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- Convenors:
-
Yasmine Musharbash
(Australian National University)
Geir Henning Presterudstuen (University of Bergen)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Life on Earth
- Location:
- NIKERI KC2.208
- Sessions:
- Thursday 24 November, -
Time zone: Australia/Melbourne
Short Abstract:
This panel seeks ethnographically grounded papers analysing how monsters and humans are mutually constitutive in the context of planetary crises. Starting our analyses from the monsterbiome we encourage papers that engage with processes of change and transformation through creative theorisations.
Long Abstract:
"Just as the microbiome opens up an avenue for thinking about biological selfhood through the invisible agents that define it, so too the monsterbiome allows us to take into account invisible forces that effect and define who we are." (Foster 2020:224)
We seek ethnographically grounded papers and presentations that consider the lessons humans may learn from monsters about dealing with, thriving in, despairing of or overcoming existentially challenging times. Building on the premise that monsters are "embodiments of cultural moments" (Cohen, 1996), we look for contributions that specifically engage with monsters of this current cultural moment of planetary crisis (or any of its constitutive elements from wars, via ecological disasters and mass extinction, to pandemics). We encourage analyses that engage with/draw on conceptualisations of the paths monsters may take in contexts of social change and transformation: emergence, adaptation, appropriation, amalgamation, extinction, and succession (Musharbash and Presterudstuen 2020); and we especially invite creative theorisations of different paths monsters may take.
Situating the panel's ethnographic analyses in the monsterbiome enables comparison of the many ways monsters and humans are "not only symbiotic but mutually constitutive" (Foster 2020). In this vein, we are also interested in contributions exploring the human experience of life in the monsterbiome. Ultimately, the panel's aim is to examine how human-monster relationships are articulated and experienced in times of crisis - and what kinds of life support lessons might be gleaned from this exercise.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 24 November, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
In this paper I analyse the presence of two invisible ‘monsters’ – germs and Kurdaitcha – at a remote Warlpiri community in central Australia.
Paper long abstract:
This panel presents a welcome opportunity to dwell more closely on a passing observation from my PhD fieldwork with Warlpiri people at Nyirrpi community, central Australia. In brief, it relates to the similar yet sometimes competing ways in which invisibles – in this case germs and Kurdaitcha - were a structuring presence of everyday community life. For Warlpiri people, the most ubiquitous and feared monster are the Kurdaitcha. Invisible to most, I was struck by Warlpiri peoples’ constant alertness to environmental signs of Kurdaitcha lurking nearby, and the degree to which Warlpiri dwelling and mobility was structured by this possibility. There is an interesting parallel to be drawn here, I think, with the invisible presence and potential danger of germs. In this paper I am partly drawn to ponder these invisibles at the interface of Warlpiri and non-Indigenous relations and ways of being in the world. How do concerns about germs or Kurdaitcha differ? How does the presence of germs or Kurdaitcha impact daily life habits differently? Mostly though my aim is to analyse the similarities between germs and Kurdaitcha; to draw on the monster studies literature to analyse them both as ‘monsters’, now inhabiting a lifeworld for which climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic are just the most recent of existential challenges.
Paper short abstract:
I explore how Indigenous speculative futures of thriving in apocalyptic climate change continue traditions and unsettle dominant settler-colonial conceptions of the world. I discuss lessons for times of crisis in viewing Indigenous-settler relationships through the lens of the monsterbiome.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper I discuss human-monster relationships within my PhD on the resurgence of Aboriginal culture in Victoria. I am interested in themes of the known and unknown and the crossover between human and monster within the context of settler-colonialism and a relatively new norm of climate change disaster. Through the work of Indigenous writers and artists as well as interviews and participant observation, I explore Indigenous speculative futures that conceive of apocalyptic climate change as generative of freedom from settler-colonialism. Indigenous speculative futures creatively engage with contradictory ideas – such as flourishing in massively degraded landscapes, and societal collapse enabling forms of return to pre-colonial life. They unsettle settler relationships to the world as descending into catastrophic climate change, which often naturalise colonisation within a narrative of western progress gone too far. Indigenous speculative futures unveil settler-colonialism as a known and urgent threat. These imaginaries work within relationships between the past and future that open spaces for possibility and transcendence in the present. They continue traditions of engaging with the human and non-human world through embodied and emplaced relationships, and practices of casting forward into an unknown future to survive.
I argue that such imaginative projects, with their grounding in the harsh histories and realities of present life for Aboriginal people in settler-colonial Australia, are valuable means for exploring potentials for surviving and thriving in times of crisis and constraint. I will open a discussion of ideas raised by considering Indigenous-settler relationships through the lens of the monsterbiome.
Paper short abstract:
Bodybuilders create monstrous bodies, but lose control of their creations, and the monster ultimately creates them. This paper describes bodybuilding's monsters as responses to, and agents of, cultural change in the face of two crises: the 'obesity epidemic', and the 'crisis in masculinity'.
Paper long abstract:
Bodybuilders are termed such because of their pursuit of bodily change, and particularly their pursuit of the extremes of bodily composition: the highest level of muscularity combined with the lowest level of fat. To be called a 'monster' is the ultimate compliment in contemporary bodybuilding. But bodybuilding has not always been monstrous. Indeed, bodybuilding began as the search for human bodily perfection. Bodybuilding's 'monsters' first came about in the 1990s, in response to, and as agents of, change with regards bodily ideals and technologies, as well as notions of monstrosity. The shift in bodybuilding from perfectibility to abject freakishness sheds light on several contemporary crises: the 'obesity epidemic' and the 'crisis of masculinity'. This paper focusses on three freaks of bodybuilding who have self-identified as 'monsters': Rich Piana, Dave Crosland and Gregg Valentino. While these individuals push the limits of the human body in terms of muscularity, their monstrosity runs much deeper than this, and indeed they are ostracised, and 'enfreaked', by the bodybuilding community; they are the freaks' freaks. As some of the few high-profile bodybuilders to discuss suffering from muscle dysmorphia, or 'bigorexia', they illustrate how monstrosity can be both a blessing and a curse. They point to the limitless nature of extremes, and how the quest for monstrosity can take on a life of its own. Bodybuilding provides a concrete example of how humans and monsters are mutually constitutive: humans design and create the monsters of bodybuilding, but the monsters they create ultimately wind up creating them.