Workshop: Multimodal Performance Ethnography - Towards collaborative future-making

Magdalena Kazubowski-Houston, Rajat Nayyar, Rana El Kadi

Tue, 16-May-23 02:00 PM

Our present is defined by uncer­tain­ty – social, polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, and eco­log­i­cal – and how we under­stand and relate to such uncer­tain­ty shapes how we forge our futures. In recent years, ethno­g­ra­phers across many dis­ci­plines have increas­ing­ly begun to delve into this uncer­tain­ty, research­ing pos­si­ble and spec­u­la­tive worlds. But how do we trans­form our ethno­graph­ic prac­tices into con­crete actions of global cit­i­zen­ship and social jus­tice that engage indi­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ties? This work­shop explores mul­ti­modal and mul­ti­sen­so­ry per­for­mance ethnog­ra­phy as an approach for imag­in­ing and inter­ven­ing in futures. Through provo­ca­tions, videos, sounds, and per­for­ma­tive exer­cis­es, work­shop par­tic­i­pants will explore per­for­mance ethnog­ra­phy as a way of envi­sion­ing anthropology’s moral respon­si­bil­i­ty. 

 

Work­shop co-con­ven­ers: Rana El Kadi, Mag­dale­na Kazubows­ki-Hous­ton, and Rajat Nayyar from Emer­gent Futures CoLab 

 

Emer­gent Futures CoLab  

This trans­dis­ci­pli­nary col­lec­tive emerged in March 2020. They seek to address the sense that urgent action must be taken in response to events that are cur­rent­ly emerg­ing and shap­ing our worlds. As our polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal futures become increas­ing­ly uncer­tain, we are con­cerned with what it means to research, create art and take action in this cli­mate of felt urgency. 

Mag­dale­na Kazubows­ki-Hous­ton  is an anthro­pol­o­gist, per­for­mance the­o­rist, the­atre direc­tor and play­wright. She is a Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of The­atre, lec­tur­ing The­atre & Per­for­mance Stud­ies and Social Anthro­pol­o­gy at York Uni­ver­si­ty. Her research inter­ests include per­for­mance ethnog­ra­phy, ethno­graph­ic sto­ry­telling, ethno­graph­ic (non)fiction, mul­ti­modal ethnog­ra­phy, phys­i­cal and polit­i­cal the­atre and per­for­mance. She is a Co-Cura­tor of the Centre for Imag­i­na­tive Ethnog­ra­phy (CIE)

Rajat Nayyar is an anthro­pol­o­gist and film­mak­er who is cur­rent­ly a SSHRC Vanier Schol­ar and a PhD Can­di­date in The­ater at York Uni­ver­si­ty. He is the co-founder of Emer­gent Futures CoLab (EFC) through which he curates Talk­ing Uncer­tain­ty, an online talk series/podcast that fea­tures future-focussed schol­ars and artists from around the world. He is also the cur­rent con­venor of Futures Anthro­pol­o­gy Net­work of Euro­pean Asso­ci­a­tion of Social Anthro­pol­o­gists (EASA) and a co-editor of the Per­for­mance Ethnog­ra­phy sec­tion of Centre for Imag­i­na­tive Ethnog­ra­phy (CIE). His recent arti­cle ‘Gran­u­lar Activisms’ was pub­lished in the fall 2022 issue Visual Anthro­pol­o­gy Review (VAR).
 

Rana El Kadi holds a PhD in Eth­no­mu­si­col­o­gy from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Alber­ta, Canada. She is a Lec­tur­er and Research Asso­ciate with the Toron­to Met­ro­pol­i­tan University’s School of Dis­abil­i­ty Stud­ies and an Adjunct Pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Guelph, affil­i­at­ed with Re•Vision: The Centre for Art and Social Jus­tice. Rana is also Co-Founder and Cura­tor at Emer­gent Futures CoLab (EFC). Her research inter­ests lie in mad/neurodivergent/disability arts, acces­si­bil­i­ty, imag­i­na­tive and mul­ti­modal ethnog­ra­phy, rad­i­cal research ethics, and cripped research method­olo­gies and ped­a­go­gies. Rana is cur­rent­ly Co-Inves­ti­ga­tor on a SSHRC Insight Devel­op­ment Grant on access in the arts and a SSHRC Part­ner­ship Engage Grant on devel­op­men­tal­ly dis­abled people’s expe­ri­ences of neu­ro­di­ver­gence and their artis­tic com­mu­ni­ties of prac­tice within and in the after­life of institutions. 

The Work­shop will be held in English.