The journal is committed to promoting various modes of knowing by offering a platform for knowledge production and research on South Asia in both audio-visual and text forms. It is motivated by our desire to enhance the understanding of contemporary political, economic, and social developments in South Asia. Acknowledging the proliferation of audio-visual material in academic research, the abundance of camera-based research in ethnographic and regional scholarship, and the potential of documentary film to contribute to knowledge production, we consider the division between media practice and scholarly research to be mutually limiting. Instead, Dastavezi seeks to establish a platform for scholars and filmmakers, or both, to evolve new theoretical and practical epistemologies in their engagement with South Asia.

The journal incorporates both audio-visual and textual materials as equal outputs of academic research in order to nourish the various affordances emerging from the nexus between film production and academic writing. With its hybrid and open-access format, Dastavezi not only enables a dialogue between academics and film practitioners, but also provides an interested public with access to audio-visual productions on South Asia and the corresponding discussions.