Anthropology, Theatre and Development ― The Transformative Potential of Performance

From Pussy Riot and the Arab Spring to Italian mafia dance, this collection provides an interdisciplinary analysis of relational reflexivity in political performance. By putting anthropological theory into dialogue with international development scholarship and artistic and activist practices, this book highlights how aesthetics and politics interrelate in precarious spheres of social life. The contributors of this innovative interdisciplinary volume raise questions about the transformative potential of participating in and reflecting upon political performances both as individual and as collectives. They also argue that such processes provide a rich field and new pathways for anthropological explorations of peoples' own reflections on humanity, sociality, change, and aspiration. Reflecting on political transformations through performance puts centre stage the ethical dimensions of cultural politics and how we enact political subjectivity.

Alex Flynn is British Academy Research Fellow and Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology, University of Durham, UK. His research focuses on cultural politics, ethico-aesthetic practice, and political subjectivities and he has conducted ethnographic research on these issues in Brazil since 2007. He is currently writing a book on the Landless Workers' Movement (MST) and other publications include articles in Ethnos, Critique of Anthropology, and Latin American Research Review. Alex's current project focuses on the contemporary art world of Brazil and investigates the participatory and open-ended potential of relational aesthetics.

Jonas Tinius is a doctoral researcher in Social Anthropology at King's College, University of Cambridge, UK, and a fellow of the Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung, Institute for MediaCulture and Theatre at the University of Cologne, Germany. He is convenor of the Cambridge Interdisciplinary Performance Network (with C. Foster) at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities in Cambridge. His ethnographic fieldwork in Berlin and the post-industrial Ruhr valley addresses the study of artistic institutions, creative labour processes, ethico-aesthetic practices, pedagogy, and questions of art patronage and theatre traditions.