2020 Special Issue: Translocality as Connections that Disrupt
This Special Issue* explores the theme of translocality and connections. The concept of translocality arose from the work of anthropologist Arjun Appadurai and is used in relation to locality as the grounded neighbourhood sites of traditional ethnographic inquiry (1996: 192). This term has been widely discussed in the fields of globalization, geography and demography, especially in relation to studies of human migration.
At its most basic level, translocality (from the Latin loci = place + trans = beyond) refers to the connections that exist between two or more places. Further, it highlights the extent to which the identity of a single place may be contested and in relying on dynamic connections to other places, never be completely bounded or territorialized. Translocal connections between places often start with the movement of people (and their objects, values and beliefs), sustained and reshaped by various technologies and practices. Along with the affordances of technology, relied on extensively during the Covid-19 pandemic, such as FaceTime and Zoom, there are the historically complex ways in which human diaspora have moved around the globe taking their beliefs, languages and customs with them. Such that, some anthropologists argue for a translocal approach to multi-sited ethnographic studies (Coleman 2019) where it is both the historical processes of moving religious practices across geographical boundaries as well as the lived traces, experiences and conceptions of those spaces.
The pieces in this issue vary in the degree to which they explicate ‘religion’. Yet, the uniting thread is how they invoke connections, and conceptual and physical flows across borders, both imagined and real. Simultaneously, this issue indicates that flows take place in fields of uneven power relations with (challenges to) hegemonic systems of being and thinking that are regarded as being self-evidently ‘in place’. Translocality, thus, also works against essentializing representations that support or authenticate the virtues and values of dominant religions and cultures (see Zhao, this issue). By emphasizing the potentially creative and disruptive force of translocal connections, this issue invokes an agency-oriented approach (Stephan-Emmrich and Schröder 2018: 28, Brickell and Datta 2011 in Greiner and Sakdapolrak 2013: 375). Whose territories, boundaries and powers are de-centered, reshaped and even erased by the presence of these traveling bodies, objects and ideas? And how do connections challenge as well as channel existing norms and desires?
The ideas and objects created by scholars and artists in this issue form new connections and, in doing so, offer the potential to alter existing categories and ways of thinking. As such, we hope that this issue itself acts as a ‘boundary object’ (Star and Greisemer 1989), articulating across sites to “alter the identity of one thing to another" (Huvila 2011: 2530).
Scene from the life of Buddha, the conversion of the Kasyapas. 2nd -3rd century AD. Gandhara (Pakistan). British Museum, London. © The Trustees of the British Museum.
The first piece in this issue is Chunrong Zhao’s provocative essay titled “Deconstructing Essentialism: Translocality as a Conceptual Tool in the Study of Eclectic Material Cultures”. Based on exploring the theoretical potential of ‘translocality’, this article helps counter the colonial legacy of cultural essentialism in the analyses and representation of eclectic material cultures. As a religious studies scholar, Zhao reflects on ‘transculturality’ and the case study of the images of Vajrapani in Gandharan art (a style of Buddhist art that developed in what is now northwestern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan between the 1st c. BCE and the 7th c. CE). He concludes that translocality, which respects the agencies of local cultures and the complexity of cultural exchanges, is a more productive, heuristic concept in analyzing religion and representing diverse material cultures.
Susan Rodgers doing a tortor dance at a Sipirok-area horja ceremonial feast, 1976. Image courtesy of author.
Being identified with more than one location raises its own challenges. For instance, the anthropologist Susan Rodgers has traveled for decades between the U.S. and Indonesia for research on ritual oratory and indigenous print literatures among the Batak of Sumatra, Indonesia. In “Not Writing as Not Seeing, Not Recording: Embodied Racism in Indonesia – Reflections on Fieldwork since 1974” Rodgers re-evaluates her research experiences and publications. She wonders about her silences on body and race in contemporary Indonesia, specifically as complex ideological and behavioral issues related to the ethnic Chinese in the nation. Rodgers’ personal essay reminds us that the discursive power of ideas to contest corrosive racialized ideologies relies on basic acts of experiencing, acknowledging and recording.
The term public anthropologist has become a popular one in recent years, signalling a more connected, community-oriented anthropological practice. In “If You’re Looking to Radicalize an Archaeologist, Force Them to do Something Traditional”, Lillia McEnaney interviews UCLA archaeologist Jason de León and discovers what exactly being ‘public-minded’ entails. Founder of the Undocumented Migration Project, de León uses a fusion of archaeological, ethnographic, visual, museological, and forensic perspectives to change the way we think about the U.S.-Mexico border. Through an exhibition, field school, and ongoing interdisciplinary research, de León and his team are making the tangible, material traces of migration visible, and fostering conversation and understanding about the human impacts of U.S. immigration policies.
The elaborate and highly skilled soap sculptures of South Korean artist Meekyoung Shin deal with figures from ‘classical’ Greek and Roman art. Jessica Hughes interviews Shin to find out how her experiences as an artist working between South Korea and the U.K have related to her creative process and choice of subject matter. Shin’s experiences as a student and artist in the U.K. indicate the challenges of producing work that deal with identity. Her use of soap as a material both mimics traditional marble but also plays with our expectations of sculptural materials through themes of resilience and time. Translocal ideas and themes seem embedded both in Shin’s biography as well as being integral to her artistic vision.
Haryadi Suadi. Buroq. 1986. Enamel paint on glass. 83.5 x 79.5 cm. Photographed by Michael Binuko and Kemas Indra Bisma. Image courtesy of author.
The movement of people, as we previously noted, also leads to the spread of beliefs and values. Arab Muslim traders helped transmit Islam in Indonesia from the 13th c. onward and, today, the country has the largest Muslim population in the world. In “Buraq and Landscapes: Anchoring Islamic Identities and Images in Works of Modern Indonesian Art” Anissa Rahadiningtyas explores the magnificent, winged buraq figure as a form of various kinds of mobilities in modern Indonesian art, helping us look at Islam through cross-border materialities and relationships, as well as re-imagining the role of Islam in modern art. Focusing on the works and histories of two modern Indonesian artists, the article illustrates how the buraq figure acts as a ‘connecting’ thing, impacting artistic subjectivities, imaginations of identity and experiences of inhabited place.
Our final piece in this collection, titled “The Fruits of the Loom: Cosmopolitanism Through the Eyes of the Commissioner”, is by Morgan Spencer. It interrogates the idea of ‘cosmopolitanism’ in Colonial textile trade through the eyes of the object’s commissioner by focusing on four different textiles, from Italy, China, and India, that speak to the visualization of cosmopolitanism between the 16th and 17th centuries. Just after the ‘Age of Discovery’, this time period helps us situate depictions of cultural ‘othering’ as well as prevailing tropes of cosmopolitanism within a historical lens. While the uses of cosmopolitanism may differ, the narrative design in these textiles clearly reflects the intent of their commissioners. These textiles act as embodiments of political power and ‘worldliness’, making them early examples of translocal consciousness.
*Parts of this Special issue will be published on a staggered schedule.
Citation: Mohan, Urmila and Jessica Hughes. “2020 Special Issue: Translocality and Connections that Disrupt.” The Jugaad Project, 14 Jul. 2020, thejugaadproject.pub/home/translocality-as-connections [date of access]
References
Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
Coleman, S. (2019). "On the Productivity of Pilgrimage Palimpsests: Traces and Translocations in an Expanding Field," Journal of Global Catholicism, Vol. 3: Iss. 1, Article 1.
Greiner, C. and P. Sakdapolrak (2013). “Translocality: Concepts, Applications, and Emerging Research Perspectives,” Geography Compass, 7(5): 373-84.
Huvila, I. (2011). “The Politics of Boundary Objects: Hegemonic Interventions and the Making of a Document,” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 62(12):2528–2539.
Star, S. L., and Griesemer, J. R. (1989). “Institutional Ecology, `Translations’ and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39.” Social Studies of Science, 19(3): 387-420.
Stephan-Emmrich, M. and Schröder, P. (2018). “Introduction: Mobilities, Boundaries, and Travelling Ideas Beyond Central Asia and the Caucasus: A Translocal Perspective.” In Stephan-Emmrich and Schröder (eds.), Mobilities, Boundaries, and Travelling Ideas: Rethinking Translocality Beyond Central Asia and the Caucasus, 27-58, Cambridge: Open Book Publishers.
