Chola in a Choke Hold:
Reimagining Indigenous Futures through Bolivian Lucha Libre
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Chola in a Choke Hold focuses on lucha libre in Bolivia. “Cholitas Luchadoras” characters, wearing the pollera skirt associated with urban Indigenous women (sometimes called “cholas”), have become popular among local audiences. Yet, the luchadoras’ legitimacy as Indigenous women is the subject of debate. Some audiences see them as empowering role models while others see their performances as racial essentialism. The book uses wrestling to explore the question of what “counts as Indigenous”—not to come to an authoritative answer, but to think about the processes and consequences that are involved in the question. Chola in a Choke Hold concentrates on the pop culture form of lucha libre as an area where assessments of indigeneity are adjudicated beyond official definitions and sanctions. The analysis examines racial enactments through a lens of “appropriateness”— what people deem as appropriate ways for group members to act. Beyond simply assessing who belongs and who does not, racial appropriateness is a way that individuals, groups, and institutions make claims about what they hope for the future of Indigenous peoples. Even as the luchadoras are the subject of much debate, they have tried to enact a more expansive notion of Indigenous engagement with the global. They make an argument, both implicitly through their performances and explicitly through their commentaries, that a global- and future-oriented notion of Indigenousness is just as “real” and “authentic” as a notion of indigeneity rooted in the past and tradition. In doing so publicly, they don’t just create the possibility of this future, but also do the work of helping to bring it into being.
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Meanings and Values of Art in the Context of AI Generators
This project asks how the increased accessibility of art through AI technologies changes the cultural meaning and value of “Art.” It approaches this question from two vantage points. First, it asks professionally trained and working visual artists how AI technologies have changed their profession and the meanings that they attribute “art.” Second, it asks those who have traditionally been excluded from the “art world,” often as a result of financial or physical ability, how AI technologies have changed their access to artistic practice. Though technological innovation is a constant feature of society in the 21st century, and people quickly adapt to integrating new technologies in their daily practices, there are still questions related to the emotional, affective, and identity-laden relationship that many individuals have with technology. This is particularly true when technology intersects with art—whether visual, musical, performance-based, etc. Thus, this project incorporates longstanding anthropological attention to art across culture related to individual and group identity, forms of local and global inequalities, and the kinds of social distinction and power dynamics that are embedded in different “art worlds.” The project focuses on visual art and music in the context of new AI technologies that aim to create visual imagery from user suggestions. In focusing on art in the context of new platforms, the project poses questions related to the meanings that people attribute to various kinds of art, the ways art reflects identity, and the ways inequalities may be either exacerbated, diminished, or both simultaneously through public use of such technologies.
click on the title above to see more on this project
click on the title above to see more on this project
Social Media in Northern Chile
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Order or download the free pdf of
SOCIAL MEDIA IN NORTHERN CHILE |
Order or download the free pdf of
HOW THE WORLD CHANGED SOCIAL MEDIA |
My first book, Social Media in Northern Chile: Posting the Extraordinarily Ordinary was published in 2016 by UCL Press. This project concentrates on digital media as a discursive sight for instantiating individual and collective notions of identity, as well as potentials for mitigating or reinforcing social inequalities. In this project I worked with both University College London's Centre for Digital Anthropology and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile's Center for Intercultural and Indigenous Research, with funding from the European Research Council and Chile’s National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research. On this page, you'll find video, photography, links to my book and more articles related to this project. I also collaborated with the Global Social Media Impact Study to publish How the World Changed Social Media (2016, UCL Press).
click on the title above to see more about this project
This project also included a series of nine short ethnographic films, now available on YouTube
Lady Blade
As part of my dissertation research, I trained and performed as a luchadora with the group, Super Catch. My character, Lady Blade, highlighted my North American heritage and represented a form of global cosmopolitanism. My participation inluded training for ten months, making twenty television appearances, and wrestling in four events. An article exploring my autoethnographic methods is currently being prepared for Public Culture. More information, photos, and video can be found on my Lady Blade Web Page. Also, see me featured on the Lucha Libre Boliviana Blog.
Class and Gender in Midwestern Gutter Sculpture
Since the early 1900s when butter was first sculpted to display the dairy prosperity of Midwestern states at annual State Fairs, butter art has had a localized but strong base of enthusiasts. For many, butter sculpture and carving are sources of pride for agricultural ways of life and the nostalgia they represent. However, as agriculture in the United States increasingly moves away from family farms to industrialized ag complexes, these forms of art take on new symbolic meaning in considering the future, and realism becomes simulacrous.
Particularly in Minnesota, where contestants for the annual Dairy Princess contest, "Princess Kay of the Milky Way," have their likeness carved from butter, the confluence of tradition and nostalgic pride with femininity and at times reproductive capability is evident. Here, I explore how artistic representation in butter may simultaneously call attention to the unfortunate proliferation of industrialized farming while reaffirming the patriarchal and capitalist ideologies which have supported the demise of family farms.
See my guest post about butter sculpture on the Food Culture Index blog
Particularly in Minnesota, where contestants for the annual Dairy Princess contest, "Princess Kay of the Milky Way," have their likeness carved from butter, the confluence of tradition and nostalgic pride with femininity and at times reproductive capability is evident. Here, I explore how artistic representation in butter may simultaneously call attention to the unfortunate proliferation of industrialized farming while reaffirming the patriarchal and capitalist ideologies which have supported the demise of family farms.
See my guest post about butter sculpture on the Food Culture Index blog
The Performance of Masculinity in Pictures of Injury
Masculine bodies in contemporary North Atlantic areas are expected to be strong, resistant to dysfunction, bounded, and individual (Sheldon 2002:16). Clearly, painful experiences and injuries may create a lapse in such conceptions of the masculine body. However, claiming a sense of control over pain is often treated heroically in athletics, advertising, and other forms of media. By displaying pictures of injuries, pain is positioned as insufficient to affect the individual, able to be resisted, or simply a difficulty of life which has been endured. Thus a sense of pride in the ability to withstand and overcome the effects of pain is communicated.
The practice of using the Internet to display pictures of bodily injuries to both friends and strangers draws on these understood associations, whether consciously or unconsciously, in order to perform gender online. Though both men and women use images in similar ways, divorcing "masculinity" from a specifically "male" context allows an understanding of the ways masculine ideas of strength and toughness may be appropriated by women, while still reinforcing normative gender ideologies and the privileged status of masculinity even in the current moment.
The practice of using the Internet to display pictures of bodily injuries to both friends and strangers draws on these understood associations, whether consciously or unconsciously, in order to perform gender online. Though both men and women use images in similar ways, divorcing "masculinity" from a specifically "male" context allows an understanding of the ways masculine ideas of strength and toughness may be appropriated by women, while still reinforcing normative gender ideologies and the privileged status of masculinity even in the current moment.
Mediating Midwifery
My undergraduate honors thesis explored treatments of fear and pain in media portrayals of homebirth. Using ethnographic research methods with midwives and mothers choosing homebirth in Chicago, as well as examining mainstream writings on homebirth in news media and popular literature, the research culminated in both a written academic thesis, as well as a theatrical performance based on interviews and archival research, presented at 2003 at Northwester University's annual Spare Rib Performance Festival.
Flores: Unseen and Unheard Washington, DC
This is a short documentary produced with American University's Center for Social Media. It focuses on Mario Flores, a young Salvadoran man who grew up in the Columbia Heights neighborhood Washington, DC and channelled his energy toward the boxing ring. It briefly explores the structural violences behind his youthful missteps, and the ways boxing has provided an outlet for his energy. The film was shot as Flores made his transition from amateur to professional boxer.
