ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the ways in which cinema as a medium can offer possibilities for civic action and political transformation. It proposes in particular an analysis that foregrounds the relationship between postcolonial cinema and citizen media as a way of articulating active participation that manages not only to transform public space but also to propose alternative visual registers. Cinema is a transnational medium that is particularly suited to conveying messages of dissent and social critique that extend beyond the boundaries of the nation. The specificity of postcolonial cinema is that it proposes alternative visions and aesthetic forms that challenge societal inequalities and bring to light hidden histories and perspectives. Postcolonial subjects, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are often depicted in non-places such as city outskirts, hotels, detention centres, and refugee camps, on the open sea or in airports. The chapter highlights the connection between citizen media and the debates on postcolonial cinema, migration and non-places.
