2022 Fall Editorial: What Matters in “Material Activism”?

Panel Discussion Nov. 18, 2022

A definition of activism, however simple, is useful to begin a discussion of our Fall 2022 issue on practices geared towards “activating” selves and others. While the political connotation of the term activism is one we are most familiar with now, accompanied by a mental image of people protesting or resisting something, the term can be traced back to collective behavior and social action. An activist is “one who advocates a doctrine of direct action" in any sense, and the -ism after active- implies “a practice, system, doctrine” related to working, performing or doing something. Being active, at its most basic, implies a liveliness and vitality in this world and, in the political sense as an exercise of power, implies “advocating energetic action”.(1) Being socially active invokes power as something that is enacted or accomplished not only on an individual basis but via convincing/persuading others to act too—we see this in the language of “shifting” people towards the beliefs, goals and ideologies of “justice” and “solidarity”. Processually, notions of “conversion” and “faith” may be common to activism across various domains. In a religious context, for instance, activism can relate to a range of practices from one’s own spiritual transformation to the fervor of missionization.

The etymology of the term activism bridges the worlds of the individual and social, and the notion that daily actions can be/are capable of bringing about (varying scales of) political or social effects. The techniques, motions and gestures, as well as the materials used, are, of course, highly contextual and dependent on spaces and inhabitants, and the myriads of ways in which horizons of possibilities are imagined and realized. That is, activism has a habitus and depends on culture and society, varying connotations of what “direct action” or other qualifications and categories consist of, and differing ethical and moral states assigned to ways of doing and making.

What, or rather how, is activism?

Practices and praxis are topics that I have published on earlier in the context of religion and politics.(2) The everyday or lived aspects of “activist” practices, whether or not referred to by that specific term by practitioners themselves, rely on processes of acting, mobilizing, organizing, etc. oriented towards changing things via social relationships and accompanying affects. While terms such as organizing lend themselves to a Deleuzean paradigm of power as a form of arrangement in today’s “societies of control”(3), activism is still very much connected with (resisting) Foucauldian disciplinary spaces and institutions. Keeping in mind that these theoretical approaches are most useful as contextual tools, the common thread that runs through this issue is the role of bodies with all of their entities (emotions, senses, actions, beliefs). Following and tracing the agency and efficacy of materials and bodily substances draws our attention to different practices from the closeness (and often invisibility) of a mother’s care-work for her child to the use of music as a medium of communication with plants; from the unpacking of images in documents/archives to the democratic potential of new performances and rituals.

Our first essay is situated within the intellectual tradition of narrative and life-writing from death row. In “Just Images” Rajgopal Saikumar explores how the materiality of images and legal documents are invoked and perceived as mitigating circumstance for commutation of a death sentence. Analyzing legal documents from appeals for Shabnam, found guilty in 2010 by an Indian High Court of conspiring and murdering seven of her family members along with her lover Saleem, Saikumar observes that approaching death intensifies life, taking its most coherent shape in the form of the story. To create a non-linear, quieter and different order of narrative, and from an abolitionist and social justice perspective, he relies on (images of) objects, fabric bags and clothing sewn by Shabnam that her lawyers documented and presented to the courts as evidence of reform and promise of rehabilitation. Citing the subsequent rejection of these images/objects (and Shabnam’s plea) by the courts, the author situates these materials at the intersection of legal thought and matter, and frames justice from an embodied stance.

In “The Artivism of Incantations in Isan”, Peera Songkünnatham considers the practice of artivism (the combination of art and activism) through the art of Patiwat “Molam Bank” Saraiyaem, a Thai folk singer-songwriter and former student activist who has shied away from the label “activist.” Analyzing Patiwat’s story, Songkünnatham asks, “How does one soldier on doing activism with a wounded soul?”, framing artivism as the result of a head-on collision between art and activism. They answer the question by demonstrating that the power of ritual poetry and performance can restore wholeness as well as acknowledge brokenness. This argument is constructed through description, comparison, and analysis of the words, the gestures, and the reception in two of Patiwat’s incantatory poems. In the first, Patiwat remakes the traditional baisi su kuan rite to call democracy’s spirit essence back to the demos’ expansive body. In the second, Patiwat remixes benediction and malediction in a double act of cleansing the traumatized self, with Songkünnatham as a reader-turned-translator.

In “A Drawing Out: Visibilizing the Labor of Care, Enacting Mutual Aid” Angela Beallor explores the proposals and policies for radical caretaking labor reform drafted by Soviet theorist and policymaker Aleksandra Kollontai during the Soviet 1920s. In “A Drawing Out: Envisioning Mutual Aid, Enacting the Labor of Care”, and situated between historical and political analysis, Beallor meditates on the potential of depiction and enaction in artistic production and collaborative performance. This is to help pre-figure mutual aid, collaboration, community organization, and caretaking in the current world as we struggle to upend the current capitalist and patriarchal status quo(s). Beallor draws on her collaborative performance project, A Drawing Out :: Lactic Orchestration, first staged in 2018, as well as the ideas of those, such as Angela Garbes, who have made compelling intersectional calls for valuing the essential labor of care work within the context of the current global pandemic.

The global pandemic and its uneven consequences, including its effects on developing nations, prompted projects such as 200 million artisans in India. An interview with Founder Priya Krishnamoorthy and Partner Aparna Subramanyam “Activating the Value of Handmade: The Role of Social Enterprises in Transforming India’s Artisan Economy” sheds light on how this project/platform conceives of the artisan handmade economy in India, spanning the macro of hi-level decision making and the micro of the lives of approximately 200 million people who depend on craft. This interview includes insights from their research series “Business of Handmade”, uncovering issues that impact the artisan community and indicating how economic goals intersect with issues of empowerment, education, mobilization and cooperation.

In “Timur Merah Project: A Pilgrimage of Narrative, Memory and Historical Legacy”, Balinese artist Citra Sasmita writes about her ongoing project “Timur Merah” and its interest in probing the important role of women in the Indonesian literary and artistic canon. She notes that historical archives, classical paintings, and ancient manuscripts in the archipelago (Nusantara) that carefully discuss the role of women are very difficult to access and not well distributed. Sasmita maps stereotypical depictions of women in canonic texts, and in a counter reading of women as leaders and resistors, emphasises heroes such as I Dewa Istri Kanya, Queen of the 19th c. Klungkung kingdom. In the second half of the essay, Sasmita tracks the effects of the indigenous male gaze on women, art and the island of Bali, as it transforms into the Dutch colonial gaze, determining what is “authenticity” and privileging what/who should be deemed valuable in shaping Balinese artistic heritage.

In “Sedekah Benih – Urban Ecology and Community-based Art Activism”, Anissa Rahadiningtyas explores Sedekah Benih, a collaborative and urban environmental practice initiated by an urban farming activist, Dian Nurdiana (Mang Dian), and artist Vincent Rumahloine in 2020 in one of the dense urban neighborhoods in Cibogo, Bandung, West Java. Drawn from a localized Arabic word and concept of صدقة (sadaqah), which means “righteousness” and refers to the giving of charity, Sedekah Benih aims to share seeds of everyday staple plants that can be grown in dense community spaces and used for local and domestic needs as a direct response to the increased prices of these staple products in the market. Since the start of its planting during the height of the pandemic, Sedekah Benih has worked with communities in Cibogo and beyond, pulling in different modes of growing and activating the seeds, such as the local Sundanese karinding music group. The project also traveled outside Indonesia as part of two international events in Germany, drawing on its openness to transcultural and interreligious dialogs and learnings of different methods of growing and sustenance.

Notes

1. https://www.etymonline.com/word/activism#etymonline_v_44094

2. A forthcoming edited volume on practices in religion and politics is underway with authors from TJP workshops held over 2020-22.

3. Deleuze, G. (1992). “Postscript on the Societies of Control”, October, 59: 3-7.