Rita Xavier, Universidade do Minho, Portugal: MY BODY CARRY ME HOME — dance, ecology and activism in Teresa Fabião and Íris Garcia
All movement begins from the body, from its internal somatics to skin, a penetrable boundary to everything that exists on the outside. If, on the one hand, we witness, in the announced geological era of the Anthropocene, a domination by the human species over the body of the earth, increasingly dry and infertile, on the other hand, the human body itself is also threatened, as a territory increasingly medicalized, optimized and controlled. Even the attempts to repair of/on nature are often swallowed up by capitalist consumption logics a similar phenomenon to ‘green wash’ is emerging today with the growth of the highly profitable wellness and healing industry. This reflection aims to build alternative proposals through somatic and choreographic movement and a micropolitical action that takes shape in the work of the portuguese Teresa Fabião and Íris Garcia. Teresa Fabião is a dancer, researcher, educator and artivist. Her multifaceted journey is driven by transitions between cultures where she lived; body languages (contemporary, classical, African dances, Afro-Brazilians, capoeira) and contexts of dance making-thinking (having a PhD in Performing Arts, Brazil). An HIV+ diagnosis made her expand dance in a path that combines personal development, artistic expression and social commitment. Íris Garcia is a witch, an ecosomatic therapist, an herbalist, an Iberian healer and dancer. It is through the creations, therapeutics and activisms of these pilgrim women that we found movement as an internal action with the time of the earth, a path to return to that most essential home: our body.
Khushal Naik, Åbo Akademi: Discussing migration as a ‘discursive construct’
Migration in the 21st century has become a central theme of much debate across the globe. Increasingly, these debates have resulted in a political pluralisation between those who see it as a resource and those who see it as a threat to an existing status quo, therein seemingly departing from the 20th century’s humanitarian efforts. Whilst these debates rage, there is increasing research to show a large disconnect between theorisations of migration and the phenomenon in praxis. This disconnect has further been shown to contemporaneously result in widespread negative perceptions about the phenomenon of migration and have seen greater political efforts thereafter to restrict it via hardened and often illegal migration policies, as demonstrated by the current British government’s Rwanda policy. This discussion paper aims to approach this disconnect between theory and praxis via a discursive approach. It will be argued that restrictive migration policies in the 21st century are a consequence of a discursive construction of the phenomenon. The creation of discursive formations such as “illegal” migration, the “securitization” of migration, and the “instrumentalization”/“weaponization” of migration provide evidence to this argument, wherein far-right politicians have increasingly been able to construct a discourse that migration is dangerous and should therefore be restricted. As right-wing politicians continue to gain political power in recent years, paying attention to, and highlighting these discursive constructions will prove significant to furthering the UNs newly implemented drive towards “evidence based” research and decision making.
