Alienable gesture

Bibliographic Data

ID5602227
AuthorsRobyn Holly Taylor‐neu (0000-0002-7978-0913, University of California, Berkeley Berkeley California USA, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume35
Issue3
Publication date2025-10-14
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Linguistic Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1055-1360 • E-ISSN: 1548-1395
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/jola.70029
OpenAlexW4415150486
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited29

This article explores one dimension of gestures' mediation through ethnographic research with Berlin-based auteur animation filmmakers. In positioning gestures as extricable from embodied and environmental contexts, my interlocutors flex the aesthetic and critical potential of what I call gestural alienability. To understand how these artists de- and recontextualize bodily movements, I engage linguistic anthropological writings on gesture and contextualization. Drawing on 2 years of participant observation and conversation, I propose that such processes of gestural alienation underpin the critical (yet unpredictable) potential of mediated gestures to creatively index contexts beyond the immediate or self-evident. Although I focus on auteur animation filmmaking in Berlin as a sharp, reflexive articulation of gestural alienability, the concept has broader salience with respect to the reenactment and (re)mediation of gestures across sites, moments, and materialities

Alienation · Animation · Articulation (sociology · Embodied cognition · Ethnography · Gesture · Mediation · Reflexivity · Salience (neuroscience · Action Observation and Synchronization · Hearing Impairment and Communication

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