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The Stage is all the World, and the Players are mere Men and Women Performance Poetry in Postcolonial Paris Cicilie Fagerlid Dissertation submitted for the partial fulfilment of the Ph.D. degree, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Oslo, January 2012 © Cicilie Fagerlid, 2012 Series of dissertations submitted to the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Oslo No. 340 ISSN 1504-3991 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission. Cover: Inger Sandved Anfinsen. Printed in Norway: AIT Oslo AS. Produced in co-operation with Unipub, Oslo. The thesis is produced by Unipub merely in connection with the thesis defence. Kindly direct all inquiries regarding the thesis to the copyright holder or the unit which grants the doctorate. &#" From the very beginning, this research project has taken place in a strange zone between life and death, regeneration and destruction. It has been carried out in warm memory of Anita Jarl and her little son Julian whose sudden death, less than a week before I took up the long awaited and long wished for PhD position, brought a sadness into my life that I had not yet known, and in memory of Professor Eduardo Archetti who fell seriously ill at the same time. The exuberant guardian father at the Department of Social Anthropology in Oslo was meant to be my supervisor. I am forever grateful for the advice that he found time to give me, and even more for having the opportunity to experience – the last years of his career and the first years of mine – the personal and professional warmth that he radiated. I am also grateful for the brief encounters and supervision I had the chance to receive from my second supervisor, Marianne Gullestad, before she passed away. The project started under the inauspicious spell of the strangeness of the world revealed by death and the illness of my dearest father who has laid the foundation for all I am and all I know. Slowly, slowly, however, the project transformed back into a world in which I could dwell again, much thanks to the genuine openness of chance encounters and the remarkably generous integrating forces of the Parisian slam milieu. I would particularly express my gratitude to “Laurent” and Karim. Emerging from the darkest time of my life, I was met with warm tolerance and was guided through wonders in the City of Lights. Always there for me, through thick and think, through one fieldwork, longer than the other and beyond the birth of our son – the light of my life, Leo – is my husband, Inge. Thank you! Thank you also to the generous, open-minded and encouraging director of the research programme that funded my project, Professor Thomas Hylland Eriksen. If you must have a boss, always opt for an anarchist. Thank you to Lorenz Khazaleh for innumerable chats on Skype during lonely nights of fieldwork, and to fellow PhD students Sharam Alghasi, Bengt Andersen, Espen Marius 2 Foss, Anne Hege Grung, Aina Landsverk Hagen, Cecilie Nordfeldt, Tone Sommerfelt, Christian Sørhaug and Nerina Weiss for encouragement, comments and community. Thank you also to my last supervisor, Professor Marit Melhuus, who taught me perseverance and precision (hopefully). There is no doubt that her active pen and pertinent and impertinent questions played a major role in concluding the long and winding writing process. Finally, it felt like arriving at a safe harbour when Michelle Tisdel took charge of the copyediting. 3 ##" ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 2 CONTENTS 4 CHAPTER 1 – THEMATIC INTRODUCTION 9 “…POETICALLY MAN DWELLS…”: WHAT IS PARISIAN SLAM AND WHICH POLITICAL, SOCIO-GEOGRAPHICAL AND EXISTENTIAL QUESTIONS DOES IT ANSWER? 9 THE STAGE IS ALL THE WORLD, AND THE PLAYERS ARE MERE MEN AND WOMEN: WHAT IS PARISIAN SLAM? .............................................................................................................................. 9 THE OPENNESS OF SLAM ................................................................................................................. 11 THE VARIETY OF SLAM ................................................................................................................... 13 WHICH POLITICAL, SOCIO-GEOGRAPHICAL AND EXISTENTIAL QUESTIONS DO PARISIAN SLAM ADDRESS? ....................................................................................................................................... 18 THE TENNIS COURT OATH: THE COSMOGONIC RETURN TO THE EARLY DAYS OF THE REVOLUTION ........................................................................................................................................................ 18 THE BARE HUMAN, RELATIONAL ART, THE SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE AND DIRECT DEMOCRACY ........................................................................................................................................................ 19 Slamiteration, by Amaranta ............................................................................................................ 19 A LIFE IN THE OPEN – THE PRESENCING NATURE OF POETRY ......................................................... 24 Between the walls, by Abd el Haq ................................................................................................. 25 The orphans, by Antoine Faure (Tô) .............................................................................................. 28 CHAPTER 2 – ETHNOGRAPHIC INTRODUCTION 33 HOW I DISCOVERED SLAM AS THE PERFECT FIELD SITE FOR STUDYING THE STATE OF AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC TODAY 33 THE ARCHI-TEXTURE OF LINES OF EXCLUSION AND INCLUSION – RAGE AND POETRY ........... 33 THE CHANCE AND THE CHALLENGE OF BEGINNING A FIELDWORK ON SOCIAL COHESION AND SENSES OF BELONGING IN FRANCE IN OCTOBER 2005 ................................................................... 34 MEETING LAURENT AND JEAN IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE ANTI-CPE EVENTS ............................ 36 NINE HOURS OF FIELDWORK AND HOW I DISCOVERED SLAM POETRY ON A TRIP TO THE SUBURBS AND BACK AGAIN ........................................................................................................... 38 A LIFE IN THE OPEN VERSUS A CONTAINED LIFE – PARIS AND THE SUBURBS ................................ 39 LA MILONGA .................................................................................................................................. 41 THE BUS TRIP TO NOUVELLE FRANCE .............................................................................................. 45 PLEX Y GLASS, RUE OBERKAMPF, PARIS EAST .............................................................................. 47 THE WINDING STREETS OF BELLEVILLE AND MÉNILMONTANT ..................................................... 49 ARABIC IN THE STREETS OF PARIS .................................................................................................. 51 CHAPTER 3 – METHODOLOGICAL INTRODUCTION 54 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 54 4 TRUTH, THE REAL WORLD AND VALIDITY, OBJECTIVITY AND GENERALISATION .................... 55 TRUTHFULNESS OF DEPICTION ..................................................................................................... 56 A NOTE ON THE USE OF VIDEO ........................................................................................................ 63 TRANSCENDENCE OF PERSPECTIVES ........................................................................................... 66 ROLE-INVOLVEMENT IN THE FIELD AND ETHNOGRAPHER’S PATH ................................................. 66 THE PARTICULAR AND SPECIFIC EMBODIMENT AND THE DARKER ARTS OF FIELDWORK ............... 70 THE VISTA OF EXISTENTIAL SUFFERING ......................................................................................... 73 ETHICS ............................................................................................................................................ 74 ASPIRATION TO PRODUCE INSIGHTS THAT CAN BE APPLIED ELSEWHERE ................................ 75 FROM EXPERIENCE NEAR TO EXPERIENCE DISTANT CONCEPTS IN COEVAL TIMES ......................... 75 CHAPTER 4 - THEORETICAL INTRODUCTION 79 SLAM: PERSONHOOD, BELONGING AND COMMUNITY SPANNING THE COLONIAL GAP ............ 79 THE COLONIAL GAP: THE MUZZLED ONES AND FULL HUMAN BEINGS ...................................... 80 BODIES OF EXCEPTION .................................................................................................................... 83 THE CIVILISATION DEFICIT, THE SUBURBS AND THE JEUNES DE BANLIEUES ................................... 84 Banlieue and jeune de banlieue: stereotypes, subalterns and “sheep” ........................................... 85 Civilisation deficit, victimisation and stereotyping ........................................................................ 87 THE TIME OF THE REVOLTS, AND FAITH AND FORCE IN SPEECH ..................................................... 89 LA FRANCE MÉTISSÉE AND THE BECOMING AND HETEROGENEITY OF SLAM .......................... 90 WEAVING THE TEXTURES OF LIFE AND WORLD .............................................................................. 91 THE DISSOLVING SPACE OF AGGREGATED DISTINCTIONS .............................................................. 92 AN EPISTEMOLOGY OF HETEROGENEITY AND BECOMING .............................................................. 94 THE FLUIDITY OF SLAM SPACE .......................................................................................................