Arts & International Affairs: Vol. 3, No.3/Vol. 4, No. 1, Winter 2018/2019 | Page 7

ARTS & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
In Harjant Gill’s reflections, multimodality entails collaboration, and thus comes with an
inbuilt affordance against a single-authored work. Harjant Gill reflects on his multimodal
scholarship as a visual anthropologist to underscore the shifting grounds of anthropological
fieldwork in relation to the discipline’s objects of study and modes of inquiry.
Multimodality and textual representation should not be seen as mutually exclusive; yet,
it is the former’s appeal to the sensorium that provides a feelingful register for future
scholarship.
Fraser Anderson’s self-reflective account as the former Chief Executive at Scottish Ensemble
(SE) is interspersed with audio-visual material that animates his invaluable insights
into SE and the ways in which small and medium-sized classical music companies
can grow internationally. Not only does Anderson’s article bridge the gap between
researcher and researched but also advocates a better funding deal for smaller Scottish
companies, while providing useful advice for up-and-coming ensembles. It also operationalizes
a vocabulary of music to think about arts production and management in
current global contexts.
Sara Scarsbrook’s fascinating film and associated commentary on grounded theory inthe-making
offers a highly intimate but thorough account of the process of axial coding,
its physicality, as well as the manifold relations it engenders between researcher,
data, space and materials�such as post it notes. It documents the sheer effort put in
data analysis�a process usually not considered worthy of academic discussion�by
foregrounding the mundane tasks involved in the everyday life of the analyst�indeed,
ground theory in action. Sarah Scarsbrook’s notes and film reveal that grounded theory,
which generates knowledge out of the deep knowledge of subjects, entails physical and
mental fatigue on part of the researcher. Ironically, it is not the subject who is affixed but
the researcher who is exhausted in trying to understand and code the conversations.
Jean-Benoît Falisse’s article on the emergence of Amani music festival in Eastern DR
Congo highlights another important aspect of reflective research, namely that ubiquity
of arts: Falisse is an economist who accidentally became involved in organization of the
festival while he was in the country for his doctoral research. Notably, he co-curated six
editions of the festival, the last one held in February 2019. Documenting the festival
on film, and the inclusion of videos of several performers adds an extra layer of sound,
movement and color to an already lively piece.
The issue also includes two conversational pieces. One is a discussion between John
Reardon, Artist in Residence in the Politics Department at Goldsmiths, University of
London, and Professor Rosalyn Deutsche about the project Monument for Chelsea Manning,
“an ongoing attempt to permanently site a traditional bronze head and shoulders
in the small market town of Haverford west, Wales.” The discussion touches on a variety
of topics, from the nature of public space and monuments to identity politics and the
relationship between art and politics. The interview shows that displacement of existing
“monument” or sculpture installation practices in communities may not be so hard af-
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