Aesthetics of the Majority World
On 26 June 2024, we explored the aesthetics of the majority world as part of the DSA Conference, held at SOAS University of London.
An aesthetic lens brings into focus sets of perspectives, narratives and conceptual frameworks that are illegible to socio-economic methodologies. The panel presented research that amplifies performing artists and local medias in their articulation of, and struggles for, social justice and development.
Aesthetics, arts, photography, music and local medias provide insights into social groups, their priorities and dynamics regarding social justice and development. People use aesthetics with their political imaginaries, socio-economic positions, and gendered subjectivities to consolidate and contest justice, development policies and the notion of development itself. This is done by re-interpreting and appropriating an existing body of images for radically new purposes or by creating a new body of images, dance, music or other aesthetic forms that represent communities, identities, histories and interests. While achieving development, whose definition may vary, might remain elusive, the significance of the aesthetic is undiminished. Utopian and ideal imaginings present a different order of reality; they are linked to the material world although what they represent exists as memory, spirituality, metaphor or ambition.
The panel examined aesthetic forms from the majority world that construct narratives in their cultural, political, and gendered contexts. Presenters brought context and data from aesthetic forms, and invited the attendees to engage directly with the aesthetic content and format with a view to understanding and acknowledgement beyond the written or spoken word. The discussant then drew strands from across the papers to capture diverse and distinct projections of social justice and development. The panel deliberated how agency manifests through aesthetics especially for those marginalised politically, socially, and economically. The discussions provide a perspective, narrative and independent conceptual framework; as such they are crucially important to a representative and inclusive account of social justice and development.
