Abst May 11 | VisionsofChange

ABSTRACTS

May 11th, 2022

Panel E: Reclaiming Identities

Cultural Conversations, Digital Community and Revisioning Identity in the Latinx Diaspora

Presenter: Alexis-Carlota Cochrane

McMaster University

How do cultural conversations taking place within digital communities shape the Latin American/Latinx diaspora in the Canadian context? “[Community] is a gateway to expand my knowledge about what it truly means to be Latino”, “[It’s] a place where people can come and talk to one another and have that sense of community” (Cochrane, 2021). As a field of research, much of Latinx diaspora studies are locationally rooted in the American diaspora and thus, Latin American Canadian diaspora experiences are often underrepresented in the field (Arráiz Mutute, 2018; Cahuas & Arraiz Mutute, 2020; Parada et al., 2021). According to Statistics Canada’s 2016 Census of Population, over 50% of multiple ethnic origin responses identified themselves as of Latin, Central or South American origin (Statistics Canada, 2017). Thus, the Latin American Canadian diaspora is rich, rapidly growing and ever-evolving. Despite Latinx culture’s framing as inclusive, diverse, and interconnected, a growing body of activism has argued it was built upon racist, colonial ideologies that erase Black, Indigenous and Afro-Latinx experiences. It functions as a sweeping term that prioritizes whiter/lighter experiences, formulating a monolithic interpretation of Latinx identity that erases those who do not fit within this idealized, hegemonic identity. Nevertheless, Latinx youth have found a way to combat this homogeneity by participating in digital communities. This presentation will examine how Latin American university students in Canada connect through digital communities to collectively navigate and combat this culture of Anti-Indigeneity, Anti-Blackness, and white supremacy in their navigations of identity, culture, and privilege. Informed by interview data with Latinx-identifying university students in Canada, this work reflects on their interpretations of an idealized Latino identity, the white-centric cultural hierarchies, and the importance of digital communities as a means of self-representation that combats cultural homogeneity.

The Nation State and the Nation’s state: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Biopower as an Effect of Gendered Nationalism in Twentieth-century Canadian Public Health Information

Presenter: Maggie Auriss

University of Calgary

Early in Canada’s creation as a nation-state, the Canadian government took a vested interest in the middle-class, English-Canadian community, making them the dominant social group in Canada. Michel Foucault’s “biopower” is a form of governmental regulation informed by science and imposed on the population for the purpose of improvement through biopolitics. As an instrument of governance over a national body of people, biopower can be considered a nation-building tool that also has great effects on the family unit. However, biopower also has an indirect effect on fringe social groups and racial minorities. In this research, I used a qualitative methodology to examine the connections between biopower, gendered nationalism, and public health within a twentieth-century Canadian context, applying Foucault’s concept of biopower from a feminist perspective to a critical discourse analysis of a 1935 publication by the Home Health Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba, “The Handy Home Doctor: a guide to perfect health”. I examined the discourse for messages that are both explicit and implicit, identifying three main themes that support the overarching, hegemonic ideologies about sexuality, and demonstrate the effects of biopower within the Canadian population: 1) An over-representation of English-Canadian, middle-class individuals with no representation of lower classes or racial minorities; 2) An over-representation of, heterosexual individuals and the patriarchal family unit, with no representation of non-hetero individuals; and 3) A focus on the health of children and on women’s reproductive health, while providing no information pertaining to the specific health needs of men. These themes reveal that biopower in Canada targeted the English-Canadian, middle-class majority to meet the Canadian government’s nation-building agenda, and by excluding racial and social minorities, biopolitical propaganda created a national sense of belonging among English-Canadians, rallying them to fulfill the duty inherently placed upon them through the constructed national and social identities of ideal Canadians.

Hijabi fashion influencers: Defining Islamic Modesty Online

Presenter: Asma Bernier

University of Calgary

There exists variability in the definitions and understandings surrounding modesty. Veiled Muslim women practice modesty by concealing their hair, skin, and body. The veil is a signifier of their religious affiliation and modest lifestyle. This honours thesis is a study of performance and visual enactment within the photos and videos posted by a sample of veiled Muslim women influencers, which include Jasmine Fares, Omaya Zein, Leena Snoubar, Nawal Sari, and Rawdah Mohamed. It uses visual rhetorical analysis to examine the captions and elements of a sample comprised of both photos and videos. Such elements that are examined include the influencers’ clothing and pose, as well as the background, symbols, colours and textures present in the artifacts. The captions that accompany the photo/video are also examined which will help reveal any patterns in the definitions of modesty. Theoretical frameworks, such as post-colonial feminism, orientalism, and creative labour are incorporated within this study to further examine the modest practices and experiences of veiled Muslim women, who have traditionally been Othered. Therefore, the research question that this thesis aims to answer is: how do hijabi influencers define modesty in Islam through the photos and videos uploaded on their visual social media platforms? This research will demonstrate that the definition of Islamic modesty can be understood beyond a binary perspective.

Panel F: Film, TV and Music Studies

Sweet Smell of Censorship: The Artistic Productivity of the Censor-Artist Relationship in Classical Hollywood Film Noir

Presenter: Tamar Hanstke

University of British Columbia

Can censorship ever be artistically productive? The average person’s impulse will be to answer, no, any artistic productivity that occurs under censorship will be insignificant in comparison to what could have been accomplished without censorship restrictions. This is because we live in an era where censorship is seen as one of the greatest inhibitors of a free society. In fact, it is difficult to think of any example where censorship of art produced something positive, in large part because we have rewritten the narratives of these examples to believe that they were positive in spite of censorship, rather than because of it. In this presentation, I will discuss the cycle of Films Noir in the Golden Age of Hollywood, which is regularly praised for subverting the Motion Picture Production Code that imposed censorship between 1934-1968 in Hollywood. These positivist narratives suggest that the heroic directors of these films were at constant odds with the censors, fighting to get their Code-subverting stories onto the big screen. In contrast, I argue that this cycle exists as a paragon of artistic expression that was born out of an often-symbiotic censor-artist relationship, and ultimately reveals censorship to be a more influential part of today’s cinematic landscape than most viewers acknowledge. For example, because economic concerns force many contemporary filmmakers to mold their films to fit the standards set by the MPAA and other national ratings boards, they operate under an admittedly less severe, but still analogous system to filmmakers working under the Code. This tells us why Film Noir’s debt to the Code matters: if we cannot escape artistic censorship completely, Noir offers an example of how artists can make the best of their situation, working with censorship restrictions to create art that still inspires admiration, imitation, and debate nearly a century later.

Agent of Change: activism, futurity and the “New World” of social media in Enlightened

Presenter: Karim Townsend

University of Cambridge

This paper considers questions of activism, futurity and social change in relation to the critically acclaimed, yet low-viewed HBO series Enlightened (2011-2013), created by writer-director Mike White and lead actress Laura Dern. Following a woman’s journey as a whistleblower exposing her corrupt corporation, the series’ and its socio-political prescience have been remarked upon by television critics in light of the 2016 US election, the #MeToo movement, and the various forms of political action that have manifested in response. Indeed, as Maureen Ryan (2019) puts it, “[the protagonist’s] obsession with finding ways to #resist corporate greed and the cynical manipulations of the powerful, and her quest to ignite change on social media and in real life, made Enlightened a precursor to the last few years of marches, protests, whistleblowers, and anti-billionaire critiques.” This paper considers the series’ engagement with activist discourses in the virtual, viral, and rhizomatic spaces of the internet, and explores questions of community, power and equality in relation to the series’ portrayal of political resistance. Yet, I also consider the complexities of the series’ ironic framing of social media platforms, casting ambivalence on their efficacy as a tool for social, political, and environmental change. I argue that Enlightened resonates with the prescient writing of Félix Guattari’s The Three Ecologies (1989) and his concept of “ecosophy” – or ecological philosophy – which is reconsidered here in relation to the series’ critique of what Guattari calls Integrated World Capitalism. If, as Guattari notes, the transition from the mass media to the “post-media” age, in which the media will be “re-appropriated by a multitude of subject-groups”, is essential, then Enlightened’s fraught depiction of social media, as this paper suggests, provides a useful tool for examining the numerous issues at stake regarding mediated technology and its ability to shape socio-political and ecological discourse.

Swoonworthy Fandom: Re-envisioning Intertextual Engagement in Netflix's 'The Swoon'

Presenter: Emily Mohabir

University of Calgary

While entertainment marketing's core objective is to promote a primary text or texts, as a as examples of what Gray (2010) describes as "paratexts," marketing materials serve as extensions of a main text by developing audience expectations of and extending engagement with that text (Halloran & Morgan, 2014; Wall & Spinuzzi, 2018). This presentation critically explores how Netflix's marketing concept, The Swoon (2019)—a YouTube channel that promotes Netflix's Korean television programs ("dramas") via a variety of trailers, commentary, and edited composite videos—serves as a transmedia extension of Korean dramas. In particular, this presentation highlights how specific elements of The Swoon's genre framing and appeals to fandom and relational ties among Korean drama viewers opens space for participatory paratextual engagement among fans surrounding predominant drama themes.

Grimes vs. 'The Algorithm Gods': Writing Popular Music in the Streaming Era

Presenter: Samantha K. McEwan

McMaster University

In 2019 Nielsen’s Smart Audio Report observed that North America had entered “a new golden age of audio”. It is an era marked by widespread streaming on platforms like Spotify, the full embracing of algorithmic culture by music companies, and a wealth of new song discovery for the casual, “lean back” listener (Baade, 2018). At the same time, contemporary pop artists have increasingly voiced concerns about the dominance of recommendation algorithms and their negative impact on the craft of song writing (NME, 2021). Previous research has focused on how streaming algorithms tend to favour artists who are already popular (Kowald et al., 2020) and reproduce gendered and racialized understandings of musical genre (Johnson, 2020; James, 2017; Seaver, 2019). Very little attention has been given to how artists negotiate the constraints of algorithms in their song writing. Through a comparative analysis of two versions of a track from the album Miss Anthropocene (2020), this short paper explores how Canadian producer, visual artist and singer-songwriter Grimes has sought to both “appease the algorithm gods” and maintain her auteur status in the streaming era.