Books & Resources
An Anthology of Non-Conformism
“Through a multiplicity of voices and journeys, this anthology highlights the everyday lives, experiences, energies and spirits of non-conformist wom!n (i.e., women, womyn, womxn—however, self-identified) from around the globe. While recentering stories of transformation through non-conformism, these narratives explore what is so hard, but also so good, about being a wom!n—especially in a century mired by deep contradiction, yet rife with unparalleled hope. Using diverse mediums from poetry, essays and interviews to artwork, photography and illustration, the collection presents stories from perceived ‘margins’—what we like to describe as, the sharp edge of going against the grain.
The stories also metaphorically represent the mobility, multiplicity, intersectionality and dynamism of female identity. In all cases, identity-making and/or -breaking is viewed as the result of each wom!n’s agentic determination, no matter how seemingly small her act of resistance might be. At the same time, each wom!n, may also well defy conventional categories of what being a ‘rebel’ would entail, or even reject the term outright.
Taken together, these collective voices relay visions, strategies, and hopes about what it means to take on, discard, or subvert gendered categorizations simultaneously inflected by ‘race’, ethnicity, class, language, sexuality, religious affiliation, generation, and other forms of intersectional identity markers. They do so across diverse contexts, from agricultural fields and marketplaces to medical spaces, exhibition galleries, the halls of academia, and more.”
Editors by Epifania Amoo-Adare & Rapti Siriwardane-Zoysa, with contributions from Veronica Cordova de la Rosa Akudo McGee, Lorena Rodriguez Lezica, Bashiratu Kamal, Wendy Chávez & Natali Zavala, Nabanipa Majumder,Jeremy Jacob Peretz & Joan Cambridge, Atsango Chesoni, Ann-Marie Ellmann, Reva Santo, Alisha Roff, Alicia Mosley,Galia Boneh with K.H.L.D., Diana Page, Amy Shimshon-Santo, Aze Ong, Tuwana Evans, Wendy Ashley, & Jolene Swain, Tammy Shel (Aboody), Zuleika Bibi Sheik, Kin-Long Tong, Julia L., Eilen Itzel Mena, Lindsay Petersen, Alba Amoo-Gottfried, Koku Nonoa, Alexandra Dodd, Anjali Nath Upadhyay, Manja Herlt Podratz, and Jeanette Charles,
Articles
Ours is a dialogical encounter that strings together a set of four deeply personal stories from the “field.” As a motely crew of European-based, transnational researchers, scholar-activists, and development practitioners, we connect east Africa, South- and Southeast Asia in exploring the more performative and generative dimensions of everyday refusal. Such sensibilities and practices often defy conventional, linear understandings of the term ´refusal´ – often understood as withholding co-operation, as resistance, silencing etc. Our wildly eclectic vignettes tease apart locally situated meanings of “refusal(s)”, and their less visible articulations spanning diverse forms – refusal as (an) art, and as practice in all its paternalistic and playful ´unruliness.´ We also appeal to how conventional research methods courses are taught, often in ways that flatten such nuances.
Authors: Rapti Siriwardane-de Zoysa, Vani Sreekanta (Oldenburg & AWI), David Mwambari (KU Leuven), Simi Mehta (IMPFRI), and Madhurima Majumder (Wageningen).
Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R., V. Sreekanta, V., D. Mwambari, S. Mehta, and M. Majumder. (2023). The Unruly Arts of Ethnographic Refusal: Power, Politics, Performativity, in FENNIA: International Journal of Geography 201(2), 169–182. https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.121832 .
In this essay, we explore (pre-quarantine) notions around social containment, which organically emerged during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic (February-March 2020). We ask how containment practices intersect with bodily and sensory encounters of doing/living ethnographic “fieldwork” (Hopwood 2015) in two diverse coastal cities of Singapore and Jakarta, Indonesia. These uniquely different littoral urbanities provide an opportunity to reflect on how racialized and classed identities are reproduced, amplified, and contested in containment practices.
To cite:
Siriwardane-de Zoysa, R., Sondang, IF, and Ganda Purnama, A. (2021). Opto-Haptic Fieldwork Encounters in Pandemic Southeast Asia. Fieldsights , Members’ Voices. Available online: https://culanth.org/fieldsights/opto-haptic-fieldwork-encounters-in-pandemic-southeast-asia .
An eclectic selection of ground-up initiatives by terrifically inspiring people. Get in touch if you´d have yours featured. The links we share should:
- For the most part be open access (with the exception of online courses)
- Contribute to the shared vision of this open space
- Be of broad interest to absolutely anyone, irrespective of geographic location, cultural, religious or political inclination…