First Person Ethnographic Filmmaking As Sociological Method: Reflections on Making a Documentary about Identity, Homeland and Poverty in Rural China

There are many text-based sociological and economic studies about poverty in Rural China. However, in the pursuit of analytical clarity, they often occlude other forms of knowledge regarding the lived realities in rural China. Documentary filmmaking offers the possibility of exploring aspects of knowledge of what it is like to live in rural China that is difficult through conventional text-based sociological research. This insight about the possibilities of documentary filmmaking was the point of departure for my PhD by Film Practice. My aim was to generate knowledge about life in rural China that communicated to audiences a more visceral, emotional way into the subject matter rather than a closed definitive analytical approach. I spent 9 years filming one economically poor village – Jiaoxing village, where my family originally came from. I chose this village due to ease of access and familiarity. I did not anticipate that this journey back to my ancestral village would also become a process of questioning my own identity as a Chinese citizen studying in the UK. My ethnographic exploration of the lived experiences of poor villagers in China also became an exploration of self, identity and the idea of belonging.

Methodologically speaking, the open-ended nature of my film practice PhD took me on a journey that led me to question not only what poverty means and feels like to rural villagers in China but also to explore my identity on the margins in both countries (China and the UK). In adopting filmmaking as my methodological approach, this enabled a shift from traditional ethnography to first person (visual) ethnography, which yielded significant sociological insight into the lives of villagers and to my connection to the village. In this presentation, I will outline the value of documentary filmmaking as a form of sociological enquiry.