ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a reflexive discussion on the creative process of making a piece of reflexive video-ethnography–Maquiladora. It explores how reflexive video-ethnography can enhance our critical understanding of sense-making. The debate around the use of (written and spoken) voice in films has been a constant throughout the history of documentary and ethnographic cinema. Observational cinema, which grew powerfully in the decades following Italian Neorealism, placed its emphasis on an attentive gaze that satisfied itself with watching and listening without seeking voiced explanations. The multi-channel aspect of the audio-visual medium offers unique possibilities for contrasting perspectives and, through this process, enables rich forms of reflexivity. Audio-visual reflexive ethnography is collaborative in nature. It involves all participants, including the filmmaker, interacting and analysing visual data together to produce what some literature has suggested as a sense-making community. The multi-channel aspect of the audio-visual medium offers unique possibilities for contrasting perspectives and, through this process, enables rich forms of reflexivity.
