Final Report Summary - IPCWPPB (Indigeneity in the Contemporary World: Performance, Politics and Belonging)
Project work was organized under four interdisciplinary themes: ‘Commodity and Spectacle’, ‘Reconciliation and Social Cohesion’, ‘Heritage and Material Culture’ and ‘Mobility and Belonging’. These themes guided analysis of the ways in which indigenous aesthetics, values, knowledges and practices are transmitted, through performance, across place and time, and how creatively embodied art-forms contribute to broader cultural dialogues. Across the many different regions and performance genres studied, researchers found a strong common interest in issues pertaining to social justice and postcolonial restitution, sovereignty, representation, identity politics, cultural regeneration, environmental sustainability and the circulation (locally and globally) of indigenous arts and artefacts. Digital media technologies have been widely integrated into the indigenous repertoires examined and contribute to transnational dialogues and sharing of arts practices, often with activist agendas.
In tracing such developments, the research team built a vast international network of scholars, performance-makers and cultural commentators, who contributed to and benefited from the project. Future research capacity in this field has also been enhanced by the compilation of several rigorously edited book and journal publications and, importantly, by the creation of unique resources made available as open-access research tools. Among these are 10 edited videos of varying lengths, which bring indigenous voices into the sphere of scholarly debate in creative and compelling ways. Practice-led research emerged as an additional project highlight, leading to a powerful performance intervention in London and popular experiments with multisensory and interactive exhibition installations.
As well as conducting research at the frontiers of transnational performance studies, team members acted as advisors, translators, collaborators and facilitators for cultural events in Britain and abroad. Among the main beneficiaries of these knowledge transfer activities were organizing bodies that present indigenous arts to the public through multi-arts festivals, museums and galleries, or through international film festivals, notably in France, Colombia, USA and Ecuador. Audiences engaged enthusiastically with the project’s research at workshops, discussions, performances and the 17-day exhibition, EcoCentrix, which was short-listed for a UK public engagement award and named among the 5 best free things to do in London.
In essence, the project achieved its overarching aim in both scientific and cultural realms: to sharpen understanding of a wide range of indigenous performances, not as anthropological curiosities but as contemporary expressive arts offering new perspectives on crucial debates of our times.