Thank You Parts I and II Page: 33

                                
example of such a collaboration. Producing a reflexive work that assumes to disclose its co-
authorship is ultimately lost in the weeds of a logical extreme when a collaborator develops and
or is expected to have "...some sort of technical, intellectual, and cultural parity..." akin to the
filmmaker (Ruby 212). This logical discourse would therefore dispel the distinction offilmer and
filmed where "the notion of sharing authority remains more of a politically correct fantasy than a
field-tested actuality" (Ruby 212). However, Ruby does credit French anthropologist Jean Rouch
as a prophet for his musings on how a shared anthropology would dismantle any need for a
distinction betweenfilmer andfilmed.
Ruby points out through Rouch's conceptualization of co-authorships that a shared work
would become "unnecessary" being that "[the] Filmmakers will produce only autobiographical
works films about the world they inhabit" (Ruby 211). This autobiographical realization would
occur as documentarians and ethnographic filmmakers recognize the authenticity their personal
reflexive position can provide. The alternative to this would simply perpetuate the standard
limitations of implicit bias and othering that an ethnographic filmmaker must mediate when
producing a standard documentary or work of fiction. Therefore, producing content through the
careful process of a self-generated autobiographical shared anthropology based in reflexivity
would reveal a door to anthropological cinema but this is just the beginning. The door to
anthropological cinema has a prerequisite of keys necessary to open it. Nonetheless, my

understanding of a decolonized visual anthropological cinema requires that a film object must
exhibit a foundation in reflexivity that positions the filmmaker and any collaborator or
participant as one and the same. The agenda of said film would be to focus on the world inhabit,
the bonds shared, and a reflexive awareness of the environment in relation to the self.

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