Au-delà des mots, l’émotion: réflexion autour de rapports entre le film de recherche et le texte scientifique

What can a film show that cannot be written? Based on the documentary movie Yesterday’s slaves. Democracy and ethnicity in Benin, this article discusses what film brings to the research on slaveries and their legacies. The author reflects on the complementarity between documentary films and the classic scientific text. The reflection is structured around four components: the benefits of the audiovisual media as a complementary classical scientific text serving the dissemination of knowledge; the emotional dimension of social life and the use of empathy in the production of knowledge ; using the camera as a specific mode empirical data production; and finally the performativity of ethnographic film on ethnicity. These words are followed by a more general discussion on how films renew our understanding of topics concerning contemporary and past slavery.