Chapter Five: Dreamworlds of Beavers
After an interlude on Lewis Henry Morgan’s fascination with the architectural industry of beavers, Chapter Five recalls a series of collaborative thought experiments with feminist artists and filmmakers Christy Gast and Camila Marambio. In these pieces of performance art or “undisciplined research,” the artists strive to make beavers visible participants in the “decision-making about their own future.” Throughout, I track the surprising ways in which a pair of human-sized beaver costumes attune their wearers to beaver life.
Questions to Consider
What do you think Christy Gast and Camila Marambio are doing when they act out beaver performances?
What does performance bring to ethnography?
Beavers in the Fuegian Archipelago
