan, Healing arts: the history of art therapy (London, Jessica Kingsley, 2001);
18. D.R. Johnson, 'on the therapeutic action of creative arts therapies: the psychodynamic model', Arts in psychotherapy 25 (2001), pp. 85-99;
19. M. Miles, 'Art in hospitals: does it work?', Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 87 (1994), pp. 161-63.
20. Parr, 'Mental health, body, ethnography';
21. Parr, 'Politics of methodology';
22. Parr 'Negotiating access';
23. Parr, 'Ethnographic fieldwork';
24. H. Parr, 'Delusional geographies: the experiential worlds of people during madness and illness', Environment and planning D: society and space 17 (1999), pp. 673-90.
25. H. Wolcott, The art of fieldwork (Walnut Creek, CA, AltaMira Press, 1995).
26. This quotation is taken from the website of the Participatory Geographies Working Group (PyGyWG) of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers). See http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/research/pygywebsite/about.html (accessed Aug. 2006).
27. N. Wood and S. Smith, 'Instrumental routes to emotional geographies', Social and cultural geography 5 (2004), pp. 533-48.
28. C. Nash, 'Performativity in practice: some recent work in cultural geography', Progress in human geography 24 (2000), pp. 653-4.
29. D. McCormack, 'Diagramming practice and performance', Environment and planning D: society and space 11 (2004), pp. 119-47.
30. G. Rose, 'Spatialities of "community", power and change: the imagined geographies of community arts projects', Cultural studies 11 (1997), pp. 1-16.
31. M. Marshy, 'Performing art and identities: artists of Palestinian origin in Canada', in L. Bondi et al., eds, Subjectivities, knowledges and feminist geographies (Oxford, Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), pp. 123-39.
32. Pain, 'Social geography', pp. 4-5.
33. G. Pratt and E. Kirby, 'Performing nursing: the BC Nurses Union Theatre Project', Acme: an international e-journal for critical human geographies 2 (2003), pp. 14-32.
34. C. Bailey, I. Convery, M. Mort and J. Baxter, 'Different public health geographies of the foot and mouth disease epidemic: citizen versus professional epidemiology' (unpublished paper, 2004);
35. D.P. Tolia-Kelly, 'Mediations in memory/history: the art of making environmental memories tangible on canvas' (unpublished paper, 2006).
36. D. Mattingly, 'Place, teenagers and representations: lessons from a community theatre project', Social and cultural geography 2 (2001), pp. 445- 59.
37. J. Leavitt, T. Lingafleter and C. Morello, 'Through their eyes: young girls look at their Los Angeles neighbourhood', in R. Ainley, ed., New frontiers of space, bodies and gender (London, Routledge, 1998), pp. 76-87;
38. A. McIntyre, 'Through the eyes of women: photovoice and participatory research as tools for reimaginging place', Gender place and culture 10 (2003), pp. 47-66.
39. D. McCormack, 'Drawing out the lines of the event', Cultural geographies 11 (2004), pp. 211-20.
40. Kindon, 'Participatory video'.
41. V. Chouinard, 'Getting ethical: for inclusive and engaged geographies of disability', Ethics, place and environment 3 (2000), pp. 70-80;
42. R. Kitchin, 'Morals and ethics in geographical studies of disability', in J.D. Proctor and D.M. Smith, eds, Geography and ethics:journeys in a moral terrain (London, Routledge, 1999), pp. 223-36.
43. D. Price and L. Barron, 'Developing independence: the experience of lawnmowers theatre company', Disability and society 14 (1999), pp. 819-29.
44. P. Crawford and D. Turton, Film as ethnography (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1992);
45. J.R. Rollwagen, Anthropological filmmaking (New York, Harwood, 1988).
46. H. Lomax and N. Casey, 'Recording social life: reflexivity and video methodology', Sociological research online 3 (1998), U3-U32.
47. Pink, Visual ethnography, p. 78.
48. G. Rose, Visual methodologies: an introduction to the interpretation of visual materials (London, Sage, 2001).
49. Pink, Visual ethnography, p. 79.
50. G. Rose, 'On the need to ask "how, exactly, is geography 'visual?", Antipode 35 (2003), pp. 212-21.
51. E. Laurier and C. Philo, 'Natural problems of naturalistic video data', in H. Knoblauch, J. Rabb, H.G. Soeffner and B, Schnettler, eds, Video-analysis methodology and methods: qualitative audiovisual data in sociology (Oxford, Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
52. Kindon, 'Participatory video'.
53. See also Pain, 'Social geography', p. 6.
54. Kindon, 'Participatory video'.
55. It should be noted that the film-making process was not straightforwardly a commission or a collaboration at any particular stage, but moved towards being a more collaborative endeavour towards the end of the working process. Although all people who contributed to the film are collaborators in one sense, the focus in this paper is on LUNA and my collaborations with them as film-makers. In writing this paper, I am exerting a particular interpretive authority and operating (again) largely outside our collaborative relationship space as I produce work related to the film in my usual academic role. I have discussed the content of this paper with LUNA members, but they have not read and commented on it formally.
56. Notions of 'expert' and 'expertise' are complicated in this paper. Neither I nor LUNA would claim the label of 'expert' in our respective fields of usual practice, and so this term is not one most appropriate to use here. Nonetheless, certain vague perceptions of expertise initially surrounded both our respective roles as 'university researcher and lecturer' and 'filmmaker'. LUNA's perception of my own expertise was ill-defined, but related to how I might represent and embody particular professional forms of knowledge, rather than simply that I knew more about mental health issues per se (clearly I did not). My expertise in mental health issues was therefore not taken as given, because, as is the case with many organizations led by people with mental health problems, expertise in this context is understood as relating to experience of the mental health 'system'. At the point of initial contact, LUNA did not know if I had experience of being a mental health service user, and this may also have had implications for their understanding of my expertise in this regard. From the beginning LUNA disowned the label of 'experts', persistently using terms like 'scruffy' and 'unprofessional' to signal their reluctance to assume positions of authority with regards to film-making. Here, there is clearly a risk of slippage between expert and 'professional' practice, but overall these terms are referenced to indicate that both LUNA and I were seeking to disrupt any assumptions about perceived authority in order to be open to the experience of working together. In the end, our joint project made us both more experienced in negotiating collaborative film-making, but not expert. The main text also draws attention to questions of authority and its negotiation at different points in the making of the film. Authority is shown to be an unstable state that is not easily embodied, and that can also be disrupted in terms of collaborative practice based on joint experience.
57. My relationship with LUNA stretches over three years, and further collaborative activities and action-research funding applications have been planned which are oriented towards facilitating and researching a range of creative arts activities for wellbeing and recovery from mental health problems.
58. This programme of research was funded through an ESRC Research Fellowship held by the author between 2004 and 2007, entitled 'Embodied geographies of inclusion: placing difference' (ESRC award reference RES-000-27-0043).
59. Pink, Visual ethnography, p. 40.
60. The projects are 'The Walled Garden, Murray Royal Psychiatric Hospital, Perth', 'The Coach House Trust, Glasgow', 'The Trongate Studios, Glasgow' and 'Art Angel, Dundee'.
61. LUNA member A1 (2005). A, B, C relate to different individual members of LUNA. 1, 2, 3 refer to the different interviews that were conducted as part of the process at different stages of the film-making process.
62. LUNA member B1 (2005).
63. The numbers of people involved in this collaboration were relatively small, although this was partly related to the mental health of other LUNA members at the time of filming and the perceived demands of a multi-site filming project with a university academic.
64. Pink, Visual ethnograpby.
65. Kindon, 'Participatory video'.
66. LUNA member B1 (2005).
67. LUNA members constantly asserted the need for film-making practice to be understood as 'fun', and argued that people with mental health problems should be expected and allowed to participate in 'fun', rather than always or necessarily engaging in more serious and politicized film-making.
68. Pain,'Social geography', p. 3.
69. M. Kesby, 'Spatialising participatory approaches: geography's contribution to a mature debate' (unpublished paper, n.d.).
70. G. Mohan, 'Beyond participation: strategies for deeper empowerment', in B. Cooke and U. Kothari, eds, Participation: the new tyranny? (London, Zed, 2001), pp. 153-67.
71. This refers to LUNA's efforts to engage with other people with mental health problems in ways that articulate participants' concerns. This work is informal and not related to professionalized understandings of 'relationship work'; rather, it refers to sustained efforts to understand how particular individuals might best relate to film-making and what kind of films they feel comfortable making.
72. LUNA member B3 (2005).
73. LUNA member B2 (2005).
74. Kindon, 'Participatory video', p. 149.
75. LUNA member B3 (2005).
76. LUNA member B2 (2005).
77. LUNA member C1 (2005).
78. Pink Visual ethnography, pp. 80-81.
79. LUNA member B2 (2005).
80. LUNA member A3 (2005).
81. Ibid.
82. LUNA member B1 (2005).
83. Pink, Visual ethnography, p. 87.
84. LUNA member CI (2005).
85. LUNA member B3 (2005).
86. LUNA member Al (2005, emphasis added).
87. E. Wenger, Communities of practice (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998).
88. Pink, Visual ethnograpby, p. 138.
89. LUNA member B3 (2005).
90. LUNA bring in professional editors to help organize footage and create their films. Different members have different levels of input into this process, but none has enough technical expertise to take on the whole editing process. For Recovering lives, our eight-hour working days were more demanding than is usual for LUNA, and the physical and emotional strain on all participants was noticeable and frequently discussed. Repetitively watching and co-editing particular frames produced both profound boredom and hysterical laughter, making the translation between cut footage and (final) film footage a fascinating iterative process that connected us in social and embodied ways.
91. S. Gilman, Seeing the insane (New York, Wiley, 1982).
92. C. Knowles, Bedlam on the streets (London, Routledge, 2000).
93. LUNA member B2 (2005).
94. Knowles, Bedlam, pp. 18-19.
95. The specific references to and discussions of this working politics of representation are not fully worked through here, as this paper is primarily about film-making as a method, rather than one which seeks to self-critique the content of the film Recovering lives. Having said this, it should be acknowledged that the paper discusses what Laurier (pers. comm.) has called 'the content-ing' of the film.
96. Although recognizing the value of film for empowering people with mental health problems, this particular crew member also feared being labelled as a troublemaker by health practitioners who might see self-help through arts participation as a dangerous activity and an anti-medical practice. This was simultaneously something that was considered both desirable but also risky, and hence public disclosure via film-making practice was a difficult process in which to engage.
97. LUNA member B3 (2005).
98. See Parr, Arts';
99. Parr, 'Mental health, arts, belonging'. There is a sense in which the film-makers and I collaborated in producing particularly positive representations of the projects involved, even encouraging particular activities to take place on film-making days so as to facilitate the construction of a (more) powerful visual text about the benefits of community mental health work. Although such practices are common in all sorts of video and film-making genres, the fact that this film was being co-funded and distributed by policymakers with considerable power and resources gave extra impetus to this process. In this sense my more usual academic practice of producing critical readings of community mental health work were superseded by the need for clear, policy-friendly messages about 'what works' in community mental health. Here the film and its content reflected some core concerns of LUNA, but also reflected my own ambitions for more participatory working practices that ensure tangible outcomes for collaborators.
100. LUNA member, editing notes, May 2005.
101. In agreeing to include my voice-over and textual points as reference to the research that lies behind the film, my authorial authority is referenced. For LUNA this authority has different implications: it is both welcomed as a device for validating the voices of experience and also resented, as it implies that the voices on the film do not count as 'proper' evidence for claims about the benefits of arts and gardening for mental health (see also comments in main text on distribution of the film). Using my own voice as the voice-over grants me an authority over the film content that I was seeking to disrupt in the process of collaboration. However, both LUNA and I agreed that, given the joint ambition to be effective in influencing policymakers on mental health issues, the strategic essentialism implied by this positioning was necessary.
102. LUNA member B3 (2005).
103. I. Barbash and L. Taylor, Cross-cultural filmmaking: a handbook for making documentary and ethnographic films and video (London, University of California Press, 1997), p. 74.
104. I understand 'empowerment' here to denote broad processes of increasing personal, interpersonal and political power that enable individuals or collectives to improve their life situation. As Kesby argues, however, empowerment is a contingent and iterative process, one that can only be fully understood through an analysis of participatory power which is spatially conceived and embedded. See Kesby, 'Spatialising'. Co-empowerment emphasizes that outcomes of any participatory working are not unidirectional between connected actors.
105. The audiences for LUNA events are usually interested collaborators, other mental health practitioners and project representatives, family members and other users of mental health services. The numbers in attendance at public events are usually small, and this is partly related to limited advertisement and different levels of public interest in the arts and mental health.
106. Kesby, 'Spatialising'.
107. LUNA member B3 (2005).
108. LUNA member C2 (2005).
109. There were other sorts of benefits for LUNA in terms of my involvement with them, and they discussed at various points the value of learning different organizational skills that might mean rethinking their approach to some film projects, reflecting my initial more structured steps, although they were also keen to stress that working organically with participants and ideas was of key importance. Since completing the film, Art Angel, the host organization for LUNA, has adopted semi-structured interviewing as part of its annual evaluation strategy for the project. We have also established training workshops for project workers to adopt this research method in order to enable sustainable evaluation beyond my immediate involvement. In this way, our shifting roles as beginning film-makers and beginning researchers can be traced through our collaboration, but have a resonance beyond the immediacy of this particular film project.
110. See also Parr, 'Mental health, arts, belonging'.
111. LUNA member A3 (2005).
112. LUNA member B3 (2005).
113. LUNA member C3 (2005).
114. LUNA member C1 (2005).
115. Pink, Visual ethnography, p. 45.
116. B. Engelbrecht, 'For whom do we produce?', in P.I. Crawford and S.B. Hafsteinsson, eds, The construction of the viewer (Aarhus, Intervention Press, 1996), pp. 31-57.
117. As I note elsewhere, creative work is not always straightforwardly mentally 'healthy' and can involve difficult, conflictual and painful processes which challenge senses of self. See Parr, 'Arts'.
118. L. Bondi, 'The place of emotions in research: from partitioning emotion and reason to the emotional dynamics of research relationships', in J. Davidson, L. Bondi and M. Smith, eds, Emotional geographies (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2005), pp. 231-46.
119. Kesby, 'Spatialising'.
120. R. Kitchin and R. Wilton, 'Disability activism and the politics of scale', Canadian geographer 47 (2003), p. 113.
121. LUNA member B3 (2005).
122. LUNA member C3 (2005).
123. Kindon, 'Participatory video', p. 149.
124. G. Davies, 'Narrating the Natural History Unit: institutional orderings and spatial strategies', Geoforum 31 (2000), pp. 539-51.
125. C. Philo and H. Parr, 'Institutional geographies: introductory remarks', Geoforum 31 (2000), p. 20.
126. G. Pratt, Working feminism (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2004), p. 174.