Dépouillement du document :
The Beginning: An Introduction
‘Circus’
The Story
Ethiopia
China
The Political Economy of Africans in China
Corporeality in a Global World
The Set Up
The Players and the Stage
Methodology
Ethics
The Story on the Page

Chapter One: The School
Introduction: An ‘African’ Village in China
Circus Artists, Gymnasts, and Acrobats in Huáxīng
The Rules
“Learned by Power”
“Africans are Dangerous”
Working Hard in Huáxīng
Groups
Performing ‘Africa’ in China
The “Prison Break”
The Kenyans
Going “Out to Freedom”
Conclusion

Chapter Two: The Training
Introduction: Limits to Inculcation
Brains and Legs
The Important Things in Life
“Training is Bitter”
The Troupe Members
Pickin’
The Canadian
The Wǔshù Boys
Conclusion: Echoes

Chapter Three: The Children
Introduction: Fellini and the “Sūdān de” (The Sudanese)
Selection
Foreign Youth
Words and Power
Training Like a Native
The Audition
“Ripe”
Missed Opportunities
Conclusion

Chapter Four: The Agents
Introduction: Mediators
Zhihuán
Qiǎo
Nelson
Tanzania
Money and Opportunity
Conclusion

Chapter Five: The Show
Introduction: Cultural Reconfiguration
‘Africa’
Fever
“Too Chinese”
“African Power”
Cultures
Sounds
Value
Conclusion

Chapter Six: The Tour
Introduction: ‘Us’ and ‘Them’
Buses
Parties
Dark and Light
Noises
Food
Bad Ghosts
Fathers and Children
Artists and Technicians
The Anthropologist
A Continent on Tour
Language
Distances
Conclusion

Chapter Seven: The Work
Introduction: “A Good Life”
The Troupe
The Sick Body
Dreams
Rare Birds
Baba Sarakasi Afrika
Home
Running
“Hard Work”
“Money from my Sweat”
China in Europe
Freedom
Choice
Closing Night
The Morning After
Conclusion

The End: A Conclusion
Afterward: The End of the Habesha Jugglers
Conclusion

Résumé :
This thesis presents a multi-sited ethnography of Ethiopian circus performers who trained in China on an acrobatics cultural exchange and subsequently performed in an ‘African’ themed circus production in Europe. In an international field I follow a troupe of six, the Habesha Jugglers, and explore how they negotiated their presence within the embodied reality of dealing with chronic racism in China and Europe, where ideas about African bodies and being ‘African’ often mattered more than individual and ethnic identities. Their willingness to play to racial and cultural stereotypes in the show was a determining factor in their presence on tour, and was measured against a deep-seated desire to make a better life for oneself and one’s family within the bigger scheme of things. Along with the production’s cast, the troupe sought to reconcile outside racist perceptions and representations by emphasizing the importance of working hard with one’s body, thus increasing their own market value and mobility in the corporeal economy of circus. It is my aim to make a significant contribution to the field by moving away from popular scholarly analytics that deal from, and with, a spectator-oriented vantage point regarding on stage representation in circus. With this thesis I reorient the anthropological focus to the lived day-to-day immediate experiences of circus performers by telling the Habesha Jugglers’ story. It is ultimately a simple and powerful ethnographic narrative about Ethiopian circus performers trying to make better lives for themselves while dealing with viscerally rooted racism and living in highly trained ‘valuable’ black bodies within a global circus market.

Collection : Bibliothèque de l'École nationale de cirque

Localisation : Traitement documentaire