Sequins, Self & Struggle: Performing and Archiving Sex, Place and Class in Pageant Competitions in Cape Town

亮片，自我

基本信息

批准号：
AH/K008102/1
负责人：
Bryce Lease
金额：
$ 24.08万
依托单位：
Royal Holloway University of London
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2014
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2014 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FK008102%2F1
关键词：
Sequins Self Struggle Performing Archiving

项目摘要

This project is a collaboration among the Departments of Drama at the University of Exeter and Queen Mary, University of London (UK), The Centre for Curating the Archive and the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town (South Africa), Africana Studies at Brown University (US) and the District 6 Museum. The primary aims are to research, document and disseminate archives of the Spring Queen and Miss Gay Western Cape pageants performed by disparate coloured communities in greater Cape Town. The Spring Queen pageant is a unique event where coloured female factory workers from the clothing and textile industry in the Western Cape of South Africa compete each year to be crowned "spring queen" of the Southern African Clothing and Textile Worker's Union (SACTWU). Public resistance to apartheid often resulted in violent racial conflict and for the first time in the garment industry in the 1970s there were acts of retaliation to low wages in the form of strikes. It is within this climate of dissent and harsh backlashes that the Spring Queen pageant emerged around 1978. Local trade unions devised the pageant as a mode of alleviating rising tensions amongst workers. A highlight on the Cape-Town social calendar, up to 30000 supporters attend the final event at the Good Hope Centre in Cape Town. This project will situate the Spring Queen as a moment of significant cultural shift. As textile manufacturing increasingly moves to China, this is perhaps the last opportunity to document garment and textile workers in Cape Town. The pageant bears testimony to the lives of Cape factory workers both during and after apartheid. The contestants, who live in the marginalised and impoverished areas, primarily in Atlantis and the Cape Flats, travel into the predominantly "white" city centre for the pageant. Important to these performance events is the figure of the "moffie", a queer coloured male, often a transsexual, who has traditionally choreographed and designed the pageants, but who is forbidden from competing in them. Miss Gay Western Cape, which grew out of the Spring Queen pageant and the new South African constitution that was the first in the world to include protection for sexual minorities, is a platform for queer non-white persons to perform in a secure environment without exploitation. This project will investigate the significance of these pageants and the performances they engender. By creating an alternative to apartheid-era archives that marginalized these communities, we will engage in the wider democratic practice of reimagining South Africa, first initiated by the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. We will consider: the disruption of categories of representation engendered by performance in the pageants; the performance of emancipation and self-determination in the figure of the "queen"; constructions of gender, beauty and alternative sexuality in minority communities; and the continued segregation of space in Cape Town. The project aims to provide a unique perspective on marginalised lives, through an interdisciplinary lens; focusing on visuality, performativity and orality, it will offer a space for previously disavowed narratives to be articulated, which will not only be of benefit to these communities, but to post-apartheid South Africa and postcolonial Africa at large. Collaborative workshops will bring together scholars from performance studies, visual culture, cultural geography, gender and queer studies, digital humanities and African studies. In-depth archival research, the gathering of new and 'ordinary' archival material from public and private sources, oral histories and interviews will be made available as a public online archive. The forms of dissemination will have an extensive audience. These will include journal articles, interdisciplinary academic workshops, performance and curation workshops for pageant participants, a documentary and a digital archive.

该项目是埃克塞特大学戏剧系和伦敦大学玛丽女王学院（英国）、开普敦大学档案馆策展中心和非洲研究中心（南非）、非洲研究中心之间的合作在布朗大学（美国）和第六区博物馆学习。主要目的是研究、记录和传播大开普敦不同肤色社区举办的春季女王和西开普同性恋小姐选美比赛的档案。春季女王选美大赛是一项独特的活动，来自南非西开普省服装和纺织行业的有色人种女工厂工人每年都会角逐南部非洲服装和纺织工人联盟 (SACTWU) 的“春季女王”称号。公众对种族隔离的抵制常常导致暴力的种族冲突，20世纪70年代的服装行业首次出现了以罢工形式报复低工资的行为。正是在这种异议和强烈反对的气氛中，春季女王选美活动于 1978 年左右应运而生。当地工会将选美活动设计为缓解工人之间日益紧张的关系的一种方式。作为开普敦社交日历上的一大亮点，多达 30000 名支持者参加了在开普敦好望中心举行的决赛。该项目将把春季女王定位为重大文化转变的时刻。随着纺织制造业越来越多地转移到中国，这也许是记录开普敦服装和纺织工人的最后机会。这场盛会见证了开普敦工厂工人在种族隔离期间和之后的生活。参赛者居住在边缘化和贫困地区，主要是亚特兰蒂斯和海角平原，他们前往以“白人”为主的市中心参加选美比赛。对这些表演活动来说，重要的是“莫菲”的形象，他是一名酷儿有色男性，通常是变性人，传统上负责编排和设计选美比赛，但被禁止参加比赛。西开普同性恋小姐大赛源于春季女王选美比赛和世界上第一部纳入保护性少数群体的南非新宪法，是非白人酷儿在安全的环境中不受剥削地表演的平台。该项目将调查这些选美比赛的意义及其所产生的表演。通过创建一种替代种族隔离时代边缘化这些社区的档案，我们将参与重新构想南非的更广泛的民主实践，这首先是由真相与和解委员会发起的。我们将考虑：选美表演对代表性类别的破坏； “女王”形象的解放与自决的表现；少数群体中性别、美丽和另类性行为的建构；以及开普敦持续的空间隔离。该项目旨在通过跨学科的视角，为边缘化生活提供独特的视角；它将侧重于视觉性、表演性和口头性，将为以前否认的叙述提供一个表达的空间，这不仅有利于这些社区，而且有利于后种族隔离的南非和整个后殖民非洲。合作研讨会将汇集来自表演研究、视觉文化、文化地理学、性别和酷儿研究、数字人文和非洲研究的学者。深入的档案研究、从公共和私人来源收集的新的和“普通”档案材料、口述历史和访谈将作为公共在线档案提供。这种传播形式将拥有广泛的受众。其中包括期刊文章、跨学科学术研讨会、为选美参与者举办的表演和策展研讨会、纪录片和数字档案。