Article for LiCS special issue The New Activism: Composition, Literacy Studies, and Politics.

Documentary film has the power to carry the stories and ideas of an individual or group of people to others who are separated by space, economics, national boundaries, cultural differences, life circumstances and/or time. Such a power—to speak and be heard by others—is often exactly what is missing for people living in poverty, with little or no access to the technologies or networks necessary to circulate stories beyond their local communities. But bound up in that power is also a terrible responsibility and danger: how does the documentarian avoid becoming the story (or determining the story) instead of acting as the vehicle to share the story? How does she avoid becoming a self-appointed spokesperson for the poor or marginalized? Or how does he not leverage the story of others’ suffering for one’s own gain or acknowledgment? These questions become even thornier when intersected with issues of race, cultural capital, and national identity.