Biography
Jan Haaken began her professional life as a registered nurse in Seattle, Washington, working primarily in psychiatric clinics. In the 1970s, she returned to school and pursued a Ph.D. in clinical and social psychology, joining the Portland State University faculty in the Department of Psychology in 1980.
She retired as a professor emeritus of psychology in 2011 and continues her field research, writing and documentary filmmaking, as well as stints as a visiting scholar at universities in the US, Europe, Canada, the UK and Japan. Haaken is also a programmer on the Old Mole Variety Hour, a weekly public affairs program on KBOO community radio.
From Academics to Participatory Action Filmmaking
Haaken has published extensively in areas including psychoanalysis, feminist theory, the history of psychiatric diagnosis, the social dynamics of remembering and the psychology of storytelling. Her scholarly work looks at collective forms of suffering and offers a critical lens for understanding the cultural implications of psychiatric and psychological frameworks. These intellectual interests inform her participant action method of filmmaking, which centers on the lived experiences of people who inhabit liminal spaces — from war zones, refugee camps and climate protests to abortion clinics, hip-hop clubs, and drag bars–and builds on extensive collaborations with community groups.
Focus on Marginalized People and Places
Haaken’s work as a scholar and a filmmaker is guided by her commitments to social justice. Through her documentaries, Haaken takes up the complex interplay of individual and collective identities in contested spaces and sites of social conflict.
She uses the medium of the documentary as a form of social memory– a means of gathering up and holding fragments of history that are often marginalized, repressed or demonized by the mainstream media and dominant narratives.
Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries
Her approach — at the intersection of academia, clinical practice, and documentary filmmaking — offers a nuanced, multidisciplinary lens on sites of human conflict and controversy. Through her work, Haaken invites audiences to engage critically with the forces that shape individual and collective realities and ways of imagining that another world is both necessary and possible.
