Aesthetic Citizenship: Immigration and Theater in Twenty-First-Century Paris by Emine Fişek (review)
- Aesthetic Citizenship: Immigration and Theater in Twenty-First-Century Paris by Emine Fişek
Emine Fişek's compelling and timely book is an invaluable addition to contemporary theatre studies and to all study of the relationship between cultural production and the [End Page 161] shifting discourses of immigration in contemporary France. Fişek explores the complex relationship between theatre practice, immigration politics, and identity by interrogating both representation (theatre as bearing witness to marginalized voices and narratives) and the impact of embodied social practice (theatre as site of the construction of personal and legal identity). One of the many strengths of this volume is its bringing together of critical frameworks with ethnographic fieldwork (undertaken from 2009 to 2012) featuring Parisbased organizations engaged with immigration rights and citizenship through theatre (from small NGOs to international companies). The careful use of in-depth interviews alongside detailed accounts of the experience of performances in context adds a welcome pragmatism and self-reflexivity to analysis. While the five chapters focus on France from 2000 to 2012, the engaging Introduction provides a fast-moving overview of the politics of immigration since 1980, mapping the loaded 'intégration' within the continuing rise of what É tienne Balibar terms 'national republicanism' (p. 9). Fişek foregrounds the evaluation of (national) identity and citizenship via embodied performance (the acts and scripts of citizenship), which positions immigrants as 'deviant bodies' (p. 14). The book never loses sight of the tensions inherent in theatre that, whilst empowering the voiceless, risk reconfiguring those voices in terms of state-sanctioned 'cultural proficiency' (p. 19). Chapter 1 reveals the militant correlation between the situation of character and actor in post-1968 activist theatre as both powerful and limiting (group Al Assifa) and tracks the development of a focus on gendered immigrant experience (La Kahina). Detailed accounts of oppositional conceptions of authenticity and aesthetic value reveal the risks of discourses of competency and victimhood. A focus on women's experiences is sustained as the following chapter employs a comparative analysis of two women's arts festivals in the Goutte d'or to examine the dynamic between French republican universalism and the particularism inherent in personal narrative theatre. The considerable impact of Chapter 3 lies in its examination of the ways in which theatrical practice (theatrical aid work) functions as formal evidence of language learning and capacity for social cohesion. The investigation of a theatrical 'vivre ensemble' continues as Chapter 4 questions the 'culture' in interculturalism and demonstrates the risk of models of community-based theatre in a socio-political context that posits community identity as challenging both figures of national identity and the universalized individual. The ethics of humanitarian theatre dominate the last chapter, with discussion of the shifting strategies of the Théâtre du soleil from a broad activism to a focus on the professional mediation of documentary sources. Fişek's analysis throughout is strikingly original, combining critical sophistication and self-reflexive encounters with performance in context to provide outstanding analysis of the complexity of lived theatrical experience in contemporary France.
