 |
 |
Dear All, Alas, here is another last minute pestering AAA call for you. We miss one presenter for a panel by Daniel Rosenblatt (Carleton University) and I, with Sherry Ortner (UCLA), Steve Sangren (Cornell), Katie Rose Hejtmanek (CUNY), and others. Please contact me and Daniel ([log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>) with an expression of interest and a tentative title/subject of your paper by tomorrow (Tuesday 11 March, midnight GMT), to follow with an abstract by Wednesday 12 (midnight, GMT) at the latest. NONPLAY MATTERS: anthropological engagements with vertiginous sociality Nonplay: play that is not quite play; sport that is not quite sport. Or what Roger Callois (1961) may have portrayed as the domain of both alea (chance) and ilinx - a vertiginous, disrupting-like experience. Large numbers of contemporary Euro-Americans devote themselves to physical pursuits that involve passion, pain, sacrifice, faith, addiction—both to a way of life and to particular moments of effort and self-mastery. Climbing, mountaineering, freeriding, surfing, adventure tourism, and Crossfit are often conceived by the participants as devotional activities that transcend any simple idea of sport or leisure, becoming central to their lives and seen by them as ways to pursue secular transcendence or forms of fitness religiosity with noticeable ethical cum financial commitments. In the process, they also create communities, both ephemeral and more permanent, that understand themselves as somehow distinct from society at large. Examples include surf and mountain towns, Himalayan base camps, “dirtbag” encampments, and the “tribal” moral communities that form around “functional training” bootcamps or Crossfit boxes. Although related to phenomena often glossed as “recreational”, the issues raised by these pursuits are by no means trivial, as the importance these activities have for their participants should suggest. This panel proposes to explore these physical engagements, the communities that are created around them and the global impact of these practices, given the staggering growth of the fitness and outdoor gear market. In looking at such matters we hope: (1) to address contemporary anthropological concerns such as hierarchy, class, self-cultivation, luck, gambling, faith, and “the good”; (2) to revisit longstanding topics such as transcendent experience, sacrifice, landscape, and play; (3) to shed light on important aspects of Euro-American culture such as Romantic anti-modernism, the construction of nature as an antidote to bourgeois life, and the affective appeal of deferred gratification and self-improvement; and (4) to focus on sites where it is possible to engage ethnographically with important contemporary issues such as the human experience of climate change, the role of tourist and leisure industries in creating ways for people to survive economically in rural and mountain areas, or the refusal to host Euro-American consuming passions (think about controlled climbing on sacred mountains and restricted access to other traditional environments). Of particular concern is the way aspects of nature- such as mountains and oceans - are considered entities one should engage with and respect rather than exploit or try to conquer—allowing us to nuance an understanding of Western cosmologies that too often takes a polemical scientism to stand for the whole of the culture. ************************************************************* * Anthropology-Matters Mailing List * http://www.anthropologymatters.com * * A postgraduate project comprising online journal, * * online discussions, teaching and research resources * * and international contacts directory. * * To join this list or to look at the archived previous * * messages visit: * * http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/Anthropology-Matters.HTML * * If you have ALREADY subscribed: to send a message to all * * those currently subscribed to the list,just send mail to: * * [log in to unmask] * * * * Enjoyed the mailing list? Why not join the new * * CONTACTS SECTION @ www.anthropologymatters.com * * an international directory of anthropology researchers * * To unsubscribe: please log on to jiscmail.ac.uk, and * * go to the 'Subscriber's corner' page. * * ***************************************************************