FOLKLORE FUTURES: Maria Amir
FOLK FOR RESISTANCE
COMMUNITAS & LIMINALITY
Communitas is a Latin noun commonly referring either to an unstructured community in
which people are equal, or to the very spirit of community. It also has special
significance as a loan word in anthropology and the social sciences. Victor Turner, who
defined the anthropological usage of communitas, was interested in the interplay
between what he called social 'structure' and
'antistructure'; Liminality and Communitas are both components of antistructure.
Communitas refers to an unstructured state in which all members of a community are
equal allowing them to share a common experience, usually through a rite of passage.
Communitas is characteristic of people experiencing liminality together. This term is
used to distinguish the modality of social relationship from an area of common living.
Liminality is a quality of being in between two places or stages, on the verge of transitioning to
something new. In literary theory, liminality marks an exploration of the self. It is the pathway to
becoming. A liminal space is the space through which the character journeys while on the way to
something new. The transition is the point at which the character moves from being to becoming
then back to being again
Communitas is an acute point of community. It takes community to the next level
and allows the whole of the community to share a common experience, usually
through a rite of passage. This brings everyone onto an equal level: even if you are
higher in position, you have been lower and you know what that is.
Turner distinguishes between:
•existential or spontaneous communitas, the transient personal experience of
togetherness; e.g. that which occurs during a counter-culture happening.
•normative communitas, communitas that is transformed from its existential state
to being organized into a permanent social system due to the need for social
control.
•ideological communitas, which can be applied to many utopian social models.
Edith Turner, Victor's widow and anthropologist in her own right, published in
2011 a definitive overview of the anthropology of communitas, outlining the concept
in relation to the natural history of joy, including the nature of human experience
and its narration, festivals, music and sports, work, disaster, the sacred, revolution
and nonviolence, nature and spirit, and ritual and rites of passage.
STANDPOINT THEORY
Standpoint theory, or standpoint epistemology, is a theory for analyzing
intersubjective discourses. Standpoint theory proposes that authority is rooted in
individuals’ personal knowledge and perspectives and the power that such authority
exerts.
Standpoint theory’s central concept is that an individual’s perspectives are shaped
by their social and political experiences. The amalgamation of a person’s
experiences forms a standpoint—a point of view - through which that individual sees
and understands the world. In response to critiques that early standpoint theory
treated social perspectives as monolithic or essentialized, social theorists
understand standpoints as multifaceted rather than unvarying or absolute.
Standpoint theorists emphasize the utility of a naturalistic, or everyday experiential,
concept of knowing (i.e., epistemology). One’s standpoint (whether reflexively
considered or not) shapes which concepts are intelligible, which claims are heard
and understood by whom, which features of the world are perceptually salient, which
reasons are understood to be relevant and forceful, and which conclusions credible.
INDIGENOUS STANDPOINT
Indigenous standpoint theory is an intricate theoretical approach in how
indigenous people navigate the difficulties of their experiences within spaces
which contest their epistemology. Utility of this approach stems from diverse
background of marginalized groups across societies and cultures whose
unique experiences have been rejected and suppressed within a majoritarian
intellectual knowledge production. However, the analysis of these
experiences is not the cycle of accumulation of stories, of lived experiences,
and in turn, doesn’t produce limitless subjective narratives to obstruct
objective knowledge. Martin Nakata is the foremost propounder of indigenous
standpoint theory.
Indigenous standpoint, as well as feminist theory, expect the “knower” to
address their social status of privilege to those they are researching. When
addressing ourselves as ‘knowers’ into the setting, the intention isn’t to
realign the focus, however, to include the social relations within what we as
“knowers” know.
NAKATA’S PRINCIPLES FOR
INDIGENOUS STANDPOINT
1. “It would, therefore, begin from the premise that my social position is discursively constituted within and
constitutive of complex set of social relations as expressed through social organization of my every day”.This
denotes that one’s social position is established and acknowledgement of social relations within factors such as
social, political, economic and cultural, impacts and influence who you are and structure your everyday life.
• 2. “This experience as a push-pull between Indigenous and non-Indigenous positions; that is, the familiar confusion
with constantly being asked at any one moment to both agree and disagree with any proposition on the basis of a
constrained choice between a whitefella or blackfella perspective”. This signifies that the position of which
Indigenous people hold at the cultural interface to decide a continuous stance is recognized. Instead,
reorganization for Indigenous agency should be constituted on what they know from this position. Simplistically
stated, it is questioning why Indigenous people should have to choose positions instead of share what they know
from both.
3. “the idea that the constant ‘tensions’ that this tug-of-war creates are physically experienced, and both inform as
well as limit what can be said and what is to be left unsaid in every day.” Nakata here is describing the physical
worlds of how Indigenous and non-Indigenous differ in everyday context, and how these differences can inform of
limit has it might be unacceptable in western colonist society that would otherwise be acceptable with other
Indigenous people.
Nakata states that these three principles allow him to forge a critical standpoint from the cultural interface and
enable him to create better arguments in relation to his position within epistemologies and with other groups of
‘knowers’.
ART IN CONTEXT
How best to define the term "art" is a subject of constant contention; many books and
journal articles have been published arguing over even the basics of what we mean by
the term "art”. Theodor Adorno claimed in his Aesthetic Theory 1969 "It is self-evident
that nothing concerning art is self-evident.” Artists, philosophers, anthropologists,
psychologists and programmers all use the notion of art in their respective fields, and
give it operational definitions that vary considerably. Furthermore, it is clear that even
the basic meaning of the term "art" has changed several times over the centuries, and
has continued to evolve during the 20th century as well.
The main recent sense of the word "art" is roughly as an abbreviation for creative
art or "fine art." Here we mean that skill is being used to express the artist's creativity,
or to engage the audience's aesthetic sensibilities, or to draw the audience towards
consideration of the "finer" things. Often, if the skill is being used in a functional
object, people will consider it a craft instead of art, a suggestion which is highly
disputed by many Contemporary Craft thinkers. Likewise, if the skill is being used in a
commercial or industrial way it may be considered design instead of art, or
contrariwise these may be defended as art forms, perhaps called applied art. Some
thinkers, for instance, have argued that the difference between fine art and applied art
has more to do with the actual function of the object than any clear definitional
difference.
COUNTER-NARRATIVE
& FOLKLORE
Counter-narrative refers to the narratives that arise from the
vantage point of those who have been historically
marginalized. The idea of “counter” itself implies a space of
resistance against traditional domination.
In the realm of folklore these include stories and narratives
constructed from communities outwards. If grand narratives
come from global, national power then folk narratives reclaim
the power of indigenous and grassroots community organising.
Perspectives that run opposite to the presumed order of
control are counter narratives. These narratives which do not
agree with and are critical of the master narrative often arise
out often arise out of individual or group experiences that do
not fit the grand narrative.
WHAT COUNTER-
NARRATIVES DO
Set out to deconstruct the master narrative
Provide multiple and conflicting models of understanding social and
cultural identities
Challenge normative and authoritative cultures
Focus on qualitative research methodologies that combine or
contextualise quantitative studies.
Provide individual stories, community narratives and paradigms that
qualify the absolute nature of a grand narrative.
WHO CAN SPEAK?
The presumptive power of the ‘general truth’
Specificity
Minority voices
Resisting the impulse of speaking on ‘behalf’ of communities
Authorship and control
CONTESTING NARRATIVES
Embracing various lenses
Acknowledge conflicting positions
Specializing
The power of the micro story
Individual case studies
Lived experience narratives
Multiple Art forms
INDIVIDUAL & COLLECTIVE
What is the role of the individual and the collective in a movement?
How do we frame the politics of the collective as liberatory, as restrictive, as
freedom struggle, as hegemonic, etc?
How does the individual and the collective place the body in protest and to
what end?
Who is considered an individual?
Who makes up the collective?
We, politely referred to as "underdeveloped", in truth, are colonial, semi-colonial
or dependent countries. We are countries whose economies have been distorted by
imperialism, which has abnormally developed those branches of industry or
agriculture needed to complement its complex economy. "Underdevelopment", or
distorted development, brings a dangerous specialization in raw materials,
inherent in which is the threat of hunger for all our peoples. We, the
"underdeveloped", are also those with the single crop, the single product, the
single market. A single product whose uncertain sale depends on a single market
imposing and fixing conditions. That is the great formula for imperialist economic
domination.
— Ché Guevara, 9 April 1961.
LINKS
Decolonizing: [Link]
Manzoor Pashteen: [Link]
Taleel al Jabal - [Link]
Anansi: [Link]
Indian comedian: [Link]
[Link]
Rafeef Ziadah: [Link]
Hazaran Baloch: [Link]
Missing Persons doc: [Link]
Friere: [Link]
Fanon: [Link]
The Black Panthers: [Link]
[Link]
[Link]
[Link]
India CIA protests: [Link]
[Link]
Fehmida Riaz: [Link]
Sammi Baloch: [Link]
Mia Motley: [Link]
Ethnonationlism: [Link]
Rubina Saigol: [Link]
Jesse Williams speech: [Link]
Haka for Palestine: [Link]
Propaganda machines: [Link]
Sudan Zawra: [Link]
Heer Ranjha: [Link]
Afghan Refugees: [Link]
Mandela and Arafat: [Link]
Ghassan Khanafani: [Link]
