Researcher Profiles

Elan Marchinko

Elan Marchinko, BA Honours Sociology (2010), MA Cultural Analysis & Social Theory (2012)

Briefly describe the professor and research project you are working with.

I am working with Dr. Angela Failler on her Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) funded project Building Communities of Memory: Remembrance Practice After the 1985 Air India Bombings.

Dr. Failler has encouraged me to carve out my own project within the larger one. I theorize the role of dance in mediating memories of the 1985 bombings. In particular, I write about South Asian-Canadian artist Lata Pada’s 2001 bharatanatyam dance performance Revealed By Fire: A Woman’s Journey of Transformation, about her journey through the loss of her husband and two daughters in the bombing of Air India Flight 182.

I argue that official and mainstream efforts to remember and redress the 1985 Air India Bombings, such as official apologies, monuments and anti-terrorist legislation, deploy a paranoid “hermeneutics of suspicion” that stifles alternative possibilities for negotiating remembrance and reparation. Reframing Pada’s performance through psychoanalytic and affect theories, I theorize alternative ways of remembering and redressing the bombings outside of their current “war-on-terror” framings, as Dr. Failler conceives of them.

Why do you want to do this kind of research?

Firstly, I want to set the “official,” mainstream and creative “archives” surrounding Air India in motion and in dialogue with each other instead of in collision. In other words, I don’t just want to throw stones at government implemented endeavours to (supposedly) pay tribute to those who lost their lives. I seek to parse out the ways in which the creative archive may illuminate the fissures and gaps in state-sanctioned remembrance and suggest an attitude of epistemic humility regarding public mourning.

Secondly, I do this research to question the unwritten rule that only censored, happy versions of history are acceptable, lest we tarnish the veneer of Canada as a happy cultural mosaic, as it is upheld in popular and state-sanctioned imaginaries. How might we promote a more ethical, heterogeneous approach to national remembrance and reparation? How might we politicize the victims’ families’ expressions of grief? How might art and live performance operate as acts of transfer of counter-knowledges? How might art implicate those not directly affected by the bombings as witnesses in Air India’s continuing story? What new knowledge lies beneath the smooth veneers of “concrete” subjecthood and/or nationhood?

How do you think this research benefits you in developing your skills and abilities?

This research project has expanded my skill set in many ways. I have assisted with creating travel itineraries and managing logistics for research trips within Canada and overseas to Ireland, transcribed interview material, learned to operate video recording equipment, and continue to maintain an online database of relevant news items for content and discourse analysis.

What is the best part, or what has surprised you in doing this research?                 

The most exciting part was travelling to Ireland with Dr. Failler to carry out field work at the Air India memorial site in June 2010. As scholars, we spend so much time in abstract, theoretical space so it was very refreshing to put theory into practice and have such a “hands-on” experience. Speaking with the family members and friends of those murdered in the 1985 bombings was profound. I became keenly aware of how important it is for me, as a researcher, to identify my positionality in relation to my research subjects. In other words, there is a difference between speaking “for” a group and supporting a group of people through dialogue.

What would you say to students thinking about attending UWinnipeg regarding research opportunities here?                                                                                        

There are so many professors doing brilliant research at UWinnipeg! If you are passionate and willing to work hard, they will want to work with you. Get acquainted with your professors’ research specialties and areas of interest. If they align with your own, take advantage of any Teaching Assistant or Research Assistant positions that may come available.

What are your personal goals, how do you hope to use your education down the road?

I plan to pursue my Ph.D in Interdisciplinary Studies. I would love to teach courses on the body, performance, feminist theory and affect studies.