Josepha (Joshka) Wessels (Malmö University)

Joshka Wessels is a documentary filmmaker and Associate Professor in Media and Communication Studies at the School of Arts and Communication (K3) at Malmö University. Joshka has a background in Visual Anthropology (MA) and Human Geography/Development Studes (PhD). Her interests are in documentary film, emerging technology and immersive storytelling, communication and media for change, theatre for development, citizen media and social movements and Participatory Action Research (PAR). She has specific ethnographic expertise in the Arab world and East Africa, hydropolitics, environmental peacebuilding, human ecology, forced migration and postmigration. Next to award-winning commissioned social and environmental TV documentaries for broadcasters such as BBC World and Al Jazeera English, she also produced animated documentaries and VR360-video interactive immersive experiences and installations. She is keen on combining her media production skills with scholarly expertise for qualitative research to explore the use of film, immersive XR media and storytelling, participatory arts-based methods and re-enactment in ethnography.