Exploring the imperative of “relational documentary”: Process, power, and unruly collaboration in media production on Palestine

Becoming an anthropologist of Palestine during the War on Terror meant that the specter of violence and exclusion always loomed over my research; yet I had become an anthropologist out of a commitment to presence in and engagement with people from the Middle East. I investigate the ways in which Faye Ginsburg's approach to studying polarizing issues, her analysis of Indigenous media, and her commitment to ethical collaboration has shaped my written and video work. In the first part of the paper, I discuss how reflexivity and positionality propelled me forward in an ethnographic study of journalistic production. In the second half, I reflect on collaborative film projects that illuminated themes of risk and positionality that are at the heart of politics and media production in Palestine. The model of “relational documentary” analyzed by Ginsburg that considers ethics and politics both on and off screen informs my approach to the obligations of long‐running partnerships. Just as much, Ginsburg's commitment to play and creativity allowed me to imagine unexpected explorations of mobility, voice, and place to ask what we can do, working across lines of difference, to be able to hear each other and make space for each other to be heard.