What's in a wedding? Emiko Stock, assistant professor of anthropology, explores this question and more in her film, The Wedding, which is being screened at the UK Royal Anthropological Institute Film Festival and Conference this month. She will also be chairing and presenting at the festival a roundtable titled "Shadowing Meanings: the things we do (or not) with subtitles."
The festival can be attended online throughout March.
News@AUC caught up with Stock to learn more about the film and her research.
1. Tell us about your film, The Wedding.
The Wedding follows a day in a Cham Cambodian Muslim wedding. The film pays particular attention to the mundane gestures
of turning a wedding into a "picture perfect" moment: a good prayer, a well-crafted meal, the well put together makeup-outfit-nails combo, the casual hanging outs, the laughs (or the boredom) and finally the ideal couple photograph.
2. What impact do you hope the film will have on viewers?
By layering gendered perspectives and breaking down the conventions of stability and singularity in camera movement and editing, the film aims to transcribe a partial experience: I hope viewers will leave the film thinking about how we all shape the peculiarity of any wedding, but also reflect on how all ethnographic and filmic endeavors are situated and textured.
3. Tell us about your research.
I work as a visual and historical anthropologist among Chams (a Muslim minority in Cambodia, which is a vastly Buddhist country). On one hand, I focus on how people think, use, and live with visual media (family photo albums, selfies, analog DIY practices, wedding videography...) but also how I, as an anthropologist doubling as photographer/filmmaker, can use the visual medium to tell alternative stories.
On the other hand, I also document Cham perspectives on a difficult history: one that requires silences, erasures and the refusal of archives. This is where visuals come to make even more sense: sometimes, when history is too hard to talk about, let alone inscribe, we need more than words. Images then, especially images considered as mundane, open a path through a history that can only be seen in its very absence.
4. What drew you to this topic?
My work in this community started very informally: I was first taken-in as a relative of sorts, but because I was always an amateur photographer/videographer, people would always ask me to come take pictures of their weddings. And since I always had an interest in history that was shared by many in the community, the two sides of the project sort of naturally merged together.
The Wedding is an example of how this relationship materializes: it was first shot, edited and distributed for the families themselves. It's only later on that I started to look at the film in a different way, one that might be of interest to anthropologists and documentary filmmakers. For me this is an essential lesson of ethical grounding that anthropology brings to the world: how can we be with each other, in resonance and reciprocity, so that we can live a little better with ourselves?
5. Is your research related to the roundtable you are chairing? Can you talk a bit about this?
The roundtable that I am organizing and chairing titled "Shadowing Meanings: the things we do (or not) with subtitles" looks at how subtitles are used (and misused) in documentary filmmaking. We take a feminist and counter-colonial stand in our rationale: if subtitles often aim for accessibility, transparency and information, they also carry a certain violence. When we choose what to inscribe, we invariably also produce erasures. The roundtable aims to explore the various shapes and contexts of such erasures.
What we ask ourselves is: what are the limits of subtitling? How can we embed documentary and ethnographic filmmaking in an opacity that is generative: one that relies on an active engagement with the medium rather than a passive consumption of clear-to-go meaning? The roundtable brings a wide range of case studies into discussion: from an analysis of classical Western ethnographic movies focusing on the audiences excluded by the subtitling process, to an examination of experimental media produced with refugee youth in Iran. Instead of aiming to produce content and information, we wonder if documentary could strive to bring viewers in the kind of attention and intentionality that brings us closer to life, and life's very own signature lack of clarity.
6. What are you teaching at AUC?
Next semester I will be teaching Film and Anthropology: Off-Screen Creativity in Cairo. The course aims to bring students of anthropology and film studies together to think through the idea of creation in the fields of film, video, and media making. I love teaching this course! For me it brings the best of both worlds: for students who have never taken a film class in their lives, it's a way to think about the medium and how it constructs our envisioning of the world. For students new to anthropology, it's a way to think about ethical avenues to document the world with constant wonder and generosity.
“I am 74 years old – I know it is strange for a woman to confess her age. Our societies are aging and the concept of age is changing. As humanity begins to live longer, lifelong learning will become vital for societies to re-skill and re-adapt individuals to the times and to new economic needs,” said Kadria Abdel-Motaal (MA ‘23) in a speech she gave as the representative of the graduate class of 2023.
Abdel-Motaal recently graduated from AUC with a master’s in educational leadership. With 74 years of life experience, she agreed to sit down with News@AUC and share her story.
Have you always intended to pursue a master’s degree?
I always wanted to go to medical school, and I was always at the top of my class during the first three years of my bachelor’s degree at Ein Shams University. But at the end of my studies, I got married and had two kids, so I wasn’t at the top of my class as usual. We didn’t have cumulative GPAs at the time — only the last year counted — so I was not allowed to go to postgraduate studies. This left a hole inside myself that I was always determined to fill, one way or another.
What did you do after completing your undergraduate degree?
I first worked as a specialist at the Egyptian National Blood Bank VACSERA, eventually becoming chairwoman and chief executive officer of one of Vacsera’s affiliated companies, the Egyptian Company for Biotech Industries. When I retired from that company at the age of 60, I served as the president of the Heliopolis Academy for Research. We focused on developing and attracting funds for multi-partner research projects. After that, I led the establishment project of Heliopolis University and became the director of its research department.
Wow, you’ve really kept busy. How did you decide to join AUC?
After I retired from Heliopolis University, I asked myself, “What do I want to do?” And I remembered my big old problem, the hole I’ve been wanting to fill. I knew I had to go to postgraduate studies. So I joined the educational leadership program.
Why educational leadership?
I worked closely within academia during the establishment of Heliopolis University, but I never truly belonged to the field of education. I really wanted the academic background on education, and I thought educational leadership was a beautiful program for that goal.
What did being in the classroom teach you that your practical experience had not?
It introduced me to areas I had never considered before, like the social foundation of education, theories of education and theories of human development. I also learned about the professional way to develop a program, based on pedagogical theories and different delivery methods. I learned how to write in a professional and academic way. It was a well-rounded experience from all sides.
What was it like studying with students who are younger than you?
From day one, I was in the mindset of being a student. I was not the boss or the director, I was just a simple student. So, the other students dealt with me as their colleague, there was no real age barrier. If anything, they injected me with some youth. I was very pleased that there were no complications at all. I was able to meet a group of people that were different from my usual social network, and the majority were women — which is very impressive. It was an enlightening and humbling experience.
What did your family think of your decision to pursue a master’s degree?
They were incredibly supportive; they were really the driving force behind me. They would tell me, “Remember to apply, you’re going to miss the deadline!” or “What did you write for your application, let me see.” Even at graduation, they drove me to the ceremony like I was a child whose parents were taking me to my first day of school. Learning and education is very important in my family.
Why do you think lifelong learning is so important?
Continuous learning is crucial. People are living so long now that they can retire and still have another 20 years of life, yet many spend those years sitting and waiting. There’s a misconception that your life is done after your career. It’s not! Knowledge continues to be discovered, and the things my generation learned 50 years ago are totally different now. We need to continue to educate and recreate ourselves.
What’s next for you?
I have many things I want to do. I hope to join a PhD program and I also want to publish my master’s thesis. My thesis was on expanding the culinary arts higher education in Egypt. Culinary arts is not represented in Egyptian higher education, even though it is a multidisciplinary field that involves different areas of study, such as food biology, food chemistry, history and sociology. This is a major pillar of the tourism industry; you hear people talking about the pyramids when they visit, but not the local cuisine. There are not many Egyptian restaurants abroad and our food is misappropriated into other nationalities’ cuisines. My next step is to use my education and my experience to contribute to filling this gap in higher education.
