About Me: Jordan Brown
I'm a black feminist DJ-scholar from the Inland Empire (IE) in Southern California. You can find me behind the DJ booth, on the dancefloor, facilitating learning spaces, or chatting/thinking/writing at my local coffee shop/bar. I love to play genre-bending tunes that help release stress from the body. I've been DJing in Southern California's grassroots art/music/activist scene since 2021. In 2019, I earned my BA in History from Spelman College. Currently, I am on a dissertation completion fellowship funded by University of California, Riverside’s (UCR) Graduate Division. I balance DJing while working to complete my Ph.D. in Anthropology at UCR.
About this webite:
This site accompanies my dissertation, Emergent Dancefloors: Berlin Memories and Worldmaking Through a Crisis of Care, a culination of the community-led research I conducted with a multitude of wonderful people, all of which work and participate in Berlin’s queer nightlife ecosystem as gig-workers, DJs, harm reductionists, door staff, party collective members, and people who believe that better dancefloors are possible. I set out for the field in 2023, funded by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service / Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) through their Dissertation Fieldwork Fellowship.
This site features maps, timelines, party flyers, photos, and field recordings that archive the memories of my experiences in Berlin. Click through the pages and explore a snapshot of my time in Berlin.
Dissertation Abstract:
*For those who do not currently have access to the full dissertation, here is the abstract which summarizes my research*
Places where people dance are in the process of coming into aliveness:
This research explores vulnerability as a black feminist methodology. It examines the grief of living through and refusing the contemporary political moment: a period of time in which the dominating oppressive culture of the white, cis-hetero, patriarchal, capitalistic world (or simply, the white imagination (3) ) perpetuates, facilitates, and normalizes neglect, abuse, harm, and other forms of individual and systemic violence. This moment is felt globally and thus exists in the research location: Berlin, Germany. Germany imagines itself as a white nation; subsequently marginalizing all non-white citizens and migrants alike. The role of memory and vulnerability in this ethnographic research provides a succulent texture and context for those living against this political moment.
What does it mean to be an emergent dancefloor (4) ? How do we live, play, and care for ourselves and one another in the face of violence? An emergent dancefloor may look like the connections and small practices used by nightlife gig-workers who strive to conjure dancefloors with a pulse; countering both the popular narrative that dancefloors are dead, and the reality of living with an oppressive culture that operates through violent means. How/do the liberatory practices of harm reduction and awareness make worlds of care and play for all who enter the dancefloor?
References:
1.
Liberatory harm reduction is defined as “a framework for supporting people’s self-determination and supporting people’s ideas around what freedom means to them and how they relate to their body and the people around them…. As well as finding safer ways to practice a risky behavior.” Hassan, Shira. Saving our own lives: A liberatory practice of harm reduction. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2022, 33.
2. Dorinne K. Kondo, Worldmaking: Race, Performance, and the Work of Creativity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2018), 29.
3. White imagination: Where the idea for the normalization of the need and persistent use of violent systems originates. For example, the idea that black lesbians are hyper-sexual comes from “some white imagination” Not reality, where the cultural reinforcing of said imagined idea creates a stereotype that results into real harm for the affected group. adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds (Chico, CA: AK Press, 2017), 18.
4. Emergent (adj.): in the process of coming into being (being meaning aliveness) or becoming prominent. Also see: Emergent Strategy,“Emergence notices the way small actions and connections create complex systems, patterns that become ecosystems and societies. Emergence is our inheritance as a part of this universe; it is how we change. Emergent Strategy is how we intentionally change in ways that grow our capacity to embody the just and liberated worlds we long for” AND “Emergence emphasizes critical connections over critical mass” brown, Emergent Strategy, 3.
2. Dorinne K. Kondo, Worldmaking: Race, Performance, and the Work of Creativity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2018), 29.
3. White imagination: Where the idea for the normalization of the need and persistent use of violent systems originates. For example, the idea that black lesbians are hyper-sexual comes from “some white imagination” Not reality, where the cultural reinforcing of said imagined idea creates a stereotype that results into real harm for the affected group. adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds (Chico, CA: AK Press, 2017), 18.
4. Emergent (adj.): in the process of coming into being (being meaning aliveness) or becoming prominent. Also see: Emergent Strategy,“Emergence notices the way small actions and connections create complex systems, patterns that become ecosystems and societies. Emergence is our inheritance as a part of this universe; it is how we change. Emergent Strategy is how we intentionally change in ways that grow our capacity to embody the just and liberated worlds we long for” AND “Emergence emphasizes critical connections over critical mass” brown, Emergent Strategy, 3.