I had my second Substack post all planned out. I was going to post a short story I wrote about a woman who travels throughout time and finds healing through dance, but I’ll save that post for another day, a day where the world feels a little less on fire.
ICE is killing people. Clergy and journalists are being arrested. Everyday there’s a new story about what’s going on in this American empire that we live in. The world is on fire, and I am stuck in the house organizing data. I could be saying more. I could be posting more. I could be writing more. But I’m not because I’m a PhD student. At times I struggle with the fact that I am in school and have been in school since the world caught on fire. If we’re in a burning house, then the least I could do is throw a glass of water on the flame, but I’m stuck on the couch reading theory.
So, what is the relationship between the world and the academy? There are those who would argue that all scholars are activists. That’s clearly not always the case. And yet, there can be overlap. I think about Savannah Shange whose book Progressive Dystopia: Abolition, Antiblackness, and Schooling in San Francisco makes a case for abolition anthropology and carves out space for a Black girl’s refusal, a refusal to be seen, a refusal to be made a subject of study, a refusal to participate. In the book, she calls out a liberal school that is still defined by carceral logic and antiblackness. Shange models what is possible for scholars who are not so caught up in the Ivy Tower that they forget about the folk, who are not so blinded by scholarship for scholarship’s sake that they can’t see that the world is on fire. The world is on fire, and scholars have a role to play.
But can we all pay a role? In anthropology, there is what we call “dark anthropology.” Dark anthropology takes up topics like violence, injustice, inequality, and oppression. “Dark anthropology” acknowledges that the world is on fire and thinks through how we make sense of it. It attends to everyday suffering, the quick and slow death, the precarity of life. But what I do is not dark anthropology, intentionally. Is there space for those of us who aim to carve out light and healing and liberation and joy in a dark world on fire?
Perhaps this work, light anthropology, is all the more necessary in a world on fire. In April, I will present on dance as a space of restorative and communal care for Black women. Dance becomes a refuge and safe space, a moment where we can take a break from the fires of the world, not because we are hiding away but because sometimes we have to choose ourselves, care for ourselves, love ourselves, regardless. Just like being a scholar doesn’t make one an activist, being a dancer also doesn’t make one an activist, but dance can contribute to the wellbeing of the activist. It can make sure that as we fight the fires of the world, we don’t allow ourselves to be burned alive.
The world is on fire. The world has been on fire. It is up to us to do what we can to make sure that we have the strength, the resilience, the energy to withstand the fire and rebuild from the ashes. Perhaps we can find this in scholarship and in dance.
Deirdre Jonese Austin 