Dia Da Costa
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040603
- eISBN:
- 9780252099045
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040603.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
Budhan Theater’s community-based politics and performance seems perfectly aligned with creative economy discourses, given the optimism with which the indigenous Chhara community embraces the ...
More
Budhan Theater’s community-based politics and performance seems perfectly aligned with creative economy discourses, given the optimism with which the indigenous Chhara community embraces the possibility of transcending stigmatized histories of criminality through creative practices and livelihood opportunities. Yet, this chapter complicates this optimism by highlighting the complex affective structures—betrayal, sentimental optimism, cruel pessimism, and ordinary regard—that coconstitute Chhara history of criminality and activist performance. Combining transnational feminism, queer and affect theory, it challenges Lauren Berlant’s cruel optimism and argues that cruel pessimism better describes the affective structure of those compelled to pursue the (bad) good life even while living with colonial capitalism’s ongoing betrayals. Like the Chhara, such putative citizens are compelled to embrace citizenship through their pessimistic critique of its resounding failures.Less
Budhan Theater’s community-based politics and performance seems perfectly aligned with creative economy discourses, given the optimism with which the indigenous Chhara community embraces the possibility of transcending stigmatized histories of criminality through creative practices and livelihood opportunities. Yet, this chapter complicates this optimism by highlighting the complex affective structures—betrayal, sentimental optimism, cruel pessimism, and ordinary regard—that coconstitute Chhara history of criminality and activist performance. Combining transnational feminism, queer and affect theory, it challenges Lauren Berlant’s cruel optimism and argues that cruel pessimism better describes the affective structure of those compelled to pursue the (bad) good life even while living with colonial capitalism’s ongoing betrayals. Like the Chhara, such putative citizens are compelled to embrace citizenship through their pessimistic critique of its resounding failures.
Dia Da Costa
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040603
- eISBN:
- 9780252099045
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040603.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This book rethinks the hegemonic and sentimental optimism around the arts and creative economy by politicizing a global discursive regime that effectively asks the poor to eat heritage. Critical ...
More
This book rethinks the hegemonic and sentimental optimism around the arts and creative economy by politicizing a global discursive regime that effectively asks the poor to eat heritage. Critical scholarship largely views creative economy as new, as applicable to the de-industrializing global North, and as neoliberal commodification and governmentality. It neglects complex and intersecting histories of national, colonial, development, and progressive politics; longstanding uses of creative practices to remake economies and polities; and spatial specificities that give a global discourse traction. Attending to historical, spatial, and ethnographic complexities, this book probes discursive planning and activist politics intersectionally. Focusing on India, the analysis juxtaposes nationalist and progressive histories alongside critical ethnographies of two activist performance troupes: Communist-affiliated, Jana Natya Manch, and the indigenous Chhara’s (former ‘criminal tribe’) community-based Budhan Theatre. The subtle invasions of commodification, heritage, and management into performance make activist theater a crucial site for considering what counts as creativity in the cultural politics of creative economy. A transnational feminist approach drives this exploration of precarious lives, livelihoods, and ideologies at the intersection of heritage, planning, and performance. By analyzing the creators, performers, and activists involved—individuals at the margins of creative economy and society—it builds a provocative argument. Their creative practices may survive, challenge, and even reinforce the economies of death, displacement, and divisiveness used by the urban poor to surviveLess
This book rethinks the hegemonic and sentimental optimism around the arts and creative economy by politicizing a global discursive regime that effectively asks the poor to eat heritage. Critical scholarship largely views creative economy as new, as applicable to the de-industrializing global North, and as neoliberal commodification and governmentality. It neglects complex and intersecting histories of national, colonial, development, and progressive politics; longstanding uses of creative practices to remake economies and polities; and spatial specificities that give a global discourse traction. Attending to historical, spatial, and ethnographic complexities, this book probes discursive planning and activist politics intersectionally. Focusing on India, the analysis juxtaposes nationalist and progressive histories alongside critical ethnographies of two activist performance troupes: Communist-affiliated, Jana Natya Manch, and the indigenous Chhara’s (former ‘criminal tribe’) community-based Budhan Theatre. The subtle invasions of commodification, heritage, and management into performance make activist theater a crucial site for considering what counts as creativity in the cultural politics of creative economy. A transnational feminist approach drives this exploration of precarious lives, livelihoods, and ideologies at the intersection of heritage, planning, and performance. By analyzing the creators, performers, and activists involved—individuals at the margins of creative economy and society—it builds a provocative argument. Their creative practices may survive, challenge, and even reinforce the economies of death, displacement, and divisiveness used by the urban poor to survive
