January 21: Dr. Monika Winarnita, Post Doc. Dancing the Feminine

CAPI LUNCH & LEARN

Dancing the Feminine: Gender and Identity Performances by Indonesian Migrant Women

Presentation by Dr. Monika Swastri Winarnita (Postdoctural Research Fellow, Anthropology, UVic)

Thursday, January 21st, 2016 | 12:30 – 1:30 pm | Harry Hickman Building, Room 120

About this presentation

Monika Winarnita’s new book, Dancing the Feminine, is a compelling vision of expressions of gender and identity at the heart of the Asian migrant women’s experience as expressed through the performance of cultural dance. Winarnita explores the particular experiences of Indonesian migrant women in Australia and provides an analysis of these cultural performances as ‘rituals of belonging’. Through narrative and video, this presentation will show how cultural dance performance offers profound insight into migrants’ life experience as well as into how human beings tell their stories and interact with one another.

About the book

Dancing the Feminine: Gender and Identity Performances by Indonesian Migrant Women was released in January 2016 by Sussex Academic Press and available in print and e-book editions.

“Monika Winarnita’s work provides an intellectually rigorous, insightful, original and engaging examination of the pursuit of ‘traditional, authentic’ Indonesian dance performances by Indonesian immigrant women in Perth, Western Australia. The author is to be congratulated for extracting layers of nuance from a topic that for many may not even have drawn a second look. She reminds us all that all human interactions are fraught with deep, shifting meanings.” Professor Henry Spiller (ethnomusicology) and Chair, Department of Music, UC Davis

“This book is a very enjoyable read and makes a very good contribution to knowledge in the field of anthropology of migration in which it sits. The book invigorates key debates in the anthropology of migration – with important insights drawn from Indonesian studies, anthropology and studies of performance. Deirdre McKay, Social Geography and Environmental Politics, Keele University

About Lunch & Learn events

All are welcome, bring your own lunch!