**apologies for cross-posting**

Dear colleagues,

Please find below a call for participation in a workshop on "Beauty 
contests in Native Americas".


*Call for participation - Workshop FABRIQ'AM*

*“Beauty contests in the Native Americas: performance, glamour and 
cultural heritage”*

/Organisation/: Magda Helena Dziubinska (LESC-EREA, Paris) and Grégory 
Deshoullière (EHESS-LAS, Paris)

/Abstract submission deadline/: September 6, 2015.

The workshop will be held at the /Maison Ethnologie et Archéologie 
(University Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense)/, December 11, 2015.

Alongside with community leaders, shamans or bilinguals teacher, beauty 
pageant winners are now one of the common characters that ethnographers 
meet in the course of fieldwork among Amerindian people. Yet, if beauty 
contests organized in non-indigenous American contexts have stimulated 
much attention (see for example King-O'Riain 2006; Ochoa 2014; Siu 2005; 
Stoeltje and al. 1996; Wateson and Martin 2004), anthropologists have 
shown little interest in Amerindian beauty pageants, despite a few 
exceptions (Canessa 2008; Jacobsen-Bia 2014; McAllister 1996; Moreno 
2007; Rahier 2008; Rogers 1999; Schackt 2005; Wroblewski 2014).

Using Latin and North American examples, this workshop proposes to 
partially fill this gap by exploring the variety of ways in which 
Amerindian people organize their beauty contests. We will focus in 
particular on understanding the connections between the competition and 
issues of ethnicity, the performance of identity and gender, and the 
objectification of tangible and intangible Amerindian culture. What is 
the relationship between indigenous beauty contests and processes of 
cultural revalorization? Whilst inspired by national beauty pageants, 
themselves modelled on the staging of Miss World and Miss Universe 
competitions, indigenous counterparts reveal, however, very singular 
logics and issues at times at odds with the standards of national shows.

Paradoxically, physical beauty seems to play a secondary role in 
Amerindian contests in which organizers insistently emphasize the 
authenticity of the performance of candidates. However, this common 
aspect does not presuppose a homogeneity of scenarios in which the 
competitions are taking place. Although contestants must often 
demonstrate attachment to their culture, mastery of the vernacular 
language and political commitment, in other contexts the contestants are 
rather expected to imitate White/Mestizo women as closely as possible. 
This workshop aims to interrogate these representations of self and 
other highlighting their performative character and sociological 
implications.

So far, FABRIQ’AM <http://fabriqam.hypotheses.org/> has discussed the 
role of various 'cultural specialists' engaged in processes of cultural 
revitalization among Amerindians: bilingual teachers, shamans, political 
leaders, artists... By examining the beauty contest, we would like to 
draw particular attention to the new role that Amerindian teenage girls 
play today within their groups. They are not only creative designers and 
advocates of cultural particularity, but also skilled mediators between 
their group and the national society. This allows us, on the one hand, 
to foreground the little explored relationship between youth and the 
transmission/revitalization of traditions and, on the other hand, to 
rethink the relationship between the sexual division of symbolic roles 
and the regimes of sociality among Amerindian societies.

We propose three avenues of reflexion:

  * ***Entertainment, performance, mimesis*

The beauty contest is above all a kind of show, distinct from daily life 
both from the point of view of temporality and the space it occupies. 
Following this axis, we will explore the theatrical and dramatic 
dimensions of the event. How are gestures, attitudes, ornaments, music 
and choreography staged and which are the criteria underlying their 
evaluation? By examining the different representations of autochthony 
displayed during the show, we will identify the processes of which they 
are expression (folklorization, objectification, ...). Among the many 
concerns related to beauty contests, one of the most immediate ones is 
to seduce the public. What are the codes of this singular entertainment? 
What place is reserved for humour, self-mockery and parody? What 
emotions does it provoke?

*
*

  * *Political power, ethnicity*

Some Native American groups have appropriated beauty pageants to 
formulate and support identity and cultural claims which we will aim to 
identify. As part of this second axis we wish to explore the link 
between beauty pageants and political power. If contests are a way to 
display and increase visibility, the question is for whom and what for? 
What are the political dimensions of "cultural authenticity" so often 
stressed in the Native competitions? What do they tell us about the 
forms of consciousness that social groups develop on themselves and, 
more specifically, their place in the regional and national space?

**

  * *Gender, femininity, empowerment/disempowerment*

That young women are promoted, mostly by men, as "queen of the 
Community” by virtue of their performance deserves attention. Beyond 
conveying different representations of “ideal femininity”, beauty 
contests crystallize sexual identities and articulate gender relations. 
To what extent do these competitions shed light on women's changing 
status within Native American communities? Where can we identify 
ruptures with regards to the symbolic roles formerly assigned to them? 
Several studies show that indigenous beauty contests contribute to the 
formation of female leadership. We will explore the conditions and 
processes by which beauty contests can become a source of empowerment 
and disempowerment for Native American women.

Paper proposals should include a title and a summary of 4000 characters 
max. *They should be sent simultaneously to Grégory Deshoullière 
([log in to unmask]) and to Magda Helena Dziubinska (*** 
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>*[log in to unmask]**)*before the 6th of 
September 2015.


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<#_ftnref1>http://fabriqam.hypotheses.org/







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