This article examines the ethnocinematic research project Cross-Marked:
Sudanese Australian Young Women Talk Education, and its relationship to the
evolving notion of public pedagogies. The project explores the potential of
alternative pedagogies, which include popular culture, especially audiovisual
forms, to engage teachers and learners with one another in collaborative
pedagogical methods. The author’s collaborative work with students from refugee
backgrounds involves what Giroux calls a ‘spectrum of social practices’ utilising a
variety of media platforms. This article draws from the lived experiences of one
particular co-participant, Achol Baroch, and her 15 Sudanese Australian coparticipants.
Their experiences of secondary education are traced through this
arts-based participatory project using the emerging practice of ethnocinema, a
type of ethnographic documentary film which is generative, interculturally
collaborative and aligned with the transformative goals of critical pedagogy.