Looking back on the
First International Political Anthropology Summer School
on “The Masks of the Contemporary”
in Florence, 26 June – 4 July 2009
Needless to say, we were very much delighted that so many students of special qualities have participated on the IPA Summer School in Florence, and that so we had a whole week for learning and exchanging ideas, improving our understanding – of society, of the world, and also of ourselves, as it only proper for a Summer School devoted to “political anthropology”, in the broadest possible sense of the term. The following statement, hopefully, will evoke some pleasant memories in those who participated, and render curious those who consider the possibility of taking part in the next Summer School.
Already during our second IPA workshop in Ireland where we have bought together a series of perspectives and ideas from anthropology, sociology, political science on the Mask, we realized how poorly this topic is represented in social, political and sciences. Apart on Mauss’s essay on the person, Pizzorno’s highly Maussian – and practically unknown – essay on the mask, and Nietzsche’s metaphors about the wearing of masks, the theme is practically absent from social and political theory. It is contained of course in empirical studies about the theater, or in works by anthropologists describing the wearing of masks during rituals, but the significance of the phenomenon in the past, or the reasons of its disappearance from the modern world is not much reflected upon, outside trivial conjectures about the “will to truth” in the modern (or Christian, or monotheistic) world. Our main focus therefore was to pose the problem of the meaning and significance of the wearing of masks for human life, and to make sense of the specific situation of our contemporary world in this regard.
The mask as a vehicle of transformation, an example for the “performative turn” (Alexander and Giesen) was emphasized during the first day by two presentations. Arpad (Szakolczai) started by focusing on the use of masks in theatre, especially comedy, pointing out that the etymological roots of comedy lie in the Greek comos, or the Dionysian celebration of marriage, through a ritual that was supposed to change the status of the initiates. There were masks in classical comedy, just like in tragedy, and even the mimes used masks (Pulcinella’s mask and the pantomime are few survivals in modern times).The actor was named “hypocritos” in Greek, the one who gives judgments from under, being an agent of conversion but failing to change his own appearance. The aim of ancient theater was the fulfillment of the ritual in transforming the observers toward an existence that was renewed, protected and sanctified in multiple ways, but where the actor is always the outsider who does not participate in the transformation; is just playing, balancing on the tight-rope of between the audience and the fiction. It remains forever on the sphere of the “blame” (Greek momos, closely related to the mimo, or the “mime”), which turns the world upside down, turning laughter into catastrophe,thus fulfilling more and more perfectly the “performative turn.”
From this perspective, it seems to us that the failure regarding the study of the Mask is due to the application of a purely secular reasoning, following the logic of modern secularism and scientific usage, comparable to what happened with Weber charisma or Turners’s liminality. But it is exactly this failure that can help us to locate this topic on the horizon of political anthropology, as understood by our journal, similar to the Weberian or Foucaldian problematisation, but even going beyond the question of who actually possesses or holds power, or the problem of domination, or oppression, or who is the master and the slave, using Nietzsche’s words, by recognizing that the central issue concerns the generative aspects of force: the creation or birth of power.
With the figure of Pulcinella, the masked mime of the commedia dell’Arte, Agnes (Horvath) emphasized the birth of power in liminality. Every comical attribute is at the same time also frightening, illustrated by Pulcinella, with its multiplicative and growing effects in contagion. Violence and sexuality, flesh and lust contribute to transmit the destructive energy raised out of the performance.The main effect of Pulcinella is corruption, by drawing into marginality and liminality, as it does not recognize boundaries; into a loss of control over and of contact with reality, proliferating the morbus animi of liminality. Pulcinella generates and maintains feeling of the uncertainty, by manufacturing an illegitimate state, a hoax with its every actions.
The evening master-class was held by Gonzalo(Fernandez de Cordoba), who came from the serious field of economics, the “dismal science”,by giving us a lecture on the structure of knowledge, especially the common knowledge – the kind of knowledge that is shared by all in a community, without necessarily being aware of it; using some of the central tenets of the game theory. How this common knowledge could become a quasi-religious object for many, without realizing that it is rather a common ignorance, with sets of codes and masked uncertainty, this was the central theme of the presentation. In a ritualized politics and everyday life we are creating and repeating the common codes of democracy, collective rationality, and political fairness, thus generating a common knowledge that is already far away from its authentic origins,being just its lifeless imitation, under a mask.
In the next day (Tuesday, 30 June) Bjørn (Thomassen) clarified the meaning of liminality, by bringing into discourse the “parallel life-works” of Emile Durkheim and Arnold Van Gennep. Through concrete examples he contrasted Durkheim’s abstract and lifeless theoretical view of science with Van Gennep’s approach to anthropology which preserved the meaning and dynamism of the phenomena observed: rituals incorporated actual, real transformation, and cannot be reduced to a mere illustration of philosophical ideals. While Durkheim applied an alien theoretical framework to his ethnographic data, without recognizing the transformative power, without paying attention to individual will or desire, without persons, Van Gennep restored humanity, living and feeling people to his query. Bjorn, as usual, was very concrete and diagnostic: for him liminality is not a positive concept, but a dangerous suspension of order, a fictitious, disqualified space of nothingness where anything could happen.He referred to the case of Hitler who could turn his own fantasy world into a dogmatic cage imposed on an entire population. Apparently this is why the Mask represents the disqualified space of nothingness.
The afternoon session was lead by Harald (Wydra), linking mask and liminality to political thought.After all,what can be more important for politics than the concept of liminality? And what is more discomforting today? It reveals a lack of structure, an existential dispersal characteristic of our own everyday lives, an entrapped mode of existence,rendering it possible to our masters of ceremonies to transform our lives, presumably with our own permission. Talking about the revolutions, he sketched a state of will-lessness, the removal of any stable acknowledged authority, the vanishing of the values of the previous order. This is a state of hypnosis and madness, when participants are confrontedwith an absurd and paranoid state, so familiar to all those who witnessed any of them, or lived in their immediate aftermath. Using an expression taken from Claude Lefort,Harald talked about the empty space of power characteristic of the democratic system, pointing on its inbuilt its dangerous hiatus in the center that provokes and manufactures schisms and crises in “the arenas of egoism”.
In the evening of the same day we listened to master-class by Lionel (Thélen) on the hypocrisy of the disintegrating society of democracy, its schizophrenic, deceiving, double bind politics of the everyday. Where links of solidarity and gift-relations are disappearing from the tissue of social life,fear and uncertainty will be growing, and the general guiding principle becomes a cynical complicity: that democracy is about doing what is not forbidden. When trust evaporates and egoism is raised into a model of survival people become vulnerable, by falling into a psychological trap of debility. Referring to a movie title, when the “Eternal Grey Monotony of the Spotless Mind” occupies the place of the fresh, youthful vigour of existence, people will be turned into homeless hordes of wanderers, looking for a better piece of food; like Tiepolo’s Pulcinellas,forever trying to fill their stomach. This process of the “liminalisation of society” of course goes on without a mastermind; still,at the same time the logic of the manufactured illegitimate state is overwhelming.
Wednesday morning was devoted to revisit some of the key concepts of the lectures, like masked mimesis; experiencing liminality; hypocrisy; transfiguring power;homelessness;the professional revolutionary or the outsider;what the good society is;the voice of people or mass democracy; the care of being/ self; whether our values are part of the crises of democracy; rights/equal rights; undifferentiation as crisis; schismogenic societies;a democracy that undermines the duties of politics; neoliberalvs. neo-Marxist perspectives; the notion of the cynical and hypocritical upper-class;the indecent society of the contemporary, ruled by clowns; the intruders; the shamanicinitiator.It was generally proposed that we need new ideas, a new intellectual dynamism for revisiting the old and largely corrupted notions about society, ourselves, and politics in the world.
On the following day, the presentation by Kieran (Keohane) gave important details about the metempsychosis of the contemporary, when the spirit of one enters another, often from a different world, and brought into the discussion the figure of the ancient dog-headed Phoenician demon Pazuzu (c.700 BC), that changes man into a dog, this transformation taking place in an empty space. Just like other Trickster figures, like the Coyote, the Spider, the Rabbit, the Jackal,the Gnome or Leprechaun, Pazuzu is on the boundary of civilization, below or beyond, an “outsiders”, only coming to the surface during liminal periods of chaos, which render their entrance all the more possible as their miming of human behavior has affinities with the escalating processes of imitation characteristic of liminal periods, so their entrance then is smooth and easy. They are sly, cunning, but also obedient, loyal and devoted, until their entrance already complete and their staying is secured. Then they are vicious, unreliable, demonic and despotic, working with full zeal for the transformation of every element of social life into their own face of facelessness. The collusion of the law, the disruptive technologies all are preparation for the deployment of collapse. It is possible to target a hub in the system and by causing the hub to fail to create a domino effect in other hubs in the rest of the system, as liminality is as like the spider’s web with complicated connections and design, but with the same will to dissolve the solidity of the established.
The master-class by David (Williams) on Thursday evening was focusing on the character and meaning of the current economic crisis. It started by a short theatrical presentation – only proper for a Summer School about the mask, one could say – miming the burial of an idea: that of the self-governing market economy. The presentation combined evidence about the actual outbreak of the crisis with ideas about the deep-seated roots of the current economic condition, including the problems of a lack of saving in the West and the consequent indebtedness, which is bound to shift the center of the world economy to the East: to China and Japan, but also India.
The last day was devoted to presentations by the students, where each of the participants present (which included 14 of the 16 students) were asked to state what they learned from the school experience and in what way, if at all, this helped to move forward their work, especially their thesis, in case they were preparing one.
Let me conclude that that the problem of Mask or mimesis resides at the heart of magic, ritual, theater and entertainment: and where is a bigger imprint of energy than in magic, ritual, theatre and entertainment. So we first gathered the elements of the mask from these areas (Arpad, Agnes, Kieran) then from this plaything of politics (Bjorn, Harald) and then from game (play) theory (Gonzalo) and finally from the ultimate contemporary play-game, economics (David), where the “real” world is increasingly just a mimetic model of the Las Vegas casino. Hope that you enjoyed our play, or – saying with Nietzsche – our joyful science.
On behalf of the IPA,
Agnes Horvath
"OVERALL - A GREAT EXPERIENCE . TIRING AND CHALLENGING AND ENJOYABLE"
(detail from a student evaluation on the IPASS 2009)
We asked the students to list four aspects of the Summer School that they found particularly enjoyable. Here are their selection of responses:
A.
"I enjoyed the time and the venue,
the rhythm of the breaks,
the People
but mostly the coherent theme"
B.
1.The approach developed is highly stimulated a thought provoking. I
believe it genuinely brings something new and essential to social
science, it is of fundamental importance that it is shared and
discussed.
2. The immersion format, which challenging, was very productive
3. The discussions that carried on among participants outside the
classroom were as powerful as the classes
4. The location was fantastic and inspiring
C.
"I loved the high quality of the lectures,
the beautiful rooms for the lectures.
Interesting visits in Florence
People from many countries.
D.
Location in the city center
Timetable
Variety of backgrounds and scholarly skills of the attendants
Impressive venue for classes
E.
Good quality of presenters
Different nationalities + discipliners in attendance
Not overly intense with enough time off to relax
Venue/setting thoroughly enjoyable & exciting, a real sense of occasion.
F.
Good location (Florence)
Social and cultural activity
Social interaction among people, kindness, hospitality
Quality of presentations
G.
What worked well, there were very rich interesting presentations. Very
thought provoking and stimulating
There was a very nice wonder experience to the school in terms of
setting, the building, various excursions
Friendly and open people, approachable professors
The students mixed well, and so there was a nice second dimension
OVERALL - A GREAT EXPERIENCE . TIRING AND CHALLENGING AND ENJOYABLE
H.
Informal conversations were the most useful part of the school for me.
Meeting other postgraduates was very valuable.
Being able to see Florence was wonderful
I enjoyed being confronted with new ideas
I found all the organizer very welcoming.
I.
Communal gift related acts
Fruitful discussions
Friendly not too tense atmosphere, though the tempo was high
Almost general understanding , between the participants (not necessary
agreement)
J.
Good points were the quality of the lectures
General atmosphere
Relation between students and students and teachers
Quality of teachers
L.
What worked the location of summer School in Florence – enabled rich
cultural experience alongside fulfilling and thought provoking
discussions
Optimal masterclasses with diverse range of topics
Focus on Arpad & Agnes’ rich and complete work as focal point of
conference – deep, forward watching approach
Location – University. Room were excellent
M.
Very elegant setting
Topics covered
Diversity of ideas
Good presentation
N.
Constant presence of full faculty
Florence and school location
Of course the picture would not be complete with some shade with which
we understood and learned for our improvement for the next year.
Thanks for the comments and for your presence again and see you in
2010 again in the Summer School on EK-STASIS or ‘Revolution’ with the
guest speakers of Professors Richard Sakwa (University of Canterbury)
and Michael Urban (University of Santa Cruz, California) for a whole
week at the end of June.
On behalf of the IPA,
Agnes Horvath