Ethnography and experimental non-fiction storytelling: relating the experiences of Maltese Fishermen

In this practice-based exploration I look at the dynamics of long-term ethnographic research to address the tensions between lived experience and conventional narrative constructs of Mediterranean identities. This research also fills a void in the anthropology of fishermen in Malta which as an area of academic investigation has remained understudied. Speculating on relational meaning making processes and multidimensional and experimental qualities inherent to ethnographic research, I produced non-linear multimodal documentary works as environments with the capacity to engender tangible, immersive and tacit knowledge about situated identities.

Using my seven-year engagement with a family of fishermen from Marsaxlokk, a small fishing port in the south eastern part of Malta, I reflect on how situated learning experiences can inform experimental non-fiction audio-visual storytelling.

In my research I draw on theories of affect and notions of the archivalto reflect on the ways Mediterranean identities are constructed. Examining the ecology of relations that binds together the people and the environment that they inhabit I engage with current discourses on multisensory ethnography, documentary making and narrative power to explore my practice (including two photographic essays, a sound installation, two gallery video projections and a web-based documentary prototype) as a process of creative mediation between the fishermen’s world and the public. Using select examples from my fieldwork recordings I show how embodied audio-visual practices enable nonfiction storytellers to re-propose the conditions of the ethnographic
encounter.

I look at how, responding to the very particular environmental and socio-cultural conditions of my field of study, I took my practice beyond the canons of traditional documentary photography towards an expanded multimedia form of storytelling. More specifically, I refer to my experiences with people working on and around the Joan of Arc(the family boat), as well as my apprenticeship as a deckhand/fisherman,
to examine notions of emplaced learning, collaborative meaning making processes and affective strategies for the development of creative sensory-rich immersive storytelling strategies that provide amore nuanced understanding of Mediterranean identities.