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I am a cultural anthropologist whose work falls under the broad heading of performative anthropology, a dialogic area of interest that looks to performance both as the way in which people experience the quotidian aspects of their cultural universe, and the method by which the anthropologist/ethnographer produces knowledge about those experiences. I am compelled by the conviction that being a cultural anthropologist presupposes a willingness to learn in ways that invariably broaden and sharpen ones peripheral vision. Mary Catherine Bateson calls this culture vision or, rather, the ability to see the multiple worlds of others. Seeing the multiple worlds of others is a way of being for me that has manifested itself in various ways throughout my adult life. Before I was an anthropologist, I was an independent filmmaker who worked with a diverse range of transnational communities to produce documentaries that profiled individuals, organizations, and socio-cultural issues that lacked access to popular support and conventional media outlets. I have carried out fieldwork in Ventura, California, Michoacán, México, the Río Grande Valley of South Texas, Florina, Greece, and the Republic of Macedonia, where (as a Fulbright Fellow) I conducted research on dance and the cultural politics of national identity. Since earning my doctorate from the University of Southern California, I have (re)turned my attention to Latin America, and to the encounters and articulations between Greater México and the United States, by extending my interest in transnationalism into that of addressing how individuals and groups are able to exercise their agency in responding to and challenging global flows.
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critical creativity | energetic thinking
Gaelyn Aguilar
Gustavo Aguilar
I am an experimental performer/composer/
improviser, whose interdisciplinary approach to art making cooperatively combines present-composed (improvised) and past-composed (fully notated) musical elements with the use of new technologies and an active research interest in cultural/critical studies. As an art practitioner who has built an extensive history of collaboration with dancers, filmmakers, poets, painters, dramaturges, and sound installation artists, my awareness and engagement with new and innovative forms of art operate and encompass a wide range of traditions and medias that help me to blur the boundaries betwixt composer/performer and between music, art, theatre, dance and film. Focused as it is on building and expanding on classical, contemporary, improvisational, and popular notions of musicking and art making, my work asks and addresses such questions as: What is the relationship between performance and society? How does performance embody and challenge the values of culture? How can we trace contemporary ideas about identity, and link those ideas to specific historical encounters and social transformations, in a way that also challenges assumptions?
