Doctoral Dissertation Research: Postsocialist Movement: Performance, Political Economy, and Transmigration Between Guinea and the United States

耶鲁大学博士生阿德里安·科恩将在迈克尔·麦戈文博士的指导下，研究后社会主义背景下表达文化与政治经济变化之间的关系。研究人员提出了一种表现性实践和政治经济学之间的相互关系，其中政治经济动态通过表演来表达，表演艺术家在促成新的社会和伦理秩序方面发挥了作用。将在几内亚、西非和美国进行研究，以调查这一命题。几内亚社会主义国家S·S(1958年至1984年)像世界其他地区的其他社会主义国家一样，资助表现文化的现代化，特别是舞蹈和打击乐，为民族主义政治服务。当社会主义随着图雷的S去世而结束时，新政权大幅减少了政府对艺术的资助。被国家抛弃的表演艺术家组成了私人剧团，并于20世纪90年代开始移民，其中许多人定居在美国。该项目吸收了几内亚两代舞蹈家和打击乐演奏家：一代是在社会主义时期培训的，另一代是在后社会主义时代培训的。通过在几内亚首都科纳克里的艺术家以及加利福尼亚州和纽约的移民艺术家之间的多地点民族志田野工作，本研究考察了几内亚与其侨民之间经济和文化交流的后社会主义条件。整个研究过程中的数据收集将涉及人种学方法的组合，包括：半结构化访谈、参与者观察、档案媒体研究、移民叙述和焦点小组，参与者在这些方法中讨论相关表演的视频和音频记录。这项研究之所以重要，是因为它将第一次解决表演艺术、后社会主义和轮回的融合；它将为全球化和跨民族主义条件下的社会主义及其后果理论贡献一个新的维度。资助这项研究还支持研究生的教育。

Yale University doctoral candidate Adrienne Cohen, supervised by Dr. Michael McGovern, will investigate the relationship between expressive culture and political-economic change in post socialist contexts. The researcher proposes a reciprocal relationship between expressive practice and political economy in which political-economic dynamics are expressed through performance and performing artists play a role in calling new social and ethical orders into being.Research to investigate this proposition will be conducted in Guinea, West Africa, and in the United States. The Guinean socialist state of Sékou Tourés (1958-84), like other socialist states in other parts of the world, subsidized the modernization of expressive culture, particularly dance and percussion, in the service of nationalist politics. When socialism ended with Touré's death, the new regime drastically reduced government arts patronage. Performing artists, abandoned by the state, formed private troupes and began to emigrate in the 1990s, many taking up residence in the United States. This project engages two generations of dancers and percussionists from Guinea: one trained during the socialist period, and the other trained in the post socialist era. Through multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork among artists in Guinea's capital city of Conakry, and among transmigrant artists in California and New York, this study examines post socialist conditions of economic and cultural exchange between Guinea and its diaspora. Data collection throughout the study will involve a combination of ethnographic methods, including: semi-structured interviews, participant observation, archival media research, migration narratives, and focus groups, in which participants discuss video and audio recordings of relevant performances. The research is important because it will be the first to address the convergence of performing arts, post socialism, and transmigration; it will contribute a new dimension to theories of socialism and its aftermath under conditions of globalization and transnationalism. Funding this research also supports the education of a graduate student.