A ‘journey in feminist theory together’: The Doing Feminist Theory Through Digital Video project

Digital storytelling

Digital storytelling is an art process developed by the Centre for Digital Storytelling in San Francisco in the 1990s, through which participants create a short film called a ‘digital story’ that is anchored by first-person autobiographical narrative and illustrated by photographs, still images and video clips using computer software like iMovie or Adobe Premiere. All elements of a digital story are created in the space of an intensive workshop, which involves group discussions and storytelling involving all facilitators and participants, individual work on script writing and image creation, one-on-one work with a facilitator and participant, and group sessions to learn about the editing software, as well as informal discussions between participants and facilitators. At the end of the workshop, all participants and facilitators watch their digital stories together.

As a method of implicated scholarship, defined by Cambre and Fletcher as ‘a humanistic, reflexive, and politically conscious form of intellectual engagement’ that ‘situates the intellectual as a social actor within any social system’ (2009: 111–112), digital storytelling can help break down the artificial barrier between ‘real world’ and ‘academic world’. It does so by making more transparent the process of knowledge production, not only through textual, but also oral, audio and visual forms of knowledge production. Since students represent their research in a manner that overlays visual, audio and narrative elements, they present ideas that are more complicated and engage with their social worlds as change agents rather than as passive contemplators of change (Fletcher and Cambre, 2009: 111).

Oppermann claims that the commitment to interdisciplinarity in American Studies ends when it comes to teaching, and he argues that the seminar paper might actually work against the principles of his field (2008: 173). In contrast to the seminar paper as conventionally produced, digital storytelling creates a space that can traverse the fissure between what Oppermann calls ‘novice and expert knowledge’ (2008: 180) that students encounter between their position as novice knowledge producers and the expert knowledge producer position of published scholars. The requirement for students to find their voice in a digital story is invaluable in developing student awareness of ‘voice’ as central to the construction of an argument. Being aware of their own voice makes students better equipped to intellectually situate themselves in relation to the ‘voices’ of their classmates, professors and published scholars (Oppermann, 2008: 180).

Participatory video

Video methodologies share a great deal with digital storytelling pedagogies in their shared focus on using technology to facilitate new understandings of human subjectivity that are not possible when working solely with text. Participatory video is commonly framed as a process through which communities use video to create a record of significant issues, from their own perspectives and for their own purposes; later, this record is analysed by researchers (vertical communication) and usually communicated back to the communities (horizontal communication) that produced the videos (Lunch, 2007: 28).

In their critical review of participatory video literatures, Low et al. found that the frequent claim that these methodologies offer a means to locate a truth through empowering individuals and communities was not tempered by a serious consideration of power relations or clear definition of what constitutes participation (2012: 50). Participatory video is largely presented as a ‘manifestation of agency’ (Low et al., 2012: 55), and the constructedness and limits of representation are silenced by the assumption that communities are able to transparently represent themselves through video. As Low et al. point out, those who create videos as a part of participatory action research do not do so in isolation; rather, they are influenced by a range of media genres and conventions, including reality and lifestyle television, documentary filmmaking and, I would add, the video blog or vlog (of which there are numerous examples on YouTube), as well as the expectations of the researcher (Low et al., 2012: 56).

Critical approaches to participatory video dovetail with research on teaching video production to students as a political act and assist in moving insights gleaned from participatory video into pedagogy. If students learn strategies to analyse the relationship between video production and the structuring of reality, they are better equipped to develop a critical eye and possibly less likely to reproduce representational practices rooted in the status quo and invested in maintaining existing relations of power (Higgins, 1991: 18). Higgins advocates an ‘alternative, critical video pedagogy’ (1991: 26) to resist a position of neutrality that cloaks power relations present in mainstream broadcast media (specifically, relations of capitalism, sexism and racism). Through providing students with ongoing opportunities to reveal the ideologies present in mainstream video production evidenced in broadcast media, educators open up a space for resistant and alternative realities that challenge objectivity (Higgins, 1991: 23).

Feminist service learning pedagogy

It is within this theoretical context that Doing Feminist Theory Through Digital Video emerges as a creative service learning assignment. Feminist approaches to service learning resist positivist assumptions that through community service, students will automatically form an analysis of social structures and ideologies (Trethewey, 1999: 179). Scott’s pivotal work on experience guides the approach I take to service learning, which is that an account of an ‘experience’ taken as fact ‘reproduces rather than contests given ideological systems’, missing opportunities to develop a critical reading of an experience as constructed by discourse and history (Scott, 1992: 25). Feminist research and pedagogical approaches are potentially useful contexts in which to situate a service learning assignment. The focuses on relations of privilege and oppression are productive sites to contextualize the service learning relationship, which is central to feminist approaches to service learning pedagogies.

Detailed assignment description

A research and concept exploration phase was the first step of the assignment. Students partnered with a community or university organization, all of which engage in educational or facilitation activities as a part of their work. Once the placements were established, students scheduled a meeting with the contact person at their organization in order to describe the assignment and communicate their learning goals; receive the specific task or tasks required of them and most importantly, agree upon a concept that would ultimately be the focus of the student’s digital video. The organizations and students agreed upon the following concepts: transgender, language, being a settler ally to Indigenous people, power, social construction, sexual harassment and sexual violence. Students did a variety of tasks for organizations, such as developing activities and written materials, attending meetings and event planning. In addition to this work, students researched their organization by reading their policies and procedures, mission statements, web sites, annual reports and pamphlets. Concurrently, students were consulting relevant course materials that addressed their concept and trying to determine how the organization would define that concept. The goal of this phase of the assignment was for students to identify several definitions of the concept that they had chosen and to begin to brainstorm ways of representing those definitions through sound and image.

The second phase of the assignment focused on writing a 350-word script on the student’s concept and planning the video. Students were offered opportunities to share their scripts with each other or with me in office hours, and I pushed them to develop a distinct perspective that could be clearly identified in the narrative. Unlike digital storytelling, students were discouraged from producing a script or video plan that was autobiographical or documentary; instead, students needed to find ways of representing their concept through textual, audio and visual means that did not rely on the illusory claim to facticity that can emerge in such genres. Students were required to produce their own materials, rather than find them through Google Image Search, YouTube and other Internet searches, with the exception of short music clips. As a class, we watched and discussed several digital stories so that students could engage with a range of narrative structures as well as experiments in sound and image. Our discussion focused not only on what elements of video production were employed for various intellectual and emotional effects, but also on what it was that made digital stories different from mainstream moving image like television and film.

In the next phase (shooting and editing), students were instructed to begin this work when they were writing their scripts, so that they were fully prepared to attend workshop sessions in campus computer labs on the editing process. We used iMovie ’09 to produce the videos, a decision predetermined by existing computer and software facilities on campus. I led two video production sessions focused on learning the software and advanced techniques. In the first session, I gave a 1 h tutorial on basic aspects of using the software, such as creating a new project; learning the basic layout of iMovie; importing video, audio and photo into the project; saving the project on an external drive; adding sounds; editing photos and trimming video clips. In the second hour, we discussed how image, video and sound could be used to enhance the script’s emotional and intellectual impact through illustrating concepts in ways that cannot be expressed through language. If students arrived prepared (with their script recorded and images, sound and video collected), they left that session with a basic cut of their video. The second workshop session focused on advanced editing techniques such as including credits, titles and other text; adding transitions between various parts of the video; precise timing of video elements and how to export the video into a portable format that could be played outside of the iMovie application. The second half of the session was devoted to providing individual feedback – both instructor and peer – on the videos and helping students fine-tune their video. The video itself constituted the second service learning component of the assignment, and students gave a copy of the final cut of the video to their organization in a format requested by the organization.

In the final phase of the assignment, students wrote a reflection on the relationship of the creative service learning project to the course as a whole. As Trethewey argues, without a reflexive element that forces students to confront relations of power in their service learning experience, such assignments run the risk of individualizing systemic oppression as ‘failures’ or ‘misfortunes’ of those that an organization serves (1999: 181). In the reflexive phase of Doing Feminist Theory Through Digital Video, students considered how their understanding of their chosen concept changed through working with their organization while reading relevant course material. Students reflected on how definitions of their concept were shaped by various power dynamics – between academic/non-academic language and service providers/service users in particular – as well as their position in these relations of power. This work was supported by in-class discussions as well as the assignment instructions. Their reflections on the creative process and service learning placement were thus anchored in a solid sense of their concept, from their own voice. The second part of the reflection paper concisely summarized their answer to the question, ‘What have I learned about feminist theory?’ To answer this question, students reviewed their video and related materials, as well as their graded work in the course, to determine differences in earlier and later work and to try to analyse how and why their thoughts had travelled in the directions they did. Students focused on a few key insights made in their written and oral work throughout the semester and used their video and concept as a focal point through which to describe those insights. The concept video was thus a central thread that tied together the student’s insights and offered a thematic structure for the paper in its entirety. Students were not required to do additional research to write their reflection paper; rather, they used their own work as the primary source texts subjected to critical analysis.

Demystification of theory

The majority of students commented that the assignment offered them an opportunity to observe and reflect upon theory in motion, and that this was very different from familiar ways of reading and writing about texts. The latter ways of learning theory were described as being separate from reality, to the point that Lola (students chose or were given pseudonyms) said that she would ‘never think of theory in any facet of life [laughs], ever’, because ‘there’s a disjoint between what you’re learning … , and what you’re actually living … .it’s um, like a pedestal way of learning, and there’s no point to it’. According to Dot, the assignment offered a window into her life so that she was able to see how she and her friends ‘practice it [theory] without even knowing’ and that ‘the theories are used every day and we practice them, but we don’t realize it’. Zabrina Cooke echoed these sentiments, stating ‘when you actually do things you are using theory to do them – theory motivates action’, which surprised her since she was initially ‘really skeptical about … how you apply theory in the real world’. Patricia commented that the experience of working with an organization and making a video was useful because unlike class discussion, where it was hard to ‘pinpoint a definition’, the action pieces of the assignment helped her see how the organization worked to ‘change the theory’ and ‘how they affect other people’. Zoe remarked that ‘you talk a lot about them [the concepts], but often times you may not necessarily do them in practice’. Through service, reading the organization’s written materials and producing a video for future use by their organization, the process of how theory emerges and develops became evident to the students, and they came to see theory as grounded in everyday experience, or as Lola put it, ‘bring[ing] an academic bent to life’.

While some students, like Lesley, found that producing a video was more ‘abstract’ than writing a paper, working in a visual and auditory register in addition to the text helped others articulate a definition of their concept that Dot stated was ‘more open-minded’ because it was ‘more about interaction and working with people, unlike research papers where you’re … not working with anyone, you’re just reading’, so that with a paper students are ‘not as shy because it’s someone else’s work that you’re using’. The demystifying process described by students resonates with Fletcher and Cambre’s ‘implicated scholarship’. The student responses to what they learned through producing a video indicate that the binaries between university–community and textual–corporeal were destabilized through self-experimentation. Paralleling Cambre and Fletcher’s observations on the use of visual methods to teach anthropological theory (2009: 126), my own observations of the interview data and videos themselves are that students developed more sophisticated and nuanced theoretical perspectives, realized creative and intellectual possibilities, and located themselves in a way that was less individualistic and more grounded in the social.

Subjectivity and interpretation

My sense after the screening party and reading the reflection papers was that the major success of Doing Feminist Theory Through Digital Video is student development of a clear voice and perspective about a specific concept in feminist theory. The interviews demonstrated that students found the videos very different from papers because they could express their own informed point of view. Madonna said that ‘when you write a paper it’s very much like … this is what the professor expects of me … but it [the assignment] was very much … an opportunity to think about … how you would like to learn and … what would be … an effective way of … portraying those things’. Commenting on how the assignment was different from a paper, Katie Fitch remarked that when writing a paper, students ‘just stat[e their] argument and … comment on what other people think’, but that with this assignment students ‘us[ed] the iMovie software … , connecting images and … symbols … to what you’re saying instead of just actually saying it … you are … giving your own opinion and seeing where that takes you’. She said that this was ‘valuable’ to her and that what was interesting about this assignment was that ‘it’s up to the audience … to interpret … where you’re going … [and] it’s kind of up to you to like point them in that direction’. Patricia also expressed gaining a deeper and longer lasting understanding of the material through this assignment in contrast to research papers where she ‘forget[s] half the things I write, [and then] when [she] re-read[s] them, [she thinks,] “Oh, right, that was my perspective!”’ This was particularly valuable to students like Sunshine, who said that when it came to writing a paper,

I really have a, a real block … ’cause I’m a creative writer. I write songs and poems … but to do the skill of writing papers [is hard], because I never finished grade eight, never finished high school and then [came] right into university,

In spite of university educators’ attempts to teach students to write from their own perspective, the interview responses of my students demonstrate that from their point of view, a university paper is not an appropriate place to express themselves. Instead, their understanding of paper writing is that they must collect the ideas of other scholars and present them in a way that pleases their professor. In his work on using digital storytelling and teaching, Coventry argues that the process of illustrating a point moves students beyond merely describing or summarizing because students are forced to represent their ideas in a way that is outside of text, which they become over-reliant upon and use to mask their own interpretations (2008: 212). Students felt a sense of authority over their concept because they were the only one in the class who put together the placement with the texts in a video. This is an example of what Leon is arguing when she says that ‘the space of the digital story is freed from the expectations and naturalized formality of the essay’ (2008: 221). Lola remarked that it was incredibly valuable to move beyond one view on the concepts (the professor’s view) and instead to see 12 ‘different views on things’. The interview findings support Oppermann’s argument that digital video can help bridge the gap between novice and expert knowledge and offers a space for students to engage with their subject matter as researchers. Indeed, Dot and Zoe commented that the assignment made them feel like they were doing their own research, developing skills to become ‘cultural critics’, the goal Oppermann articulates for American Studies – to which I would add Women’s and Gender Studies.

Embodied emotion

The first two themes describe what went well in the pilot assignment; the interviews demonstrate that the assignment succeeded in showing students that theory is always in process and connected to action, and that it empowered them to develop and articulate their own voice and perspective on a concept in feminist theory that could not have happened through a seminar paper. One of the central reasons for these successes is that students felt emotionally connected and physically present during all stages of the assignment. All of the students expressed that, like Sydney, watching the videos made them ‘a little emotional … ’cause you [had] become … so close with everybody, so that was nice’. Even students like Lesley, who did not consider herself to be a ‘creative person’, said that ‘it was a really cool assignment to get to be a part of … I really enjoyed … having to … think creatively to create this [video]’. Students expressed that the assignment was ‘fun’ (Zoe, Dot, Patricia, Lola, Zabrina Cooke), ‘refreshing’ (Lola), ‘cool’ (Lesley, Zabrina Cooke), ‘valuable’ (Katie Fitch), that they ‘really liked the assignment’ (Madonna) and that it was ‘deeper … you’re not just superficially absorbing the material, it’s your life’ (Jane). The students’ reflections in the interviews suggest that they were ‘theorizing from the flesh’ (Benmayor, 2008: 190), connecting their emotional and intellectual lives through their videos. The interconnectedness between intellectual, embodied and emotional learning produced a kind of learning that students felt was longer lasting and more accurately reflected their perspective.

This holistic learning made students vulnerable, which was a strength of this assignment, but the deeper emotional connection also produced ambivalence in the interview responses, particularly regarding the technology and service learning components. At the beginning of the course and during the editing phase of the assignment, I sensed a great deal of resistance from the students, which was discouraging. While students felt more of an emotional connection to each other and the material through creating their videos, they clearly struggled with the service learning component of the assignment as well as the technical requirements. Students reported that using the software was, at times, ‘stressful’ (Sydney, Madonna, Zoe), that they ‘hated’ using the software and that it was ‘hard’ or ‘difficult’ (Patricia, Lola, Lesley, Katie Fitch). Zabrina Cooke stated that making a video was ‘a lot more nerve-wracking than a paper’, partly because it had a wider audience than the professor, and partly because of the technology. However, according to Zoe, overcoming the technical challenges also meant that ‘We’re all definitely really proud of the videos we made’ cause we thought we couldn’t do it’. Comments like this strengthened my conviction that learning how to make digital video is empowering as a skill even more because it educates students about how representations are formed in mainstream media (Higgins, 1991).

Three students reported that the service learning component of the assignment was not helpful for their assignment (Sunshine, Lesley and Sydney). Sunshine said, ‘I found that practice piece and theory piece … not … informed through the service learning’, because she thought there was a ‘gap’ between the course and her organization. Like Sunshine, Lesley felt that her organization ‘didn’t know what to do with me’, and Sydney offered the suggestion that it would be a good idea for me to ‘maybe educat[e] the service learning people a little bit more on what's going on’. I think this happened because both students and organizations were unfamiliar with a service learning assignment that relied less on time-consuming direct supervision of students and more on the student themselves to take initiative and responsibility for their service. I had the opportunity to offer this assignment again in the Fall of 2013, and I communicated with each community or university organization to identify a specific task or set of small tasks for the student to do before the semester began and directed them to the online library (which was established after the pilot assignment). These two changes helped address the difficulties that arose due to uniqueness of the assignment in the 2012 pilot phase. I am committed to keeping the service learning component, because it was meaningful for students who had placements that worked and offered students a clearly delineated task or tasks to complete. As Jane said, ‘you feel like you’re helping them making a difference … and it really makes you wanna like, set your own course for your activism … and … what are you going to do to apply all these theories that you’ve learned’. Madonna had a similar experience at her placement, stating that the service learning component

helped me … understand a lot of the concepts that we were talking about too, seeing people … actually … carry out the things that we talk about in class … the things that we see need to be changed, to see people, like, actually taking the initiative to do it.

Sustained commitment

‘Sustained Commitment’ was the final theme I identified, which examines how students developed skills that will be sustained beyond the assignment. Some students expressed that the assignment demonstrated they had the skills to take action on an issue they were concerned about. For example, Patricia said that ‘it felt great being able to participate’ and that the service learning component of the assignment helped her to see that she had a solid foundation for work on interpersonal skills, contributing to awareness in an effort to end sexual violence on campus. Others said that they enjoyed the assignment because they didn’t know about what their organization did, and that the assignment helped develop their communications skills which sometimes fostered a connection to their organization (Katie Fitch, Lesley, Sunshine and Zoe). The majority of the students commented that making a video was a tangible skill they acquired and that they were very proud of, something that Jane, Madonna and Lesley identified as a skill that could be carried forward into the ‘real world’ or ‘real life’.

In each of the above themes, there is a sense that students felt connected to each other, and that working on their individual projects together through the duration of the semester nourished this connection. This was supported by regular ‘check-ins’ during class time, where students could discuss the assignment and ask questions. In the interviews, students expressed the feeling that what they learned in the assignment and the connections that they made in the course were long-lasting ones. Zoe said that the assignment was a ‘unique opportunity that I’ll remember’; Jane stated that the assignment ‘made me more critical of my everyday life … it’s good’ and finally, Lola remarked that ‘it's a course that people will talk about for … forever’. These types of responses are, I would argue, directly tied to the demystification of theory making and the students’ sense of expertise about their concept, but also suggest that it is critical to allow time for those skills to be honed. It reinforces Coventry’s claim that as educators we need to ‘create opportunities for students to engage, articulate, apply and restate, multiple times and in multiple ways, difficult conceptual material’ (2008: 206). Doing Feminist Theory Through Digital Video is an assignment that offers such an opportunity to students and deepens their understanding of the material because it unfolds over an extended period of time and because they can imagine transferring their skills into other contexts.