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Dance Heterotopias: (un)making race and gender boundaries through social dances in Cape Town

Descripción del proyecto

Cambio en las fronteras raciales y de género de Ciudad del Cabo

Las danzas sociales y populares crean espacios en los que los ciudadanos pueden reafirmar, transformar y jugar con la identidad y las normas sociales relacionadas con la raza, la clase y el género. El proyecto financiado con fondos europeos DANCETOPIAS estudiará las danzas sociales en ciudades africanas globalizadas. Centrado en Sudáfrica, explorará la historia de las danzas sociales en Ciudad del Cabo y proporcionará una etnografía de las fronteras identitarias creadas a través de la danza. El proyecto tiene como objetivo mapear las redes de danza internacionales conectando a la Ciudad del Cabo con el mundo. Mediante la combinación de antropología de la globalización, el enfoque de las fronteras identitarias y la geografía de los espacios de danza, DANCETOPIAS se centrará en determinadas zonas de subversión de las fronteras raciales y de género que anteriormente estaban divididas por el Apartheid.

Objetivo

DanceTopias proposes to analyse the production and transformation of identity boundaries which occur through social dances in African globalized cities, through an analysis of the case of Cape Town. In this city, as in others, social and popular dances create spaces where citizens can assert, transform, and play with identity categories and social norms related to race, class, and gender. In that sense, they represent what Michel Foucault called “heterotopias”, i.e. spaces that disrupt ordinary time.
Through a qualitative methodology and an interdisciplinary analysis connecting anthropology, history and geography, DanceTopias will analyse the transformation of spaces and identities through social dances, with a focus on race and gender. This project is structured around three main objectives and methodological entries:
1. To trace the history of social dances in Cape Town;
2. To provide an ethnography of identity boundaries created through dance;
3. To map the global dance networks connecting Cape Town to the world.
My research will be conducted through a 21-month outgoing phase at the University of Cape Town, a 3-months secondment at UCL (London), and a 12-month return phase at the University of Geneva.
The combination of the anthropology of globalization, the approach on identity boundaries, and the geography of dance spaces will offer an original perspective on the understanding of African urban societies. DanceTopias will also reveal a rarely discussed aspect of contemporary South Africa: it will focus on certain areas of subversion of racial and gender boundaries, where we observe dialogues between social groups and categories that were previously divided by Apartheid. Beyond South-Africa, this analysis on transgressive dance spaces will provide insightful theoretical assets regarding the redefinition of ideas of gender, race and class occurring in urban space-times through ordinary practices, a main issue for globalized urban societies.

Coordinador

UNIVERSITE DE GENEVE
Aportación neta de la UEn
€ 192 097,44
Dirección
RUE DU GENERAL DUFOUR 24
1211 Geneve
Suiza

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Región
Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera Région lémanique Genève
Tipo de actividad
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Enlaces
Coste total
€ 192 097,44

Socios (1)