Transcultural Identity of Twerking: A Cultural Evolution Study of Women’s Bodily Practices of the Slavic and East African Communities

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorŁukaszewicz, Aleksandra
dc.contributor.authorGitonga, Priscilla
dc.contributor.authorShylinhouski, Kiryl
dc.date.accessioned2024-01-29T13:04:34Z
dc.date.available2024-01-29T13:04:34Z
dc.date.issued2024-01
dc.descriptionArticleen_US
dc.description.abstractHuman culture is built upon nature to help humans adapt to their environment – first natural, but later natural-cultural. Cultural practices are aimed at aiding survival in changing environments, and in different settings they meet different environmental pressures, causing later changes in trajectories. According to cultural evolutionism, behaviours, ideas and artefacts are subject to inheritance, competition, accumulation of modifications, adaptation, geographical distribution, convergence and changes of function – these are mechanisms present also in biological evolution. In the following paper, we examine women’s dance and physical exercise practices, which contain similar postures performed in comparable circumstances, as found in initiation ritual dances in chosen East African communities and in Slavic gymnastics for women in the Belarusian tradition. In times of globalization and the mixing of cultures, the position on knees and elbows is recontextualized in a visually attractive form of contemporary dances like Kangamoko and Baikoko, or more widely different variants of ‘twerking’ and reconstructed physical exercises. Approaching ‘twerking’ positions, especially on knees and elbows as a cross-genre performance, we find common roots in the communal support for women’s good wife and mother status teachings in various cultures, showing the importance of women’s circles, women’s health and well-being for the community.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipEuropean Union’s Horizon 2020 Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland entitled “PMW” in 2020-203en_US
dc.identifier.citationŁukaszewicz, A., Gitonga, P., & Shylinhouski, K. (2024). Transcultural Identity of Twerking: A Cultural Evolution Study of Women’s Bodily Practices of the Slavic and East African Communities. Social Epistemology, 1-14.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2023.2291767
dc.identifier.urihttps://ir-library.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/27320
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherTylor and Francisen_US
dc.subjectCultural evolutionismen_US
dc.subjectSlavic gymnasticsen_US
dc.subjectKangamokoen_US
dc.subjecttwerkingen_US
dc.titleTranscultural Identity of Twerking: A Cultural Evolution Study of Women’s Bodily Practices of the Slavic and East African Communitiesen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Transcultural Identity of Twerking....pdf
Size:
1.01 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Full text Article
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.71 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Download
Collections
RP-Department of Music and Dance