Abstract:

The purpose of this short auto-ethnographic film entitled “Insiders”, is to present a phenomenology of personal characteristics that align with the DSM-V description of Selective Mutism; to illustrate the divide between institutionally encoded and thereby stigmatized meanings of this disease or disorder and internalized, embodied experience; and to represent a part of experience that is not available to formalized systems of description frequently given primacy over self-reporting. The understanding of this divide utilized here is constructed in line with the conceptions of stigma as outlined by Goffman (1986). In order to achieve the above purposes, I used impressionistic visual and storytelling methods to create a sensory ethnography that is meant to approximate the experiential quality of this aspect of life from a first person perspective as well as evoke the experience of the termed “disorder” for viewers. I then continue to make the sharp contrast between personal experience and clinical description by reading the DSM-V description of Selective Mutism in sharp focus on camera with a distant sound quality that is meant to signify my distance from that sphere of understanding of my experience as a person who was not formally diagnosed as a child (as is usual for people with Selective Mutism) and therefor developed a self-construct based upon my experiences using culturally available understandings of otherness, and employing a minimal set design, which signifies the lack of heuristic detail contained in such descriptions. The result is an achronological expression of the experience of this specific set of characteristics.

Presented:

Southwestern Anthropological Association Annual Conference 2017
California State University Long Beach Visual Anthropology Showcase 2017