This paper is part of the research “Collaborative Filmmaking as an Affective-Pedagogical-Feminist Research Phenomenon: A Diffractive Study on the Gender Filmmaking Labs at the School Pepa Colomer” (Author, 2024), which arises from the premise that collaborative filmmaking has been little explored through the lenses of the affective turn (Clough & Halley, 2007) and feminist new materialisms (Dolphijn & van der Tuin, 2012). These onto-episte-etico-methodologies examine how matter, affects and discourses shape realities, emphasizing “relational ontologies, the critique of dualisms and the commitment to matter and the non-human” (Bozalek and Zembylas, 2016, p. 193). As Isabel Balza (2014) points out, they can be considered a “return to the multiplicity and disunity of natural and corporeal forces, to the non-discursive, to the terrain of affects, of non-representable actions” (p. 23).  

By adopting a post-qualitative approach to research (St. Pierre, 2019), which moves beyond conventional methodologies and seeks to engage with emerging connections during the research process, this study explores the experience of generating and implementing a ‘Gender Filmmaking Labs’ at Institut-Escola Pepa Colomer. This primary and high school, located in El Prat de Llobregat (Barcelona, Spain), was part of the fieldwork of the present research. One phase of the fieldwork involved conducting laboratories for students from the 3rd grade of primary school to the 2nd grade of secondary school over four sessions spanning six teaching hours. These sessions encouraged students to explore the force of gender through video images and create short films in small groups as a response to these forces. The research experience illuminated how collaborative filmmaking evolves into an affective-pedagogical-feminist phenomenon. However, this paper focuses specifically on how the ‘Gender Filmmaking Labs’ configure an affective pedagogy. 

With this question in mind, the paper employs the “concept as method” (Lenz-Taguchi, 2016) and the strategy of “significant scenes” (Denzin, 1997) of the fieldwork that allow to respond the mentioned question. The “concept as method” examines how specific concepts perform within research settings, disrupting repetition and experimenting with new possibilities. Here, the notion of affects is instrumental in rethinking pedagogy in relation to the laboratories. Meanwhile, “significant scenes” organize key moments of the research experience, responding to research questions through situated knowledge (Haraway, 1988). In line with the research theme, these scenes are structured as a script, incorporating both written and visual thinking. Six significant scenes were selected to illustrate how the ‘Gender Filmmaking Labs’ function as an affective pedagogy and revealed that collaborative filmmaking was part of an affective pedagogy and helped to keep theorizing an affective pedagogy. In it, learning goes beyond acquiring and reproducing information and involves transforming the body's capacities for action, connecting the personal worlds with political struggles while generating shifts in the feelings and thoughts of students, teachers and researchers. Furthermore, the study revealed that collaborative filmmaking turns research into an affective pedagogical act where learning emerges through reciprocal relationships and transformative processes. 

Framed into a post-qualitative approach to research, this paper understands that research needs to go beyond “systematically repeating a pre-existing research process to produce a recognizable result” (St. Pierre, 2019, p. 4). That means that research does not seek to represent reality but to create worlds (Coleman et al., 2019). In the case of the present research, the fieldwork included generating ‘Gender Filmmaking Labs’ at Institut-Escola Pepa Colomer (Barcelona, Spain). These laboratories were implemented from the 3rd grade of primary school to the 2nd grade of secondary school. That is to say, the children involved were between 8 to 14 years old. Over four sessions totaling six teaching hours, students explored gender through video images and collaboratively created short films in response. As mentioned above, to analyze how this experience constitutes an affective pedagogy the research uses the “concept as method” and the strategy of “significative scenes”. On one hand, the “concept as method” seeks to explore the performativity of one or more concepts within a situated phenomenon of research with the aim to cut through the conditions of repetition and experiment with their possible reconfigurations. In this case, the notion of affects helps to rethink pedagogy in its contact with laboratories. On the other hand, the strategy “significative scenes” helps to organize those relevant moments of the experience while responding the questions of the research from situated knowledge (Haraway, 1988). In coherence with the topic of the research, those scenes are written as a script. That is to say, writing while thinking in images. For this paper, 6 scenes were selected. Scenes that enable to think how the ‘Gender Filmmaking Labs’ can configure an affective pedagogy.

The research demonstrates that collaborative filmmaking can be part of an affective pedagogy and, furthermore, helps to keep working on theorising an affective pedagogy. Key conclusions highlight that in an affective pedagogy: Moves beyond acquiring and reproducing information to transform bodies' capacities for action. Facilitates the circulation of affects and employs diverse strategies to activate learning. Utilizes material and unconventional triggers to stimulate inquiry and collaborative questioning. Visual triggers help to connect the personal with the political, shifting students’ emotions and thoughts, and fostering responses through filmmaking. Reconfigures collaboration as a dynamic, intra-active encounter that embraces diverse dispositions and negotiations. Seeks to create pathways to new worlds through political engagement, negotiating between the social problematics and its possible futures. Moreover, the paper shows that collaborative filmmaking, together with the affective turn, the new materialism and postqualitative approach, helps research to become an affective pedagogical act in which one can engage with social struggles. Not because the researchers teach anything, but because the very process itself fosters reciprocal learning relationships and transformative experiences.

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