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- Convenors:
-
Konstantina Isidoros
(University of Oxford)
Árdís K. Ingvars (University of Iceland)
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- Format:
- Panels
- Location:
- Aula Magna-Spelbomskan
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 14 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Stockholm
Short Abstract:
The Balcony invites anthropologists to flock back to balconies - defying Malinowski - and engage in "deep play" to create intricately rich and innovatively theoretical ethnographic magic about balconies and humans in their myriad interactions, like Catalan pot-banging and Danish hyggeligt
Long Abstract:
Malinowski instructed us to get off armchairs onto the verandah, then off verandahs to get in amongst the 'natives', to feel as well as hear their 'imponderabilia of everyday life'. (1961: 25). Abandoned and ignored, balconies are rarely mentioned in passing in ethnographic texts. Yet balconies are prolifically everywhere in human life: novels, fine art, theatre, political speeches, royal marriages.
Only four texts can be located where a balcony takes centre stage: Ghannam (2002) on gender and class from balconies, Pande (2012) on 'balcony talk', Srinivas (2010) on cinematic balcony seating and Cowan (2011) on urban gossip from balconies in 15th-18th century Venice. Otherwise Chopra's single sentence of male domestic workers locked on balconies (2006: 158) and Bille (2013) on candles and string lights on Danish balconies to create hyggeligt exemplify the briefness of balconies in anthropology. Existing theories easily promise limitless application, such as Bourdieu's 'the world turned inside out', Lefebvre's (1991) 'Seen from the window', Heidegger's notion of dwelling, yet there is no actual body of ethnography to analytically play with.
The Balcony invites ethnographers to flock back onto the balcony in its myriad forms, as often invited into armchairs by our interlocutors to gaze upon and philosophise the 'imponderabilia of life' from their balconies. We seek intricately rich and detailed ethnographies in classical kula-esque tradition, supported by innovative, cutting-edge "deep theory" in the recent HAU tradition - we welcome anthropologists to "deep play" (Geertzian cockfighting, 1973) with us on balconies and make new theoretical magic.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 14 August, 2018, -Paper short abstract:
In my paper I argue that at least several forms of the balcony can be considered heterotopias. I aim to emphasize a double-tiered description, based on Foucault (1967), Geertz (1973) and Arendt's (1989) groundworks, which may contribute to a reappraisal of the balconies` anthropological relevance.
Paper long abstract:
Upon reviewing the `balcony` in the anthropological texts that have it as their main subject, one cannot avoid noticing that this concept could be equated with places that are simultaneously connecting and differentiating multiple spaces and times. In my paper, I argue that balconies also entail juxtapositions between multiple meanings. Therefore, I assert that at least several forms or instances of the balcony can be considered heterotopias. Drawing upon Foucault`s (1967) `heterotopology`, I approach the ways in which balconies entail multi-layered encodings of meaning in places that are both openings and also `conceal curious exclusions` (Foucault 2008 [1967]: 21). Firstly, I review Foucault's groundwork and several theoretical developments regarding heterotopias. Next, I use Geertz's (1973) `thick description` of several forms of the balcony in order to ascertain whether they could be placed within Foucault's systematic description of heterotopias, or whether his `heterotopology` should be reconsidered from an epistemological and anthropological standpoint. Afterwards, I focus on the ways in which these instances of the balcony juxtapose the three forms of `vita activa`: labour, work and action, as they are portrayed by Arendt (1989: 159-167). Consequently, I aim to emphasize a double-tiered description, based on Foucault (1967) and Arendt's (1989) groundworks, and on De Cauter and Dehaene (2008) theoretical developments, which may ultimately contribute to a reappraisal of the balconies` anthropological relevance.
Paper short abstract:
This presentation reflects upon long-term research on post-colonial Benin City's Igue festival in order to explore the balcony as a device for negotiating distance and positionality in the appreciation and enactment of the performative by ethnographer, audience and participants alike.
Paper long abstract:
In the performing arts the picture frame or proscenium stage remains an implicit or explicit architectural and relational reference. It has configured performer audience interaction since the Italian Renaissance into a perspectival relationality, thus individualising spectatorship and generating theatrical enchantment. In this configuration, the balcony (including its boxes) is the privileged position from which to view and to be viewed, reflected, for example, in the fact that seats in the Royal Opera House Covent Garden's Donald Gordon Grand Tier (London) are the most expensive. With fixed seating, shifting viewing positions are not possible unless audience members are specifically called up onstage. What happens, however, in performance situations where no view from above is permitted - not due to architectural limitation but to cultural prohibition? How are distance (both spatial and relational) and positioning negotiated? This autobiographically inspired presentation is based on my ethnographic trajectory from balcony to centre stage as I researched over a ten-year period in Benin City, Nigeria, the annual Igue festival which occurs each Christmas to honour divine kingship (Bradbury 1957 & 1973; Nevadomsky 1993; Wierre-Gore 1998). The aim of my description will be twofold: to interrogate degrees of "balconyship" and the ways in which vantage points confer different possibilities of knowledge construction with their advantages and disadvantages; and to demonstrate how perspectival relationality and the geometry of performer audience relations in postcolonial Benin City played out privilege and politics.
Paper short abstract:
This paper will illustrate the configuration of the thermal rehabilitation of (post)socialist blocks of flats in Bucharest simultaneously viewed as a desirable home experience, and as an invasive and contested practice.
Paper long abstract:
After Romania's accession to EU, the state designed a national strategy for saving energy politics was designed, focused on the thermal rehabilitation of apartment buildings. The residential experience in insulated apartment buildings becomes the desired standard for most households. The obligation to accept the free-of-charge closing off of balconies in order to achieve the perfect insulation of the entire ecosystem of which the apartments are a part of seems a peculiarity for citizens who lived during socialism, when this type of intervention in the domestic space was forbidden. This paper will illustrate the configuration of the thermal rehabilitation of (post)socialist blocks of flats in Bucharest simultaneously viewed as a desirable home experience, and as an invasive and contested practice. I will describe the experiences of some of my informants who expressed complaints about the unwanted and disturbing interventions in their balconies' material universe and the subsequent emergence of new practices and uses. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interview data, I will focus the property regime of rehabilitation, as revealed by the conflicts between rehabilitation companies and local households.