Avez-vous dit ‘sœurcière’ ?
Penned as an essay, this paper tackles the emergence of the “sœurcière” archetype –in French a portmanteau word merging the notion of sisterhood with that of witches—as part of an interdisciplinary creative research project carried out in situ in the Natural National Reserve of the Massane, an ancie...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fra |
| Published: |
Pléiade (EA 7338)
2023-10-01
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| Series: | Itinéraires |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/itineraires/10355 |
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| Summary: | Penned as an essay, this paper tackles the emergence of the “sœurcière” archetype –in French a portmanteau word merging the notion of sisterhood with that of witches—as part of an interdisciplinary creative research project carried out in situ in the Natural National Reserve of the Massane, an ancient forest recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A couple of years in the making, the project calls upon dance, film, photography, and writing. Driven by ecofeminist and ecopoetic thinking and practices, it seeks to help restore our sensitive attention to the living world.Framed by two poetic pieces, the titles of which refer to ecophenomenologist David Abram’s work, this essay brings together writing and photography. Braiding the intimate and the political, I first interweave a personal narrative based on a story of incest with the presentation of an ecofeminist enterprise grounded in the concept of “resilience,” which is key to both ecology and psychology. I then retrace the evolution of the archetype of the witch into that of the « sœurcière », insisting on the positive values conveyed by the latter and explicating which forms of empowerment are thereby encouraged. In my third part, I unravel the main ecopoetic principles underlying our approach. These include sympoietic practices linked mostly with the anamorphic power of photography and with our in situ creative stance, i.e. composing a choreography with a live place. As a conclusion, I examine places in contemporary culture and politics where the sœurcière appears as a powerful figure that might renovate the ways in which we imagine women and “nature,” and how we form collectives. |
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| ISSN: | 2427-920X |