ABSTRACT

The Routledge Companion to the Anthropology of Performance provides a cutting-edge, comprehensive overview of the foundations, epistemologies, methodologies, key topics and current debates, and future directions in the field. It brings together work from the disciplines of anthropology and performance studies, as well as adjacent fields. Across 31 chapters, a diverse range of international scholars cover topics including:

  • Ritual
  • Theater
  • Storytelling
  • Music
  • Dance
  • Textiles
  • Land Acknowledgments
  • Indigenous Identity
  • Visual Arts
  • Embodiment
  • Cognition
  • Healing
  • Festivals
  • Politics
  • Activism
  • The Law
  • Race and Ethnicity
  • Gender and Sexuality
  • Class
  • Religion, Spirituality, and Faith
  • Disability
  • Leisure, Gaming, and Sport

In addition, the included Appendix offers tools, exercises, and activities designed by contributors as useful suggestions to readers, both within and beyond academic contexts, to take the insights of performance anthropology into their work. This is a valuable reference for scholars and upper-level students in anthropology, performance studies, and related disciplines, including religious studies, art, philosophy, history, political science, gender studies, and education.

chapter |17 pages

Introduction

Performance as Anthropological Focus and Framework

part I|106 pages

Histories, Theories, and Frameworks

chapter 1|17 pages

Body and Mind

The Making of the Anthropology of Performance

chapter 2|13 pages

In the Spirit of Experience, Reflexivity, and Growth

Exploring the Ancestral Roots of Performance Anthropology

chapter 3|13 pages

Performance and Aesthetics

Experiencing Expressive Events and Visual Arts

chapter 4|18 pages

Ritual as Performance

chapter 5|18 pages

Sport as Performance

chapter 7|14 pages

Ethnographic Comportment

A Performance-Based Framework for Research Design

part II|94 pages

Performing as a Way of Knowing

chapter 8|16 pages

Anthropology and Laboratory Theater

Opening Anthropological Orthopraxy to Different Ways of Knowing/Being

chapter 9|17 pages

Miraculous Stories and the Re-enchantment of the World

Oral Hagiographies of Guru Bawa

chapter 10|15 pages

Who's Performing When the God Dancer Dances?

Possession and Ritual Performance in South India

chapter 11|13 pages

Two-Handed Ethnography

A Method for Performance Anthropology

chapter 13|15 pages

Construction with Varied Materials

Adventures in Global Performativity and Interconnection

part III|106 pages

Performance and Identity

chapter 14|17 pages

Propia de Saraguro

Performance in an Indigenous Andean Community Creating 21st-Century Vitality

chapter 16|17 pages

Embodied Cultural Knowledge in Practice

An Ethio-Modern Dance Case Study of የቡና ዓለም YeBuna Alem/A Coffee World

chapter 17|19 pages

Performed Identity

A Case Study in Irish Dance

chapter 19|14 pages

Performance in Practice

“American” Karate in the Heartland

chapter 20|13 pages

(Accidentally) Doing Whiteness

The Meanings of Performance in a Rural U.S. Music Scene

part IV|95 pages

Performance and/as Cultural Critique

chapter 21|21 pages

Performance and Indigeneity

“Playing Indian” in the Theater of Darkness

chapter 22|16 pages

On Trial

Law and the Performativity of True Stories

chapter 23|11 pages

Beyond the Stage

Anarcho-punks Performing Resistance in Bandung, Indonesia

chapter 24|18 pages

On Carnivals and Capitalism

Performing Neoliberal Politics in Santiago, Dominican Republic

chapter 25|13 pages

Egyptian Belly Dance IS Feeling

Intersubjectivity, Ṭarab, and Cross-Cultural Performance

chapter 26|14 pages

#Capoeiristas for Black Lives

The Complementarity of Virtual and Embodied Performance Communities

part V|79 pages

The Future of Performance Anthropology

chapter 28|15 pages

Performing the Past and the Present with an Eye to the Future

Optimizing the Potential of Land Acknowledgment Rituals to Help Ensure They Do No Harm

chapter 29|16 pages

Performance, Play, and Resistance

Teaching and Learning at the Happiest Place on Earth

chapter 30|13 pages

A Sense-Able Partner

chapter 31|15 pages

Beyond the Aesthetically Neutral Body

Performing Disability Futures