Dancing with and for others in the field and postcolonial encounters

Keywords: Australian Indigenous dance, cultural anthropology, fieldwork, performative tactics

Abstract

Drawing from my research in Northeast Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia, I show how Indigenous dancing embodies statements about being-in-the-world and being-with-others and, from a performance perspective based on participation, I explore the sensuous and affective nature of intercorporeality in relation to the transmission of knowledge and political negotiations both in the community as well as in the diplomatic encounters with non-indigenous visitors and institutions. Beyond the symbolism of gestures, I explore dance as a way of knowing and empathic understanding that reconfigures meaning and directs experience.  Dancing with and for others in the context of Indigenous performances and in fieldwork is thus a modality of co-presence and co-presencing, an encounter which opens the way up to an ever-deepening engagement with others. If in the local contexts, dancing can be a way of knowing and relating with people and the environment, it becomes a ‘performative tactic’ deployed to create a space in which non-Indigenous people are challenged to learn and recognise Indigenous ways of being and are required to participate and respond. 

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Author Biography

Franca Tamisari, University Ca' Foscari of Venice
Based at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice from 2007, Franca Tamisari is currently Head of the Cultural Anthropology Program in the Department of Humanities In addition, she lectured at the University of Sydney and The University of Queensland from 1996 to 2004. Her ethnographic research in North Australia has led to publications both nationally and internationally on a range of topics, including Australian Indigenous cosmology and politics, ritual and performance, art, bicultural education, the politics of representation, and the history of colonial and postcolonial relations in Australia. She is the author of ‘Enacted Relations. Performing Knowledge in an Australian Indigenous Community’, Berghahn Books 2024.
Published
2024-06-30
How to Cite
Tamisari, F. (2024). Dancing with and for others in the field and postcolonial encounters. Mimesis Journal, 13(1), 37-54. https://doi.org/10.13135/2389-6086/10430
Section
Performing Memory Through Dance. Anthropological Perspectives