Book Review: Eco Soma: Pain and Joy in Speculative Performance Encounters

Abstract

Engaging with the intersection of the self and the environment in the wide array of well-chosen performances it analyses, Petra Kuppers’ Eco Soma: Pain and Joy in Speculative Performance Encounters substantiallyinvites a rethinking of material enmeshmentsembodied in the self that is marked by various agencies—be they geographical, historical, or cultural. Her argument insists on paying attention to performances not as generically embodied and somatic experiences but as tied to specific concerns and struggles. This is where we recognize our true selves embodied in eco somatic relationality. Eco somais a threshold between inclusion andexclusion. This is how new sensations and new formations emerge with shifting time while witnessing and participating at the same time. The founding recognition of minoritized communities in somatic and eco somatic performancesopens a spacefor various works relating minorities to environmental justice.N/A