Abstract
The First Conference of Film and Media Analysis at the Faculty of Education of the Free University of Bolzano, Italy, focused on educational film analysis and its relation to common research methods in cultural investigations. Evolving pedagogies provide exciting opportunities for academics and artists to investigate the role of film and media as witness and voice of social reality.
In collaboration with American Research Fellow Stephanie Ryan Cate from the University of Alabama Huntsville (USA) and a filmmaker Ms. Arda Nederveen, Visuele Producties, Netherlands, I realized a film trip to Oman from the 26th of February to the 12th of March 2010 building on the connection established during my work as professor at Dhofar University in 2006. The film “Polygyny in Oman: Forms and Changes of this societal and cultural marital arrangement” was being shot in the Sultanate of Oman in February/March of 2011 and premiered during the conference. The intent behind the film was to offer a glimpse into daily life in the Sultanate for those people living in polygynous marriages or families in order to allow people to see the similarities amongst all forms of families presented and also to demystify what in the West is an uncommon marital form. This film addresses this lack by explaining in intimate and vulnerable language some of the divergent cultural practices which can antagonize and alienate European neighbors and colleagues.