‘This is not a parade, it's a protest march': Intertextuality, citation, and political action in Bolivia and Argentina

SPEAKER: Dr. Sian Lazar. Department of Anthropology. Clare College (Cambridge, UK). DISCUSSANT: Prof. dr. Michiel Baud, CEDLA DATE: 15 November 2013

ACTIVITY: CEDLA Lecture

Street demonstrations are a common form of political action across Latin America. In this paper, I explore several aspects of their symbolic and experiential force. I focus on ideas of physical and visual intertextuality and the role these play in shaping political agency. I approach this through an examination of the symbolic, aesthetic, and experiential politics of dances, parades, and demonstrations in Bolivia, suggesting that the similarities between these practices function as a form of citation, allowing each to draw upon the symbolic power and resonance of the others. I then turn to Argentina to consider the political and symbolic work carried out in demonstrations through visual – and potentially auditory – intertextuality across practices separated in time.