This book makes a compelling case for ‘performance fieldwork’ as a vital new approach to interdisciplinary collaboration. Refocussing the histories and practices of field research, it shows how creative methods and artistic processes can contribute to an embodied and situated knowledge of complex landscapes and environments. The book brings together case studies of innovative research in the fields of ecology, clubbing, heritage, mobility and deep time, which took place in the United Kingdom between 2009 and 2021. These accessible and engaging field notes connect to international and intercultural contexts, with attention to alternative experiences and perspectives throughout. Together, they provide a critically informed ‘toolbox’ of playful and exploratory strategies for working with a diverse range of urban and rural sites – including a river, a museum, a nightclub, a motorway and a cave. This is a timely methodology that reaches across disciplines to demonstrate how performance continually plays out ‘in the field’.
Author(s): David Overend
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 199
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Contents
About the Author
List of Figures
Chapter 1: Introduction
Performance and Discipline
Performing Fieldwork
Histories and Memories
Mapping the Field
References
Chapter 2: Ecology: Patchy Performance at Bamff Beaverlands
Fieldwork at the Edges
Beaver Believers
Staging Beaver Worlds
Mapping and Walking
Sensing and Swimming
Conclusion
References
Chapter 3: Heritage: Following the Alloway Suffragettes
Departures
Glasgow to Alloway, July 1914
Glasgow to Ayr, May 2014
Robert Burns Birthplace Museum to Robert Burns Cottage, Alloway, June 2014
Performing Heritage
Performances of Mobility
Performances of Immobility
Conclusion
References
Chapter 4: Clubbing: Relational Performance at Death Disco
Clubbing Collectives
Midland Street
Clubbing and Performativity
Limitations and Antagonism
Conclusion
References
Chapter 5: Mobility: Performative Counterpractice for Regular Routes
Commuting, Creativity and COVID-19
Traversing the ‘Mundane Roadscape’
Object Journeys
Conclusion
References
Chapter 6: Deep Time: Future Pasts at Gully Cave
Quaternary Drift
Deep Time Imaginaries
Breathing In
Staying with the Detail
Conclusion: Breathing Out
References
Chapter 7: Conclusion: Encounter, Intervention and Co-becoming
A Model for Performance Fieldwork: By, for, with/as Field Site
(In)conclusion
References
Index
