Reclaiming Diné Film: Visual Sovereignty and the Return of Navajo Film Themselves

Abstract

In the summer of 1966, seven Navajo community members from Pine Springs, Arizona, were the subjects of one of the most provocative experiments in cognitive and visual anthropology yet completed, the Navajo Film Project, resulting in Sol Worth and John Adair's seminal work Through Navajo Eyes, as well as seven short films produced by Navajo filmmakers that garnered worldwide attention in their own right. In 2011, the films were repaired and returned to the Navajo Nation for public screenings, the first step in a process of repatriation and resignification that mirrors the repatriation of other visual media to Navajo and indigenous communities. The return of the films offers a unique opportunity to reexamine the meanings of the films and the project itself, reframing the discussion around issues of visual sovereignty, community reengagements, and “reclaiming” Diné/Navajo histories.

Producing Indigenous Media

“…My original dissertation project was going to take place in Pine Springs, Arizona, in the Navajo Nation where the Navajo Film Themselves project took place-and which led to the subsequent Through Navajo Eyes publication (Worth and Adair, 1972). Initially, I was interested in questions of intellectual property and cultural heritage, as well as visual repatriation and how these concerns interfaced with local understandings of Diné sovereignty (Peterson, 2013). My reading in this literature provided the context for my original interest in helping trace the return of these films (Montoya, 2013b).…”

Multimodality: Reshaping Anthropology

“…While anthropologists can attune their awareness and enskill their senses, perception remains uniquely situational (Haraway 1988). As with any disadvantaged perspective, privileged outsiders cannot see "through Navajo eyes" (Worth & Adair 1997, Peterson 2013. And the ethnographic gaze both engenders and remains incompatible with second sight, that "peculiar sensation.…”

Enfocar nuestra trinchera. El surgimiento del cine indígena en la provincia del Chaco (Argentina)

“…De todas formas, los siete cortometrajes agrupados bajo el título Navajo Film Themselves 6 , que por mucho tiempo han sido de muy difícil acceso 7 , fueron recientemente recuperados y restaurados -ese material pudo ser proyectado en 2012 frente a algunos de sus realizadores y sus familias-. Los primeros cineastas navajos fueron Mike Anderson, Al Clah, Susie Benally, Johnny Nelson, Mary Jane Tsosie, Maxine Tsosie y Alta Kahn (Peterson, 2013).…”