Border Nationalism in Germany: An Ethnographic Film

Here is a twenty four minute ethnographic film that is enjoyable for the way it reveals the messy process of doing ethnography. Discovered on Anthropologi.info, the filmmaker, Johannes Wilm, has his own blog, where he explains why and how he made the film as well as some of the background and terminology necessary to make sense of his interviews.

By coincidence I am visiting my parents right now, when the Danish minority has its annual meeting (in Danish: “Årsmøde”). It lasted for three days, and I was back in Oslo the last day, so I decided to take my sister and shoot a little video of one of the celebrations in a tiny little village called “Ascheffel” (just far enough away for me not to run into old teachers from kindergarten, etc.).

I’m glad to see anthropologists video blogging like this. While such raw reports from the field are bound to be less polished than what we are used to seeing on television, I enjoyed watching it and I think our readers will too.

P. Kerim Friedman is an assistant professor in the Department of Ethnic Relations and Cultures at National Dong Hwa University, in Taiwan, where he teaches linguistic and visual anthropology. He is co-director of the film Please Don't Beat Me, Sir!, winner of the 2011 Jean Rouch Award from the Society of Visual Anthropology. Follow Kerim on Twitter.