Affiliation:
1. Universiteit van Amsterdam, Nederland
Abstract
This chapter analyses how digital witnessing of migration in documentary auto-ethnography contributes towards epistemic decolonization. I focus on For Sama (Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts, 2019) as a case study, a letter-film that memorializes key events in al-Kateab’s everyday life during the Syrian Civil War that shaped her decision to migrate to Europe. By considering the relation between documentary, citizen media, and decoloniality, I argue that digital witnessing in For Sama provides affective access to migration motivations that challenges their reductionist categorization and pluralizes audience understanding of ‘crisis’ and ‘borders’.
Publisher
Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari