Stories that speak: The power of visual anthropology in the classroom

In the heart of the Swiss Alps, a yodeller named Meinrad Koch set out on a journey across Europe to explore how music traditions can carry heritage and connect generations. In the documentary Beyond Tradition: Power of Natural Voices, we follow Meinrad as he leaves his home in Appenzell to meet young vocalists who are breathing new life into ancient singing practices. In Norway, he listens to Marja Mortensson, a Sami artist reclaiming the lost art of Joik, a spiritual form of song nearly silenced by colonial forces, by combining it with jazz. In Georgia, he joins Ninuca Kakhiani and the Tutarchela Youth Choir, whose polyphonic harmonies echo centuries of cultural resilience.

The film is a sound journey that reflects a powerful longing for home and connection in an ever-changing global world. Its award at the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) Film Festival underscores its powerful reflection on the challenge of blending cultural roots with modern life.

In a classroom setting, Beyond Tradition: Power of Natural Voices invites students to explore the dynamic relationship between cultural heritage and contemporary identity through music. It’s a spark for discussions about how music serves as a form of resistance, storytelling and community building. The documentary’s personal reflections and cross-cultural encounters also encourage students to think critically about what societies lose when cultural traditions are discouraged in favor of assimilation.

Expanding Access to impactful Visual Anthropology

An extraordinary addition to a classroom or a student’s research paper, Beyond Tradition: Power of Natural Voices is just one of the new films available to libraries in Ethnographic Video Online, Volume V: Royal Anthropological Institute Film Festival. This new resource, automatically available through ProQuest One Anthropology and ProQuest Digital Collections, builds on a trusted partnership to make powerful ethnographic films more accessible to researchers, educators and students around the world.

“It looks for fearless films that ask difficult questions, build bridges, seek redress and promote social justice and dialogue.”
– Royal Anthropological Institute

Real Stories to Spark Classroom Discussions

Since 1985, the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) Film Festival has been an important event showcasing ethnographic films that explore real cultures, social justice and human stories. Held biennially, the festival brings together filmmakers, scholars and audiences to deepen understanding of our world through compelling visual storytelling.

The RAI Film Festival highlights films addressing urgent issues like human rights, gender equality and cultural diversity. Many stories come from communities often overlooked in mainstream media. These films encourage viewers to reflect and talk about important social issues. Now, they’re curated for an academic audience and easily accessible to students and researchers. Alongside Beyond Tradition, libraries can provide access to films like these:

• Rimana Wasi
  By Ximena Malaga Sabogal & Piotr Turlej
  Chaska, a radio host in Puno, Peru, shares Quechua stories via the air waves to homes, stores and the fields of thousands of highland-dwelling families. She is a mom to three restless children and a dutiful daughter of rural alpaca herders. Balancing her dreams and family while traveling between the city and countryside is not proving to be easy.
  
  
• The Musical Valley
  By Jérémie Voirol
  Explore the vibrant world of Otavalo Indigenous musicians in Ecuador. This film reveals how migration, urban life and technology mix with ancestral sounds to shape a dynamic, contemporary and evolving cultural identity.

Content That Steps Beyond Textbooks

Ethnographic film is an important resource for the study of contemporary society, lived experience and global issues. These visual records give viewers a direct look at cultures and social issues that textbooks can’t fully convey. Having these films available on the ProQuest platform places them within a broader academic ecosystem that encourages interdisciplinary study and critical analysis. This integration allows educators and students to pair documentaries with scholarly articles, historical documents, news and primary sources that can deepen students' understanding of the films’ contexts. It also ensures that the film is accessible in a curated, educational environment where its themes can be explored alongside other global perspectives on identity, community and governmental policy.

Explore and Learn More

Explore these and more in ProQuest One Anthropology part of ProQuest Digital Collections—offering six centuries of rich, curriculum-aligned primary sources to serve researchers and students of all levels.

Librarians can request a free trial of ProQuest Digital Collections.