A Film (and a story) about the Mysterious Life of Documents

The seminar series is funded by a grant from UKRI. SOAS launched its Centre for Anthropology and Mental Health Research in Action (CAMHRA) this year, as a centre that aims to foster collaborations between anthropology and mental health research and practice.

 

Seminar presented by Professor Sanjay Srivastava (SOAS University of London) and Dr Matt Birkinshaw (SOAS University of London.

Event Abstract
 

This seminar session consists of a screening of the film ‘Survey City’ (2024, 31 minutes) and a questions and answers session. The latter is open to audience reactions and queries on individual levels, however, we would also like to invite reflections on the following kinds of issues:

What kind of text is an ethnographic film and how does it differ – beyond the medium – from an academic article or a book? How does a visual language differ in the manner in which it might represent concepts such as ‘the everyday state’, ‘precarity’ and ‘the social life of technology’? Do ethnographic films elide or more clearly present relationships of power between anthropologists and their interlocutors (so, either clarifying or muddying ideas of anthropological knowledge itself)?
 

About the Film

Ayesha and her family live in a Delhi basti (informal settlement). She wants nothing more than to have security of tenure of her tiny house at the precarious edges of Delhi. There are always rumours of demolition as the land is classified as ‘illegally occupied’.

For basti residents, tenure security and access to legal title to land depends on inclusion in multiple government surveys that promise these. These promises most frequently arrive at election time.

This film explores aspects of fear, anxieties, hope and confusion that surround survey and documentation processes. The film focuses on the discovery of a set of survey-related documents that was intended to provided security of tenure but was declared ‘lost’.

Between the lost documents and their eventual discovery in a government office, lies the story of a locality, its people and mysterious relationships between government records and citizens. This is the story of Delhi’s Border basti.

Registration

The event is free to attend, but external/non-SOAS visitor are required to register via the link at the top of the page.