Over the period of my outgoing mobility, I have investigated within the community of salsa enthusiasts who gather weekly for dance classes and “socials” (i.e. dance parties) in Cape Town public spaces, and I have undertaken a seventeen-month participant observation within different dance schools, performing teams and social dance events in Cape Town.DanceTopias is structured around three main objectives that I started to achieve over the period of my outgoing mobility, by collecting various qualitative data:
1. To shed light on how social dance (and music) spaces have appeared and evolved throughout the colonial period, the apartheid, and the postapartheid era, I have looked at the official archives and existing documentation related to urban leisure in Cape Town. I have collected and reviewed existing research at UCT’s special collections, and I have done research at District Six museum archives, which collects material and oral culture spanning the period from the 1940s up until the 1990s. I have reviewed the existing literature and done photocopies of a series of materials related to social and partner dances - such as twist, langarm, cape jazz, or ballroom - at District Six Museum. Furthermore, through the interviews undertaken over my ethnographic fieldwork (see below), I have also collected oral memories and testimonies with some individuals who have participated in Cape Town Afro-Latin scenes since the 1990s.
2. DanceTopias employed an ethnographic approach drawing on observant participation in order to understand which categorisations and identifications are involved in social dance spaces. I have undertaken this observant participation for 17 months in 4 different dance schools and groups, and I have attended dance socials twice a week. There I have observed dance practices and social interactions that occur between people involved in these worlds.During this fieldwork, I have taken ethnographic field notes that documents the spaces, actors, dance genres, sociability, and interactions observed. In addition, I have conducted 42 semi-conducted interviews with students and dancers, where we have discussed their experience of dance and/in Cape Town. I have created in-depth relationships with some key actors of this social world, that will lead to the writing of 10 life stories highlighting different aspects and results of my research about the role of dance in the reshaping of their identifications and pathways.
3 The description of local dance situations and networks was combined with tracking of mobilities, in order to understand the translocal flows that contribute to the redefinition of local norms and identities (related to tourism, migration, international dance festivals, etc.). I paid attention in my interviews to the global references, influences and travels of my interlocutors. Furthermore, I examined the importance of social networks and technological mediations in this scene’s connection to a global network of Afro-Latin enthusiasts, by considering the intermingling of digital technologies and mediations in the learning and diffusion practices of my interlocutors. This translocal perspective allowed me to produce data that highlight how ordinary people and day-to-day practices are entangled in global webs, where local norms and identities are defined.
In terms of dissemination of research, I presented first results of my MSCA project in a panel of the Congress of the African Studies Association in Africa (ASAA) in April 2022. During the last months of my outgoing mobility in Cape Town, I have organised a one-day symposium at UCT Anthropology Department, with the support of the French Institute of South Africa. This event gathered several local experts on music and dance in South Africa, to discuss of sensory methods, and of the sonic and tactile making of urban identities in South Africa. I worked on the submission of a special issue of the Journal Anthropology Southern Africa that draws on this one-day conference. The special issue proposal was recently accepted by the journal. Finally, I elaborated a panel proposal called “Salsa in Africa”, for the African studies association meeting at Philadelphia in November 2022. This panel co-convened with the ethnomusicologist Elina Djebbbari will question the intimacies and urban identities created through the practice of Afro-Latin dances in the African continent. Our proposal was accepted by the organising committee, and the panel will take place in Philadelphia in November 2022.
In order to disseminate the results of research to a broader audience, I have decided to build a blog where I will share selected data and results of the project. The website will expose a series of quotes and stories that I collected as part of my fieldwork and that will be classified according to the themes and issues at the core of my research participants’ testimonies and of my ethnography.
For that purpose, I have created a research blog devoted to DANCETOPIAS with the research platform “hypothesis.org”. In accordance to my ethics plan, all quotes and data selected to be published on the blog will be fully anonymized.
