barbas de nuevo

awesome Beard Anatomy print from etsy

so back when i was first envisioning The Anthropology of Beards, i had 2 associates (the tall one and the gay one, as LT puts it) with whom to scheme. and scheme we did. that's about all we did. we were very good at making plans. and unless we impulsively flipped a coin to determine whether we immediately leave on a 9 hr road trip, we were not nearly as good on following through on those plans.

however, ee (the gay one), took some initiative and talked up The Anthropology of Beards to other colleagues and acquaintances and got some bites. they started scheming without my input and what i envisioned as an anthropology of the performance, symbolism, cultural significance, and community meaning of facial hair (mostly beards) now has a "main theme ... [of] passing and gender."

this is not to say that my work is not about passing or gender. gender most certainly. because the community i was looking at includes women. but to what extent? by what association? and what exactly is the social meaning of vagerino?

and passing is there to a lesser extent. i think one of the most fascinating things about whiskerino is the focus on artistic vision in addition to facial hair. this is NOT a beard contest. if anything it is a photographic contest with a metatheme of beard. thus, there are plenty of men involved who have very light, thin, or otherwise less than ideal ("immense facial hair density, girth, and coverage") beards. and for the majority of the whiskerino duration, most people's faces look just kind of dirty, itchy, and unkempt.

there's also an element of passing in the symbolism and meaning attributed to the beard in an etic v emic perspective. what does a beard allow one to pass for (musician or artist). and what does it markedly disallow one to pass for (businessperson)?

so its all there. but the ways in which i incorporate gender and passing are decidedly not talking about the intersections of "beards/facial hair and transgressive or pathologised sexual practices and diverse sexualities."

and so, this project, may move forward without me. disappointing, but not hopeless. for, the proliferation of an anthropology of beards puts forward all anthropologies of beards. !viva la barba-lucion!