Introducing Adaptivism: A Kinaesthetic Ecology for Social Reconciliation

Abstract

In her inter-disciplinary discussion, Teone Reinthal, an Australian visual artist and community filmmaker, offers an analysis of the positive role that creative expressions can play for marginalized individuals or communities. She first puts into question resilience, which "urges individuals, societies and institutions to eradicate suffering by diminishing, dismissing and even denying the existence of conditions of adversity," and advocates performance, which in contrast allows the telling of 'the disturbing story,' enables people to heal and to redefine who they are. She encourages resilients to enter the scholarly debate in order to "offer alternative discourses on the silencing function of resilience." Exploring themes of performativity and marginalization, she engages theoretical perspectives from directors Richard Schechner and Augusto Boal as well as anthropological considerations of Victor Turner and Erving Goffman. A "visibly 'marked' person" by the birth defects caused by thalidomide on her body, Reinthal offers the testimony of a marginalized 'Other' who through collaborative creative practice has found her own adaptive strategies and social reconciliation approaches within Australian society.