Agonistic feedback

From September 14 memos:

The thought has wandered into my mind a few times that in Orality and Literacy Ong suggests that speaking to another person does something to them (and that this might be relevant here). I take this from a couple of different points he makes. One is that oral cultures “consider words to have great power” (p. 32). One of my favorite passages from this book: “A hunter can see a buffalo, smell, taste, and touch a buffalo when the buffalo is completely inert, even dead, but if he hears a buffalo, he had better watch out: something is going on” (p. 32). Sound is connected with life and action. Ong also says that communication in oral cultures is “agonistic” (p. 43). “By keeping knowledge embedded in the human lifeworld, orality situates knowledge within a context of struggle” (pp. 43-44). He gives the examples of riddles (interactive, tricky), bragging, insult competitions (yo’ mama), and portrayals of physical violence in oral stories (p. 44). I would add jokes to this evidence - a highly oral art form that often hinges on an insult or makes the listener groan.

The conversation between audience and teller seems like a fruitful place to keep exploring this idea. Again, obviously related to Carapace as a safe space. The storyteller does something to the audience by speaking. The audience members do something back when they laugh or call out or clap. The agonistic interaction has some ground rules determined by the norms of the community - giving the storyteller license to antagonize the audience, by not only speaking, but telling potentially uncomfortable stories. Audience members are not invited to antagonize the storyteller, but could become storytellers themselves.

In a yo’ mama competition, the two parties trade insults. In fact, they try to outdo each other. Carapace storytellers can antagonize listeners. The listeners can be (and often are) moved to make a response. But they can not be actively antagonistic. Is part of the conflict inherent in their listening? From the beginning of Carapace, it was assumed that lots of people fear public speaking. And people do sometimes tell vulnerable stories. Perhaps the listeners are being antagonistic just by listening.

Listening also does something to the storyteller - as several people have mentioned when they talk about what it feels like to be really listened to.

From September 29 memos:

At the August Carapace I noticed some gesturing from an audience member during one of the stories. First the gestures were used to express the audience member’s interpretation of what might have happened in part of the story, and later to ask a question. I find this to be very interesting audience participation and feedback. First, it wasn’t directed at the storyteller, but at other audience members. It was a kind of side conversation. I don’t think the storyteller was even aware of it. Second it speaks to a limitation of this kind of “conversation.” Storytelling is a mostly one sided conversation. Audience members do “speak” back to the storyteller through facial expressions, laughter, applause, and occasional other exclamations (like “oh!”). But they don’t get to guess aloud what is happening next or ask questions like a listener might be able to do when swapping anecdotes with a friend. Especially interesting in this case was that the audience member was at the table right next to the stage area, facing out, towards the rest of the audience. So although the storyteller probably didn’t see the gestures, they were almost as visible to the rest of the audience as the storyteller (the gesture-er may not have realized this). Perhaps audience members sometimes desire so badly to speak that their comments and questions spill out as gestures. Or perhaps there is something else going on here that I can’t infer just from observation.

This type of audience reaction seems a little more antagonistic. The audience member is very participatory and the participation could detract from the attention to the storyteller.