Art, Activism and Sundarbans: A case study of Musical Environmental Movement through Film

Abstract

Art, Activism and Sundarbans: A case study of Musical Environmental Movement through Film is a case-based study of ecocinema. Ecocinema studies involves the ecocritical reading of films with or without overt environmental messages. Scholars in the relatively new, yet the burgeoning field of ecocinema studies primarily critique fictional and documentary films. However, I am among a subset of scholars (Seymour, 2014; Pedelty, 2017) who are bringing a more directly engaged, field-based, and production-oriented focus to ecocinema studies and environmental communication. My research in the Sundarbans (India-Bangladesh) involves artists-activists who use music and performing arts to communicate ongoing environmental issues. I used a field-to-media method to film, study and analyze an environmental movement that advocates for the mangrove forest. That work is presented and framed partially through writing, but more fully through the documentary film, Musical Mangrove. The written sections of this dissertation are in conversation with ecocinema scholars such as Rust, Monani and Cubitt (2012), von Mossner (2014), Macdonald (2004, 2012), and Ingram (2005) to suggest a more collaborative and production-based approach to the study of ecocinema. Additionally, this work points out the need for similar participatory approaches to environmental communication and starts a dialogue between ecocinema studies and environmental communication. Ultimately, my goal is to bring together production-based experience as a field researcher with the broader field of film criticism, especially in terms of environmentally themed film and film studies, for sake of making a distinct, experimental, and integral contribution to ecocinema studies, media studies, and environmental communication more broadly.