This volume investigates performance cultures as rich and dynamic
environments of knowledge practice through which distinctive
epistemologies are continuously (re)generated, cultivated and
celebrated. Epistemologies are dynamic formations of rules, tools and
procedures not only for understanding but also for doing knowledges.
This volume deals in particular with epistemological challenges posed by
practices and processes of interweaving performance cultures. These
challenges arise in artistic and academic contexts because of
hierarchies between epistemologies. European colonialism worked
determinedly, violently and often with devastating effects on
instituting and sustaining a hegemony of modern Euro-American rules of
knowing in many parts of the world. Therefore, Interweaving
Epistemologies critically interrogates the (im)possibilities of
interweaving epistemologies in artistic and academic contexts today.
Writing from diverse geographical locations and knowledge cultures, the
book's contributors--philosophers and political scientists as well as
practitioners and scholars of theater, performance and
dance--investigate prevailing forms of epistemic ignorance and violence.
They introduce key concepts and theories that enable critique of unequal
power relations between epistemologies. Moreover, contributions explore
historical cases of interweaving epistemologies and examine innovative
present-day methods of working across and through epistemological
divides in nonhegemonic, sustainable, creative and critical ways.
Ideal for practitioners, students and researchers of theater,
performance and dance, Interweaving Epistemologies emphasizes the
urgent need to acknowledge, study and promote epistemological plurality
and diversity in practices of performance-making as well as in
scholarship on theater and performance around the globe today.
