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（University of Exeter）和伦敦大学（英国）皇后玛丽（Queen Mary）的戏剧系之间的合作，策展档案中心和开普敦大学（南非）（南非）的非洲研究中心，布朗大学（US）的非洲研究（US）和第6区博物馆。主要目的是研究，记录和传播春季女王的档案，以及大开普敦不同社区进行的盖伊西部开普省小姐。春季女王选美大赛是一项独特的活动，每年南非西部斗篷的服装和纺织工业的有色女性工厂工人都参加了南部非洲服装和纺织工人联盟（SACTWU）的“春季女王”。公众对种族隔离的抵抗通常会导致暴力种族冲突，这是1970年代服装行业首次以罢工形式报复低工资的行为。正是在这种异议和强烈反弹的气氛中，春季女王大赛在1978年左右出现。当地贸易工会设计了选美大赛是减轻工人之间紧张局势的一种方式。开普敦社会日历的亮点是，多达30000名支持者参加了开普敦的好希望中心的最后活动。该项目将把春皇后定位为文化上的重大转变时刻。随着纺织品制造越来越多地移至中国，这也许是记录开普敦服装和纺织工人的最后机会。选美大赛在种族隔离期间和之后都证明了开普工厂工人的生活。居住在边缘化和贫困地区的参赛者主要在亚特兰蒂斯和开普公寓，主要进入选美大赛的主要“白人”市中心。对于这些表演事件而言，重要的是“莫菲”（Moffie）的身材，“莫菲（Moffie）”是一个酷儿有色男性，通常是变性男性，他传统上对选美比赛进行了编排和设计选美比赛，但被禁止参加比赛。盖伊·西开普小姐（Gay Western Cape）是从春季女王选美大赛和新的南非宪法中成长的，这是世界上第一个包括对性少数群体保护的保护，是酷儿非白人在不剥削的情况下在安全环境中表演的平台。该项目将调查这些选美大赛及其产生的表现的重要性。通过创建将这些社区边缘化的种族隔离时代档案馆的替代方法，我们将首先由真理与和解委员会发起的更广泛的民主实践来重新构想南非。我们将考虑：在选美大赛中表现出来的代表性类别的破坏； “皇后”的形象中解放和自决的表现；少数民族社区中性别，美和替代性的建构；以及开普敦的持续隔离空间。该项目旨在通过跨学科的镜头对边缘化生活提供独特的观点。它专注于视觉性，表现性和口头性，它将为以前拒绝的叙述提供一个空间，这不仅对这些社区有利，而且对种族隔离后的南非和整个后殖民非洲有益。合作讲习班将从表演研究，视觉文化，文化地理，性别和酷儿研究，数字人文科学和非洲研究中汇集学者。深入的档案研究，将从公共和私人来源收集新的和“普通”的档案材料，口述历史和访谈将作为公开在线档案馆提供。传播的形式将吸引广泛的观众。这些将包括期刊文章，跨学科的学术研讨会，选美参与者的表演和策展研讨会，纪录片和数字档案馆。