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- Convenors:
-
Jamie Coates
(University of Sheffield)
Iza Kavedzija (University of Cambridge)
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- Discussant:
-
Roger Sansi Roca
(Universitat de Barcelona)
- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Friday 29 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
We take inspiration from early engagements with themes of hope, transformation, and the commons in East Asia, but welcome cross-cultural comparisons. Participants will explore the role of 'relational creativity' as a method of hope and transformation from a global anthropological perspective.
Long Abstract:
Creativity, as a practice and a capability, is a mode of relating to the world(s) and each other. It produces distinct socialities, from artistic networks to creative hobbies, which help people navigate change and generate a sense of hope in trying times. Socialities emerging out of creative practices, or relational creativities, have been central to the ways that people in East Asia have responded to fears about the future and concerns about inequalities in the present.
Developing into fields such as ‘hope studies’ (kibōgaku) in Japan, these debates have assessed how the challenges of financial and demographic decline, alongside tragic disasters and geopolitical turmoil, have necessitated new ways of thinking about transformation and building commons within the East Asian context.
In this panel, we take inspiration from early engagements with themes of hope, transformation, and the commons in East Asia, paying specific ethnographic attention to the role of relational creativity in the development of methods of hope and transformation. Treating the phrase 'relational creativity' as a means to inspire different lines of thought, we invite ethnographic reflections that engage with the role of creativity as a relation and a means to addressing uncertainty. While we invite participants to think from East Asia, we welcome scholars focusing on other contexts, such as Europe, to think comparatively across regions as a means to building an anthropological commons.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 29 July, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses the role of ‘relational creativity’ to navigate at times of change and uncertainty in rural and urban Mongolia, respectively. It explores the ways in which people forge, maintain, and utilise their relationships with others for their hope, survival, and increased security.
Paper long abstract:
Private networks have been essential for Mongolians since the Soviet era, when people obtained all types of resources through personal relations instead of official channels (Humphrey, 1994; Kaplonski, 2004; Sneath, 2006). After the political and economic transformation in the 1990s, networks still entail the means of survival and increased financial security in post-socialist Mongolia.
Many pastoral nomads have moved into Ulaanbaatar from rural Mongolia for job and educational opportunities unobtainable in the countryside. Such rural-urban migrants often maintain strong connections with their family and friends in the countryside for increased financial security that bring mutual benefits.
Meanwhile, such personal connections with rural pastoral nomads are diminishing amongst some Ulaanbaatar residents who often have connections with their family and friends abroad. Such personal connections spreading across the world create more job and educational opportunities and increased financial security, which help them navigate changes.
This paper discusses the role of ‘relational creativity’ to navigate at times of change and uncertainty in rural and urban settlements, respectively. It explores the ways in which people forge, maintain, and utilise their relationships with others for their hope, survival, and increased security.
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, I explore relational creativities of a practising Silat group in Vienna, Austria. The relational aspect will be explored between pairs through movement analysis during choreographic Silat sparring techniques, with the findings representing their kinaesthetic relationship.
Paper long abstract:
The Southeast Asian martial arts of Pencak Silat holds a long tradition and heritage of embodying mental-spiritual discipline, performative arts, ritual practice, social and cultural values, and self-defence.
Inspired by the myths surrounding the phenomenality of the ancestral tiger spirit, the origin of Silat Harimau, also known for its tiger style, comes from Southeast Asia in West Sumatra of Indonesia. The Austrian Silat group takes inspiration from their guru masters, and continues to perform and train together. The objective was to reveal how the transnational group makes sense of the embodied practice of Silat and what significance the culturally translated context plays in their social, physical, and learning experiences.
The study explores how the aesthetic and strategic forms of these movements are a transformative form of practice, as they continue to explore it creatively together as a community. I posit that there is a transmission process taking place that is realised in their own ways. With my findings, I demonstrate how the community engages with Silat through embodiment and transmission in a dedicated ritualised space to practice the different aspects of the art form.
Paper short abstract:
I explore the significance of hope for a better future, how 'offering' courage in times of uncertainty becomes a source of creativity in Soka Gakkai with possibilities for daily transformation amidst a contradictory reality of the persistence of American bases in Okinawa and few actual commons.
Paper long abstract:
At the periphery of the capitalist state, Okinawa bears the brunt of Japanese imperialism, war, and long stagnant military occupation. This paper looks at how 'commons' are created, experienced and negotiated in the context of the Southern Japanese island of Okinawa. In 2014 and 2018 gubernatorial elections, an 'All Okinawa' ethnic identity was built to mobilize a majority voice based on opposition to the construction of a new American military base. In reality, many complex feelings and different levels of opposition, and non-voiced support reveal regional and class differences, the significance of economic compensation, and a glocalised American-Okinawa culture all of which are smoldering in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and recent elections characterized by identity politics that failed to bring desired results. Recent fieldwork and ethnographic interviews amongst local Soka Gakkai members and various youths growing up around the American bases in Okinawa City, Chatan, Ginowan and Henoko show how diverse interests, economic and educational class disparities, the longing for employment security relate to physical closeness or distance to the American military bases, which trump any easy ideological message of 'common' opposition. Amidst these diverse positions and regional political cultures, I explore the significance of hope for a better future, and how 'offering' courage in times of uncertainty becomes a source of creativity in Soka Gakkai as part of daily possibilities for transformation even if Okinawa as a place retain its status as a 'buffer' state characterized more by its diversity and complexity than by its common voice.
Paper short abstract:
What was it about the White Snake Legend that inspired anglophone producers to use it as an impetus for social change and minority activism in the digital world? This presentation focuses on the "relational creativities" of three anglophone White Snake projects and their transformative potentials.
Paper long abstract:
A number of anglophone digital projects inspired by the Chinese White Snake legend engage powerfully with issues relevant to minority rights and environmental justice in the United States and across the globe. In this presentation, I will use the digital operas from White Snake Projects, an activist opera company based in Boston as a central case study; and use the digital activism of fashion photographer Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri in her short film Legend of Lady White Snake and the global reach of Mary Zimmerman’s stage play The White Snake and its digital afterlives as supplementary cases. Through their "relational creativities" and via anglophone (and sinophone) digital media and digital platforms, these activist projects enrich our understanding of what can be seen as a global White Snake digital archive, one that is transformative, multivalent, constantly regenerating, contemplative, and empowering.
Paper short abstract:
In this paper I examine the link between relational creativity, grassroots activism, and musical craftsmanship based on ethnographic work with local musicians and nature conservationists in West Japan. I illustrate the political force of relational creativity when facing ecological threats.
Paper long abstract:
This paper is based on several years of fieldwork with music makers, amateur performers, craftsmen and nature conservationists in Udono, a small town between Kyoto and Osaka along the Yodo river. Here, local communities have been fighting the incumbent expansion of a highway tract which threatens to uproot the delicate riverine ecosystem sustaining a special quality of canes used in the making of a Japanese traditional musical instrument. Local communities have tried for several years to stage political protests, but always with little political results. In this paper, I will explore the limits of this kind of "hope work". Reflecting on the failure of specific political assemblages to prevent damages to the local ecosystem in this out-of-the-way place (Tsing), I will claim that "relational creativity" can be conceived as an alternative, more effective mode of engagement. In Udono, "hope work" created only superficial bonds between marginal regional and national stakeholders, whereas activists essentially failed to cultivate bonds across the board, pivoting on relational creativity. My claim is that activists so far have failed to mobilize the affective force of sound as a catalyst for political messages. By way of showing this, I intend to underscore a theoretical reflection on the political potential of "relational creativity" as a concept that can ground hope to powerful affective affordances.