Gesturing toward utopia: the politics of exemplarity.
Panel Body002 at conference SIEF2015: Utopias, Realities, Heritages: Ethnographies for the 21st century.
Considers the practice of exemplarity: the attempt, through a striking and visible virtuous act, to excite emulation, inaugurate a phase shift in social norms, and shift public opinion toward institutional change. What felicity conditions distinguish "empty gestures" from transformative ones?
Long Abstract:
This panel considers the practice of exemplarity: the attempt, through a striking and visible act, to excite emulation, inaugurate a phase shift in social norms, and shift public opinion toward institutional change. What felicity conditions distinguish "empty gestures" from transformative ones?
Certain well-designed symbolic actions from the twentieth century became icons for political watersheds. When the American Civil Rights movement is spoken of, people remember Rosa Parks refusing to move to the back of a Montgomery bus. Willy Brandt's fall to his knees before the Warsaw Ghetto memorial is recalled as the decisive turn toward the German reckoning with the Nazi past. Both the activist leading from below and the self-humbling leader demanded public attention, excited a wide range of responses, and lent themselves to the narration of change.
In today's saturated media environment it is difficult to imagine influence on such a scale, and perhaps gestures are transformative only in retrospect. Nonetheless, the concepts of "leading by example," "setting an example," and the negative "making an example of," along with "role models" and other related ideas, continue to inform global public life across the political spectrum, from reactionary to revolutionary. To follow an example is more than to forward a meme or even to join in a crowd: it is an active investment of body and self. What makes exemplarity different from ordinary social reproduction and transmission? What kinds and conditions of exemplary performance foster mimesis? What sustains exemplarity as strategy and ideal, given its usual failure in practice?
This paper discusses the transformative role of a traditional poetic medium to realize dynamic debate and movement within a family context.
Paper long abstract:
Emirati vernacular poetry has been used as an agent of social expression and protest since pre-Islamic times. Known as al Nabati, this traditional Bedouin medium is still widely applied in the UAE in a contemporary, cosmopolitan setting and a small corpus of co-translated work will be modeled to review the nature of the poetry, its ability to resolve family disputes and subtly negotiate a very pragmatic form of the ideal (al adab) through composition and practice.
Food, hospitality, public speaking and spell binding performances were central to social, political and cultural brokerage in Arabia and seen through the eyes of three generation of women, as such are still enjoyed today. The success of such a strategy may be gauged by al Nabati's continued popularity and impact, whose composers and transmitters may earn patronage, political influence or social status. While today's male contributors are televised, the voices in this study are female, more intimate, debating family issues through robust poetical dialogue, beyond the camera's gaze. The decisions based on this oral tradition, while underscoring personal and cultural identity, still robustly support the status quo, while counteracting dinomia that may have resulted from the linguistic shift to English, through a familial form of argumentum ad antiquitatem.
Journeys both literal and spiritual are initiated in the verse, emphasizing ethical conduct, through deontic appeal. The exemplarity the poems reinforces community practices, as pathways from desert to global stage are revealed, in what may be arguably an authentic Bedouin voice.
On the basis of Hungarian research data, this paper aims to analyze how Romani exemplary figures are represented in mass media and how their representation correlates with the stereotypical image of Romani in the wider society?
Paper long abstract:
It is a well-known fact in contemporary cultural research that identity, models of behavior, way of thinking, and world view of the upcoming generations are being determined ever more strongly by the various mass media, the information they supply, and the personalities they feature. Celebrities have functioned powerfully as points of orientation. They have an increasing role in forming public opinion or affecting identity (individual and social alike) in contemporary society. The image of certain political actions, religion or ethnic groups in the wider society are greatly dependent on the way they are represented in mass media. This way either positive or negative stereotypes of the represented group may evolve. Celebrities are more than just persons who are simply known for their well-knownness, they have deeper significance. Through their acts, opinion and represented image, they can function as orientation points for the society similar to historical heroes.
On the basis of Hungarian research data, this paper aims to analyze how Romani exemplary figures are represented in mass media and how their representation correlates with the stereotypical image of Romani in the wider society? What sort of actions and attitudes might evolve from the symbolic content of their image? How does their figure contribute to the evoking of their groups ethnic and national identity, how do their image help the integration to society?
This paper focuses Turkish President Erdogan’s angry walk out at 2009 Davos Meeting. We argue that the narration of this move did not only inform a specific audience about already defined statement but became a venue to excite various actions among his political supporters and in the Islamic world in general.
Paper long abstract:
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has become renowned for his anger which he has displayed on international occasions as well. After a brief account of the position of anger in Erdoğan’s politics, this paper focuses his angry walk out at 2009 Davos Meeting. We argue that as a well-performed symbolic action, his walk out produced multiple outcomes at both national and international level. The narration of this move did not only inform a specific audience about already defined statement but became a venue to excite various actions among his political supporters and in the Islamic world in general. The findings of this research based upon Erdoğan's unique nonverbal vocabulary suggest that Erdoğan’s exemplarity can enhance coherence between his supporters and opens the way for an alternative political socialization process.
This presentation explores the potent figure of the martyr as both “the one who is made an example of” and the one who, in being resurrected through vigils, die-ins and other gestures of remembrance, enrolls the living in his/her struggle for dignity and social justice.
Paper long abstract:
The potent figure of the martyr is both "the one who is made an example of" and the one who, in being resurrected through vigils, die-ins and other gestures of remembrance, enrolls the living in his/her struggle for dignity and social justice. To what degree does the martyr sustain grassroots movements against state-sanctioned violence at home and elsewhere?
"Hands Up!" "Don't Shoot!" The call-and-response gesture at a recent solidarity vigil folds Black American teenager, Michael Brown, into a long list of Latin American martyrs who died confronting militarism run-amok. "Hands Up! Don't Shoot!" As the assembled crowd raises hands high, participants feel the innocence of the absent subject as their own innocence and represent the situation as innocence criminalized. All the messy details and particularities of the original encounter drop away and are clarified through an embodied abstraction that simultaneously transforms a gesture of fear to one of righteous anger. By December 8th groups in cities across the United States are staging die-ins, lying in streets and lobbies for 4 minutes in remembrance of Brown, Eric Garner, and a mounting list of specific Black men and youth killed by police. Drawing on these and other examples, I examine the conditions that transform a victim into a martyr and a martyr into an exemplar who provokes symbolic mimesis and/or commemoration. How does having one's own martyr sustain a group that forms in solidarity with a distant struggle? Under what conditions do these performances of solidarity lead to substantive social change?
To follow an example is to commit body and self. What makes exemplarity different from ordinary social reproduction and transmission? What kinds and conditions of exemplary performance foster mimesis? What sustains exemplarity as political strategy and ideal, given its frequent failure in practice?
Paper long abstract:
This paper will conclude the panel in a comparative discussion of the case studies presented. Ancestors, elected officials, celebrities, and martyrs provide referents for assessing the political conduct of individuals. Under what circumstances do they also provoke active emulation? How do the reach of mass and social media interact with the ethical imperatives of face-to-face communication? What is the relationship between a single striking gesture and conduct over the long term? And how can we assess the agency and efficacy of exemplars, positive or negative? Beginning with vernacular understandings of exemplarity and its vitality as political ideal and strategy, the paper begins to lay out a theory of exemplarity as a practice marked out from ordinary social reproduction and cultural transmission.
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