Abstract
In this paper I present audiovisual pathways for a shared musical anthropology. Following soundtracks through the Afro-diasporic musical universes that I have encountered over the last two decades in Brazil, I discuss the possibilities of listening nearby through my own ethnographic collaborative filmmaking in the city of São Paulo. With cameras in hand, we approach musical performances led by artists from the hip-hop and funk scene in Cidade Tiradentes on the periphery of the city, and also by African musicians who have recently arrived and thrived in the centre of this megalopolis.
Filming this musicking implies transforming research into composition, an approach I have developed through collaborative processes of co-creation. In the company of masters such as Jean Rouch, Trinh T. Minh-Ha, Steven Feld and Christopher Small, and my various research partners and co-creators, this paper reflects on how such interdisciplinary compositions of anthropology, film and music, bring to light epistemological, perceptive, aesthetic and affective dimensions that can effectively contribute to the expansion of anthropological imagination and practice.
Bio
Rose Satiko Gitirana Hikiji is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of São Paulo (USP). She works in the Line of Research in Anthropology of Expressive Forms, with emphasis on Visual Anthropology, Performance Anthropology and Music Anthropology. Professor Hikiji coordinates the Laboratory of Image and Sound in Anthropology (LISA-USP), PAM – Research in Musical Anthropology, and the Núcleo de Artes Afro-Brasileiras (Center for Afro-Brazilian Arts). She is also the vice-coordinator of the Group of Visual Anthropology (GRAVI-USP).
She is the author of Filmar o musicar – Ensaios de antropologia compartilhada (2025), Imagem-violência: Etnografia de um cinema provocador (2013), and A música e o risco (2006); co-author of Lá do Leste (2013); and co-editor of several volumes on visual anthropology and the anthropology of performance.
Her ethnographic films include São Palco – An Afropolitan City (2023), AfroSampas (2020), and Woya Hayi Mawe – Where Are You Going To? (2018), co-directed with Jasper Chalcraft; and Tabuluja (2017), co-directed with Chalcraft and Shambuyi Wetu. Other films include Violão-Canção: A Brazilian Soul (2016), Fabrik Funk (2015), Art and the Street (2011), From Over on the East Side (2010), and Quebrada’s Cinema (2008). She is a CNPq Research Productivity Fellow.