Let’s build a waterfall!

Authors

  • Trond Waage Visual Cultural Studies, Department of Social Science, UiT/Arctic University of Norway
  • Anniken Førde Department of Social Science, UiT/Arctic University of Norway

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15845/jaf.v2i2.1569

Keywords:

Storytelling, place narratives, mobilisation, resistance, costal futures, Northern Norway

Abstract

 

“Let’s build a waterfall!” is about the continuous struggle to maintain a rural community. The village Bleik in North Norway seems to stand strong in this struggle; contrary to most fishing villages, Bleik experiences growth. There are waiting lists to get housing lots and children to the local school. With strong traditions of voluntary work, Bleik has numerous local groups, a new sport arena, golf course, community center, local shop, café and pub. Being called Bleik Indians, ‘the savages behind the mountains’, is turned from stigma to pride. This documentary explores the processes of resilience and mobilization. Bleik is characterized by proud traditions of local story telling. Facing new challenges, old stories are reactivated, like the one about being the first village to have a power station; “What do we do in Bleik when we don’t have a waterfall? We build one!” The film tells stories of a vital village with strong traditions of mobilizing, but also of the drama coastal communities are facing. When the harbour is threatened, will they manage to mobilize to maintain the fishing community? 

Author Biographies

Trond Waage, Visual Cultural Studies, Department of Social Science, UiT/Arctic University of Norway

Trond is associated professor at Visual Cultural Studies and holds a Ph.D in Social Anthropology with specialization in Visual Anthropology. Trond has done research in Northern Norway and Northern Cameroon, where he has explored the themes of youths, urbanisation, ethnicity, gender, religion and visual anthropology.

He defended his PhD thesis on youth culture and urbanisation in the highly heterogeneous town Ngaoundéré in Northern Cameroon in September 2003. In this work Trond has worked intensively with seven different youth milieus, consisting members of eleven ethnic groups, Muslim and Christians, students and illiterates, immigrants and "natives", all this to identify development of identity and group dynamics in this culturally highly complex setting. All these milieus have been studied through the use of different visual tools.

Waage has been teaching Visual Anthropology at Visual Cultural Studies at UiTromsø/ since 2003, and has thought at several collaborative universities in West Africa: Bamako, Mali and Ngaoundere, Cameroon.  His recent films are:

 ‘Les Mairuuwas – Master of Water’. Waage, 2015,  

‘So lets build a Waterfall’ Førde and Waage, 2015,  

‘Living with Boko Haram’ Waage and Ahmadou, 2016,

‘The world has not changed’ Waage, 2018, 

Anniken Førde, Department of Social Science, UiT/Arctic University of Norway

Anniken Førde is Associate Professor of Community Planning at UiT The Wrctic University of Norway. Her research fields are transformation processes of places and landscapes, innovation policies and practices, and responsible place development. She teaches philosophy of science and methodology for students in Planning and Culture, and is interested in methodological issues related to exploration of complex, relational realities. Let’s build a waterfall is her first documentary.
Still image from the film "Let's build a waterfall!" showing people from Bleik on a beach during the annual festival "Bleiksdagan".

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Published

2018-11-17

How to Cite

Waage, T., & Førde, A. (2018). Let’s build a waterfall!. Journal of Anthropological Films, 2(2), e1569. https://doi.org/10.15845/jaf.v2i2.1569

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 2 (2018)

Section

Films

License

Copyright (c) 2018 Trond Waage, Anniken Førde

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.