by The International Cellphilm Festival

Three Months is an Awful Long Time.

Well, I said I would start drawing again. And I have.

I have started writing my dissertation. I’ve started writing about my time in HK. It seems to me that now that I’m firmly back into the project, it only makes sense to begin my drawing practice again. For one, this space has been a good place for me to get my thoughts down, as well as to connect with the folks who are a part of it (both within my research project and in my friends and family and colleagues and and and).

And so, dear readers, I bring you my very first drawings in months. Months!

Thinking about the field from my desk,

Casey

P.S. My scanner is acting strange, and so the drawings are neon green. I can’t figure out why.

by The International Cellphilm Festival

On Multilingual Research Spaces and Digital Dissemination (by Casey Burkholder)

Dear readers,

I have been away from the field for a month and a half. It is strange to be reintegrating into my Canadian life (even though I am not at home in Montreal), while still thinking about Hong Kong. I wrote about language and space and disseminating the cellphilms on YouTube and elsewhere in a blog post (here).

I’ll be back with drawings soon.

A promise.

-from a picnic bench in Charlottetown

Belonging, Identity, Language, Diversity Research Group (BILD)

I have been all over the place lately. I have been just about everywhere but home in Montreal. From January – June of this year, I was living and working in Hong Kong while I completed the fieldwork for my doctoral project, Looking Back and Looking Around: Cellphilming and Revisiting with Ethnic Minority Youth in Hong Kong. The project has taken up a lot of my thinking, and has inspired a few of mypreviousBILD posts. It continues to inspire my thinking as I move from being in the field with my research participants, to working with them across digital spaces.

IMG 1 Image 1: Still from Katrina’s cellphilm on identity

In brief, I am co-creating with a group of ethnic minority young people (between the ages of 18 and 22) in Hong Kong for my doctoral project. Ten of these participants attended the same secondary school (it is the school…

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by The International Cellphilm Festival

On Keeping These Fieldnotes

It seems like I just got off of the plane from Montreal. Where have these months disappeared?

This will be my last fieldnotes entry while I am ‘in’ the field. Tyler and I leave on Monday, and will be heading back to Montreal. I’m going in to work at McGill on Tuesday. Today, City U. Tuesday, McGill. Air travel is like time travel.

These past months of my fieldwork would not have been possible without the ideas, support, thoughtfulness and time from my amazing participants: Amrit, Ann, Avtar, Katrina, Khan, Omer, Shasad, Shuja, Sukhroop, Sabi & Yuna: thank you so much. Thank you for your participation, and perspectives! Thank you for spending your limited free time with me! Thank you for your evocative cellphilms! Thank you for everything! I am so lucky to have seen you grow up and become the inspiring humans that you are today. I am so fortunate to know you, and to have spent time with you. Without you, none of this would be possible. Thank you so much!

I am also endebted to the incredible support of my partner and family, my supervisor: the wonderful Claudia Mitchell, and the mentoring and guidance of my City U supervisor: the excellent Shannon Walsh. I am also thankful for my long distance writing partners: Ehaab Abdou, Alice Chan, Marianne Filion, Katie MacEntee and Josh Schwab-Cartas. Thank you for keeping me on track, for writing with me, and for bearing with the time difference. For all of these humans and their thoughtful guidance, I am truly thankful.

So, with that, I bring you the final installment of my fieldnotes while I am in Hong Kong.

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-from the field