Bedia Muvahhit and Neyyire Neyir

The Ottoman Empire dissolved after the First World War and was replaced by the self-consciously modern and Westernized Republic of Turkey in 1923. Turkish culture under the Ottoman rule has been characterized by historians as a traditional Islamic culture that experienced very little change for centuries. What change did occur has typically been attributed to Western contact. The Republican state evolved into what later scholars called a feminist state, which made women’s equality in the public sphere a national policy. Indeed, a secular civil code replaced the Islamic law in 1926, giving women equal civil rights. It is in this transitional period that Bedia Muvahhit became a pioneer in cinema

The impact of documentary filmmaking: Academics as agents of social and political change

In this article, I draw on three documentaries I have made (Growing Up Married [2016], Lifeline [2020], and Left Behind [2023]) on different forms of gendered violence. I use these as examples to discuss ways in which films made within academic contexts can inform and influence policy. While doing so I reflect on how I built a network of policy makers and charities and used film as a potentially useful tool for partnership development. I explore how scholars can consider filmmaking as a form of activism while arguing that strategies developed within the frame of creative practice afford us alternative ways of promoting social, cultural and political change. I examine the relationship between academic research and activism and the specific role that filmmaking can play in enhancing/problematising this relationship, and argue that the cultivation of impact (as activism) goes beyond institutional, and funding imperatives

The impact of documentary filmmaking: Academics as agents of social and political change

In this article, I draw on three documentaries I have made (Growing Up Married [2016], Lifeline [2020], and Left Behind [2023]) on different forms of gendered violence. I use these as examples to discuss ways in which films made within academic contexts can inform and influence policy. While doing so I reflect on how I built a network of policy makers and charities and used film as a potentially useful tool for partnership development. I explore how scholars can consider filmmaking as a form of activism while arguing that strategies developed within the frame of creative practice afford us alternative ways of promoting social, cultural and political change. I examine the relationship between academic research and activism and the specific role that filmmaking can play in enhancing/problematising this relationship, and argue that the cultivation of impact (as activism) goes beyond institutional, and funding imperatives. &nbsp

Growing Up Married: Representing forced marriage on screen

According to the UNICEF report entitled ‘Ending Child Marriage: Progress and Prospects’ (2014), there are 700 million women who were married as children, and 280 million girls are at risk of becoming child brides. In Turkey, according to the reports written by feminist organisations 1 in 3 marriages there is a child. These figures are alarming and signal the need for further and urgent research in the field. In 2016 I made my first ever film entitled Growing Up Married. The film explores what happens after child marriage by focusing on the stories of four women from Turkey and making their experiences visible and audible, in an attempt to contribute to and advance debates around this significant, complex and emotionally charged human rights issue which has often been discursively silenced. Working on a documentary film on forced marriage in Turkey poses challenges to me as a UK-trained and based academic, who focuses on theories around feminism and media rather than filmmaking practice. In this article, I critically reflect upon the process of making a documentary film, and theories around interviewing women to examine the tensions inherent within representing forced marriage on screen

Public conceptions and constructions of 'British values': A qualitative analysis

This article draws on original focus group research to explore constructions of ‘British values’, in ‘everyday’ discourse. Two prominent, yet competing, conceptions of this term are identified: political/institutional and social/cultural. Although each of these conceptions risks essentialising ‘British values’, this risk is mitigated by publics in at least three ways: (i) explicit recognition of the term’s ambiguities; (ii) discussion of its political motivations and exclusionary outcomes; and, (iii) identification of qualitative change in the meaning of ‘British values’ over time. As the first exploration of public understandings of this term, their differences, and these complications, the paper offers three contributions: (i) adding breadth to existing studies of everyday nationalism through focus on ‘British values’ specifically; (ii) shedding light on this trope’s work in broader conversations around social and political life in the UK; and (iii) facilitating reflection on the reception of, resistance to, and re-making of elite political discourse

Approaches to creative actuality: Documentary pedagogy in the contemporary university environment

Whether working with undergraduate students of documentary as filmmakers, media historians and/or archivists; supervising postgraduate researchers who are analysing and producing documentaries with the purpose of social investigation and transformation; or including a range of students in staff-led documentary projects with high impact as research, documentary within the Department of Film, Television and Media Studies at the University of East Anglia (UEA) has a central place within the curriculum and as an option for inquiry and practice. Bill Nichols contends that “documentary flourishes when it gains a voice of its own, when it speaks to us about the world we share”.[1] Taking this notion of the vocal and the dialogic in a shared cultural context, we offer a reflective piece that will explain the comprehensive approach we currently utilize in documentary pedagogy at UEA. The Covid-19 pandemic challenged our models of active learning and authentic assessment, but the adaptation of our practice succeeded in retaining the core principles of our documentary pedagogy. This enabled one of the classic definitions of documentary form—namely, that it is the “creative treatment of actuality” —to be fulfilled as a creative response to actuality in a year rich in adaptability and attainment.[

‘That still goes on, doesn't it, in their religion?’:British values, Islam and vernacular discourse

This article explores ‘everyday’ or ‘vernacular’ conceptions of Muslims, Islam and their relationship to ‘British values’. Drawing on original data from focus groups in the East of England, it argues that the relationship is typically constructed around a series of binary pairings. Where Islam is held to be traditional, conservative, pious and outmoded, British values are seen as progressive, liberal, secular and modern. This opposition matters for three reasons. First, it is a contingent construction rather than reflection of realities; one that draws upon Orientalist tropes and militates against alternative ways of imagining this relationship. Second, it does important work at the vernacular level in explaining political dynamics, especially successful integration (because of British liberalism) and the failure thereof (because of Islam's traditionalism). Third, its predication on an essentialised claim of difference inflects even competing efforts to story the British values/Islam relationship which tend, we suggest, to reinforce the positioning of Muslims and their values as somehow beyond or external to Britishness

Lifeline

During lockdown the UK has seen a significant increase in the number of domestic abuse related calls to helplines, with some charities reporting over 200% increase at a time when there was over 70% reduction in service delivery as a result of the pandemic. How did the domestic abuse services sector cope with the pandemic? What were the experiences of the frontline workers of the domestic abuse sector? With a range of interviews recorded on Zoom during and at the end the lockdown period, this film offers for the first time, first-hand accounts of keyworkers and key players of the domestic abuse services from their own voices and images. The interviews offer exclusive stories of keyworkers reflecting on their experiences of vicarious trauma, how they worked selflessly while dealing with the implications of the pandemic themselves