"Slamming" the Queer Failure of Gay Marriage

• In Event: 52.057 - Exploring the Use of Pecha Kuchas as a Participatory Form of Arts-Based Research

Abstract

Objectives
This presentation uses slam poetry (spoken word) in a pecha kucha presentation format to highlight the rhythmic power and performativity of pecha kucha as an increasingly popular form of research presentation and dissemination.

Theoretical Framework
The paper draws on performance studies scholarship, in particular the performance ethnography scholarship of Madison (2010) and Spry (2001), in its interrogation of the commodification of gay marriage. Somers-Willett (2009) reminds us of the ways in which contemporary slam poetry (and other ‘raced’ arts) can be marketed to mainstream audiences “sometimes in ghettocentric ways” (p 9), as queer culture also often is. Activist research that uses arts based approaches like slam and performance understands its border-crossing power, disciplinarily, creatively and politically. This paper will highlight this diversity of creative arts approaches while addressing the politics of queer commodification.

Modes of Inquiry
Spry (2001) has articulated the ways in which autoethnography and other performance ethnography “originates as a discourse from the margins of dominant culture” (p. 710), and slam as a variant of performative arts based research. Drawing on the multiple perspectives that performance poetry allows, this presentation evokes the aesthetics, empathy and evocative nature of autoethnographic performance, and equally draws upon the discourse analysis to ethnographically embed and critically analyze these observations.

Data sources
This presentation is drawn from my own autoethnographic writings and a discourse analysis of mainstream media coverage of the passing of gay marriage in New York State, and of the official proceedings (transcript) of the passage of the bill. It will also include images (in keeping with pecha kucha style) from mainstream media coverage of this event in 2011.

Results and/or conclusions
Queer theory, sexualities, gender studies and feminist research all offer evolving lenses to investigate the multitude of queer voices and politics increasingly available to researchers and students in our scholarly and activist work. The pecha kucha format allows a distillation of those voices and perspectives as a performative snapshot of a research study.

Scholarly significance of the work
This style of presentation articulates both the scholarship and need for multiplicity of voices and subjectivities in the work of arts based and arts informed research. Methodological, epistemological and formal diversities are expanding the field in increasingly diverse and dynamic ways, and slam, pecha kucha and other ‘short forms’ contribute importantly to the performative and scholarly robustness of arts-based research.

Author

• Anne M Harris, Monash University