Documentary as a powerful form of research dissemination and impact: a case study

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Gibson, L ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1220-8680 and Bashford-Squires, S, 2025. Documentary as a powerful form of research dissemination and impact: a case study. In: S3 Summer Showcase, NTU, 09 July 2025.

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Abstract

We received NTU QR funding to produce a documentary concerning the impact of social enterprise projects on women’s lives in Teso, sub-region, a marginalised and conflict-impacted area of North-Eastern Uganda. The documentary, Eitai, is based on Sally’s doctoral research, conducted in this area. We aimed to disseminate the findings of this research in a manner that would correlate with the Indigenous population’s value of storytelling, drama, music, and dance. The filming took place in February 2024 over three weeks. The footage was captured by Nottingham Trent alumni Sonyanga Weblan, who is a professional, Kenyan documentary maker.

We recently disseminated the film with the film maker in both the UK (Nottingham, University of Greenwich) and in Uganda at Makerere University Business School and in 4 community sites in the Teso region and held question and answer panel sessions with each of the groups, ranging from academic audiences, activists and community members. Through the showing of film footage and documenting of the feedback from the screenings we will demonstrate the power of documentary to provoke discussion amongst different audiences as they react differently to the film. Documentary as a form of research dissemination can have impact at local and international levels and can engender further potential for future research through facilitated discussion and storytelling. For the communities involved it demonstrated that they can start to come together and learn different practices and exchange knowledge in developing their activities and thus have a greater impact.

This session documents the impact this method can have on different research constituencies

Item Type:	Conference contribution
Creators:	Gibson, L. and Bashford-Squires, S.
Date:	July 2025
Identifiers:	Number Type 2482571 Other
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Laura Borcherds
Date Added:	15 Aug 2025 08:42
Last Modified:	15 Aug 2025 08:42
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/54212