Cami Rowe

This monograph has two key aims: First, it presents a critical interrogation of the potentials of performance as resistant global political practice in the 21st century. With reference to historical convergences of art and global politics, the book re-evaluates the role that performance might play in international politics given the rise of right-wing populism and the 'post-truth' mediatisation of political interactions. The book’s second aim is to provide a sustained analysis of performance as a process of international relations, based on practice-research by an author trained in both theatrical practice and IR theory. I argue that performance is inherently concerned with issues of cooperative and collaborative encounters across difference, and therefore performance practices might provide a window into international boundary-crossing that reveals broader truths for global politics in an era of digital populism. Engaging with aspects of performance not commonly broached in...

Over the past decade IR scholars have shown an increasing interest in theatre and performance practices. Recognising the importance of knowledge derived from creative, embodied practices, IR researchers are consistently turning to the performing arts to enhance understandings of political aesthetics, representations, and interaction. Reflecting such trends, staff at Goldsmiths College, London, developed a new undergraduate degree in Performance, Politics and Society in 2017. The development of this degree provides important insights with regard to the challenges and opportunities involved in combining IR with artistic disciplines. This paper discusses the pedagogic challenges that arose with regard to bridging discipline-specific learning outcomes, competing terminologies, student backgrounds, and appropriate assessment methods. The experience of confronting these potential obstacles reveals the complexities of interdisciplinary teaching in the age of TEF and REF, yet also evidences...

2017 marks fifty years since the publication of Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, in which the Situationist International founder critiqued society’s reliance on imagery over experience. In Debord’s words, ‘everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation’ (1967, p. 1). In a moment of historical resonance with this anniversary, the concept of ‘post-truth’ has reached a point of saturation in present-day popular discourse and media punditry, driven by digitally mediatised representations of reality and social interaction. In the late 1960’s, Debord sought to counter the way that social and political relations had become inherently imagemediated processes by devising alternative creative practices; but what becomes of such approaches in a posttruth, populist political context? This article offers some brief thoughts on the confluence of ‘post-truth’ with Debord’s historical warnings, and the resulting implications for art and performance as practices of int...

This article examines representations of border security within public museums, through the example of the UK Border Force National Museum. It begins by discussing the way that international borders are theatrically experienced, and the parallel characteristics of museum spaces. I then suggest the value of performance autoethnography when analysing such phenomena, which arises from the ability to creatively situate personal experience alongside institutional scripts of border control. The article then presents a performance autoethnography that illustrates my experiences within the Border Force Museum. This provides new insights into the theatrical framing of the museum and its effect on visitor interpretations. The article demonstrates that the Border Force Museum replicates the theatricality of border control sites, and thus supports the ordering of bodies into insiders and outsiders; however, creative methods for knowledge production might offer a means of challenging existing bo...

This book offersa study of post-9/11 antiwar organisations in the United States and their role indomestic foreign policy debates. Drawing on participant observation and interviews with the leaders ofprominent antiwar organisations, the study offersinsight into the role of ...

A study of post-9/11 anti-war organizations in the United States and their role in domestic foreign policy debates.  This book celebrates the political acts of individuals committed to changing the dominant politics of the Bush era. Drawing on participant observation and interviews with the leaders of prominent anti-war organizations including Code Pink and Iraq Veterans Against the War, the book employs Performance Theory to evaluate the capacity of protest to effect lasting social change.

Based on an analysis of the performative impact of popular protests ranging from antiwar guerilla theatre to right-wing Tea Party marches, this paper elucidates the evolving social significance of mass protest actions in the United States. In recent years political protests in the United States have developed from an activity branded unpatriotic or traitorous, to one embraced as an expression of national character and patriotic pride. The use of protest tactics by an increasing range of political actors, and the ability to instantly broadcast such actions through new far-reaching media forms has had a significant impact on pubic interpretations and response. In 2010 the Rally to Restore Sanity attracted more than 200,000 Americans to “protest” the perceived extremism of high-profile activism in the United States. This raises the question of what role protest might take in future political and social movements, and whether it retains its historical power to demand response from elite actors.

This paper discusses the evolution of antiwar masquerades from the Bush-era War on Terror to the present day.  Antiwar protestors under Bush were at their most successful when donning vibrant carnivalesque masks that mocked and parodied social stereotypes.  Antiwar masquerades of this era were boisterous, confrontational and bawdy.  In the context of the current re-characterisation of war, those concerned with ongoing American military violence are seeking new modes of self-characterisation to influence public opinion.  This paper will demonstrate how the changing performative environment
evident under the Obama Administration demands a newly creative use of masquerade, resulting in antiwar performances that rely on dropping masks, exchanging masks, and refusing masks altogether.  A Performance Theory analysis will begin to explain how this transition came about, and the potential implications for audiences and future actors.