| Title |
Dance Music and Creative Resilience within Prison Walls: Revisiting Cebu's Dancing Prisoners |
|
Authors |
Menelito P. Mansueto |
|
Publication date |
2019/10 |
|
Journal |
Social Ethics Society Journal of Applied Philosophy |
| Volume |
Vol. 5 |
| Issue |
# 2 |
| Pages |
133-161 |
| Publisher |
Social Ethics Society, Inc. |
| Abstract |
Using Michel Foucault's concept of governmentality vis-a脗聽-vis Appadurai's "global ethnoscapes" as frames, I argue for a techno-cultural dimension that brought forth the phenomenon of the "dancing inmates," an argument against the charge of Filipino colonial mimicry of a Hollywood popular entertainment. Albeit the inmates' dance routines indeed depict Foucault's "docile bodies" in his analysis of the modern prison, as pointed out by critics, I am inclined to show how the internet mediation through social media networks awakened a culturally imbibed dance and musical character trait vis-a-vis the jolly cultural disposition of Filipinos. Thus, I view these characteristics as existential responses, hence, "creative resilience," to the inhuman incarcerating conditions of prison life through using the art of dance with the aid of media technology. I argue on the role of the internet as the prisoners' avenue to the outside world that was strategically deprived of them as a form of punishment, and the role of the internet as their last frontier to freedom and to realize their human potential. |
| Index terms / Keywords |
Colonial Mimicry, Panopticism, Spectacle of Power, Western Gaze, Global Ethnoscapes, Filipino Culture, Bisayan People |
| URL |
|
Mindanao State
University - Iligan Institute of Technology