Virginie Magnat
Virginie Magnat works at the intersection of performance studies, cultural anthropology, arts-based qualitative inquiry, and Indigenous epistemologies and methodologies. Her two monographs, The Performative Power of Vocality (Routledge 2020), and Grotowski, Women, and Contemporary Performance: Meetings with Remarkable Women (Routledge 2014) and the companion documentary film series (Routledge Performance Archive) were funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Biography
A European artist-scholar from Occitania, Virginie Magnat is Full Professor in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies at UBC’s Okanagan Campus located on the unceded traditional territory of the Syilx (Okanagan) people. Her interdisciplinary research spans the fields of performance studies, cultural anthropology, arts-based qualitative inquiry, and Indigenous epistemologies and methodologies. She co-leads a UBC-funded international research cluster exploring the cultural, spiritual and environmental dimensions of health and well-being.Her second monograph, The Performative Power of Vocality (Routledge 2020), is addressed to qualitative researchers, artist-scholars, and activists committed to decolonization, cultural revitalization, and social justice. This book opens a dialogical space inclusive and respectful of Indigenous ontologies, epistemologies, and methodologies ̶ a space where it becomes possible to consider vocality from the multiplicity of perspectives offered by Indigenous and Western philosophy, sound and voice studies, musicology, ethnomusicology, performance studies, anthropology, sociology, phenomenology, cognitive science, physics, ecology, and biomedicine. Drawing from her performance training, research collaborations, and commitment to cultural diversity, Magnat explores vocality as a vital source of embodied knowledge, creativity, and well-being grounded in process, practice, and place, as well as a form of social and political agency.
Her first monograph is titled Grotowski, Women, and Contemporary Performance: Meetings with Remarkable Women (Routledge 2014) and the companion documentary film series is featured on Routledge Performance Archive.
Both monographs are based on embodied research and multi-sited fieldwork funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Magnat's publications have appeared in North American and international scholarly journals as well as edited collections in the fields of theatre and performance studies, anthropology, ethnomusicology, sociology, qualitative inquiry, and literary criticism in English, French, Polish, Italian, and Spanish.
Education
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PhD in Theatre, University of California
Areas of Research / Professional Expertise
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Performance Studies; Culture, Creativity and Health & Well-Being; Cultural Anthropology; Qualitative Research; Arts-Based Inquiry; Indigenous Epistemologies and Methodologies; World Performance Traditions; Experimental and Intercultural Theatre; Physically-Based Performance Practice; Body-Voice Integration; Traditional Singing.
Websites
Books
Articles
Special Issue "Performance Training and Well-Being"
Published: Mar 09, 2023 by Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, Volume 13, Issue 2 (2022)
Authors: Virginie Magnat and Nathalie Gauthard
Subjects:
Theater
This Special Issue focuses on the relationship between performance training and the notion of well-being, broadly conceived.
(K)new Materialisms: Honouring Indigenous Perspectives
Published: Apr 13, 2022 by Theatre Research in Canada Volume 43 Issue 1, 2022, pp. 24-37
Authors: Virginie Magnat
Subjects:
Research Methods
This article foregrounds the Indigenous ethical principles of respect, reciprocity, relationality, and responsibility that bind human and other/more-than-human agents, a non-anthropocentric conception of agency that may be said to offer a truly radical, if not “new,” eco-critical approach to the crucial questions raised by new materialist and posthumanist scholars.
Chanter la diversité culturelle en Occitanie: Ethnographie performative d’une tradition réimaginée.
Published: Dec 17, 2018 by Anthropologica
Authors: Virginie Magnat
Subjects:
Music, Anthropology - Soc Sci
This performative ethnography of Occitan cultural resurgence through the practice of traditional song and music is situated at the intersection of anthropology, ethnomusicology, sociology, and the interdisciplinary field of performance studies.
Introduction: Ethnography, Performance and Imagination
Published: Dec 17, 2018 by Anthropologica
Authors: Magdalena Kazubowski-Houston and Virginie Magnat
Subjects:
Anthropology - Soc Sci, Research Methods
This introduction to the thematic section entitled “Ethnography, Performance and Imagination” explores performance as “imaginative ethnography” (Elliott and Culhane 2017), a transdisciplinary, collaborative, embodied, critical and engaged research practice that draws from anthropology and the creative arts.
A Traveling Ethnography of Voice in Qualitative Research
Published: Dec 03, 2017 by Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies
Authors:
Subjects:
Anthropology - Soc Sci, Research Methods
This interdisciplinary exploration of voice seeks to open a space for the nondiscursive performative power of vocality in qualitative research.
Introduction to Special Issue: The Transdisciplinary Travels of Ethnography
Published: Nov 02, 2017 by Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies
Authors: Magdalena Kazubowski-Houston and Virginie Magnat
Subjects:
Anthropology - Soc Sci, Research Methods
Introduction to Special Issue "The Transdisciplinary Travels of Ethnography"
Voicing Belonging: Traditional Singing in a Globalized World
Published: Aug 01, 2017 by Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies
Authors: Konstantinos Thomaidis and Virginie Magnat
Subjects:
Music
Why conduct scholarly and artistic research on traditional singing in the global age? Current debates on cultural diversity demonstrate that rethinking regional, national, transnational and global notions of cultural identity is becoming increasingly urgent if we are to acknowledge and value the world’s biocultural diversity beyond borders that separate and delineate nation states, whose sovereignty continues to hinge upon legitimizing constructions of national identity.
“Occitan Music Revitalization as Radical Cultural Activism: From Postcolonial Regionalism to Altermondialisation,”
Published: Oct 04, 2016 by Popular Music and Society
Authors: Virginie Magnat
Subjects:
Music, Anthropology - Soc Sci
The resurgence of Occitan popular music traditions in France is coterminous with the emergence of postcolonial regionalism during the 1970s Larzac protests, following the wave of decolonization in the 1960s and anticipating the anti-globalization movement in subsequent decades.
News
Welcome to Virginie Magnat's Research Website
By: Virginie Magnat
Subjects: Anthropology - Soc Sci, Research Methods