CFP: Scattered Communities: Performance, War, and Displacement

[Matt Jones]

*CFP: Scattered Communities: Performance, War, and Displacement*



Seminar at the 2016 conference of the Canadian Association for Theatre
Research in Calgary, AB from May 28-31 2016.



Coordinators: Dr. Kirsten Sadeghi-Yekta (University of Victoria), Matt
Jones (University of Toronto)



“*Of course*,* I was a refugee once and one doesn’t easily forget something
like that*,” an elderly German woman told a TV news correspondent recently
as she and hundreds of others waited to welcome incoming refugees to
Munich. This performance of solidarity reminds us how recently the settled
communities of Europe were themselves sites of displacement. As borders
have been climbed over, torn down, tunnelled through, and sailed across,
governments have turned to more military means to police them. At the same
time, borders are increasingly irrelevant to insurgent fighters and drone
aircraft alike. The border may no longer be a clear marker of where
conflicts begin and end but they continue to draw violent lines between
populations caught on either side of them.



What does this massive movement of populations across national and
continental borders mean for performance? What kind of theatre do we see
emerging in the midst of conflict and displacement? What happens to
performance traditions as they travel across these borders? How does
performance continue to link communities that are scattered by conflict?
And as borders are increasingly ignored, how, as Yana Meerzon argues
(2012), might the experience of exile also be liberatory, opening up new
opportunities for creativity?



We invite papers that examine the role of performance in relation to
conflict and displacement. Papers could respond to the following themes, or
others:

-          Theatre in conflict zones, refugee camps, and other sites of
displacement
-          Interculturalism and interweaving performance cultures
-          Racism and anti-refugee xenophobia
-          Performances of solidarity
-          Humanitarianism and imperialism
-          The current refugee crisis and the spectre of history
-          Deterritorialization and liberation
-          Terror and performance
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-          The security state, surveillance, and performance
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Drone strikes and performance

Please send an abstract of 250-300 words and a short bio by January 15,
2016 to ksadeghi at uvic.ca and mf.jones at mail.utoronto.ca. A maximum of ten
papers will be selected.

Participants will be asked to submit a draft of 10-15 pages by May 1.
Papers will then be exchanged and participants will write a one-page
analysis of one other paper, including a number of questions for the
author. The seminar will function as a workshop, serving to develop the
papers further, link them to current scholarship, and discover common
ground between them.
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