Call for Submissions

Deadline October 15th, 2022

Dancing with the world, magicking life/Bailar con el mundo, magiar la vida/ Dançar com o mundo, magiar a vida

The editors of fiar forum for inter-american research invite scholars to submit articles (in Spanish, Portuguese, and English) for a special issue: Dancing with the world, magicking life / Bailar con el mundo, magiar la vida/ Dançar com o mundo, magiar a vida guest edited by Dra. Paola María Marugán Ricart (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana – Unidad Xochimilco (UAM-X) Cuidad de Mexico). Below you find the call for submissions in Spanish, Portuguese, and English.

Título

Bailar con el mundo, magiar la vida

Presentación

En tiempos de crisis pandémica y civilizatoria, la danza se presenta como un territorio en disputa, un forcejeo incesante por rescatar los vínculos vibrantes entre esta práctica artística y la afirmación de vida. Conexiones éstas que el canon moderno-colonial en danza buscó interrumpir desde su formación europea, siendo las distintas matrices de dominación de la empresa colonial, las claves que permitieron perpetuar dicha ruptura en los contextos de Las Américas y el Caribe. Como expone André Lepecki en Exhausting dance. Performance and the politics of the movement (2006), la modernidad canonizó el cuerpo danzante a través de dos rupturas. Por un lado, la regulación de los códigos de la orchesographie supuso una quiebra de carácter ontológico entre la danza y el mundo como un todo. Esta escritura disciplinar del movimiento redujo la libertad del cuerpo-que-baila a un espacio delimitado (la cuadratura escénica) y una temporalidad domesticada, que generó distanciamiento social entre los ámbitos en los que la danza y la vida eran indistinguibles: rituales de pasaje, celebraciones religiosas, festividades paganas. Posteriormente, la modernidad iluminista trajo consigo la segunda pérdida de la danza: su estatus epistemológico. En la promulgación de los principios fundacionales del sujeto pensante moderno: la auto-determinación, la separabilidad y la secuencialidad, la danza quedó relegada a la mecanización de un cuerpo en movimiento al servicio de la creación disciplinar. Hecho que fortaleció la fractura cartesiana entre razón-emoción, negando así los saberes del cuerpo, en una suerte de exaltación al logocentrismo científico imperante. De ahí que en tiempos de crisis la danza sea un espacio de articulación de los intensos debates políticos, que movimientos feministas, antirracistas, anticoloniales, descoloniales, anticapitalistas y por la defensa del territorio, están tejiendo colectivamente en este continente. ¿Qué significa hacer política por medio de la producción en danza?

Para este número convocamos propuestas teóricas y artísticas (ensayos escritos, narrativas fotográficas y audiovisuales) dedicadas a exponer, sentir y reflexionar sobre el hacer en danza en Las Américas y el Caribe, como una tecnología ancestral que busca producir rupturas emancipatorias con la experiencia occidental. Nos interesan las elaboraciones dedicadas a problematizar el canon moderno-colonial a partir del reconocimiento de la historicidad de otras tradiciones y de asumir dicha práctica como un campo de producción de conocimiento de saberes ancestrales generados desde el cuerpo. Además de ser considerada un catalizador de procesos de cura. ¿Cómo se despliegan esas tecnologías que permiten danzar con el mundo (y no un danzar en el mundo, reproductor de ese distanciamiento ontológico impuesto por la modernidad) y magiar la vida?

Estas rupturas emancipatorias con el proceso de canonización en danza han constituido un terreno de disputa y resignificación de las nociones de cuerpo, espacio y tiempo en la dirección apuntada por Denise Ferreira da Silva (2016) con el principio de no-localidad. Este propone suspender la concepción cartesiana de las coordenadas espacio-temporales, para desde ahí multiplicar, expandir, descontrolar y complejizar sujetos, espacios y prácticas en los procesos de creación dancística. En este sentido surgen algunos interrogantes, ¿quién quienes bailan cuando una entidad es encarnada a través de la gestualidad corporal en una lógica de no-localidad? ¿A quién pertenece el movimiento del cuerpo que lo produce en un mundo enmarañado? ¿De qué maneras medir la temporalidad de la danza? ¿Es posible reducir el tiempo de la creación a la duración de cada coreografía? ¿Qué narrativas se están produciendo desde la práctica dancística que exceden la linealidad de la historia occidental?

A partir de estas consideraciones presentamos las rutas temáticas para esta edición:

• Problematizaciones al canon moderno-colonial en danza a partir del reconocimiento de la historicidad de prácticas dancísticas de otras tradiciones;

• Danza como una práctica de producción de conocimiento y reelaboración de saberes ancestrales;

• Medio de comunicación con fuerzas y entidades invisibles, reconociendo y fortaleciendo los vínculos entre la vibración del ser y las fuerzas de lo invisible;

• Disputa de significados: nociones de cuerpo, espacio y tiempo en el hacer dancístico;

• Ancestralidad, colectividad, espiritualidad y memoria;

• Reflexiones en torno a la concepción de autoría;

• Procesos de subjetivación y cuerpos políticos de enunciación;

• Danza como un catalizador de procesos de cura.

Título

Dançar com o mundo, magiar a vida

Apresentação

Em tempos de crise pandêmica e civilizatória a dança apresenta-se enquanto um território em disputa, um forcejo incessante por resgatar os vínculos vibrantes entre essa prática artística e a afirmação de vida. Estas são conexões que o cânone moderno-colonial em dança procurou interromper desde sua formação europeia, sendo as diferentes matrizes de dominação do projeto colonial as chaves que permitiram perpetuar esta ruptura nos contextos das Américas e do Caribe. Segundo André Lepecki em Exhausting dance. Performance and the politics of the movement (2006), a modernidade canonizou o corpo dançante através de duas rupturas. De um lado, a regulação dos códigos da orchesographie traziam uma quebra de caráter ontológico entre a dança e o mundo como um todo. Essa escritura disciplinar do movimento restringiu a liberdade do corpo-que-dança a um espaço delimitado (a quadratura cênica) e a uma temporalidade domesticada que gerou distanciamento social entre os âmbitos nos quais dança e vida eram indistinguíveis: rituais de passagem, celebrações religiosas, festividades pagãs… De outro lado, a modernidade iluminista trouxe consigo a segunda perda da dança: o seu status epistemológico. Na promulgação dos princípios fundacionais do sujeito pensante moderno: a autodeterminação, a separabilidade e a sequencialidade, a dança foi relegada à mecanização de um corpo em movimento a serviço da criação disciplinar. Esse fato fortaleceu a fratura cartesiana entre razão-emoção, negando assim os saberes do corpo, em uma espécie de exaltação do logocentrismo científico imperante. Daí que em tempos de crise a dança seja um espaço de articulação de intensos debates políticos, que movimentos feministas, antirracistas, anticoloniais, descoloniais, anticapitalistas e pela defesa do território estão tecendo coletivamente neste continente. Quais as implicações de fazer política por meio da produção em dança?

Para este número convocamos propostas teóricas e artísticas (ensaios escritos, narrativas fotográficas e audiovisuais) voltadas para expor, sentir e refletir acerca do fazer em dança nas Américas e no Caribe, enquanto uma tecnologia ancestral que busca produzir quebras emancipatórias com a experiência ocidental. Serão bem-vindas elaborações dedicadas à problematização do cânone moderno-colonial a partir do reconhecimento da historicidade de outras tradições e do assumir essa prática como campo de produção de conhecimento de saberes ancestrais gerados desde o corpo. Além desta ser considerada catalizadora de processos de cura. De que maneiras se engendram essas tecnologias que possibilitam dançar com o mundo (ao invés de dançar no mundo, reprodutor desse distanciamento ontológico imposto pela modernidade) e magiar a vida? Estas rupturas emancipatórias com o processo de canonização em dança tem constituído um território de disputa e ressignificação das noções de corpo, espaço e tempo na direção apontada por Denise Ferreira da Silva (2016) com o princípio de não-localidade. Este propõe suspender a concepção cartesiana das coordenadas espaço-temporais para deste modo multiplicar, expandir, descontrolar e complexificar sujeitos, espaços e práticas nos processos de criação da dança. Nesse sentido algumas interrogações surgem: Quem dança quando uma entidade é incorporada através da gestualidade corporal em uma lógica de não-localidade? A quem pertence o movimento do corpo produzido em um mundo emaranhado? De que maneiras medir a temporalidade da dança? É possível reduzir o tempo da criação à duração de cada coreografia? Quais narrativas de um afazer em dança capaz de exceder a linearidade da história ocidental?

A partir destas considerações apresentamos as rotas temáticas para esta edição:

• Problematizações ao cânone moderno-colonial em dança a partir do reconhecimento da historicidade de práticas dancísticas de outras tradições;

• Dança enquanto prática de produção de conhecimento e reelaboração de saberes ancestrais;

• Meio de comunicação com forças e entidades invisíveis – reconhecendo e fortalecendo os vínculos entre a vibração do ser e as forças do invisível;

• Disputa de significados: noções de corpo, espaço e tempo no fazer da dança;

• Ancestralidade, coletividade, espiritualidade e memória;

• Reflexões voltadas para a concepção de autoria;

• Processos de subjetivação e corpos políticos de enunciação;

• Dança enquanto um catalizador de processos de cura.

Title

Dancing with the world, magicking life

Abstract

In this time of crisis, with our world shaken by a pandemic and civilization itself in danger of collapse, dance presents itself as a field in dispute, as an incessant struggle to rescue the vibrant connections between this artistic practice and the affirmation of life. These are connections that the modern-colonial canon in dance sought to interrupt since its European formation. The different matrices of domination of the colonial project were the foundation stones that allowed the perpetuation of this rupture in the contexts of the Americas and the Caribbean. As André Lepecki argues in Exhausting dance. Performance and the politics of the movement (2006), modernity canonised the dancing body through two ruptures: on the one hand, the regulation of the codes of orchesographie entailed an ontological rupture between dance and the world as a whole. This disciplinary writing of movement reduced the freedom of the body-that-dances to a delimited space (theatrical stage) and a domesticated temporality, which generated social distancing between the spheres in which dance and life were indistinguishable: rites of passage, religious celebrations, pagan festivities…; on the other hand, the Enlightenment brought with it the second loss of dance: its epistemological status. In the promulgation of the founding principles of the modern thinking subject: self-determination, separability and sequentiality, dance was relegated to the mechanisation of a body in movement in the service of disciplinary creation. This fact strengthened the Cartesian fracture between reason and emotion, thus denying the knowledge of the body in a sort of exaltation of the prevailing scientific logocentrism. Hence, in times of crisis, dance is a space of articulating the intense political debates that feminism, anti-racist, anti-colonial, decolonial, anti-capitalist and territorial defence movements are collectively weaving in the Americas and the Caribbean. What does it mean to make politics through dance production?

For this issue we call for theoretical and artistic proposals (written essays, photographic and audiovisual narratives) dedicated to exposing, feeling and reflecting on dance making in the Americas and the Caribbean, as an ancestral technology that seeks to produce emancipatory ruptures from the Western experience. We are interested in the elaborations focused on problematising the modern-colonial canon by recognising the historicity of other traditions and assuming this practice as a field of ancestral knowledge production generated from the body. Also, dancing can be considered a catalyst for healing processes. How are these technologies deployed allowing us to dance with the world (instead dance in the world, as a way of reproducing the ontological distancing imposed by modernity) and magicking life?

These emancipatory ruptures with the process of canonisation in dance have constituted a terrain of dispute and resignification of the notions of body, space and time in the direction showing by Denise Ferreira da Silva (2016) as the principle of non-locality. This proposes a suspension of the Cartesian conception of temporal and spatial coordinates in order to multiply, expand, uncontrol and complexify subjects, spaces and practices in the processes of dance creation. In this sense specific questions arise: who dances when an entity is embodied through bodily gestures in a logic of non-locality? To whom does the movement of the body that practices it belong in an entangled world? In what ways can we measure the temporality of dance? Is it possible to reduce the time of creation to the duration of each choreography? What narratives are being produced by dance practice that exceed the linearity of Western history?

Based on this considerations, we present the thematic pathways for this issue:

• Problematisations of the modern-colonial canon in dance based on the recognition of the historicity of dance practices from other traditions;

• Dance as a practice of knowledge production and re-elaboration of ancestral knowledge;

• Means of communication with unseen forces and entities, recognising and strengthening the links between the vibration of the self and the forces of the unseen;

• Dispute of meanings: notions of body, space and time in dance making;

• Ancestry, collectivity, spirituality and memory;

• Reflections on the concept of authorship;

• Processes of subjectivation and political body of enunciation (agency);

• Dance as a catalyst for healing processes.

Guidelines: Authors who wish to contribute to the special issue are invited to send an abstract (maximum 500 words) including the title, author(s), and institutional affiliation to paolamarugan@gmail.com by October 15th, 2022. By November 15th, you will receive information on the acceptance of your abstract. The complete article must be submitted by the end of January 2023 in a maximum of 7.500-10.000 words (MLA style, authors need to use the journal’s MLA style sheet). Submissions can be made in Spanish, English, and Portuguese. The special issue of the FIAR is expected to be published in May 2023.

The forum for inter-american research (fiar) is the official electronic journal of the International Association of Inter-American Studies. It was established by the American Studies Program at Bielefeld University in 2008. We foster a dialogic and interdisciplinary approach to the study of the Americas. fiar is a peer-reviewed online journal. Articles in this journal undergo a double-blind review process and are published in English, Portuguese, and Spanish. We do not charge readers or institutions for full text access. The editorial board consists of a broad range of international scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. fiar is ASA, EBSCO and MLA registered.

Visit us at www.interamerica.de

Call for Submissions

Deadline: Sep. 15, 2022

Walls, Bridges, Borders in the Americas

The electronic journal fiar, the forum for inter-american research invite scholars to submit articles (in English, Spanish or Portuguese) for a special issue: “Walls, Bridges, Borders in the Americas,” edited by José Carlos Lozano. 

Borders between modern nation/states in the Americas have always been porous and flexible, with nationals moving from one country to another—with or without documents—to flee poverty, violence, political instability, failing economic systems or just to seek better jobs. Recently, these border crossings have significantly increased, while, at the same time political forces such as nationalist and conservative movements in the receiving countries have emerged or expanded, adopting ever more confrontational (and even more violent) tactics, a situation similar to what has been happening in other regions of the world. 

Borders in the Americas separate but also allow for contact and multiple exchanges between nation states. They are set to contain people and goods from leaving one country and entering another. Yet they also make international trade, tourism, and commerce possible. Likewise, trans-border contact promotes cultural and linguistic exchanges.

Mass migration has been exacerbated in different parts of the Americas—particularly Central America and South America—due to extreme violence, the violation of human rights, and economic crises. Thousands of people have fled their countries, some trying to reach the United States requesting entrance as refugees, while others have moved to other Latin American countries (for example, Venezuelans migrating to Colombia, Brazil, Peru, or Ecuador, or Haitians relocating to Chile, Brazil, Mexico or the US). Humanitarian crises are on the rise due to increasingly harsh conditions along the migration routes. Meanwhile, the governments of receiving countries have demonstrated a general lack of interest in protecting migrants from discrimination and criminalization. As such, migrants often struggle to obtain the rights to asylum and due process—or even to be treated with basic dignity.

Migrants able to settle in other countries typically maintain some of their most enduring traditions, values, language, and customs, creating symbolic and spatial territories while typically assimilating or adopting varying cultural elements of their new homes. 

Nevertheless, borders are not only defined by documented or undocumented migration patterns. Millions of people living permanently on the fringes of their nation-states, interact on a daily basis with citizens of the neighboring countries. As well, people who many times are closer to them on ethnic, linguistic, and cultural grounds than fellow countrymen find comfort in these new circumstances even though they are living far away from the original political boundary. The fluid and intense social, economic, and cultural interaction between people living in the borderlands results in liminal spaces where multiple cultures and sub-cultures co-exist either producing hybrid cultural manifestations (as argued by Garcia Canclini) or maintaining the core of their customs and beliefs while interacting in complex multicultural arenas (as pointed out by Giménez). Everything from language, religion, literature, music, and media is impacted by this daily interplay of contrasting cultural forces subject to political and economic systems that frequently pull in different directions.

In this special issue, we invite contributions discussing questions about 

• What kind of advantages can Inter-American approaches bring to the understanding of migration patterns, cultural and economic exchanges, geographic and demographic issues as well as political divisions and conjunctions about borders between countries in the Americas?
• How can new research contribute to the understanding of the role of borders and cross-border flows in the regional context of the Americas? 
• What kind of policies should be adopted by governments and NGO’s to promote peace and human rights, to respect cultural differences, to facilitate cultural and economic exchanges, and to confront extreme violence and human trafficking?
• What are the distinctive processes of border-making in the Americas—past and present?
• How can we (re)define political, geographical, territorial, cultural, and symbolic borders in the Americas?
• What can we learn by looking into their historical development and the cultural and social entanglements that have characterized them?
• What are the distinctive cultural traits of the people living on the fringes of their nation states? 
• What are the linguistic, social, and cultural differences of border regions in the Americas in contrast with their respective national cultures?
• How have artistic cultural expressions represented walls, bridges, and borders in their cultural production such as literature, films, paintings, drawings, music, theater, and so forth?

Guidelines: Authors who wish to contribute to the special issue are invited to send an abstract (maximum 500 words) including the title, authors and institutional affiliation to carlos.lozano@tamiu.edu by the deadline: September 15th, 2022. By September 30, you will receive information on the acceptance of your abstract. The complete article must be submitted by the end of January 2023 in a maximum of 7.500-10.000 words (MLA style). Submissions can be made in Spanish, English and Portuguese. This special issue of the FIAR is expected to be published in October 2023. 

The forum for inter-american research (fiar) is the official electronic journal of the International Association of Inter-American Studies. It was established by the American Studies Program at Bielefeld University in 2008. It fosters a dialogic and interdisciplinary approach to the study of the Americas. fiar is a peer-reviewed online journal. Articles in this journal undergo a double-blind review process and are published in English, Portuguese, and Spanish. We do not charge readers or institutions for full text access. The editorial board consists of a broad range of international scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds. fiar is ASA, EBSCO and MLA registered. 

Visit fiar at www.interamerica.de