News Broadcasting
Kurzfilm „Die Badante“ in Zusammenarbeit mit Günther Neumair und Michaela Falkensteiner und RAI Südtirol
Cortometraggio “La Badante” in collaborazione con Günther Neumair e Michaela Falkensteiner e RAI Südtirol
A New Dawn for Women in Higher Education in Saudi Arabia: Looming Changes on the Horizon?
This radio interview was broadcasted on SWR, a German radio station, on the 3rd of November in 2013 and draws from my experience as educator in the female section of Prince Mohammed University in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.
The First Conference of Film and Media Analysis at the Faculty of Education of the Free University of Bolzano, Italy, focused on educational film analysis and its relation to common research methods in cultural investigations. Evolving pedagogies provide exciting opportunities for academics and artists to investigate the role of film and media as witness and voice of social reality.
In collaboration with American Research Fellow Stephanie Ryan Cate from the University of Alabama Huntsville (USA) and a filmmaker Ms. Arda Nederveen, Visuele Producties, Netherlands, I realized a film trip to Oman from the 26th of February to the 12th of March 2010 building on the connection established during my work as professor at Dhofar University in 2006. The film “Polygyny in Oman: Forms and Changes of this societal and cultural marital arrangement” was being shot in the Sultanate of Oman in February/March of 2011 and premiered during the conference. The intent behind the film was to offer a glimpse into daily life in the Sultanate for those people living in polygynous marriages or families in order to allow people to see the similarities amongst all forms of families presented and also to demystify what in the West is an uncommon marital form. This film addresses this lack by explaining in intimate and vulnerable language some of the divergent cultural practices which can antagonize and alienate European neighbors and colleagues.
In September of 2006 I was put in the public eye by performing Dodo in the filmlet „Dove vai se la ricerca non la fai” / “Where do you go when you don’t do research”. On the occasion of the European Researchers’ Night, a pan-European event involving a wide range of scientific and research organizations, the University of Bozen-Bolzano planed to host a variety of entertaining and fun events and also realized this film project. Working with the famous Italian director Andrea Caldarelli as an amateur actress with colleagues from my university as well as the University of Camerino was a lot of fun! I feel that the idea to present researchers within the context of “fun” activities and to highlight the appeal of pursuing a research career was translated successfully, but look and see, watch some film clips courtesy of UNICAM…
video
In spring of 2009 I co-organized a book presentation on “Die Ware Frau. Auf den Spuren moderner Sklaverei von Afrika nach Europa”/“Females as Objects–On the Trail of Modern Slavery“ by Mary Kreutzer and Corinna Milborn. On this occasion I was interviewed by the local radio station „Grüne Welle“ on the problem of trafficking women from Nigeria to Europe and their forced prostitution. In the contribution which you can listen to in German I analyze this phenomenon in the light of post-colonial structures contributing to the unequal distribution of resources on the globe reinforcing the north-south gap.
I have been interviewed by local and regional papers as well as radio stations in the countries in which I have conducted my research. Western researchers in Arab countries are somewhat of a rarity especially in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. I often appeared in the news in Oman given the fact that press is freer than in Saudi Arabia. The emphasize of my work at that time which was dealing with social issues such as children with special abilities and needs was a focal point for the local government. In Pakistan it was however, kept low-keyed because the security situation in the North-West Province was precarious for any Westerner and especially me: young, unmarried, dealing with liberal issues in Education, doing research on corporal punishment.
In an aim to use a developmental approach to applying films to intercultural education I tried to gain visibility of my research project through the media. Austrian broadcasting company, ORF, has produced a short film on my research on intercultural coexistence and social integration in Fortezza, a village in South Tyrol, Italy, which was broadcasted in June of 2011:
Quelle: Südtirol heute, ORF
