Wolowic PhD Proposal

8/3/2019 Wolowic PhD Proposal

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Sumaxs Affect: The Networks of Coastal Tsimshian Youth

PhD Prospectus

Jennifer Wolowic

Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies Program

University of British Columbia

February 10, 2011



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Introduction

Sm’algyx, the language of the Tsimshian people of Northern British Columbia, contains no

direct translation for “youth.” The closest translation is “sup’as,” an adjective meaning “young”

in reference to a person or “sumaxs” used for “young people.” “Youth” is a recent socially

constructed age-based category used to symbolize a particular era in a person’s life. Despite its

western origins and increasingly ambiguous meanings, many First Nations have adopted “youth”

as a social construction or category definition as they work to define issues and experiences that

shape a particular generation.

Statistics Canada (2006 Census) counts First Nations youth as the fastest growing segment

of Canada’s population. The category can extend anywhere from ages 10 to 35 and the term

seems to continually expand on both sides of the age spectrum. While the age brackets may be

fluid, youth has become a symbol of a particular experience of change. Youth is a time when

individuals gain increasing power over their movements through the world, but continue to lack

the social makers of full adulthood (Arnett 2004). Youth is an experience of transition: changing

social networks, insecurity, experimentation, and increased self-determination.

I refer to these youth as sumaxs to highlight their unique shared collective experience as a

cohort that attended and remains connected because of a teen drop in center run by the

Friendship House in Prince Rupert, British Columbia. When asked, the youth refer to themselves

primarily through their band associations and the places they remain connected to through their

biological kinship. They also refer to themselves as youth because it is a label they interact with

by attending drop in centers called “Planet Youth” and “Youth Hub,” through “Youth Councils,”

and by attending “Youth Conferences.” Sumaxs is a label and a construct I have chosen that

exists outside the youths’ own vernacular, but comes from the Sm’algyx language they learn in



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school and from elders. I do so, after consulting with the youth, to highlight their particular

experience that extends from the teen center and as an undulating position from which to begin

to understand how they maneuver themselves through their worlds.

For the sumaxs of Prince Rupert, British Columbia, youth is the experience of embracing

the strengths of identity while participating in multiple, simultaneous social networks that bridge

locations, cultures, and generations. Their shared experience is also filled with monetary poverty,

rich traditions, feelings of social exclusion, strong interpersonal relationships, and invasive

bureaucracy. Despite the challenges experienced by this generation of sumaxs, their ability to

create and maintain extensive interpersonal relationships reveals the successes of surviving and

transforming social structures. Friends are as important as family and peers provide as much

guidance as kinship.

I am proposing to explore the experiences of a cohort of sumaxs through their social

networks. I am looking at the ways in which these youth transition into adulthood through their

interactions with people and materials. Instead of a statistics label that identifies Prince Rupert

and its surrounding Queen Charlotte district as the home to some of the province’s most at-risk

youth (BC Stats 2009), I want to make a film about the social relationships that continue to be

produced and flourish despite repeated acts of genocide. While the ongoing legacy of

colonialism has shattered many social structures and created generation gaps, the sumaxs are

finding strength and guidance from peers and extended kinship networks that bridge distance and

experience. In its primary aspect, this project will create better understandings of what make

people connect and stay connected. I am exploring how relationships resonate through

experiences in order to find the commonalities upon which to build new relationships.



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Most text and audio-visual representations created about First Nations youth focus on

defining their social problems (Baskin 2007, Brown et al 2005, Dosman 1972, Farley 2005,

McCreary 1994, Palmer 2003). Instead, I am choosing to frame my research agenda through a

strength-based approach. Rather than identifying First Nations youth as abnormal, research and

films such as mine should help people define themselves, their needs and their relationship to the

larger society (Beck 2002:118, Smith 1999). I am focusing on positive solutions that already

exist in sumaxs’ extended networks instead of reproducing popular problem-solution narratives

that often just strengthen negative stereotypes.

Focusing on the common experiences and relationships that unite this group of young

people and guides their network formation, I will represent these relationships in both text and

video. I will create a film that documents maneuvering within those social networks and produce

new relationships by interviewing and producing films with the sumaxs and community

members they invite to join the project. Through the process I will also examine the catalytic

qualities of cameras during film production. I investigate the role of visual research as an agent

of change through the production of participant-based representations of the sumaxs experience

and decision making processes in order to challenge negative stereotypes and create empathy for

Aboriginal youth experience through the film’s distribution.

Research Questions

To understand their social networking and the influences that shapes the sumaxs’

movements through their worlds, I want to begin with how they locate themselves. My goal is to

maintain a perspective that starts and ends with these youth and their opinions of their

experiences. I am framing my work to fulfill my requirement that research serves the needs of



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the people who participate by asking questions that may help to define gaps in guidance that are

experienced by several youth. Gaps that others might then be better able to address and help fill.

The major questions guiding my film and research are:

1. How do the sumaxs locate themselves in their social networks and how do theymaneuver through their networks? How are these networks marked by visually-

based technology such as clan symbols, Facebook, photographs and video?

2. What are the processes through which network participation has been transformed

by changing community structures and the development of communicationmediated by technology?

3. What is the effectiveness of visual media as analytical tool that documentsexperience, perception, and creates new understandings? What are the

possibilities for cameras and film, as part of the visual research method, to act ascatalysts in networking?

In order to explore mentorship, I am exploring the factors that cause particular

relationships and experiences to resonate with sumaxs. These include not only the transfer of

knowledge and practices, but the experienced sensations and perceived emotional outcomes that

move people towards different understandings, opinions, and future decisions.

The first question relates to the individual navigation of interpersonal relationships and

how these relationships produce meanings that influence actions. The second question explores

interactions across distance and the role of technology such as cell phones and the Internet in

facilitating human connections. The final question explores the possible roles of research

production and the material actors of cameras and film to influence an individual’s

understandings of themselves and others.

Background

Located in the traditional lands of the Tsimshian Nation in Northern British Columbia,

Prince Rupert is a central hub of 14 First Nation villages that are homes for the Tsimshian as



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well as Gitxsan, Nisga'a, Haida, and Heiltsuk peoples. Prince Rupert is a fishing town that

accesses the waters off the Northwest coast and Alaska and the site of Canada’s newest

international shipping port. The town of approximately 12,000 people is also experiencing a

steady downturn in employment and opportunity for its young people. BC Statistics (2009)

algorithms counting the number of 18 year olds who do not graduate from high school, the

number of youth on income assistance, and crime rates ranks Prince Rupert’s School District 52

as having the fourth highest number of at-risk youth in the province. The Skeena-Queen

Charlotte region has 8.3 percent of its population receiving income assistance as of September

2010 (BC Stats 2010). This is the highest rate in the province, but these numbers are inflated

since the villages in the area are receiving aid because they have been forcibly disconnected from

traditional living practices.

The Prince Rupert Friendship House and the Nisga'a Hall are the physical centers of Prince

Rupert's First Nations' social networks. The Friendship House has administered a youth drop-in

and outreach services for several years, revamping the program in the last 18 months to become

the Youth Hub.

In 2007, I was introduced to the Friendship House Association of Prince Rupert via the

UBC Ethnographic Fieldschool taught by Charles Menzies and Caroline Butler. I worked with

the Youth Hub (then called Planet Youth) and created a black and white photographic visual

ethnography of the youth center. A month later, as part of my MA thesis, I returned and created a

film about the youths’ peer social network they called their “street family.” While I filmed and

edited the majority of the video, the sumaxs had influence over the subject matter; veto rights

over material; and approved the film’s representation of themselves before it was screened

publicly. I attended the center daily for approximately three months and returned several months



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later to get feedback on the rough cut. I returned once more, six months later to receive approval

for the final film.

The film also left lasting impressions on older members of the youths' social network.

When I returned last July to give them a copy of my MA thesis, I spoke with members of the

Friendship House Board of Directors and they expressed having completely different

experiences growing up in Prince Rupert and Port Edward than those the sumaxs discussed on

camera. The board members expressed remembering feeling more exclusion because of the

urban/village divide between their own First Nations communities than as racial minorities of the

town. Before viewing the film, many adults were unaware that the teenagers had formed the

street family. After hearing the youths' perspectives, community members understood the

importance of the peer network and have encouraged my continued engagement with the

sumaxs. The conversation revealed a generational gap that is often mirrored in larger discussions

about challenges faced in First Nations communities.

The Youth Hub embraces the fluid identity of Northwest Coast First Nations youth. The

Youth Hub is a geographical and virtual space that exemplifies Renya Ramirez's (2007) notion

of the Native Hub. The sumaxs participate in cultural activities, learning to weave cedar and

cook salmon, but also enjoy the space to listen to popular music, access computers, watch

movies and simply hang out with other friends. Clan symbols mingle with playboy jewelry,

hooded sweatshirts, and jeans marked with signatures of friends in permanent pen. Youth

workers decorate hands with Hena and provide the opportunity for beading projects. Humor,

teasing, and laughter intermingle with tragic stories of racism and abuse experienced by the

youth. The sumaxs physically meet in this space, but are also constantly connected through

technology. As cell phones and Facebook become major mediators among young people and



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adults, the Youth Hub remains an affective space that unites an age cohort even though they may

not physically share the room.

The “street family” was the sumaxs’ self-constructed representation of their peer social

network. Best friends would hold the title of auntie or sister. Friends who advised other friends

became parents regardless of age or genetic relationships. Those seeking inclusion would be

invited into the family as nephews, nieces, cousins, and children. The street family was

important, but fluid, as people were constantly being disowned or reintegrated in different ways.

The street family solidified friendships and the importance of peer support when facing

challenges at school and with biological family.

In the two years since the completion of the original project, I have remained in contact

with youth through email, SMS texts, and social networking websites as they transition from

teenagers into young adults. Texting and Facebook are also how I continue to participate within

the sumaxs’ social networks. Over the course of the project I have become a part of eight youths’

social networks and remain familiar with over two-dozen.

What unites the sumaxs is a common experience of real and perceived exclusion. During

research conducted in 2007, only two youth were actively in foster care, but most of the 40 youth

attending the center shared the experience of having a representative of Children and Family

Development knock on their door and tell them their parents were unfit to raise them. The

apprehension of children and invasions of bureaucracy may have been needed for a child's

safety, but these violent acts continue to have lasting effects. They have created a distrust of

authority and institutions for most and a severing of family bonds for a few. The youth also told

stories of explicit racism by classmates and ignorant teachers that made them feel unwelcome in

the classroom.



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Once all the sumaxs spoke of their responsibilities to their street families. Now they

discuss the importance of their blood relatives. They maintain an extensive network of family,

tribes and clans both within Prince Rupert, the surrounding villages, and across the province.

Increasingly mobile, the sumaxs are often staying with friends and family within Prince Rupert,

in the surrounding villages and cities, and several have spent extended time in Vancouver. Most

of the sumaxs have also become parents, work part time in local canneries or remain unemployed

if they have graduated from high school, and vary in their relationships to their heritage.

Members of the street family now say that it is dead. They drifted apart and stopped

hanging out with each other when the youth center closed temporally several months after my

initial project was completed. The center was restructured and reopened a few months later, but

the social group was happy to spend more time in their own homes and the larger street family

became smaller social groups. This also coincided with increased Internet access and SMS

texting services in town. Technology allows them to be present without physically meeting.

Despite the evaporation of the formal fictive kinship network, the youth continue to refer to

individuals in family terms. Meaningful friends remain sisters. As one youth recently said,

"There are sisters that you are born to your blood and there are sisters that are born to your soul."

Theoretical Orientation

The sumaxs are a fluid cohort that interacts through the Youth Hub. They are

ambivalent members of the Prince Rupert citizenry and part of communities that identify both

though their clan symbols and by the brands of their cell phones. Their networks are founded in

a shared physical place, but are practiced and remain strong through the mobility of modern

media. These contrasts inspire me to think about how their networks are formed, maintained, and



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activated to influence individual decisions. My research project will explore the interpersonal

relationships and the technology involved in mediating human connections within the sumaxs

networks in order to bridge generational divides. This includes exploring the encounters of

people and materials during located events and across physical distance as well as how these

interactions influence future actions. As part of my visual research method, understanding the

forces within the sumaxs’ networks also includes reflecting on how the process of filmmaking-

based research and its produced representations may also act to influence audiences.

By referring to these youth as sumaxs, I am locating a stable starting point within what

Deleuze and Guattari (1987) would call their “machinic assemblage:” the always open collection

of human and non-human forces that converge, respond to one another, and produce actions at

any given moment. Besides people, material, and structures, the concept of assemblages also

includes the expressions that act to shape their meaning. The fluidity of the assemblage is based

on the constant connecting and disconnecting relationships and meanings people create with the

elements of their assemblage. I am using the idea of assemblage to explore the convergence of

materials, people, and emotions involved in the construction and meaning of the sumaxs

networks.

To explore these relationships, I will use Actor-Network Theory to demonstrate how

certain materials and other externals in the sumaxs assemblage can have the same power to

create effect as people have (Latour 1993, Callon 1986). Law (1992) writes that Actor-Network

Theory views “agents, organizations, and devices as effects” in a process of network formation

and maintenance. An actant can be an individual agent, a material object, or a set of

heterogeneous relationships that can be thought of as an organization. Actor-Network Theory



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references relationship between actors while assemblage offers a perspective that references the

convergence of elements to produce meaning.

A few of the elements involved in producing the sumaxs’ experiences are themselves and

other people, as well as the organizations of the Friendship House and Nisga’a Hall, schools and

non-First Nations inhabitants of Prince Rupert, The Ministry of Children and Family

Development and its individual social workers, canneries, cell phones, and the internet that

connects them to family networks and friends across British Columbia. There are also cultural

markers such as t-shirts displaying North West Coast First Nation’s designs, brand name

sweatshirts, clan symbols worn around their necks, Ipods, junk food, salmon, base-ball caps,

tongue piercings, and button blankets. All of these actants influence the sumaxs constructions of

meaning and their decisions.

Latour (1996) promotes the idea of viewing the world through networks as a way to

understand that a person or group does not function purely as an inside or outside, but always in

the boundary. These human and non-human networks can also help counter notions that culture

is a static bounded thing used to define and separate groups. For example, the sumaxs can be

described as urban First Nations, but they frequently spend time on reserve and become

increasingly mobile as they grow older. Their mobility and comfort in both villages and in town

counters the descriptive on-reserve/off-reserve divide that often categorizes First Nations in

Canada. Their associations with particular objects also cross boundaries and shape the sumaxs’

interactions.

Visually documenting a particular event at the Youth Hub will show the multiple actants

engaged in a single location. Through the research project, I am documenting the interaction of

materials and people to highlight the convergence of these materials and exploring the meaning



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that arises from these relationships. For example, it may be used to identify the relationships

between the actants at the Youth Hub when fresh salmon arrives to be salted: the pop music that

fills room, the elder teaching a tradition; the sumaxs learning a skill while constantly texting on

their cell phones; the salmon being cleaned and salted; and the presence of my camera and

myself recording it all. What are the emotional effects for both the sumaxs and their elders when

the youth decline taking salmon home because they don’t like the taste of fish? The music, cell

phones, traditions, and intergenerational interactions are co-present in a single event and I will

explore how these interactions help influence future actions.

I am also going to include how Tsimshian cultural practices and worldviews inform the

sumaxs’ perspectives of their assemblage. For example, Jay Miller’s (2000) model of Tsimshian

culture focuses on the inseparable relationships between cultural categories, but remains a

heavily historical project. Roth (2008) describes the continued importance of hereditary name-

titles and the relationship between structure and history. This connects to the continued

importance of publicly recognizing and maintaining relationships through potlatches, feasts, and

gatherings (Dunn 1984; Garfield 1939). I am hoping to weave the relationships with the past

with meanings constructed by the sumaxs generation in the present. Have the sumaxs’ particular

engagement with technology and media been influence by Tsimshian and Nisga’a cultural

practices? Does their use of Facebook and the development of the street family reflect the

importance in Tsimshian culture to publicly recognizing relationships?

Actor-Network Theory expands the process of relationship forming that build community

into the stories, materials, and systems that influence human action (Latour 1996). I will use

these theories to explore how the sumaxs weave in and out of blood kinship relations and the

materials they use to produce networks, the non-human that maintains connections across



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physical distance, and the actions that affect these bonds. These are created both within single

events that will be filmed and in the ongoing interaction within the sumaxs assemblage and

communities.

Cohen (1985) calls “community” an ambiguous symbol shared among a group, but the

unique relationships within the group make the meanings of that community unique to every

person. Although problematic, community is a useful term for thinking about how the sumaxs

center themselves in their social networks because it implies a sense of group cohesion beyond

their cohort.1

To understand the sumaxs’ communities and how they interact means exploring

both direct and technologically mediated interactions. For this I am using Erving Goffman’s

(1959) strategic interaction framework to explore the presentation of self in face-to-face

communication at particular events and “networked publics” that connect people across distance

and time (boyd 2007; Ito et al 2009)

Goffman’s (1959; 1967) theories of presentation will guide the analysis of relationships

formed in the sumaxs’ local communities. His theories centered on a situational focus of

interactions. Their understanding of a situation determine how people act, what they choose to

wear, and how they perform in order to present themselves accordingly as well as how people

influence each other to define each situation. For the sumaxs, this relates to how they choose to

act inside the Youth Hub compared to when wandering through the mall, at Aboriginal

gatherings, or as participants in a visual media project. For example, based on my previous work

with the sumaxs, the joy felt when dancing inspires further participation in community events,

1Community is useful to symbolize group cohesion but I want to clarify why I choose to use

assemblage and actor-networks on different occasions. I am using “assemblage” to draw

attention to all the material, structure, and people that converge to form the sumaxs’ meaning of their own identities. I am using “actor-network” to focus on the particular relationships within

the sumaxs’ interpersonal networks and the technology that mediates those interactions.



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while being driven away from loitering in the local mall creates resentment among some that

justifies shoplifting. Goffman’s focus on individual interaction and performance also helps

explain why the sumaxs will ignore elders demanding their respect at a community feast, but sit

silently for hours and listen to an elder who worked at the teen center. Witnessing the initial

outcomes of our photography and film project created more interest among the whole group of

sumaxs to participate in ongoing projects. These situations, their interpretations, and the ways the

sumaxs want to interact with others create meaning that can influence future actions.

The idea of “networked publics” includes how networks are maintained through the

constant presence of cell phones tucked away in pockets and instantly accessed for physically

displaced Facebook updates and commentary. “Networked publics are the spaces of

communication constructed through technology and the community that emerges as a result of

this interaction” (Boyde 2007).2

The sumaxs are always “co-present” in their real surrounding

and at the same time always digitally connected with their social networks (Rettie 2009). Even

when attending the Youth Hub and surrounded by others, the sumaxs are checking in and posting

on Facebook or going through their cell phone to text and keep track of their friends and relatives

within the small town.

Different forms of communication have different results in what Naomi Baron (2008)

calls “always-on” media worlds. Posting on Facebook to a limited, but open public is a different

act of connecting than directly text messaging an individual whose phone number is saved on a

cell phone. I am going to explore what Jay Botler and Richard Grusin (2000) call “remediation”:

the ways the sumaxs interact with multiple forms of media to create kinds of interactions with

2For a discussion on the qualities that define a discourse based public see Michael Warner’s

Publics and Counterpublics Public Culture 14(1):49-90 (2002)



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others.3

To help define different practices and their results, I am using “interactions” to refer to

Goffman’s (1967) kind of ongoing direct exchanges between people and “encounters” to reflect

a more asymmetrical, often fleeting, and sometimes asynchronous contact between people and

materials. Facebook status updates are the main way news and gossip rapidly spreads throughout

the network, but is an asynchronous encounter because it requires the user to be signed in to find

out what is going on. Text messages create direct, but semi-asynchronous interactions between

individuals especially when used by the sumaxs instead of phone calls (Rettie 2007). Supportive

posts and text messages however, do not have the same affect as a physical hug when the sumaxs

receive news of tragedy. My research will explore how these different communication practices

work to transform social relationships and community structures.

Exploring the relationships between actants at individual face-to-face events and through

technology is important because people are constantly connecting and disconnecting their social

ties and creating new meanings through these different processes (Muzel 2009; Law and Hassard

1999). While people may not sever ties completely, they move towards and away from particular

relationships in pursuit of their aspirations. Meanings are created through this maneuvering and

how these interactions make us feel. For the sumaxs, meaning is created in these encounters with

people, bureaucracy, and materials that help define who they identify as in their relational

network and what is in or out of their communities.

The sumaxs are connected to their communities through shared memories of particular

places and the common social traits of learned culture, but what defines a “community” is not

simply a set of shared identifiable traits, knowledges, and beliefs. What makes someone a

member of their community is their attraction to others in their social network, which includes

3For an examination of media ideologies, remediation, and idioms of media practice involved in

romantic breakups see Ilana Gershon The Breakup 2.0 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010)



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the emotional component of human interconnectedness. As part of my research of the sumaxs’

assemblage, I am exploring how these attractions are created with the exchange of knowledge,

reciprocity, and the emotional results of the interactions involved in the production of

communities and maintained through networked publics.

Theories of affect will be used as a cognitive tool to expand the discussions of network

formation and maintenance to explore why certain material and personal connections resonate

more than others. The theories of affect include how emotional responses and the physical

bodily experience of encounters interact with individual aspirations, learning, and knowledge

transmission to influence the sumaxs’ actions. Massumi (2002:15) summarizes Spinoza’s (1677)

theories of affect as a body’s “power (or potential) to affect or be affected.” A better way to think

of affect is to think of “what happens to us when we feel an event” (Colebrook 2003:xix,

emphasis added). Affect exists outside meaning or representation, but helps produce the reaction

to an event or encounter (Deleuze 1988). Emotions arise out of these encounters and are the

translation of affect into representations that acknowledge the influence of feeling on our

thoughts and decisions. I am expanding on Goffman, and networked publics to include affect in

meaning production to help understand the sumaxs assemblage and the individual meanings they

create from this experience. Affect helps explain why particular relationships within the sumaxs

assemblage have greater intensity and influence on future actions.

Actants in a network create affects that help shape a person’s movement through their

assemblage and form their social network. By including Actor-Network Theory I am focusing

on how interactions, mediated by material objects, build personal relationships and determine

who becomes mentors in the sumaxs’ networks. I am exploring face-to-face interactions as well

as interactions mediated through technology to reveal how networking is currently practiced and



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been transformed by technology. In order to help understand the meanings produced by these

encounters, I am including theories of affect help address those elements, hard to define, that

produce resonating connections. Visually documenting the people, materials, and mediation will

be used as a way create reflection during interviews about the relationships between people that

influence how the sumaxs navigate through their assemblage. These theoretical frameworks will

be used to identify important elements that work to further mentorship throughout the sumaxs

social networks. And finally, I will reflect on how the camera and visual research process

influence actions as part of the sumaxs network.

Part of my written dissertation will reflect on the camera’s active role in the visual research

method. The camera will be an affective actant in the sumaxs actor-network and the film will be

an actant in the actor-networks of audiences. By reflecting on the process of knowledge

production, I am exploring the influence and effect of these non-human material representations

of the sumaxs of their assemblage on audiences. This requires exploring how the medium of film

is constructed and received differently than text, how the camera and the activity of film

production influence he sumaxs’ networks, and how the final film produces meaning as an

encounter between social networks.

The medium of film creates representations that more closely mimic our perceptions of

reality than text. Marks (2000) calls the powerful relationships audiences form with the virtual

screen representations “the fetishism of film” because they seem to look and sound like the real

world. Although films are mainly visual, they access multiple senses at the same. The narrative

structure of film creates a “synthesis of varied modes of representation which closely mimic the

modes of mental representation” (MacDougall 1992:33). While the intended meaning of a text is



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encoded through abstract symbolic representation, film employs the audio as well as an optical

representation at varying intensities to encode its message to an audience.

Deleuze (1998: 14) wrote, “ideas must be treated as potentials that are already engaged in

this or that mode of expression and inseparable from it.” I am including a cinematic chapter in

my final dissertation to argue that film allows me to create representations of sumaxs experience

and expression that is different than text. If academic institutions are organizations that engage in

research to serve society, then film is an actant that brings the local sumaxs networks in a face-

to-cinematic-face relationship with audiences. I am doing so to explore if the mimesis of the

audio/visual media can be a more potent than text and creates different effects (Taussig 1992).

I believe film can be a powerful medium because the affective responses that occur

during film viewing. Applying Spinoza's concepts of affect to film, Massumi (1995:93) wrote

"the mind and body are seen as two levels recapitulating the same image expression even in

different but parallel ways, ascending by degrees from the concrete to the incorporeal." The mind

and body both experience the film screening and resonate meanings to each other. Since "affect

is inscribed on our nervous system and in our flesh before it appears in our consciousness" it has

the power to influence audience meaning productions and their actions (Mazzarella 2009:292).

MacDougall (2006) calls this “the corporeal experience of film.” Marks (2000) calls the

engagement of film and memory to create sensorial experiences the “haptic cinema.” All refer

the physiological and emotional changes that have been documented in film viewers as they

watch (Massumi 1995). Sounds of laughter, visions of smiles, intense stories, and recorded

encounters will affectively engage the audience and create meaning in the film I produce with

the sumaxs.



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In addition to thinking about the qualities of the film as a particular medium, I am

thinking about the affective qualities of the camera during recording. Sometimes people smile in

front of the camera, looking forward to the joy of looking at their image at some later date. Other

times, the uncertainty of the future representation means people also often feel immense

reluctance to be recorded (Sontag 1978). Michael Wesch (2009), in his discussion of Youtube

video blogs, calls this the “context collapse” of the camera. The camera offers no immediate

feedback for on screen participants yet the infinite possibilities of a recording’s future use

collapses into an experience of extreme self-awareness during recording.

From my previous experience, the sumaxs’ attitudes changed as they learned about the

camera and how a film is assembled. Being able to hold and play with the camera helped create

trust regarding the context of how the recordings would be used. As the camera became

demystified a few of the sumaxs requested to be recorded, recognizing the authority they would

be given by audiences because their experiences had been deemed valuable enough to recorded

(Bordieu 1991). Learning about filmmaking and spending time with me encouraged the sumaxs’

participation in front of the camera and helped facilitate their own desires that audiences hear

their perspectives.

Supplementing written analysis and still photographs, viewers will build their

understanding of the sumaxs’ experiences through the duration of my cinematic dissertation

chapter. These constructed meanings will form as viewers encounter the different sensorial

experiences and ideas of each scene and how the scenes flow together. Baruch de Spinoza’s

(1677) concept of “affectus” and Edmond Husserl’s (1905) phenomenological model of time-

consciousness help explain this occurrence. Much like the individual frames of a film-strip

running through a projector, single thoughts are constantly in motion, replacing those that



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preceded them. In film viewing, the projection process causes the unique thoughts encoded in

each still frame to be suppressed and highlights the relationships between the different individual

thoughts through the passage of 24 frames per second through the mechanism (Baudry 1974).

Much like memory and thought, this passage of time is essential for filmic montages and the

thought formation process (Eisenstein 1942). According to Deleuze (1988), cinema focuses the

audience’s attention to specific sequences of time as they are screened through the

representations of movement. For this reason Deleuze (1986) makes the distinction that the

intensity of films exist more in the construction of “time-images” through editing than the

“movement-images” cameras record in individual shots. The viewer's understanding of the

sumaxs’ experience will grow as each scene builds upon the next to construct the meaning of the

film.

The final film is an access point to a new network of publics when we think of the film

viewing process as an encounter between film participants and audiences. The meaning of my

cinematic dissertation chapter will also be constructed based on the viewers’ personal

experiences and assemblages. The audience enters the screening room already influenced by the

legislative actions and the conventions of film genres that produce and maintain regimes of

power.4

Post-colonial critiques often focus on these influences. Fanon (1963) describes the world

as compartmentalized based on race and is maintained both through force and the internalization

of colonial ideologies. Said (1978) focused on how knowledge production of the “Other”

defined colonialists as superior and became the logic for a culture of domination. Ahmed (2000)

adds to this discussion to include that most media constructions practice what she calls the

“stranger fetish,” which distances present experiences from the structures and histories that

4See Laura Mulvey’s Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema Screen 16(3):6-18, 1975 for a

discussion of the male gaze and the constantly reproduced representations of passive females.



21

produce these experiences. Colonial ideology produces stereotypes that form public

understanding of the sumaxs and other First Nations youth.

Expanding upon post-colonial studies, Stephan and Stephan (1993) explain the role of

affect in stereotype production. People create and affirm stereotypes based on their exposure to

particular ideas about certain behaviors and traits, their encounters with particular people and

how they affectively process these experiences. Situations, media exposure, and individual

encounters interact to strengthen or weaken stereotypes. In the case of a film or photograph

representing the sumaxs, a viewer’s personal experience, the influence of colonial legacies, and

personal encounters will influence how the viewer decodes the creators encoded message (Hall

1980). While we will encode the sumaxs film and photographs with particular meanings, the

interpretations of the film will be strongly influenced by the audiences’ perspectives and how

they choose to decode these messages.

For my dissertation, I am exploring how a research method directed by the process of

filmmaking influences the representations of the sumaxs assemblage and the influences of

particular relationships within their actor-networks. By filming interviews and events in the

sumaxs’ community, I am exploring how the sumaxs place themselves and navigate within their

interpersonal, networks. I am also documenting how the formation and maintenance of

community is practiced through cell phones and the social media. Looking at non-human actants

includes exploring how the camera and the practice of film production asks people to reflect

upon their networks and the different influences within their own assemblage. Throughout the

process I am reflecting on how visual research production is different than text based research

representations and how it affects larger audiences.





23

Participation also involves encountering the material bodies that guide actions. The youth

send me text messages and have befriended me on Facebook. This practice maintains

connections and mediates our face-to-face interactions. As one young man told me, “I would

never meet up with anyone if I didn’t have my cell phone.” Later, he convincingly kept up with

our conversation while at the same time constantly tapped the buttons on his phone and made

plans with two other people via text messaging. Participating and observing the sumaxs networks

also means digitally participating in how they practice maintaining their networks.

Reestablishing rapport with the sumaxs will also include attending the Youth Hub and

Friendship House on a consistent basis and participating in their programming. I will begin

bringing film equipment and cameras to the center to encourage the sumaxs to handle and be

comfortable around film equipment. This phase also includes preliminary discussions with the

sumaxs about whether or not they would like to be on camera and who they would like to film.

As part of the collaborative relationships with the Youth Hub and the Friendship House I will

also film any events they would like to be recorded.

This stage also includes informal open-ended interviews to explore the sumaxs’

networks. Much anthropological research has been done into Tsimshian’s matrilineal kinship

structures, house and clan lineages, and inheritance patterns (Garfield 1939; Dunn 1984;

Vaughan 1984; Halpin 1984). Roth (2008) notes that structural anthropology has influenced

current understanding of Tsimshian family structures I am curious to see what sumaxs’ kinship

and friendship networks look like when based around cell phone contact lists. How has their

networks and relationships changed compared to when I conducted my Masters research and the

sumaxs produced their own kinship chart of their street family?5

5See For Our Street Family (USA: Documentary Educational Resources, 2008) for footage of



24

I will also be expanding my own network beyond the sumaxs to discuss the project with

the Friendship House board members, management and other adults in the community. During

this phase, fieldnotes will be taken to record my observations, the outcomes of informal

interviews and keep track of emerging themes (Emerson et al 1995). Participant-observation,

informal interviews, and discussions about the project that occur in the first phase build

relationships and inform how the following phases will proceed.

The project also coincides with the annual Gathering Our Voices youth conference to be

hosted by Prince Rupert in March 2011. For the past nine years, the BC Association of

Friendship Centers has hosted an annual Gathering of Youth Voices, inviting 1500 youth to a

four-day conference. The focus of the conference is to pass on skills, allow youth to network

among themselves, and listen to youth needs. The conference provides to opportunity to explore

how the conference builds networks between youth as well as the role organizations in building

community. At the request of my Friendship House a short film will be created by the current

cohort of the Youth Hub to welcome the conference participants to Prince Rupert as part of my

participatory involvement with the Friendship House.

As the Gathering of Youth Voices concludes, the film production phase of my research

will begin. I will visually document the convergence of people, things, and structures of the

sumaxs actor-network of film production. This phase of research embraces my role as a

“cinematic provacateur” to see how the unique space of reflection and authority created by

filmmaking process mobilizes networks in particular ways. In reference to the cinematic

provocateur, Jean Rouch (2003: 220) wrote, “the fundamental problem in all social sciences is

the sumaxs producing their own chart of their peer network. Kinship positions were based on themeaning of individual relationships as well as a way to formally create inclusion among the

group of forty youth as a whole.



25

that the facts are always distorted by the presence of the person who asks the questions. You

distort the answer simply by posing the question.” My process embraces this distortion by

asking the sumaxs to collaborate on film projects, be interviewed, and interview others. The

presence of the camera will distort behavior, but will also act as a catalyst. Jean Rouch’s

Chronicles of a Summer (1960), David MacDougall’s Lorang’s Way (1979), Charles Menzies

and Jennifer Rashleigh’s Bax Laanks -Pulling Together: A story of Gitxaał a Nation (2009,) and

my own For Our Street Family (2008) include examples of experiences for participants that

occurred only because of the actor-network of film production.

Sumaxs who have expressed interests in the project will be invited to collaborate on

themes and learn film production skills. Participant observation will continue to be a primary

method and written field-notes will accompany my audio and visual recordings to help document

the process for future analysis. Interest and information gained during the first phase of my

research will help determine how I gather narratives, opinions, observations, and audio/visual

recordings to answer my four research questions. One suggestion from the sumaxs’ has been to

select the themes for four short stand-alone films based on the sumaxs who want to participate an

their ideas. These short films could then be remixed into the larger film for my visual dissertation

chapter.

All of the films will be created borrowing borrow Elaine Lawless’s (1991) concept of

reciprocal ethnography and bringing it into film. Lawless defined a form of reciprocal

ethnography that includes participants in the creation, practice, analysis, and authorship of

materials written about their experience. Lassiter (2005) refers to her priorities as moving

towards co-authored collaborative research. Reciprocal documentary prioritizes the interactive

and collaborative “give and take” negotiations between the sumaxs and myself. A film cannot be



26

made without this collaborative exchange. Throughout the post-production phase of these

smaller films their input and review of the raw footage and transcript will help ensure they are

portrayed in an appropriate manner.

The short film projects provide the visual material and opportunity to interview, record,

and analyze the sumaxs interacting in their networks. Preliminary recorded interviews for the

short film also provide the opportunity to explore the sumaxs’ self-definitions of their networks,

community, adult aspirations and what inspires their decisions. Filming the sumaxs through

observational cinematic techniques also records how they participate in their networks and the

resonating elements of their assemblage. Interviews also provide the opportunity to discuss

mentorships and the qualities that resonate with in their mentors.

The third phase also includes reviewing rough cuts with the sumaxs and other participants

to receive their feedback about their on-screen representations and the overall process.

Screenings of the shorter films at the Youth Hub and in Prince Rupert will also filmed for their

possible inclusion in the cinematic dissertation chapter. Post screening interviews will also be

screened for further reflection on the visual research method and how film acts differently text.

Post-production feedback will direct further editing and follow up filming until the final cut is

created.

The final cut of the cinematic dissertation chapter will be a reciprocal visual ethnography

that places the representations of those on screen equal to the importance of the film’s argument

about the sumaxs experience. As a visual ethnography, it will represent the people, materials, and

structures involved in the sumaxs assemblage. How an audience encounters the on screen

representation of the sumaxs will also be determined by the relationships maintained during

production since "all documentary exists as a record of the relationship between filmmaker and



27

subject" (Elder 1995:94). By practicing respect for the input, perspectives, and collaboration with

the sumaxs in the authorship of the film and sharing this process with viewers, I will invite

audiences into dialogues that cross individual experiences, generations, and cultures.

The final stage of research will focus on analyzing the reception of my cinematic

dissertation chapter. This includes reception among the sumaxs themselves, the citizenry of

Prince Rupert and broader audiences. The film created with the sumaxs three years ago, has

screened for academic audiences across North American and Europe and has been viewed by

British Columbia’s Representative for Children and Youth. I hope for similar distribution of this

film. There is also a potential for more mainstream viewership within North America.

While reflections on methods during the production of media are numerous in academia,

few studies of audience reception have been conducted from a social science perspective. Power

dynamics, the responsibility of filmmaking researchers to participants, and the importance of

indigenous media abound in visual anthropology discourses (Ruby 1991: MacDougall 1991;

Ginsburg 1995). As access to media production becomes common, films are becoming

increasingly attractive to scholars and are assumed to be valuable because of their appeal and

potential to create dialogue across large audiences (Nichols 1991). My work will explore the

potential of visual mediums in research practice.

The written portion of the dissertation will augment the cinematic dissertation chapter

and the photographic mural. The application of actor-network theory, networked publics, and

the affect of actants that may or may not make it into the cinematic chapter will be analyzed in

text. The text will also document the sumaxs assemblage and how, during the research process,

the networks of academic institutions and local interests collide at the point of the researcher and

their tools. In my case, these include the heterogeneous relationships I have with the sumaxs, my



28

own interests in their assemblages, and my responsibility to the community members and

Friendship House in Prince Rupert who are my hosts. All these interests intersect not only with

myself, but also in the camera I hold.

Dissertation Chapter Breakdown

Chapter 1: “With Jeni With Us We’ll Look Less Native,” An Introduction

“With Jeni with us we’ll look less Native,” a 20 year old Nisga’a youth and member of

the sumaxs cohort, announced with a grin to his friends as we left the Hobiyee Celebration. We

all burst into laughter at the joke. In my introduction, I will use the context and the encounters

following the young man’s statement to introduce the project, myself, power relations in the

research process (Smith 1999), as well as the sometimes challenging interaction between

research, participants, and community interests (Lassiter 2005, Menzies 2004). The narrative of

our 20 minute journey includes walking around in regalia, text messages regarding First Nation

traditions, the use of humor to relieve tension, the agency of a professional looking camera, and

the unapologetic stares of people, both Aboriginal and not, struggling to make sense of their

encounters with us. In the introduction and in the following chapters, I will discuss theory

through grounded contextualized social examples.

Chapter 2: Being K’umsiwah: Seeing through Butterfly Eyes

Members of the community who are not related to the four clans of the Northwest coast- the

wolf, raven, eagle, or killer whale- are assigned the clan of butterfly. The clan represents the

“wandering butterfly” like notions of the K’umsiwah- white people or white drift wood- who

have washed ashore on the North Coast, come into communities, and often wandered away. This



29

chapter examines my relationship with the sumaxs and their community as one of their “resident

butterflies” and explores the potential and the sensitivity required when working across cultures

and seeing the world through different eyes. The chapter positions myself and my relationships

with specific young people and my relationships to the academy as a non-indigenous researcher.

Chapter 3: Producing Networks

Chapter Two focuses on the first research question and introduces the fluidity of the sumaxs

assemblage and how they position themselves in their networks. The chapter will explore the

understandings the sumaxs have of themselves through the materials and people they connect to.

The chapters will also trace the role extended family networks as they are practiced by the

sumaxs and the discursive blurs between friends and family based on affective relationships. The

chapter explores the third research question and explore the affective role of technology to

mediate relationships, including the role of cell phones, social networking sites and Youtube to

record and share events, ideas, and advice between people. The chapter weaves the use of

technology within an interpersonal actor-network as a practice that connects people (Franklin

1999, Latour 1996). The chapter will engage with technology’s role in human interactions of the

sumaxs network and explore Heidegger’s (1982) Eurocentric statements regarding the essence of

modern technology in relations with the knowledge passed between generations of the Tsimshian

people as they choose how to integrate into wider economies (Menzies and Butler 2008).

Chapter 4: Representing Embodied Identity

The seventh chapter will explore the creation of still images that became a 96 square foot

mural filled with over 600 photographs of 80 community members created by myself and the

sumaxs. The mural is a work that takes my archive of over 4000 photographs off computer



30

hardrives and Facebook profile pictures to make them physically present in public. The chapter

explores the aesthetic authority of black and white images and the meanings created by filling

the four animal crests that define lineage groups of the Northwest Coast with everyday

contemporary representations of young people and their families. The chapter explores the

difference between still and moving image representation and their meanings for community as

well as the mural’s reception both within Prince Rupert and in Vancouver.

Chapter 5: The Visual Dissertation Chapter of the film Sumaxs Affect

The produced films “For Our Street Family” (2007) and “Sumaxs Affect” (2011) are stand

alone chapters of visual work that provide examples and weave together some of the overall

themes of the dissertation.

Chapter 6: The Camera Convergence

Chapter Six is a view into the environment beyond the frame of camera lens during the

recording of Sumaxs Affect . The chapter focuses on the relationships of the camera and its

operator in the actor-network of film production. The chapters will highlight moments in the

project that only occurred because of the presence of a camera and my choice in how to record it.

The chapter will also explore the responsibility of the filmmaker to create trust during shooting

and interviews so that participants understand under what context their representation will be

used. This section also addresses ethical film production as part of reciprocal visual

ethnographies and what can not be filmed or included in Sumaxs Affect .

Chapter 7: The Affective Encounter

The final chapter compares the intended purpose of the film and photographic mural with the

reception of audiences through a framework of assemblages, communities, race, and affect. The



31

chapter will evaluate the effectiveness of the project to produce dialogues about the sumaxs

experience in multiple audience contexts including within the sumaxs cohort, the Prince Rupert

community, and among other audiences. Theories of affectus (Spinoza 1677), Deleuze’s

(1986,1987) notions on cinema, Husserl’s (1905) models of time consciousness, and possibly

Bergson’s (1889) concepts of the virtual and actual to reveal to the reader how the film they have

viewed is an assembled idea and affective time-based experience meant to produce certain ideas.

The chapter analyzes the role of visual in the production of stereotypes and the effectiveness of

visual activism to bridge difference.

Summary

My research will work towards understanding the factors and affect that maneuver the

sumaxs social networks. Through the process of film production and screening I am exploring

what resonates with the sumaxs. The people, materials and experiences that create affect,

produce meaning and influence the sumaxs future actions. I am attempting to capture and

understand as well as represent and produce this experience through the medium of film. This

study will build on and contribute to past scholarship by applying discourse on Actor-Network

Theory and affect to a contextualized case study.

The project will expand on research methodology by being an example of a community

collaborative research project designed around film production. The short films will document

and express the interest of the sumaxs’ communities. The cinematic dissertation chapter is an

attempt to translate an experience of First Nations youth to outside audiences by engaging in film

production across the sumaxs’ social network. The dissertation is a project that that begins with

present interactions and traces their connections between people, things, events, and histories.



32

Practically, my PhD research is an endeavor to produce new mentorship that guide transitions

into adulthood by working on projects that engage multiple generations. Theoretically the

research project an attempt to reveal how people negotiate through the boundaries of their

assemblages and the encounters that influence how they participate in interactions.



33

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Documents

Wolowic PhD Proposal