Reviewed by:

• ¡Presente! The Politics of Presence by Diana Taylor
• Claire Pamment

Diana Taylor’s theoretically provocative, artful, and politically rich new book asks, “What to do when it seems that nothing can be done, and doing nothing is not an option?” (2). Amidst the continually unfolding violence and acts of disappearance throughout the Americas, undergirded by colonial histories, imperialist interventions, and neoliberal extractivist practices—that many of us in academia are embedded in— Taylor invokes artists, activists, and scholars to presence, or to be presente! Presente in this monograph is multivalent—it’s the act of taking a basin of blood between the Guatemalan Constitutional Court to the National Palace by performance artist José Galindo in her office-job lunch break upon hearing of former dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt’s running for parliament in 2003 (124), through to the armed action of the Zapatistas of Chiapas with their iconic masks and “noisy silence” (76).

Meandering through the many presencings of this book, is the continually reflective scholar-activist-artist present at the scene—as witness, protestor, collaborator, provocateur, engaged in the reciprocal process of acting with others. Taylor reminds us that political interventions require a complex play of embodied [End Page 145] doings and relationalities between scholars, artists, and activists. Building from Dwight Conquergood’s urge for a shift in performance studies from objectivity to proximities and embodiment, Taylor’s urgent call to presente is relational, situated, reflective, low to the ground, and rooted in decolonial practice (Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, among others). Her interdisciplinariness is expansive, without being expansionist, joining “fugitives, artists, scholars and activists” (24) interested in other forms of worldmaking.

Comprising nine chapters, readers are invited to walk and talk with Taylor over her expansive life line of work, encounters that often unfold around her time as founding director of the Hemispheric Institute (1998–2020), but sometimes take other temporalities, in journeys in and across Mexico, Guatemala, São Paulo, Santiago de Chile, Montreal, and the United States. She cautions that this is not autobiography. Indeed, the individuated I, as she persuasively theorizes, is a product of the colonial enterprise, one that annuls reciprocity and relationality. There are frictions in these journeys—the discussion of trans hurt following the queer play Juana la Larga (2014) in chapter six feels too quickly glossed for a call for “we-ness.” However, Taylor on the whole critically unfurls the challenges and different ways of being present through embodied and discursive acts of transfer. My personal favorite is the final chapter, which features Taylor’s encounter with the GM food corporation Monsanto and her collaboration with artivists The Yes Men (Jesusa Rodrίguez, Jacques Servin) in an act of environmental activism. Impersonating the company through a fake web site and news release, led to legal threats and demands from Monsanto for an apology from New York University, Taylor’s institutional home. Taylor’s interaction with university lawyers and senior administrators exposed the fragility of academic freedom in the neoliberal academy and its embeddedness in structures of corporate power and violence. The book’s many scenes, from tour-guiding in sites of trauma, theatre in shopping malls, to Monsanto and the US university, fold in to each other, interrelated in the colonial-neoliberal cartographies. Yet where violence is interconnected, Taylor suggests so too is resistance. Taylor does not settle into foreclosing notions of performance efficacy and subversion, concepts that have often been the mainstay of performance studies. Instead, she engages in more generative acts of transfer— untethering colonial epistemologies and signposting ways for the production and performance of knowledge to be more present in political struggles—thereby making this book widely relevant across geographical and disciplinary boundaries. [End Page 146]

审核人：

• ¡ 呈现！戴安娜·泰勒的存在政治
• 克莱尔·帕门特

戴安娜·泰勒（Diana Taylor）的这本理论上具有煽动性、巧妙性和政治色彩丰富的新书问道：“当似乎无能为力、无所作为又不是一种选择时该怎么办？” (2)。在殖民历史、帝国主义干预和新自由主义采掘主义实践的支撑下，在整个美洲不断展开的暴力和失踪行为中——我们许多学术界人士都深陷其中——泰勒呼吁艺术家、活动家和学者在场或成为呈现！演示者在这本专着中是多价的——这是表演艺术家何塞·加林多（José Galindo）在听到前独裁者何塞·埃弗拉因·里奥斯·蒙特（José Efraín Ríos Montt）在 2003 年竞选议会后，在办公室工作的午休时间，在危地马拉宪法法院和国家宫之间流血的行为（124），到恰帕斯萨帕塔人的武装行动，他们带着标志性的面具和“嘈杂的沉默”（76）。

在这本书的众多展示中，不断反思的学者-活动家-艺术家出现在现场——作为见证者、抗议者、合作者、挑衅者，参与与他人行动的互惠过程。泰勒提醒我们，政治干预需要在学者、艺术家和活动家之间进行复杂的体现[End Page 145]行为和关系。基于德怀特·康克古德 (Dwight Conquergood) 对绩效研究从客观性转向接近性和具身性的渴望，泰勒紧急呼吁呈现是关系的、定位的、反思的、低调的、植根于非殖民主义实践（Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui 等）。她的跨学科性是广泛的，而不是扩张主义者，加入了对其他形式的世界创造感兴趣的“逃犯、艺术家、学者和活动家”(24)。

共有九章，读者被邀请与泰勒一起散步和谈论她广阔的工作生涯，这些相遇经常在她作为半球研究所（1998-2020）的创始主任期间展开，但有时会采取其他时间，在旅途中并横跨墨西哥、危地马拉、圣保罗、智利圣地亚哥、蒙特利尔和美国。她警告说，这不是自传。事实上，正如她有说服力的理论那样，个体化的我是殖民事业的产物，它取消了互惠和关系。这些旅程中存在摩擦——在酷儿剧Juana la Larga之后对跨性别伤害的讨论（2014 年）在第六章中感觉太快掩盖了对“我们”的呼吁。然而，泰勒总体上通过具身化和话语性的转移行为批判性地展现了挑战和不同的存在方式。我个人最喜欢的是最后一章，其中讲述了泰勒与通用食品公司孟山都公司的相遇以及她与艺术家 The Yes Men（Jesusa Rodrίguez，Jacques Servin）在环保行动中的合作。通过虚假网站和新闻发布冒充该公司，导致孟山都公司提出法律威胁和要求，要求泰勒的机构所在地纽约大学道歉。泰勒与大学律师和高级管理人员的互动暴露了新自由主义学院学术自由的脆弱性及其在企业权力和暴力结构中的嵌入。这本书的许多场景，从创伤现场的导游、购物中心的剧院，到孟山都和美国大学，都相互融合，在殖民新自由主义的地图中相互关联。然而，在暴力相互关联的地方，泰勒认为抵抗也是如此。泰勒并没有安于排除绩效效能和颠覆的概念，这些概念通常是绩效研究的支柱。取而代之的是，她从事更具创造性的转移行为——摆脱殖民认识论的束缚，并为知识的生产和表现在政治斗争中更多地呈现出路标——从而使这本书在地理和学科边界之间具有广泛的相关性。相互折叠，在殖民新自由主义制图中相互关联。然而，在暴力相互关联的地方，泰勒认为抵抗也是如此。泰勒并没有安于排除绩效效能和颠覆的概念，这些概念通常是绩效研究的支柱。取而代之的是，她从事更具创造性的转移行为——摆脱殖民认识论的束缚，并为知识的生产和表现在政治斗争中更多地呈现出路标——从而使这本书在地理和学科边界之间具有广泛的相关性。相互折叠，在殖民新自由主义制图中相互关联。然而，在暴力相互关联的地方，泰勒认为抵抗也是如此。泰勒并没有安于排除绩效效能和颠覆的概念，这些概念通常是绩效研究的支柱。取而代之的是，她从事更具创造性的转移行为——摆脱殖民认识论的束缚，并为知识的生产和表现在政治斗争中更多地呈现出路标——从而使这本书在地理和学科边界之间具有广泛的相关性。这些概念通常是性能研究的支柱。取而代之的是，她从事更具创造性的转移行为——摆脱殖民认识论的束缚，并为知识的生产和表现在政治斗争中更多地呈现出路标——从而使这本书在地理和学科边界之间具有广泛的相关性。这些概念通常是性能研究的支柱。取而代之的是，她从事更具创造性的转移行为——摆脱殖民认识论的束缚，并为知识的生产和表现在政治斗争中更多地呈现出路标——从而使这本书在地理和学科边界之间具有广泛的相关性。[结束第 146 页]