Paper short abstract:

This multi-media presentation discusses ‘mixtape scholarship,’ a multimodal practice that brings into proximity, archives, voices and epistemologies that are undervalued, to convey sonic and visual narratives of the disenfranchised and marginalised, to realise anthropology’s regenerative potential.

Paper long abstract:

Academia provides a unique vantage point from which to respond to injustice, a position from which to influence theory, policy, and politics. Getino and Solanas (1969) state “the intellectual must find through [their] action, the field in which [they] can rationally perform the most efficient work… find out within that front exactly what is the enemy’s stronghold and where and how [they] must deploy [their] forces.” This statement, offered in the context of art-making amidst anti-neo-colonialist uprisings in the 1960s and 70s, advocates for embracing the multicultural and polyvocal, and encourages academics to be imaginative, creative, boundary-pushing, and system-challenging. If anthropology is to realise its regenerative potential, then it must embrace “alternative” practices and engage meaningfully in alternative solutions and social action.

Using my research practice which focuses on social justice using multimodal and experimental methodologies as an example, this multi-media presentation discusses ‘mixtape scholarship,’ a curation and reprocessing of multi-media materials to convey narratives that privilege the sensory. This curation articulates an acoustic and visual environment of resistance and resilience, conveying narratives of the disenfranchised, under-represented, and marginalised, embedded in a commitment to bringing into proximity, archives, voices, epistemologies and methodologies that are undervalued. The presentation will share excerpts from the visual mixtapes The Imagined Things: On Solange, Repetition and Mantra (2019) and Lovers Rock Dub: An Experiment in Visual Reverberation (2023), and the audio mixtapes “The People Who Keep on Going” from The Futures of Black Radicalism (2017) and “The Mixtape as Maroon” from Black Ephemera (2022).