Embodied belonging and the politics of race in Australian poetry slams

Abstract

This study set out to understand how the local, national and global comes to inform the emergence of seemingly dehierarchised communities of sociality and literacy such as slam. To do this I explored the communal and social functions of slam specific to the four slam communities investigated, which were located within communities and geographical locations of deep import in relation to the Australian national imaginary and with respect to racialisation, a key structuring force in the nation, as well as a key theme apparent in the development of slam in the USA. I also sought to consider the disruptive potential of slam in this context and specifically in relation to racialisation and belonging. Through a performative and affective analysis I was able to explore the influence of understandings of the nation and national belonging and how they inform slam communities, and the perceptions, values and subjectivities of participants as well as their performances. It was clear that place very heavily influenced these elements of slam participation and thus the subjectivities of participants and their engagement with slam and one another’s work. What was also clear was that participants, particularly those that were negatively racialised, exercised agency in their performances and negotiations of self and interactions with others, in ways that disrupted the confining powers of their racialised subjectivities. This thesis considers slam as a site of both sociality and literacy. In this regard, it analyses the slam experience of individuals, but in the context of broader local, national and global powers especially to do with race. It considers how these discourses permeate and inflect engagement with slam on an individual level as a performer and/or audience member and as part of a particular slam community. The exploration of four key slam sites in Sydney and in Wollongong, through interviews with eleven slam performers is able to demonstrate the ways that each of these sites of sociality and literacy are unique in terms of the values produced through the slam community, as told by the individual performers. This informs the performance at each of the slam events as well as their reception.

Date of Award	2021
Original language	English
Supervisor	Kevin Dunn (Supervisor) & Rachel Morley (Supervisor)