WMN3020/4020/WSM4020
FEMINIST RESEARCH
PROJECT PROPOSAL SUBMISSION
(approx. 500 words)
- Name
Real Name Lia Incognita
- Title of your project
Performance and performativity -- the politics of the Ladies of Colour Agency (LOCA)
- Brief description of project (including the types of material to be used)
My project studies a Melbourne-based group called the Ladies of Colour Agency, self-defined as an “autonomous anti-racist activist group, performance troupe and superhero trio”, of which I am a founding member. I will attempt to examine the ideas and intentions of the group through its theatrical performances and written statements, drawing upon existing feminist, queer and anti-racist literature, performance and action to situate the group theoretically within broader academic, activist and artistic contexts. My project will be structured around the idea of performativity, and the emancipatory potential of such a theory as a dynamic conception of identity, as well as when deployed strategically to deconstruct and counter dominant ideas of identity. I intend to devote a good proportion of the project to methodological considerations, including reflections on my research experience.
- What are your key questions?
What are the core ideas of the Ladies of Colour Agency, as evident in their performances and written statements?
How do these ideas relate to broader themes and trends in feminist theory?
Is the idea of performative identities a viable one, and if so what are its implications for our understanding of (ethno-cultural, racial, gendered, sexual) identity?
- Why do you feel this topic is important and interesting?
Obviously I feel the group is interesting as otherwise I wouldn’t have helped to found it, but also I feel that I would be intrigued by the particular intersection of queer, feminist and anti-racist politics in performance even if I weren’t involved in the group. I find the idea of performative identities curious, intriguing and exciting, and I would like to look at how the idea might be actualised in relation to different identities (for example comparisons of drag, burlesque and blackface minstrel shows).
- How would you describe your intended research method(s)?
My primary text for studying this group will be two performances, one in November 2007 and one in October 2008. In conducting a close reading of these performances I hope to draw out the group’s actions, intentions, challenges and responses, and situate the group’s politics within women of colour feminisms. This will compose the first half of the project, which I will send to the two other members of LOCA for review.
- The second half of the project will consist of the review of my work by the other two ladies, my response to their review, and an overall report on my experience of attempt feminist research.
- Do you see your method linking to any issues raised in readings so far?
Yes – very much so. I chose this topic as I have never before specifically researched something I am part of, and I think that would be an interesting response to feminist methodological concerns of the relationship between researcher and researched: My project addresses the need to examine power relations in this relationship and the benefit to the researched, and attempts to enable both reciprocity and accountability in this relationship, particularly by submitting the draft for review by my peers. I think working with a group I am part of also destabilises ideas of authority and authenticity.
By choosing a small, specific group that has come together out of political affinity, I feel I am addressing the essentialist assumptions underlying the choice of a category of research subjects.
I have identified several methodological challenges I think I will face in this project:
- accepting dynamism and subjectivity while maintaining academic rigour
- the need to articulate my agenda and involvement given lack of distance from group
- the difficulty of critique given my intimate relationship with research subjects
- the narrow scope of my project — problems of representation, though I will avoid attempting to make broad judgements upon women of colour feminisms
- consideration of ethics — need for explicit permissions from all involved
- ongoing process of review by research subjects: does this limit research and have an impact on honesty/forthrightness?
- question of self-representation — indulgent, arrogant, unimportant, uninteresting?
- What form will your project take or how will it be documented (e.g. essay, website, Powerpoint etc)?
An essay in two sections, the first part examining LOCA, particularly through its performances, and the second part examining my research methods.
Changed: The first half will cover similar content, but be published as a blog, enabling entries from the other members of LOCA as well as responses from our audiences, allies, friends and strangers. The second half remains as in this proposal but will also draw on comments on the blog and potentially responses through other media.
hey Lia,
ReplyDeleteso I read your blog a couple of weeks ago, and have more to say about what you've added to it. But, for now, I am confused (without negative connotations) about perhaps the goal of the project. As you are a part of the group you intend to study, I am sure this makes a difference. BUT my question is, are you studying the performances (as performances), the politics (as interpreted from the performances) or the politics as politics (of the group, whatever that may mean)? I think the latter is most certainly the most difficult, if possible at all. But what I am interested in is the ethics of how you go about studying the group. You seem very keen to ensure that what you say the group says is agreed upon by all involved, which of course is fair enough. But do you think it fair for you to say 'what it's about'? I think here is where it gets complicated because you are a part of the group, as you therefore become an 'authority' (over the others if they do not speak), as opposed to 'someone else''s interpretation.
I don't know if I am making myself very clear, but my understanding of a performance is that once (and when) it is on stage it becomes a text - to be interpreted however by whoever. And (thus) there are (always) problems in who's interpretation/meaning 'counts'. I am thinking here about drag kings I have seen, and have enjoyed their performances because of the politics of gender/desire I have read into them, and upon talking to them afterwards they were (so very often) keen to 'make clear' that they were about entertainment 'not politics'.
mmm...things to think about. Anyway, I thought it might interest you to read Judith Butler 'Doing Justice to Someone' from Undoing Gender. It's about David Reimer (John/Joan case), about what it means to use a person, a life, as evidence for theory/politics.
I think I'm studying the politics of the group through its performances (or the performances as political acts/texts) but also the politics of the group's conception, development and continued existence, its interactions with other feminist groups, its relationship to theory.
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm okay with holding the authority of, well, the author -- I agree that a text is open to interpretation however by whomever, and I often find an author's assertion of their intentions miserably possessive/protective of something that's no longer theirs, but then in this case I wonder if it's possible to separate the presentation of identity with the performance of a text, and whether the politics of reading both those things varies.
Will look up the Butler -- found her discussion of Foucault on Herculine/Alexina interesting on these ideas.