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- Convenors:
-
Adelina Dogaru-Alexa
(University of Bucharest)
Alessandra Broccolini (Facoltà di Scienze Politiche, Sociologia e Comunicazione, Sapienza Università di Roma)
Vita Santoro (University of Basilicata)
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- Format:
- Panel
Short Abstract:
The panel critically examines theories, policies, and research methodologies regarding (multi)sensory and experiential perspectives on masks and masking. It aims to go beyond established approaches and contribute to new frameworks for analyzing their cultural, social, and symbolic dimensions.
Long Abstract:
Although masks are widely recognized as a crucial element in the construction of cultural values, narratives, and identities, and play a significant role in ritual and heritage studies, gender analysis, semiotics, art and visual anthropology, their exploration from a multisensory perspective and focused on the experience of masking remains an under-researched area. Masks are not merely objects meant to be seen, but to be heard, touched, smelled and above all, they must be worn (Le Breton 2006). Masking, as a practice, engages participants in a multisensory experience that not only involves the wearer and the community, but also continuously interacts with various forms of authority and alterity whether religious, economic, social, political, or scientific (Maertens, Debilde 1978; Napier 1986). They possess the capacity to ‘create agency’ (Gell 1998), defining liminal times and spaces, often representing the unseen, unheard, and untouched (Padiglione 2016, 2017). We believe this approach, centered on the senses of masks and experience of masking, and strengthened by ethnographic practice, has the potential to mediate and renegotiate the terms of analysis across multiple traditional perspectives. We should also consider, rethinking, how the power of writing has influenced the narrative and interpretations of masks and masking, relegating them within certain interpretative paradigms and crystallizing their representations, in order to push the boundaries of anthropological analysis and confront various forms of hegemony present in anthropological discourse. Within this panel we challenge researchers to unwrite methodological, theoretical or applied studies centered on masks and masking as a multisensory and experiential practice.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper Short Abstract:
In alignment with the goals of the “mask and masking” panel, this presentation will reconsider the case of the masks (once) at the heart of the Cherokee Booger Dance. The central fact to be revisited is that most extant Booger masks were produced for outside buyers. They were thus made to be collected and viewed but not worn and performed.
Paper Abstract:
The Booger Dance is a dance and ritual episode of the Eastern Cherokee people residing today on, and around, the Qualla Boundary in Western North Carolina, USA. Documented in the work of folklorist and anthropologist Frank G. Speck (Speck and Broom 1951) and other scholars among the Cherokee during the 20th century, the Booger Dance shared much with masking rites found around the world. Ethnographic accounts of the Booger Dance make clear that performing or witnessing it was a rich, multisensory experience. In it, masked performers lampooned, and thus critiqued, the social norms characterizing non-Cherokee peoples. Over the course of the 20th century though, Cherokee Booger Dance masks came to be primarily carved for sale to non-Cherokee collectors. In alignment with the goals of the “mask and masking” panel, this presentation will reconsider the case of the masks (once) at the heart of the Cherokee Booger Dance. My purpose is to reflect generally on situations in which masks and mask making persist but become divorced from practices of masking and shorn of the sensory and experiential perspectives that center the panel’s project of unwriting mask studies. Alongside the panel’s work on unwriting, my goal is thus to reflect on the un-rite-ing of masks. Such dynamics are found in many settings wherein masks are moved into art, craft, ethnography, or souvenir markets or reframed as heritage objects. Original data for this study comes from ethnographic notes, and an associated museum collection of masks, held by the Gilcrease Museum (Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA).
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper aims to explore, through three different cases of masking performances solicited by the presence of the anthropologist, the processes of revelation/unveiling that are produced through what is said and unsaid in the dialogue between subject, mask device and anthropologist in the field.
Paper Abstract:
This paper aims to explore the ways in which the relationship between agency of the mask and agency of the subject wearing it is expressed (Gell 1998). Mask is an ‘object-person’, which mirrors, like a crystal, multiple traits from different identities and whose agency depends on the relational context in which it is located (Severi 2018). At the centre of analysis is the liminal moment of masking, which marks the transition from one body to another revealing states of possession, levels of apparition/revelation (Padiglione 2016). Through three different cases of masking performances solicited by the presence of the anthropologist, we intend to focus on the revelation/unveiling that is produced through what is said and unsaid in the dialogue between subject, mask device and anthropologist in the field. The first two cases refer to carnival contexts in Southern Italy and concern two female masks/disguises performed by two men, an adolescent and an elderly man, respectively in Carnival of Serino (Avellino) and Bellizzi (Avellino). In the third case, we move to Peru (Mito, Mantaro Valley), to observe how Gary relates to his other self, represented by the facial mask of the Huacón, a ritual figure of the Huaconada.
These three cases let us explore three different ways of relating to the other self of the mask. What does the subject consider necessary to reveal during the experience of masking? What, instead, does the mask say? How are the negotiations of power and meaning articulated between actors in the field, including the anthropologist?
Paper Short Abstract:
Some craftsmen leave a digital print of their artefacts, curating their own work to be displayed on their personal social media, multiplying their role from producer to curator. This presentation will investigate some of the strategies used when choosing the artefacts pictures to represent the craftsmen’s work on social media.
Paper Abstract:
Although seen as lacking the necessary digital skills to create a digital print of their artefacts, some craftsmen create social media pages in which they showcase a part of their creations. Oblivious to any formal curating strategies, these craftsmen manage to create some small-scale personal museum to popularise their work.
This paper investigates the digital traces of mask making and masks belonging to two contemporary Romanian craftsmen from the viewpoint of digital heritage creation. The findings stem from content generation analysis and classical ethnographic interviews with the two craftsmen and draws on the affordance theory in order to map how the objects create agency in the sense of changing the roles from craftsman to curator.
Additionally, since the research focuses on two different types of social media pages the craftsmen have – a personal page, with all types of postings and an ‘official’ page of the artefacts – it will additionally try to single out the specificities of representation, since, to a certain extent, the content generation hold striking differences. Finally, it will also look at the differences between personal postings and those made as a result of suggestions (either by tagged content or by external advice).
Paper Short Abstract:
Carnival, the ritual of transfiguration par excellence, through visuality as a practice, allows for the deconstruction and, if desired, the subversion of the written word to enter the processes and ideascapes of contemporary tensions, exploring forms of both local and translocal imaginaries and new perspective on materiality and rarefaction.
Paper Abstract:
The presentation I propose is part of a visual experience related to a carnival in Southern Italy, the Transhumance Carnival of Tricarico, to highlight how visual ethnography and the visual arts can offer new writings of ideascape representations, exploring forms of both local and translocal imaginaries.
Thinking about "new writings" becomes a pretext for challenging the paradigm of visuality, which belongs as much to writing as it does to the world of images. This paradigm produces what we today define as hyper visual documentation, offering an opportunity to render more fluid the discourses and processes of representing oneself and the other during moments of symbolic transfiguration. These moments allow us to enter a space that is both unprecedented and codified, fostering a multisensory exploration.
Unwriting becomes both a challenge and a key to rethinking the role of social sciences in a world where the rarefaction of the digital compels us to adopt a new perspective on materiality and rarefaction both in the world we observe and in the processes and ways we have to return what we experience.
Paper Short Abstract:
The article examines the heightened aesthetics and sensory role of Romanian carnival masks during Christmas and New Year. Drawing on art anthropology, sensory analysis, and ritual studies, it shows how masks transcend aesthetics, serving as tools to express identity, power, and shared meaning through evolving sensory strategies.
Paper Abstract:
The masks used in Romanian winter carnivals are increasingly becoming larger, more imposing, and more colorful. This evolution is driven by two key factors: the increasing emphasis on heightened aesthetic appeal and the need for masks to create a significant sensory impact that resonates with broader and more diverse audiences. These changes extend beyond the masks themselves to include the overall performance, incorporating larger groups of participants and more amplified soundscapes, thereby enhancing the sensory intensity of the experience.
These developments underscore the adaptive nature of ritual practices, where sensory and aesthetic elements are essential in maintaining cultural relevance and ensuring the ritual’s effectiveness. By leveraging these strategies, such rituals serve to express and reinforce collective identities, power dynamics, and shared meanings within the community.
Thus, ritual elements such as masks function not only as aesthetic artifacts but as active agents in constructing and conveying identity, power, and collective meaning through evolving sensory strategies. By examining case studies from Romanian Christmas and New Year carnivals, this article aims to explore how these adaptations reflect broader socio-cultural shifts, emphasizing the centrality of sensory impact in maintaining the ritual’s efficacy and resonance in contemporary contexts.
Paper Short Abstract:
The paper aims to critically analyse some contemporary practices of masking in Basilicata (Italy) through the observational lens of heritage anthropology, with particular attention to the unwritten experiential and sensorial aspects that characterise them. In these ritual and ceremonial masking contexts, masks become symbolic devices of belonging and identity construction; moreover, the creative agency of individuals and communities enables interesting dynamics of continuity, adaptation or change that can meet the complexity and the different needs of today's heritage arenas.
Paper Abstract:
Although in the recent past writings and discourses have considerably influenced the so-called ‘traditional’ masking practices documented during the Carnival rituals of small villages in the inner areas of Southern Italy, the observation of some contemporary experiences in Basilicata has revealed the presence of a creative agency of individuals and communities, who are the product but also the producers of their own culture. It has also shown a capacity for continuity, adaptation or change capable of responding to the needs of today's heritage arenas. Cultural elements and ceremonial events, subjected over time, on the one hand, to interesting dynamics of ‘re-traditionalisation’ and in some cases of ‘artification’, and, on the other, to the implications of ongoing ‘heritage-making processes’, have become shared symbols of belonging, as well as devices for the construction of local identities, production of cultural memory and forms of self-representation, in constant dialogue with broader global scenarios. Ethnographic practice and a critical approach focused specifically on the senses of masks and unwritten masking experiences and performances has made it possible to highlight that constructing, making, and above all wearing masks in collective ceremonial contexts and in liminal ritual spaces can be considered as a strategy for ‘making community’; re-proposing the past in the present; attempting to counter hegemonic and hetero-directed discourses. Moreover, it could be one of the socially recognised ways of marking one's ‘presence’ in marginal, fragile, depopulated areas, subject to numerous criticalities, in an attempt to ward off, even temporarily, the threats of an uncertain future.
Paper Short Abstract:
Spring carnivals are a practice specific only to certain regions of Romania, such as Banat. This paper aims to analyze how the masquerade occasioned by these carnivals constitutes a multisensory experience for the performing community, in recent years.
Paper Abstract:
Spring carnivals are a practice specific only to certain regions of Romania, such as Banat. This paper aims to analyze how the masquerade occasioned by these carnivals constitutes a multisensory experience for the performing community, in recent years.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper analyzes carnival masking practices during the Sefrou Cherry Festival in Morocco, exploring the relationships between cultural performances and the politics of identity in contemporary global Morocco, through an innovative methodological lens, focusing on the interactions between the agency of masks and actors and cultural and memorial resources available to them, and on the condition of cultural extension ratified by the performance of the Cherry Queen.
Paper Abstract:
This paper offers a cultural analysis of carnival masking practices carried out by specific actors within the framework of the "carnaval" held annually during the Cherry Festival in Sefrou, a town located in the Fès-Meknès Region, Morocco. Using the methodological lens of the anthropology of performance and of political anthropology and drawing on the dramaturgical models of Victor Turner and Clifford Geertz as well as Jacques Derrida's concept of citationality, this paper proposes an innovative interpretation of the functioning, dynamics of success and failure of the various embodied performances that characterize Sefrou's carnival parade. It highlights, above all, the close relationship between cultural performances and the politics of identity in the process of constructing and incorporating national and cultural identity in the contemporary global Morocco.
Moreover, it focuses on the degrees of critical disconnection that mark the practices of the involved subjects associated with taking “cultural roles”, namely the interaction between the agency of masks and actors and the cultural and memorial resources available to them. In particular, the carnivalesque performance of the Cherry Queen (a paradigmatic and emergent figure), who embodies a "conjunctive" representation of the indicative mode of the cultural process within a festival organized and sponsored by political authorities, will be analyzed. On a local level, this performance achieves the condition of cultural extension that ratifies the substantial success of the performance, effectively marking the gradual opening of new spaces in the public sphere to female presence.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper aims to observe the usage of masks in contemporary (mainly urban) settings, with a focus on underground and performative environments. As a main objective, this research will offer an overview on the socio-cultural and symbolic aspects of contemporary masking, in comparison with the traditional aspects of the practice.
Paper Abstract:
Masking is an universal practice, with various functions attached to it, spanning from cultural and performative, to utilitarian and ritualistic. In this paper I aim to observe a number of contemporary uses of masks, such as art performances, professional wrestling or simply decoration and marketing. The endeavor proposes a pop-culture perspective applied to a practice rooted in tradition. The common trait that I am going to follow is the process of identity building through the usage of masks and its implicatures, both concerning the user of the mask and the mask itself. Stemming from Goffman's theory of presenting of the Self I intend to observe the way the Mask and the Masked manage to transgress and innovate on what identity means. This will give an insight on the meanings and experiences of wearing a mask in a modern context.
At the same time, building on the erosion of the folk mask, which was meant to be worn in ritual settings, I intend to observe the way these new paradigms affected the traditional use of the mask, and the way these contrasting aspects of traditional and contemporary can coexist.
Paper Short Abstract:
Mukha shilpa is a famous cultural heritage in Assam, India. This tradition, deeply embedded in Vaishnavite culture, combines art, spirituality, and performance. The process of making masks involves shaping, painting and texturing which improve tactile and visual experiences for artisans. Additionally, the vivid colours and patterns on the masks appeal to the visual senses, establishing a link between the artists and the themes they depict. This paper aims to analyze the multisensory aspects of mask-making in Assam, including tactile, visual, and auditory dimensions, and their impact on performers and audiences.
Paper Abstract:
Mask is known as a remarkable cultural heritage worldwide. It has been used both in ceremonial as well as practical purposes. Assam, a state in Northeastern part of India, is popular for mask culture. It is locally known as mukha shilpa and has recently received GI tag. The masks and masking tradition or mukha shilpa of Assam, deeply embedded in the Vaishnavite culture initiated by Srimanta Sankardeva, represent a vibrant convergence of art, spirituality, and performance. A mask is made of bamboo, cane, cloth and clay. The making process involves shaping, painting and texturing which enhance tactile and visual experiences for artisans. The vibrant colour and designs on masks also engage visual senses which create the connection between the artists and the themes they represent. While these masks are celebrated for their intricate craftsmanship and symbolic representations in the Bhaona (theatrical performances), their sensory and experiential dimensions remain underexplored in academic discourse.
With the help of anthropological knowledge and methods, this paper will try to analyze the multisensory aspects of mask-making, including the tactile, visual, and auditory dimensions of the process in Assam. It will also try to find out the experiential impact of masks on performers and audiences during Bhaona and other rituals through this paper.