SIG Mission Statement

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As conceptions of ‘national’ cinema are increasingly brought into question across contemporary scholarship, the search for an alternative paradigm coalesces time and again around the word ‘transnational’. Implicit within this term is recognition of the unstable, movable nature of the ‘national’ referent in a globalised era, problematising notions of a local industry talking to and for its nation state. By positing a polycentric relationship between industries, such approaches locate the practices of production, distribution and consumption as sites of cultural blending, offering fertile ground for nuanced socio-historical analysis.

 

​Yet, if the ‘national’ is a fraught concept, so too is the ‘transnational’. There is no consensus over whether the phrase ‘transnational cinema’ describes processes of industrial collaboration across borders, of the ‘localisation’ of filmic products as they traverse the globe, or of foreign influences coming to bear upon the production of the film text. Furthermore, the cultural, political or historical position of the individual scholar is another potentially problematic element in the construction of a ‘transnational’ discourse. Are we too products of a ‘transnational’ subjectivity and, if so, what value judgements do we bring to our analysis? 

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The term is often substituted with alternatives: most commonly, ‘transcultural’, which takes account of the fact that ‘culture’ is not necessarily tied to regional imperatives. Indeed, the very term ‘transnational’ can be seen to privilege the ‘national’ referent by positioning itself as an oppositional paradigm. The debates here summarized are seldom undertaken in a programmatic manner. More often, ‘transnational’, ‘international’, ‘transcultural’ or ‘global’ appellations are used as interchangeable buzz-words. This Scholarly Interest Group, therefore, would be a timely intervention, offering a dynamic, polysemous forum for these and related issues.

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