TY - JOUR
T1 - Performance, Possums, and Photo-Ops, Too
T2 - Marginalizing Binaries at the Wausau Possum Festival
AU - Day, Ashleigh M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, © 2018 Western States Communication Association.
PY - 2018/10/20
Y1 - 2018/10/20
N2 - Performances can shape realities, perceptions, and meanings. Throughout the performance of the Wausau Possum Festival, possums are (mis)used as performative objects. The festival’s live possum auction serves as an exemplar of such performative functions while also demonstrating the “performer metaphor.” Thus, I argue that the festival’s performance perpetuates a human-over-nature hierarchy through social–natural, subject–object binaries that marginalize the possum. These binaries justify the possum’s objectification within the festival, ultimately reifying the binaries. The transhuman, materialist theory of communication is used to ground and situate my analysis. Implications are offered that call for (re)conceptualizations of our relationship with/in nature.
AB - Performances can shape realities, perceptions, and meanings. Throughout the performance of the Wausau Possum Festival, possums are (mis)used as performative objects. The festival’s live possum auction serves as an exemplar of such performative functions while also demonstrating the “performer metaphor.” Thus, I argue that the festival’s performance perpetuates a human-over-nature hierarchy through social–natural, subject–object binaries that marginalize the possum. These binaries justify the possum’s objectification within the festival, ultimately reifying the binaries. The transhuman, materialist theory of communication is used to ground and situate my analysis. Implications are offered that call for (re)conceptualizations of our relationship with/in nature.
KW - Binary
KW - Internatural Communication
KW - Performance
KW - Transhuman
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U2 - 10.1080/10570314.2017.1416489
DO - 10.1080/10570314.2017.1416489
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85041013519
SN - 1057-0314
VL - 82
SP - 595
EP - 612
JO - Western Journal of Communication
JF - Western Journal of Communication
IS - 5
ER -