Paper short abstract:

Could we develop 'politics of creolisation and conviviality' that guide the us into a truly post-modern future? I argue that such politics needs to engage with the promise of equality, and the reality of inequality to provide a true alternative to the exclusionary nationalism and xenophobia.

Paper long abstract:

Creolisation and conviviality are modes of being and of thinking. Could we develop 'politics of creolisation and conviviality' that link both, and guide the us into a truly post-modern future?

I argue that such politics needs to engage with the modern promise of equality and the reality of inequalities, if it is to provide a true alternative to the exclusionary nationalism and xenophobia.

I first look at three intersections of equality: with modernity (and democracy, liberalism, nationalism and pluralism), for it helps to address the 'we' of equality; with what I term 'modern conviviality' (and multiculturalism), for it focuses difference; and creolisation, for it points to multiple levels and scales of inequality.

Modern understandings of conviviality, alike multiculturalism, I argue, generates a quasi-equality in public spaces. But capacity to convivial behaviour is also unevenly distributed along the divisions of education, class and culture. Post-modern politics of conviviality needs thus to be more profound and rely on conviviality not as respect of difference but a deep interconnectedness.

We also need creolisation as a form of identity that rejects fixed boundaries and is largely indifferent to origins.

But both might fail if they fail to engage with equalities and inequalities. I deliberately use the plural form to stress the achievement of legal equality and prevalence of socio-economic and cultural inequalities. The prospects for radical change within western modern social order has been questioned by feminists and black scholars. This critique needs to be involved in the new politics of creolisation and conviviality.

Paper short abstract:

Conflict must resolve for conviviality to occur. The paper explores associativism and negotiations over racialized identities and power inequalities among migrant laborers (Azores, Madeira, Cabo Verde & Portugal) in New England that yet structure creolisation, cosmopolitanism and local cooperation.

Paper long abstract:

Guided by the objectives of the panel and bibliography on cosmopolitanism and creolisation, this paper explores the building of collective and cooperative communities that recognize broad definitions of belonging and stake-holding across inter-sectional, super diverse and ultimately fluid identities. Case examples of conflict and cooperation are drawn from early 1900s labor mobility and century-long settlement of migrants from the Azores, Madeira, Cabo Verde and Portugal to work in industrial mills and on local and industrial farms throughout southeastern New England. Working as low-level operatives, seasonal field-workers and in domestic service, these migrant workers' identities were racialized as non-white by scientists, in popular discourse, and in governmental policy (including the so-called "black" and "white" Portuguese categories)—part of power inequalities structuring their position at the lowest levels of labor hierarchies and quashing their civic participation rights.

Recognizing that conflict must be resolved for conviviality to take place, this paper examines these historical moments of conflict around definitions of their racialized identities in New England: in segregated school policy; the Americanization movement and the complexity of migrant and non-migrant social and civic association activities that shaped and continue to shape racial identities and drive cooperative efforts; and how local patronage relations with wealthy and well-connected local elites played out in social mobility strategies and efforts to narrate both exclusionary and broader definitions of racial identities. The paper will explore how these negotiations over racialized identities and power inequalities continues to structure creolisation, cosmopolitanism and cooperation in the region.

Paper short abstract:

This paper will focus on the sociability of people of African descent, focusing on their artistic and cultural productions.Based on ethnographic research on the daily lives of these young people on the outskirts of Lisbon,I intend to explore the concepts of creolisation, conviviality and lifestyles.

Paper long abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to address on the sociability, artistic-cultural productions and lifestyles of young black people, in an "Afro-Lisbon" of increasing importance in the internationalization of the city's cultural offer. The social transformations associated with an increasingly interethnic society drove a musical universe in Portugal marked by "black culture" symbols, which relies on new digital technologies to circulate and overcome the blockade of the cultural industry. This is evident in the Afro-house rhythm, in Cape Verdean Creole rap and in a wide range of other styles that mix African references with electronic music. With millions of views on Youtube and a strong presence in music festivals, the rhythms of this "Afro-Lisbon" are reproduced in a different way in their outskirt, transferring knowledge from social places at the margin of power from a decolonial perspective. If the invisibility of the black presence in Portugal has been challenged in recent years by the media explosion of these artistic-cultural productions, it is important to debate fundamental characteristics that accompany the socialization of its agents: creolisation, plurality and cosmopolitanism. Based on ethnographic research on the intercultural dynamics of neighbourhoods at the outskirts of Lisbon, I intend to link the everyday practices of people of African descent with their artistic creations. These can be understood as the result of migration process, negotiation and reterritorialization of transnational and diasporic identities, opening interesting connections to explore the concept of creolisation in theoretical, empirical and methodological terms.

Paper short abstract:

Baba-Nyonya, Chetti, and Kristang are three creole/peranakan communities in Melaka and use the term 'baba' as an honorific title. In the daily communication, the shorter form 'ba' is present in the Malay and English vernaculars. How does an honorific title reflect Nowicka's (2020) conviviality?

Paper long abstract:

This presentation focuses on three Creole/Peranakan communities, i.e. the Baba-Nyonya, Chetti, and Portuguese-Eurasians (alias Kristang), of the historical city of Melaka and the etymology of the term 'baba'. Data was gathered through fieldwork involving observations and interviews in the Portuguese Village and Chetti Village as well as some members of the Baba-Nyonya community in Melaka. Although baba is an ethnonym for the male members of the later community, the study found that baba is not only used as an honorific title within the Chinese Peranakan community, but is also reported among the Indian Peranakan community (alias Chetti) and is used as a kinship term within the Portuguese-Eurasian community. Moreover, in the daily communication of Melaka, the shorter form ba is present in the Malay and English vernaculars as a term of address. Having in view the concepts of creolisation in Europe (Eriksen 2020; Rodríguez 2020) and the notion of conviviality through a physical space (Nowicka 2020), we attempt to show the vernaculars of Melaka maintain (and in some cases at risk of obsolescence) what could be defined as a marker of conviviality. The physical space of Melaka has been experiencing changes; the different neighborhoods referred as locations for Portuguese-Eurasians (Baxter 1988: 9-10; Alcantara 1992:3; Pires 2012:123) or as areas of mixed, inter-ethnic residence are being replaced by tourism-oriented businesses. These impact the inter-ethnic interactions.

Paper short abstract:

This paper probes creolisation and conviviality by way of African women writers, to broaden anthropological horizons on worldmaking beyond European perspectives. Reading literature through creolised aesthetics, it explores the creolisation of anthropological and literary theory with African womanism

Paper long abstract:

Thinking along conviviality at the crossroads (Hemer et al 2020), this paper explores worldmaking through African women's literature. Scholars have highlighted that African women "write the crossroads," their literature capturing the ambiguities and paradoxes of "this and that" rather than "this or that" of cultural entanglement (Nnaemekea 1995, 109). The crossroads can be theorised as a site of creolisation, a cultural location of exceptional creativity and historically formed social inequality. Using the concept creolised aesthetics to describe the creative agency and structural constraints of African women writers, this paper discusses conviviality in terms of worldmaking. Worldmaking is currently approached from different disciplinary angles, in world literature (Cheah 2014, Hayot 2011) and anthropology of the pluriverse (Escobar 2018, Ingold 2018). This paper approaches literature as a form of worldmaking that can help us rethink gender complementarity in postcolonial globality (Ogunyemi 1996, Thiong'o 2012), thus heeding the call for more critical perspectives on conviviality through "postcolonial and cosmopolitan synthesis" (Gilroy 2015, 242). To broaden anthropological horizons on worldmaking, the paper explores the creolisation of dominant theory, here exemplified by a cross-breeding of literary and anthropological theory with African womanist theory. While welcoming the scholarly effort to think through current challenges to democracy in Europe and beyond through conviviality, cosmopolitanism and creolisation (Hemer et al 2020), especially the decolonial ethics of creolised conviviality (Rodriguez 2020), this paper recognizes how anthropology can contribute to the decolonisation of cosmopolitanism (Uimonen 2019), to advance decolonial worldmaking, in theory and practice.

Paper short abstract:

In this presentation the notion of normative state conviviality is used to probe the changing role of state borders in Europé through the 20 year history of the transnational Öresund Bridge, between Sweden and Denmark.

Paper long abstract:

In this presentation the concept of normative state conviviality will be used as an analytic concept around which recent developments concerning the changing role of state borders in Europe will be discussed. It aims at highlighting a specific kind of normative state-driven conviviality through the example of the transnational Öresund Bridge, between Sweden and Denmark, thus showing how the concept can be used in an analysis of the changing roles, or even states of the state. The Bridge and the surrounding region was part of a bi-national project of conviviality at its inauguration in 2000, but 15 years later the border controls that were put in place in response to the so called refugee-crisis of 2015, signaled a breakdown of this specific form of conviviality. This article seeks to show, with ethnographic examples from border-crossing experiences at the Bridge in 2000, 2015 and the present, how this breakdown of state conviviality opens up for a new form of biopolitical regime at the border.

Keywords:

State conviviality

The Öresund bridge

Border controls

Refugees

The states of the state

The plasmatic state

Paper short abstract:

This paper is based on a nuanced qualitative process, which sought to understand the sociology of everyday transnational fan identities in Zimbabwe. It explores European football fandoms through the lens of creolization and conviviality.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is based on a nuanced qualitative process, which sought to understand the sociology of everyday transnational fan identities in Zimbabwe. It explores European football fandoms through the lens of creolization and conviviality. In most contemporary African societies today, we have communities of highly committed European football fans. These communities seem to manifest most of the conventional characteristics of football fandom. Barring the fact that these fandoms are geographically set apart from the teams and players they support, the deep structure that informs their identifying with and support of European football teams seems to bear a significant sense of empathy with the teams they support, deep interest in the athletic performance of these teams and desire to acquire as much knowledge as possible about these teams. The paper explores the scope and impact of these fandoms in relation to how definition and practice of football fandom in contemporary times has been influenced by the global patterns of popular culture. It also shows that African fandoms of European football are not just overseas support of European football but also distinct communities that are constructed in and that also reflect their immediate socio-cultural contexts.

Paper short abstract:

This paper will question the usefulness of theoretical concepts to the understanding of human flows and the formation of we(s). However, it will attempt to explore alternative solutions the potential problem.

Paper long abstract:

This paper questions the usefulness of concepts to the understanding human flows and intersectional points. During my MA thesis, I attempted to use creolisation as a concept to illustrate how hybridity, fusion, creativity and innovation became embedded in the Lebanese culture and identity. This paper will explain why I abandoned the concept and opted instead for Roberto Unger's theory of False-necessity to illustrate the peculiarity of the Lebanese case.

Unlike structures, flows are fluid streams in perpetual motion; they converge, diverge but rarely solidify. Although, 'we(s)' are formed at the intersection of flows, intersectional points (crossroads; super-diverse cities) aren't in themselves static. Being made of moving particles makes them mutable points. Theoretical concepts, on other the hand, are abstract ideas bound by their definitions. No matter how encompassing is a concept; it remains a static lens through which we examine a phenomenon. So, when we convert a fluid phenomenon into a theoretical concept we are essentially restraining its motion, and transforming it into a static abstract object. Any future mutation that occurs after the conceptualisation of a movement would seem then disruptive, dramatic, or at best, confusing. Thus, concepts may not be the most adequate tools to the understanding of human movement and the configuration of "we(s)."

This paper will conclude with an attempt to find alternative ways of looking at human flows and mutable "we(s)."