From Aura to Awra: Toward a Tropical Queer Decolonial Performativity in the Philippines

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.22.1.2023.3966

Keywords:

Aura, Awra, Queer Decolonialization, Queer Tropics, Queer Performance, Philippines

Abstract

If datíng is to literary texts, awra is to queer decolonial performances.  From the works of Bienvenido Lumbera and Walter Benjamin, this paper discusses the queering of the term aura and how it operates in tropical performances and discourses, through beki (gay language), as awra. The sign “awra” is resuscitated from the imperial lexis and queered by the topical imagination in the Philippine media. Three media texts expound these claims: Awra Briguela’s song “Clap, Clap, Clap, Awra”; Maymay Entrata’s dance “Amakabogera”; and the noontime TV game show “Beklaban,” a portmanteau of Beki (gay) and laban (fight). The paper highlights moments from these media texts that deploy and perform the term “awra” showing how it functions as a slippery, dynamic, and exuberant queer performance. The local queer tongue of the Philippine LGBT community highjacks this word from the Western epistemology and uses it in queer tropical performances, thus providing the opportunity to theorize a queer decolonial performativity. In this case, as aura becomes awra, it is not just appropriation, nor merely reviving of the word and its sense; rather, it is a reincarnation born into new contexts and politics.

Author Biography

John Paolo Sarce, Ateneo de Manila University, The Philippines

John Paolo Sarce is a queer scholar and lecturer at Ateneo de Manila University and Polytechnic University of the Philippines. He is of Filipino and Japanese parents, but he grew up in the Philippines embracing the tropics and the queerness of the land that nurtured him. He commonly writes about queerness and its intersectionality to Philippine literature and culture as a way to honour and recover his queer indigenous roots as queer or bakla. In the academe, he teaches courses on cultural studies, literature, and pedagogy. His projects are focused on postcolonialism, queer theory, medical humanities, digital humanities, and pedagogy. In his free time, he likes to watch RPDR and anime and then cram for his writing projects. Zodiac sign is his guide to life while reading books is his way of breathing life.

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Published

2023-06-30

How to Cite

Sarce, J. P. (2023). From Aura to Awra: Toward a Tropical Queer Decolonial Performativity in the Philippines. ETropic: Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics, 22(1), 29–52. https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.22.1.2023.3966

Issue

Vol. 22 No. 1 (2023): Decolonizing the Tropics: Part One

Section

Performativity and Performances

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