Resistance in Indian Documentary FilmAesthetics, Culture and Practice

Examines modes of resistance within contemporary Indian documentary culture and films

• Identifies and examines a range of texts, sites and practices that are central to documentary culture and study, in effect mapping the field of documentary culture in contemporary India
• Expands the conceptualisation of documentary resistance in a context organised by specific political and historical factors e.g., caste, religion, colonisation, distinct from Western or Eurocentric contexts of cultural production
• Not limited to dominant definitions of ‘political’ in documentary, uses alternative ways of defining politics through a wider consideration of textual and extra textual factors

While sizable literature exists on the themes, issues and voices that constitute resistance in historical Indian documentary cinema, less is known about contemporary modes of resistance in Indian documentary.
This volume identifies languages and practices of resistance constructed by Indian documentary practitioners located in contemporary global and national contexts organised by majoritarian political discourse, rising social inequalities, tightening media regulatory mechanisms and variable access to digital technologies. Extending its analytical lens beyond textual politics, the volume offers an original conceptualisation of how we identify, mobilise, and recuperate acts of resistance as both represented in documentary and those represented by the organisation of documentary practice e.g., documentary exhibition, curation, education, and criticism.
Combining scholarly essays and practitioner writing, the volume offers a timely reconsideration of how central debates and issues of power and representation in documentary may be studied as objects of analysis and as subjective accounts of individual experience, decisions, and actions relating to documentary aesthetics and practice.