Mapping affective infra-structures: engaging pre-colonial embodied histories of grief through performance
| dc.contributor.advisor | Matchett, Sara | |
| dc.contributor.advisor | Sitas, Ari | |
| dc.contributor.author | Dash, Kathyayini | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-01T10:51:21Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-01T10:51:21Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2026 | |
| dc.date.updated | 2026-07-01T10:46:47Z | |
| dc.description.abstract | This thesis explores the relationship between sound, body and history. It proposes the concept of affective infra-structures that emerges out of an engagement with the idea of embodied histories and explores musical entrances into historiography. I draw from my pilot fieldwork for the RAA Project1 and use the Wayee, a musical system built on the lament, practiced by a semi-nomadic community of buffalo herders from Bhagaadiya, Kachchh, Gujarat, India, as a nodal point that connects to all the propositions emerging throughout the course of my thesis. I suggest that the Wayee enables and operates within a sonic infra-structure of grief that works as a modality through which events are remembered and shared. In this way, materials like the Wayee can be perceived as historical-musical codes, that become a means of mapping transnational and transcontinental memories and possibly even deriving old musical linkages and histories of migration. These histories lie in the way they are told; in the way they are sung and it is these infra-structures that make such histories apparent. This Practice-as Research (PaR) thesis comprises of two inter connected components—a written thesis and a performance event+exhibition. The written thesis seeks to arrive at methods and frameworks through which historiographical methods and research can be interwoven with performance practice. The first chapter discusses pre-colonial pasts and embodied histories and considers how certain forms of performance like the Wayee, become a modality of remembering where the sonic medium holds a unique capacity of installing the past in the present. The second chapter discusses nomadic histories and opens out the body as a site in which pasts are kept alive through a performative medium like the sonic (the lament being an aspect). The third chapter provides a sonic vocabulary to be used as an academic hearing-aid, making musical perception available to the unversed, not just the musically adept, and introduces the concept of infra-structures. Chapter Four uses Sara Ahmad's notion of affective economies and Karmen Mackendrick's idea around the fleshy materiality of the sonic to explicate affective infra-structures through which histories that appear to be ‘lost' show themselves. The final chapter summarizes the written thesis and includes a introduction and link to the thesis performance and exhibition as well as a reflection on it. The aim of the performance event is to explore the shape of grief, and the subject of synchronicities and departures through a transcontinental musical collaborative exploration of the maahaul (musical atmosphere). The exhibition will include artworks produced during the doctoral process and aural/visual citations, that have led to the insights collected in the written thesis. I wish to re-center feeling, and focus on how affective infra-structures of grief are spread across Afro-Eur-Asian lives in ways that enable us to recognize the lament not just as a moving expression of deep sorrow, but as an empowering and powerful modality through which transnational and transcontinental solidarities were forged, are remembered, and can be rebuilt today. | |
| dc.identifier.apacitation | Dash, K. (2026). <i>Mapping affective infra-structures: engaging pre-colonial embodied histories of grief through performance</i>. (). University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Centre for Film and Media Studies. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/43441 | en_ZA |
| dc.identifier.chicagocitation | Dash, Kathyayini. <i>"Mapping affective infra-structures: engaging pre-colonial embodied histories of grief through performance."</i> ., University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Centre for Film and Media Studies, 2026. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/43441 | en_ZA |
| dc.identifier.citation | Dash, K. 2026. Mapping affective infra-structures: engaging pre-colonial embodied histories of grief through performance. . University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Centre for Film and Media Studies. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/43441 | en_ZA |
| dc.identifier.ris | TY - Thesis / Dissertation AU - Dash, Kathyayini AB - This thesis explores the relationship between sound, body and history. It proposes the concept of affective infra-structures that emerges out of an engagement with the idea of embodied histories and explores musical entrances into historiography. I draw from my pilot fieldwork for the RAA Project1 and use the Wayee, a musical system built on the lament, practiced by a semi-nomadic community of buffalo herders from Bhagaadiya, Kachchh, Gujarat, India, as a nodal point that connects to all the propositions emerging throughout the course of my thesis. I suggest that the Wayee enables and operates within a sonic infra-structure of grief that works as a modality through which events are remembered and shared. In this way, materials like the Wayee can be perceived as historical-musical codes, that become a means of mapping transnational and transcontinental memories and possibly even deriving old musical linkages and histories of migration. These histories lie in the way they are told; in the way they are sung and it is these infra-structures that make such histories apparent. This Practice-as Research (PaR) thesis comprises of two inter connected components—a written thesis and a performance event+exhibition. The written thesis seeks to arrive at methods and frameworks through which historiographical methods and research can be interwoven with performance practice. The first chapter discusses pre-colonial pasts and embodied histories and considers how certain forms of performance like the Wayee, become a modality of remembering where the sonic medium holds a unique capacity of installing the past in the present. The second chapter discusses nomadic histories and opens out the body as a site in which pasts are kept alive through a performative medium like the sonic (the lament being an aspect). The third chapter provides a sonic vocabulary to be used as an academic hearing-aid, making musical perception available to the unversed, not just the musically adept, and introduces the concept of infra-structures. Chapter Four uses Sara Ahmad's notion of affective economies and Karmen Mackendrick's idea around the fleshy materiality of the sonic to explicate affective infra-structures through which histories that appear to be ‘lost' show themselves. The final chapter summarizes the written thesis and includes a introduction and link to the thesis performance and exhibition as well as a reflection on it. The aim of the performance event is to explore the shape of grief, and the subject of synchronicities and departures through a transcontinental musical collaborative exploration of the maahaul (musical atmosphere). The exhibition will include artworks produced during the doctoral process and aural/visual citations, that have led to the insights collected in the written thesis. I wish to re-center feeling, and focus on how affective infra-structures of grief are spread across Afro-Eur-Asian lives in ways that enable us to recognize the lament not just as a moving expression of deep sorrow, but as an empowering and powerful modality through which transnational and transcontinental solidarities were forged, are remembered, and can be rebuilt today. DA - 2026 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town KW - Wayee KW - Practice-as Research KW - Afro-Eur-Asian LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 2026 T1 - Mapping affective infra-structures: engaging pre-colonial embodied histories of grief through performance TI - Mapping affective infra-structures: engaging pre-colonial embodied histories of grief through performance UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/43441 ER - | en_ZA |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/43441 | |
| dc.identifier.vancouvercitation | Dash K. Mapping affective infra-structures: engaging pre-colonial embodied histories of grief through performance. []. University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Centre for Film and Media Studies, 2026 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/43441 | en_ZA |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.language.rfc3066 | eng | |
| dc.publisher.department | Centre for Film and Media Studies | |
| dc.publisher.faculty | Faculty of Humanities | |
| dc.publisher.institution | University of Cape Town | |
| dc.subject | Wayee | |
| dc.subject | Practice-as Research | |
| dc.subject | Afro-Eur-Asian | |
| dc.title | Mapping affective infra-structures: engaging pre-colonial embodied histories of grief through performance | |
| dc.type | Thesis / Dissertation | |
| dc.type.qualificationlevel | Doctoral | |
| dc.type.qualificationlevel | PhD |