Paper short abstract

This paper reflects on improvised art as a means of critically engaging with the ways bodies are implicated in colonial violence through attention to that which exceeds patriarchal and colonial ordering and that which emerges as an affective ‘something’ that demands attention.

Paper long abstract

This article charts the question of excess in colonised places and in anthropological practice. In particular, I draw to on the work of Lauren Berlant to reflect on the potentiality for improvised art and performance as a means of critically engaging with the ways in which individual, disciplinary, and national bodies are implicated in colonial violence through attention to that which exceeds patriarchal and colonial ordering and that which emerges as an affective ‘something’ that demands attention. I show how improvisation, as a feminist methodology, responds to excess by producing excessive potentiality and unrehearsed emotion.