3. Who
© Nandita Dinesh, CC BY 4.0 http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0099.03
Exploring Grey Zones
So how does one manage a performance in a country at war? First, you have to have a balance of actors... I decided not to choose real Hutu and Tutsi and Twa but to take actors with the physical appearance of Hutu, the physical appearance of Tutsi. I learned very early on that the first thing the audience do is count how many Hutus, how many Tutsi and how many Twa, and they say, ‘OK, it is balanced’ based on the appearance. Second, you have to balance the crimes committed by both ethnic groups. For example, you have two columns. The Hutus’ crimes are typically using ‘machetes’, cutting off limbs, pounding babies and so on, while the Tutsi’s crimes are typically making spears from bamboo, killing intellectuals, killing fathers of families... Then, when people tell the testimony of a Hutu crime then, just after, we hear a Tutsi crime, and it is like that sys-tem-at-ic-al-ly [emphasis in original] (Frederique Lecomte; in Balfour, Hughes and Thompson, 2009a: 181).
Deciding on an intention for a theatre-in-war project and making a choice as to where the intervention might occur leads to a subsequent contemplation of the Whos that are involved. When I consider the notion of Who, I refer both to choices about the co-collaborators that theatre-in-war practitioner-researchers creates work with and the audiences that the work will be created for. Since every individual and the groups to which they belong are tagged either as some kind of ‘victim’ or ‘perpetrator’ in a conflict/post-conflict zone, a consideration of these categories and its nuances can provide the theatre-in-war practitioner-researcher with clues as to who their potential collaborators and audiences might be.
Who one chooses to collaborate with in a place of war often comes to be seen as the ‘side’ that an interventionist takes, whether or not the practitioner-researcher has in fact chosen a side. Although the notion of picking sides is more contentious in a place of active conflict, this risk does apply to post-conflict zones as well — choosing who to work with and who to show the theatrical work to become political and ethical decisions that have repercussions both on how the theatre maker is seen in that place, and on the risks that might ensue for local collaborators. What I have found to be useful when entering a conflict zone is to consider the ‘victim’/‘perpetrator’1 binary as a spectrum, and it is the significance of this spectrum to theatre-in-war work that this chapter will explore. My views on the victim/perpetrator spectrum stem from this understanding: that while it is quite obvious that not all people who live in zones of conflict are victims, it is not so readily apparent that all those who are not considered victims are also not perpetrators. Therefore, by drawing from other practitioners’ and scholars’ articulations regarding victimhood, perpetration, and the spaces between them, this chapter considers how a nuanced understanding of the victim/perpetrator continuum might subsequently feed into choices about the demography of our collaborators and audiences in theatre-in-war interventions.
The notion of looking at victimhood and perpetration as a continuum or a spectrum, rather than a binary, ‘is especially productive for an analysis of situations of conflict in which “spectacular” political violence tends to deflect “unspectacular” forms, contributing to the social invisibility and normalization of the latter’ (Roy, 2008: 319). And in dealing with this question of which kinds of violence are made invisible within the more dominant narratives of war, and ergo, conflicts that we might explore as theatre-in-war researchers and practitioners, it is useful to look at Judith Butler’s (2009: 38) proposition in which she urges one to look at a place of war and ask ‘whose lives are considered valuable, whose lives are mourned, and whose lives are considered ungrievable’. Proposing that we ‘might think of war as dividing populations into those who are grievable and those who are not’, Butler’s (ibid.) suggestion points toward how an exploration of the spaces between victimhood and perpetration might manifest on the ground. The idea of ‘ungrievable lives’ from Butler also finds resonances with what Carolyn Nordstrom (2004) calls the distinction between the ‘place’ and the ‘non-place’ in her ethnographic work from Mozambique. While the place is considered by Nordstrom to include zones that are recognized spaces of intervention (usually implying an engagement with those who are more obviously considered as victims of a conflict), the non-place ‘is the elsewhere that is populated by shadowy figures in dark coats: the realms constructed in popular thought as the province of misery and danger… the homeless, the criminal, the illicit, the marginal’ (ibid.: 37).
The spectrum between victim and perpetrator therefore, in intersecting with the notions of ungrievable lives and non-places, has come to be significant in my own approach to understanding my collaborators’ and spectators’ identities in times and places of war. In this approach I have come to consider that it might be precisely in the shadows, within murky terrain, that there emerges immense potential for theatre-in-war interventions. With this proposition I am by no means suggesting that work with (more obvious) victims is irrelevant or unimportant. Rather, I am simply proposing that if more theatre-in-war interventions were to seek to excavate the ‘grey’, rather than the ‘black’ and ‘white’, we might understand just a little bit more about what aesthetic explorations can re-imagine in times and places of war. Before examining the ‘grey’ more closely however, it is important to explore dominant ideas surrounding victimhood and perpetration in places of war.
In every conflict or post-conflict zone, there is a group or, indeed a series of groups who are considered ‘victims’ and ‘if one asserts that victims should not be constructed heroically, one risks being accused of violating their memory’ (Gilbert in Balfour, 2007: 9). So, what are some of the dominant understandings of victimhood in places of war? Who are the individuals and groups that, by most people’s definition, are considered ‘victims’? In my experience there are three ways in which dominant understandings of victimhood manifest in contexts of violence: in the narratives of (perceived) innocents who lose their lives or barely escape death; in the narratives of those who disappear; in the narratives of those who witness the loss of life or disappearance of those around them. In the first of these narratives, victims are generally considered to be those who lose their lives or come close to losing their lives as a result of acts of violence that are committed against them for no fault of their own (i.e., simply because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or because they belong to the ‘wrong’ side of the conflict in the eyes of their perpetrators). In the second dominant narrative of victimhood, we encounter those who have disappeared; different conflicts across the world have utilized this strategy as a means of perpetration: of disappearing victims, who then leave victimized families who do not ever come to know the fate of their loved ones. It is assumed that disappeared victims have fallen victim to torture, imprisonment, and/or murder and the question that surrounds the narratives about the disappeared is not of their innocence or guilt. Rather it is about the ways in which these individuals vanish without a trace, leaving intergenerational victims who remain at a loss as to how they might contend with the disappearance of someone they held dear. This intergenerational/intragenerational victimization is what I consider to be the third dominant understanding of victimhood — the bystanders, onlookers, the families of those who have (almost) died, or been disappeared — victims in their own right; individuals whose lived experiences also form part of a dominant understanding of victimhood.
In these victims’ deaths, in their silences, in their disappearances, how do we engage with the testimonies of those who survive? In thinking about this question I have found it useful to reflect on Giorgio Agamben’s (1999) Remnants of Auschwitz, a work that explores the various layers to unravel in the testimonies of victims who survive and/or bear witness to violence. Agamben draws from Primo Levi (in ibid.: 33) to say that since ‘witnesses are by definition survivors’ it is impossible to speak to the destiny of the ‘common’ victim since, in many contexts of conflict, ‘it does not become possible for [the common victim] to survive’. In order to substantiate this point, Agamben — again, drawing from Levi (in ibid.) — focuses attention on the Muselmann in the Nazi concentration camps; those people who got closest to death, ‘those who saw the Gorgon’, but ‘have returned mute’. In so doing, Agamben (ibid.: 34) explores what it might mean to be a ‘complete’ witness to situations of extreme violence, when those who have come closest to death (other than those who have died), do not or, indeed, cannot speak in languages that many of us can understand. Categorized as suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or other trauma-based conditions, these narratives of victimhood might be seen as manifesting in silences, in gazes, in hollowed cheeks, and in moans. We cannot understand these voices because they do not speak in languages that we are accustomed to hearing. Instead, in an Artaudian sense, these victims become hieroglyphs that make us (as listeners, spectators, witnesses) cognizant of what might be missing in our understandings of victimhood.
In the many theatre interventions that I have observed and been part of in places of war, places where ‘complete’ witnesses are considered inaccessible, the narratives of victimhood that are explored tend to be dominated by the victims who survive and who are able to articulate their experiences in linguistic structures that we, as listeners and spectators, can attempt to process. Victims that (intentionally or not) seek to make, ‘the unthinkable, thinkable’ (Mamdani, 2001). However, although there is no denying the insights to be gained from these articulated, dominant accounts of victimhood, neither can it be ignored that looking for/listening to structured testimonies of victimization comes with immense ethical quandaries. While James Thompson’s (2005) Digging Up Stories presents extensive analyses of the ethical questions surrounding story collection, my own encounter with testimonies from survivors and witnesses of war has led me to wonder how, given the dominance of certain forms of victimization and certain forms of bearing witness, a theatre researcher-practitioner might expand their understanding of victimhood in a place of violent conflict. How might we honour the dominant narratives of victimhood without accepting them as complete? How might we heroically construct those who are victims, while also taking pause and considering the un-heroic, shadowy narratives of war?
Notes from the field
He walked in to my room, closed the door, and in a hushed voice asked me: “Have I told you about the time I was tortured?” He began to tell me the story of how he was taken to a torture chamber, of what happened to him. He listed off the torture methods that had been inflicted upon in an almost ‘matter of fact’ way. Tears came and went but it was the ‘matter of fact’ quality to the telling that threw me. I had heard that tone before.
The stories were different, the torturers were different, and the methods were different. But that tone — of the hushed voice, of introducing the story, of outlining the setting, of talking about the methods, of speaking to the aftermath… there was a similarity to how the stories were shared.
Uncomfortable with even noticing this, I tried to attribute the similarity to language. Did the testimonies seem to share a certain quality because they were all being shared in the speaker’s second or third languages? But then, had I not also heard testimonies in English from native English speakers? In Spanish from native Spanish speakers? In Urdu from native Urdu speakers? And still… it is hard to describe this quality that troubles me. To articulate the incongruity that stems from a linear narrative being forced on to episodic events and to encapsulate the unnerving quality of verbal shape being given to inexplicable embodiments.
There is a questioning of one’s own moral code that emerges when you hear these testimonies and are able to step back and see patterns.
You ask yourself if perhaps you have just become too accustomed to hearing stories about war.
You ask yourself if you are looking for something that isn’t there.
You wonder if you are the problem, for being able to stand back and look for patterns and similarities and structures when what is being shared is disturbingly dark.
Perhaps, you eventually think, it is your cultural conditioning that prevents public expressions of emotion; that makes you disengage emotionally and look for alienating observations.
Perhaps it is your academic conditioning that prizes reason over emotion, which puts you in ‘researcher’ mode rather than ‘human’ mode.
As much as I hate to notice these patterns and to see a testimonial culture, rather than simply the sharing of a story, I do see them.
I see the patterns even when I don’t look for them.
I see the patterns even when I try to ignore them.
There is a testimonial culture that seems to dominate so many contexts of war.
And I wonder how these testimonies are implicated within the structures that perpetuate violence.
—
Just as victimhood in a place of war comes with its layers and nuances, so does the idea of perpetration. In every conflict or post-conflict zone, there are groups of people within that context who are considered ‘perpetrators’ — individuals and groups who are generally understood as those who have used or continue to use violence as a strategy. And while ‘the dominant media stereotype portrays perpetrators as monsters’ the image that is most dominant within academic scholarship tends to be quite different (Foster, Haupt and De Beer, 2005: 321). These images speak to perpetrators of violence as ‘ordinary people (gender ignored, but assumed as male) diligently under sway of modern bureaucratic compartmentalisation (the banality of evil thesis), or as obedient to authority and conforming to social pressures (the situationist thesis)’ (ibid.). The reality is even murkier though and a theatre-in-war practitioner-researcher will eventually see that there are layers and nuances to the kinds of perpetration that we encounter in places of conflict. As I move forward and explore different kinds of perpetration, however, it is necessary to offer a disclaimer about the relationship that I see between understanding and empathy. To do so, I will draw from Christopher Browning (1992), a leading Holocaust scholar. In writing on Nazi perpetrators, Browning responds to those critics who suggest that his work seeks to explain acts that are at once inexcusable and unforgiveable: ‘What I do not accept, however, are the old clichés that to explain is to excuse, to understand is to forgive. Explaining is not excusing, understanding is not forgiving’ (in Foster, Haupt and De Beer, 2005: 90). Therefore, while theatre work with victims ‘might be easier to undertake both methodologically and morally; after all, these are the people who suffered’, I have come to wonder if ‘this research route also faces some moral dilemmas’ (ibid.). If ‘there is complete silence about perpetrators’, does it not assist in ‘keeping their violence out of public record and social consciousness’ (ibid.: 91)?
When discussing perpetration, one of the best-known analyses comes from Hannah Arendt’s (1963) Eichmann in Jerusalem. Speaking about the ‘banality of evil’ in this work, Arendt analyses Adolf Eichmann’s trial and the ways in which one individual’s contribution to a larger framework of violence — in this case, the Nazi establishment — might be facilitated by a machinery that allows people to never (necessarily) lift a weapon themselves, and yet enable systems and structures that promote the perpetration of violence. The banality of evil thesis has extended beyond the realm of Holocaust studies with studies of torturers from different contexts emphasising ‘the ordinariness of those they studied’ (Foster, Haupt and De Beer, 2005: 56). Such studies found that much of the time the perpetrators in question showed ‘no evidence of premorbid personality factors, psychopathology or particularly disturbed conditions of upbringing’ (ibid.). Rather, after their period of engagement in acts of violence, very little evidence was found that ‘apart from a medium range of “burnout”, that such people were out of the ordinary’ (ibid.). These people often ‘returned to rather ordinary lives’ after the end of the conflict in question and as a result, these studies might be read as suggesting that people become complicit in acts of violence as a result of ‘particular practices in their routine work environments’ (ibid.). These particular practices could include those that dehumanize the Other; practices that make individuals fear the potential consequences that could arise from disobeying authority; practices that create a feeling of ‘coercion’, whether or not the coercion actually exists — practices that I have encountered and continue to encounter in multiple settings that I inhabit, both within and outside places of war.
While some perpetrators might enact violence or become complicit within violent apparatus for more banal reasons or because of (perceived) coercion, there are certainly those for whom picking up arms is linked with the belief in a cause: idealism, patriotism, whatever we might call it. With such individuals it is not a question of whether or not violence is an acceptable manifestation in the struggle for an ideal, but simply the notion that the greater goal overshadows the loss of lives that takes place in the process. For such perpetrators who believe in the necessity of their violent acts, we might say that there exists a ‘magnitude gap’ (ibid.: 63) between the perpetrators’ understanding of their actions compared to the perspective of their victims. What Roy Baumeister (in ibid.) encountered, and what is perhaps predictable, is that an act of violence ‘is of far greater significance for the victims’ and to the perpetrator of that act, it is ‘often a very small thing’. Furthermore, Baumeister suggests that the experience of victims and perpetrators differ in ‘time perspectives’ where the victim remembers the memory for a long time, while for perpetrators, ‘the memory of the event fades more quickly’ (ibid.). As such, since acts of violence ‘also appear less evil — less wrong — to perpetrators than to victims’, much of the time, perpetrators are said to “attribute external causes to account for their actions” or “claim their actions as warranted, in defence of some just cause” or “due to some characteristic of the victim” (ibid.).
There are various ways in which acts of perpetration might be justified and if certain acts of complicity are seen as being coerced (like the child soldiers in northern Uganda), if other acts of violence might be more banal than coerced (like Adolf Eichmann), if still other acts of violence are driven by belief in a cause (like the Che Guevaras of the world), what about those individuals who become complicit within structures of violence for reasons that have nothing to do with the conflict itself? For instance, what about the soldiers who join their governments’ armed forces so as to take advantage of education subsidies? What about those who become armed insurgents because the army provides a form of stable employment in an otherwise unstable war economy? In these two examples the individuals’ reasons for taking up arms and becoming perpetrators of violence are not necessarily linked to coercion, banality, or idealism. Rather, their actions might be considered a certain manifestation of Baumeister’s magnitude gap i.e., that the gravity of the circumstances that dictates a soldier’s joining the army (a family’s financial struggles that make educational subsidies important) might outweigh (to the soldier) the magnitude of the consequences of their actions during combat (the victims of their acts of violence on the battleground). How might we engage with the non-places that are occupied by this kind of perpetrator?
And just as these ‘pragmatic’ perpetrators engage in acts of violence for reasons outside the conflict itself, how do we begin to explore the narratives of those who become perpetrators just because they can? If we really want to understand perpetrators, it will be necessary to grasp what the acts mean to them, even if it ‘entails seeing the acts as relatively minor, meaningless or trivial’ (ibid.: 64). And therefore, when we speak to why individuals become perpetrators of violence, there is one more significant narrative to consider. In addition to the banal/complicit perpetrator, or the coerced/complicit perpetrator, or the idealistic perpetrator, or the pragmatic perpetrator, there are also those who commit acts of violence because they can and because they want to. In this consideration, I deliberate upon individuals who engage in acts of violence because a time of war gives them the opportunity to behave in ways that they might not or cannot in a time of ‘peace’. We might call such behaviour sociopathic or psychopathic, but regardless of the terms that we use for it, there will always be those who enjoy engaging in acts of violence and revel in the power of wielding arms. Although the individuals who enjoy engaging in acts of violence might be the minority when we look at perpetrators as a larger group, and although their narratives might be relatively inaccessible compared to the perpetrators who can explain their actions through one of the more ‘acceptable’ forms discussed earlier, we need to be aware that this narrative of perpetration also forms part of a context of war.
Banality, idealism, pragmatism, complicity, coercion, apathy, enjoyment are among many points on the spectrum of perpetration; each point containing its own layers to uncover. Dealing with issues surrounding perpetration can therefore be uncomfortable. The act of listening to these narratives can come with its own dangers of complicity, since encountering the ‘magnitude gap’ can be a painful reminder of the cyclical nature to war. And yet, it is a discomfort that I believe arts-based researcher-practitioners might be best positioned to take on. It is precisely because of the non-threatening quality to artistic work, because of the arts being seen as ‘less serious’ in many contexts, that aesthetic explorations of the murky, shadowy non-places of war might be facilitated. The general perception that the arts have nothing to give to or take from perpetrators of violence is precisely the reason why we (as artists) might try to engage with these narratives; precisely why we might be given access to these spaces that to most others will remain inaccessible.
Having said that, I must include a disclaimer here and underscore the fact that I write this from the privileged position of someone who has never had the lived experience of war. As much as I inhabit spaces that are in/post states of conflict, I have not had to endure the suffering of so many others. I am aware that it is this privilege that enables me seek out the voices of perpetrators and to explore the layers to perpetration; that to someone who has been a victim to acts of violence or war, my thoughts might seem like an invalidation of their suffering. All I can say in response is that it is not my intention to excuse or to forgive perpetrators of violence. I simply seek to explore voices that are often unheard, using aesthetic tools to engage with, represent, and transform what I encounter. As long as I remain with this privilege — of having a lived experience that allows me to consider differing perspectives to violence — as an artist and a scholar, as uncomfortable as it makes me, I cannot disengage.
Notes from the field
I sat with the Colonel is his comfortable office, sipping chai, eating samosas, and talking about ‘cultural education’. What might his soldiers have to learn by exploring their artistic proclivities? At some point in the conversation, I asked the Colonel about the human rights violations that many soldiers in the armed forces have been accused of: the rapes; the tortures… “Look, some people do these things”, he said, “we can’t control everyone”.
…
“I would like to conduct a theatre workshop for your soldiers”, I told him, with the expectation of cynicism; perhaps even amusement. After all, given the fraught relationship that continues to exist in Kashmir between civilians and soldiers of the Indian armed forces, could theatre really have a place in creating a different kind of relationship between the two groups? With ‘Indian Dogs Go Back’ painted on many a wall, with stone-pelting being a common occurrence between civilians and the armed forces, the Colonel — I imagined — had more reason to be sceptical than convinced about my offer to make theatre with his soldiers.
Instead of scepticism though, instead of cynicism or amusement, I was met with incredible optimism. Although the nomenclature of the Colonel’s areas of focus — Information Warfare, Perception Management, Psych Operations — gave me cause for pause, the Colonel explained in detail how he believed that artistic initiatives with soldiers in Kashmir were absolutely essential. Speaking passionately and eloquently about the loneliness that his forces face in a ‘hostile’ context, the Colonel described the doubt and confusion that many of his men felt at doing what they were doing. Who were they representing? What cause were they serving? Why were they even in Kashmir? The Colonel went on tell me that he thought theatre would be a wonderful avenue through which his men might articulate and contend with their doubts; perhaps even resolve them. “We need theatre”, he said, taking my gesture of (self-proclaimed) activism and making it his own.
…
“You should talk to ex-servicemen in Kashmir”, another Colonel said. “They are facing so many problems. You should do one of your theatre workshops with them”. Although this Colonel did not know what theatre was, he had been part of a Bollywood crew that had recently been in Kashmir and that had used armed forces’ personnel as supporting actors in the film. So this Colonel thought he knew all there was to know about “those artistic people”. You know, the ones “who like to enjoy”. An understanding that I wish he had shared with me before I found myself alone in his company, in an isolated building (which had been made to sound, while we were making plans for the meeting, to be a teeming workplace), with a loaded gun in his desk — a gun that this Colonel proudly showed to me.
My attempts to talk about working with ex-servicemen in the Valley went to naught. Because, you see, this Colonel thought that all artistic people only “like to enjoy” themselves: the sub-text of this statement being that this Colonel thought that my proposal to create theatre with ex-servicemen was an opportunity for him to foist unwanted attention on a female artist (read: one who does not have a moral code). This meeting went to naught. When the coordinator of all ex-servicemen related activities in Kashmir behaves inappropriately, what can a researcher do?
This meeting went to naught in that I didn’t get to make theatre with Kashmiri ex-servicemen. But it revealed other things: what does a non-soldier do when a soldier is aggressive? What does that non-soldier do in the presence of a loaded weapon that the soldier could use against them? What does that non-soldier do in the face of that kind of fear, not only for themselves but for those who are near and dear to them — how could I complain about this non-gentleman-officer’s behaviour to his superiors, without putting my local partners in his crosshairs?
This meeting in no way accomplished what I had hoped.
—
It is by considering how to theatrically encounter the narratives and experiences of perpetrators — in examining the many ethical and political minefields of this choice — that I have come to reflect extensively on the notion of ‘grey zones’. A term that was first put forward by Primo Levi (1988) to describe the positioning of Jewish individuals who functioned as ‘helpers’ of the Nazi commandants in concentration camps, the grey zone between victimhood and perpetration might be seen as the nebulous in-between space where it is far murkier than the already murky waters of ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’. However, it is important to clarify, as Levi does, that this idea of the grey zone is not to suggest that there are no victims. Rather, there is an acknowledgment in the usage of this term to understand and explore the idea that while the ‘oppressor remains what he is’ and ‘so does the victim’ (Levi in Thomas, 2010: 578), that the line between oppressor and victim can be blurry; conflating and fracturing each other’s narratives in various ways. What a theatre-in-war practitioner-researcher might want to look for in a conflict/post-conflict zone therefore, is ‘a theoretical position that takes a third route, beyond the standard binaries’, an approach that Don Foster, Paul Haupt, and Marésa De Beer (2005: 92) call a ‘relational approach’.
In such a relational approach the researcher-practitioner might examine ‘an array of actors of positions beyond that of victim/perpetrator’ and furthermore, consider ‘the principal binary as relational in form, as positions in a wider field or arena of violence’ (ibid.). This ‘third space’, the grey zone, might be ‘seen as an alternative position’ in which, instead ‘of the oppositional pairing of “either-or”’, the work across/between the binary might be seen as a possible ‘inclusive pairing “both-and”’ (ibid.: 322). The third space begins with an understanding that within a setting of conflict, there are multiple positions that might be seen. By suggesting ‘a far wider array of subject positions such as facilitators, gatekeepers, reporters, bystanders, producers and go-betweens’ — rather than simply victims and perpetrators — Foster, Haupt, and DeBeer (ibid.: 63) suggest that a relational approach might ‘open up the lens for a more complicated picture and shift the spotlight away from the central protagonists’. Taking the example of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), the authors pose a critique that this forum was framed in terms of simplistic binaries between victim and perpetrator, ‘associated with unambiguous judgements of right and wrong’ (ibid.). In this critique, Foster, Haupt, and DeBeer (ibid.) examine the possibility that such an approach might only allow for a very narrow view of how responsibility manifested during apartheid and suggest that drawing such a simplistic binary ‘sails around the complexities and ambiguities, rich in the lived experience under apartheid, of collaboration and complicity with apartheid, of the murky terrain of spies, crossovers and informers, or of the role of bureaucratic functionaries in a long chain of authority’. Furthermore, they suggest, looking at violence simply in terms of victims and perpetrators ignores ‘issues of social structures and processes, including poverty, oppression and domination’ (ibid.: 3), and contains the risk of simplifying a complex context of conflict into a palatable, dominant narrative with good guys and bad guys. Importantly however, as these authors clarify, exploring these multi-directional or relational aspects to violence comes with a crucial caveat: that ‘multi-sidedness does not mean equalsidedness’ (ibid.: 62).
In such a relational approach to violence, what are some grey zones that theatre-in-war interventions might examine? The first proposition that I would like to put forward is a consideration of the violence that exists in more quotidian and unspectacular spaces in a place of war. In her research on the partition between India and Pakistan Veena Das (in Roy, 2008: 318) talks about the need to identify ‘violence in its daily, invisible, or “banal” forms — what Nancy Scheper-Hughes (in ibid.) calls “the violence of everyday life”’. In this research ‘Das shows how the violence of extreme events such as Partition comes to be incorporated in the temporal structure of relationships and within the weave of daily life’; in the form of hierarchical intergenerational relationships, in the structures that govern interactions between men and women, and in other everyday acts of violence that might generally subsumed within the ‘big’ war. These everyday acts of violence intersect with what Pierre Bourdieu (ibid.) calls a ‘gentle violence’ which operates ‘with the complicity of the oppressed’ or with what he terms ‘misrecognition’ — where ‘structures of inequality and oppression appear natural’. These ‘symbolic’ and ‘gentle’ forms of violence, ‘of which gender oppression is paradigmatic’ become central in perpetuating ‘unequal power relations’ within the larger and more obviously skewed power dynamics in places of war (ibid.). This violence of everyday life might be linked back to the relational violence that Foster, Haupt, and DeBeer (2005: 70) put forward; a form of everyday violence that might also be labelled as ‘lateral violence’.
Taking into account the multiplicity of victim/perpetrator narratives, an understanding of the relational approach, and the notion of everyday acts of violence, there are two other kinds of grey zones that I would like to propose. One of these propositions includes the narratives of former adult combatants who — unless they were abducted as children, perhaps — tend to have the tag ‘perpetrator’ stuck to them even after they have put down their arms; a trend that I have observed in Guatemala, Northern Ireland, Rwanda, and Kashmir. True, ex-fighters do not always curtail their use of violence because of a belief in peace or because of regret for their actions: sometimes arms are put down as a part of peace treaties and processes of disarmament, sometimes arms are put down because the fighters actually have come to disbelieve in violence as a strategy, and sometimes fighters stop using violence because, well, there is nothing else to be done. Whatever the case, the ways in which ex-combatants struggle with the tag of ‘perpetrator’ becomes a potential grey zone in which theatre-in-war researcher-practitioners might intervene. Furthermore, working with ex-perpetrators is often more feasible than working with current fighters in an active conflict zone, in terms of assuring the safety of all involved. Ex-fighters therefore present a potential grey zone for theatre-in-war work; former perpetrators whose narratives can be accessed in relative safety, and who can still give the theatre-in-war practitioner an insight into how theatre might function with (former) perpetrators of violence.
In addition to the grey zones that are occupied by returned combatants and the third spaces within everyday acts of gentle/lateral violence, a further third space to consider might be that which is encountered in being a perpetrator ‘by association’. In Kashmir, for example, where the Indian nation state is seen by many as being a perpetrator of violence, does my presence there as an Indian make me a perpetrator by association to certain audiences? After all, I pay the taxes to the Indian government, am nationalistic in my own right, and am not actively engaged in any activist struggles related to the Kashmir issue. Of course, this understanding of perpetration is very much rooted in a sense of collective guilt and an agreement with the historical transmission of culpability — ideas that, while contentious, need to be acknowledged and explored. While my presence in Kashmir is perhaps a more obvious example of being a perpetrator by association, this grey zone might also include other ‘types’ of implicit responsibility: be it in donating to organizations in war zones without any first-hand knowledge of how the donation is being used on the ground; be it in the narratives of non-combatants in a war zone who voluntarily provide food, shelter, and other kinds of ‘soft’ support to armed groups; be it in our removed activism that seeks to make outside audiences ‘aware’ of a war without presenting the narratives in all their complexity. The notion of implicit perpetration is thus an immense and murky grey zone; a third space in which the theatre-in-war researcher-practitioner might have much to engage with.
Notes from the field
“I joined the militancy because that’s what everyone else was doing”.
“I joined the militancy because it was a job”.
“I joined the militancy so that Kashmir would become free. Yes, there were some things that happened, some mistakes that we made… and I’m sorry for that… but I joined the militancy so that Kashmir would be free”.
“Either they lock us up in prisons, or they rehabilitate us. Otherwise, they should just burn us all to death”.
“Every time anything criminal happens in our locality, they knock on our doors. We are taken to the police station, interrogated… We are helpless people. We cannot do anything for our lives”.
“No no, that’s not what I wanted you to show”, he said, “the guy comes to his house while his parents are away and try to get him to join the militancy”.
The actors who were at the interview with me try to perform the scene the way they are being directed.
“No no, you’re not doing it right. Let me just show you how to do it”.
The actors look at me with twinkles in their eyes. Hadn’t this guy just said that he had never done theatre before?
We had been sitting in that one room, in a dilapidated old building in a part of Srinagar that I had never been to before, for about seven hours. A room that smelled of stale cigarette smoke, filled with about ten men of various ages: smoking, watching the improvisation, waiting for their turn to speak to me, listening to music, and smoking some more. Amidst the vibrant chaos of the moment, the women came in carrying chai and bread and I got the feeling that I always do when I occupy male-dominated spheres in Kashmir and encounter, suddenly, what I am (as a woman) culturally expected to be doing in that context. Discomfort. Acute discomfort. The women sat down after they served the chai and biscuits though. They stayed and chatted about their families, about their experiences while their husbands had gone to fight or had been imprisoned, about their day jobs as teachers. Their husbands spoke of the times in which they had left their families, of their failures as husbands and fathers…
“When we first got married, we only had one blanket to share between the two of us. If I pulled it too much, she would fall out of it, if she pulled it too much, I would fall out”.
“Life in jail was better. In there, I had time to read, to pray, to sleep. Now I have to worry about my wife, our children, and providing for them. Life in jail was better”.
“Sometimes I think I should never have married this girl. What have I given her except sorrow?”
“No, I wouldn’t be comfortable with you speaking to my wife. I had to leave her for about ten years, when I went to Pakistan… I don’t know how she took care of our children and managed. I don’t know how she did it… I don’t want her to have to talk about it”.
The ex-militants of Kashmir, their wives, their fights… an entire world unto itself. We created a piece of Documentary Theatre that interviewed ex-militants about their experiences of the conflicts in Kashmir. But the audiences who watched the piece the second day, those who had never been part of the militancy themselves, vociferously opposed the work.
“You have only included the voices of those who have sold out”.
“What about the real militants? The ones who were willing to sacrifice their lives and would not say a word to their captors despite the most horrific torture inflicted upon them? What about those militants?”
“Maybe she has an agenda. She wants to show only surrendered and sold-out militants because…” [she’s from India, he was about to say]
“The only truth is the truth of the victims”.
“These people have lied to you. They have talked as if they are the victims…”
“You know, militants would come to our houses and ask for food. What could we do? If we didn’t give them food, they would kill us. And if we did feed them… you waited for the armed forces to come knocking at your door and accuse you of harbouring militants. What could we do?”
“What are you trying to achieve by working with these people?”
—
Grey zones ‘confuse our need to judge’ (Levi, 1988: 42) and while Levi does not define grey zones specifically, to me the term has come to mean a space of ambiguity and murk, where traditional understandings of victim and perpetrator break down. It might be pertinent to ask at this point how these observations about grey zones become particularly relevant to theatrical practice and to address this question, I will turn to a conclusion from my doctoral work in Kashmir between 2013 and 2015. My doctoral research was centred on the idea of grey zones and engaging theatrically with individuals from across civil society, militant/ex-militant groups and the Indian armed forces in Kashmir, asking particularly what the aesthetic, pedagogical, and ethical implications might be from an attempt like this. There was one particular outcome that emerged in my doctoral work: when any theatrical performance seeks to include narratives of those who might be in the grey zones of perpetration, a precise, almost mathematical calculation is needed of how these voices are balanced by the narratives of those who are considered unquestionable victims — akin to what Frederique Lecomte says of her work in Burundi, in the quote that begins this chapter. In a further consideration about how such a balance might be achieved in theatrical performances, I came to identify one possible strategy: to consider the grey zones that arise within each community group, rather than to only contemplate the nebulous spaces between them. By within, I refer to narratives that are contained within the individual categories of civil society, militants/ex-militants, and armed forces — the three dominant categories that I was exploring in my doctoral work — that are less dominant; that is to say, the experiences that do not conform to the grand narratives that frame each of these groups’ positioning in Kashmir. Consequently, while I had initially conceptualised grey zones as being sites of intervention between civil society, militants/ex-militants and the armed forces, the term came to imply sites of intervention between and within each of the larger identity groups.
For example, I found that when considering the grey zones between each of the three groups, Kashmiri soldiers in the Indian armed forces and Kashmiri ex-armed forces personnel occupied a grey zone between the narratives of armed forces personnel and members of Kashmiri civil society. In considering grey zones between civil society and militants/ex-militants, there emerged the narratives of ex-militants who have returned to civil society and must deal with the grudges held against them by their communities. Furthermore, this grey zone also contained the voices of the wives and children of ex-militants, especially the women who have come to Indian Administered (Occupied) Kashmir from Azad Kashmir (also referred to as Pakistan Administered/Occupied Kashmir). Finally, when looking at the grey zone between militants/ex-militants and the armed forces, I needed to consider the voices and narratives of the Ikhwanis who are comprised of Kashmiri militants/ex-militants who are now sponsored by/work with the Indian government’s armed forces. These grey zones between each of the three groups was then further complicated when considering the in-between spaces within each of the groups. For instance, when looking at grey zones within civil society in Kashmir, I encountered the narratives of Kashmiri women, the experiences of Kashmiri Hindus/Pandits who live within and outside the Kashmir Valley, and the perspectives of Kashmiri civilians who maintain economic ties with the armed forces and militants by supplying fighters with weapons, food, shelter, and information. Likewise, within the larger grouping of militants/ex-militants, I encountered the grey zones that are occupied by incarcerated militants/ex-militants, militants who have joined the militancy for reasons other than ideological goals (such as financial gain, for example) and I saw grey zones within militant/ex-militant narratives in Kashmir when considering women’s roles in the militancy. Finally, within the armed forces establishment, I saw grey zones emerge in a consideration of the perspectives of military cadets who will one-day be posted to conflict zones like Kashmir, of soldiers who are in Kashmir not because of an ideological standpoint but for the financial security that the job affords, and of the narratives surrounding soldiers who reach the point of killing themselves and their colleagues.
In addition to balancing the various grey zones within and between each of the larger groups in a theatrical performance, my work in Kashmir further suggested that dominant narratives must balance the lesser-known narratives from the grey zones in any theatrical effort. The inclusion of dominant narratives seems to function (to the project’s non-participant spectators) as an indicator that the researcher in question has done the requisite amount of ground work to understand the Kashmiri context, thus making it more likely that the lesser known voices will not be seen as the researcher’s performing a political agenda. In this vein, it emerged that the two dominant narratives from civil society that need to be present in any theatrical performance about Kashmir are those of civilians who have been victimised by the armed forces’ and militants’ acts of violence and the voices of activists who are engaged in non-violent protest. Within the larger category of militants/ex-militants, the dominant narratives that were deemed necessary were those that involved active militants who are fighting or were killed because of a commitment to their ideologies and concurrently, narratives which highlighted the militants/ex-militants who are corrupt and/or have perpetrated acts of violence and injustice against Kashmiri civilians. And finally, when looking at the dominant narratives about the armed forces in Kashmir, any grey zone approach (like a mention of government soldiers’ committing suicide, a concerning development in recent years) needs to be balanced by putting forward the narratives of soldiers who are driven by nationalistic sentiments and/or those who have committed grave violations against civilians. These two dimensions to balance therefore — of looking at grey zones within each identity grouping that is then balanced by existing dominant narratives — need to be carefully calibrated in a performance that showcases grey zones and third spaces in a place of war.
How does this discussion about grey zones intersect with the ideas about intention and positioning that were presented in the earlier chapters? How might an articulation of intention, which then allows a theatre-in-war researcher-practitioner to hone in on a site of intervention, become further informed by the manifestation of the victim/perpetrator/grey zones spectrum in that site? Furthermore, how might our intentions in our chosen site draw from the discussion about grey zones in order to make ethical and informed decisions about who a theatre-in-war intervention’s collaborators and audiences might be? For instance, in deciding who a theatre-in-war intervention’s audiences might be — and by audiences I don’t just mean the spectators who are invited to a performance but also those who might be secondary or tertiary, rather than primary collaborators to a project — I have come to believe that an honest appraisal needs to be made about who might be implicated as ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’ in the processes and/or performances involved.
Although it might not be the desire of the practitioner-researcher to implicate any one person/group at all, an analysis is needed, nonetheless, to consider what implications may be read into an intervention. For example, how might material from a group of ex-militant interviewees in a Documentary Theatre piece be ‘read’ by non-ex-militants who witness the interactions and/or the performance? And if there are contentious grey zones being explored in the content of a performance, is it feasible to invite cross-community audiences i.e. spectators from different points on the victim/perpetrator/grey zones spectrum? Might it be better advised to hold separate showings instead, in a performance that addresses third spaces, for spectators who identify at different points on the victim/perpetrator spectrum? Might it even be possible to show a piece about murky narratives of war to those who have lived through the war themselves; or are we better off sharing such a piece with audiences from that context (young people, for example) who might not have had the direct experience of war? While I shall leave the reader with these questions as indicators of how analyses of context-specific victim/perpetrator/grey zone dynamics might inform a theatre-in-war intervention, these are questions that will re-emerge in the chapters on What and When.
Extending this idea about identity politics to a discussion of who our local co-creators might be, there are two components to be explored: the first being the co-creators’ self-identification on the victim/perpetrator/grey zone spectrum and the second being how local creators might be identified by others (especially, the relevant audiences) as being positioned on the victim/perpetrator/grey zone spectrum. Beginning with the former, if local collaborators self-identify as ‘victims’, how might the theatre-in-war intervention take into account their lived experiences of suffering whilst also being cognizant of the various kinds of relational violence in which these co-creators might be perpetrators? Furthermore, how might our co-creators conceptualize the grey zones of their own experiences within the larger context of the war? Where are the gaps and silences in our co-creators’ narratives and how might the theatre-in-war project account for the perspectives that co-creators do not want to share with us? And if the project’s co-creators are ex-fighters, adults or children, how can the researcher-practitioner become sensitive to the magnitude with which their actions might be (mis)represented and furthermore, translate those (mis)representations in a theatrical performance?
Once such an understanding of co-creators’ self-identification on the victim/perpetrator/grey zone spectrum has been established, I believe it necessary to explore in like manner how the co-creators are identified by their communities and by different groups within their communities. Do surrounding communities see a practitioner-researcher’s co-creators as occupying a different position on the victim/perpetrator/grey zone spectrum as compared with the creators’ self-identification? For example, when Baumeister (in Foster, Haupt, DeBeer, 2005) speaks to the ways in which perpetrators justify their actions, he puts forward the example that for some perpetrators, acts of perpetration might be justifiable through an understanding of their own (perceived) victimization. And if this is indeed the case, if a group of co-creators that a theatre-in-war researcher-practitioner collaborates with sees themselves as victims, only to be seen by their communities as perpetrators, what are the implications of this on the theatrical intervention itself?
While these questions are unlikely to arise in a situation where co-creators are identified by their communities as uncontroversial victims, when working with co-creators who are seen by their communities as being in grey zones and/or as being perpetrators — whether or not they see themselves as such — I have come to think that there might be two ways to negotiate the politics and ethics of the intervention. The first approach, in such a case, might be to keep the theatre-in-war project’s intention focused on the processes of creation rather than on a performance for an audience and thus, to not have the kind of ‘final performance’ to which an outside audience is invited. The second possibility, and this is what has happened when I’ve worked with individuals who are identified by their communities as being perpetrators or as inhabiting grey zones, and that is to place the responsibility of spectator choice on the co-creators themselves — since they are likely to be more informed about, and sensitive toward, how a local audience might react to their work, and more importantly, if there might be risky consequences for them as co-creators and performers. Any performance or shared moment of a work that occurs between a theatre-in-war practitioner-researcher and local co-creators therefore, needs to carefully analyse how the local co-creators are seen/see themselves on the victimhood/grey zones/perpetration spectrum.
In this vein, deciding the demographic composition of audiences/co-creators in places of war is also closely tied to intention. For instance, let us consider intentions in which the theatre-in-war researcher-practitioner wants to provoke a memorial afterlife (tangible or intangible) through their work. If there is such an intention, in addition to questions about victimhood and perpetration, the ‘who’ of the audience/co-creators will be shaped by the particular goal that the researcher-practitioner has in mind. If the goal of a theatre-in-war intervention is to have a tangible, educational memorial afterlife about the war in northern Uganda, for instance, who would be the ideal target audience for such a piece? While the earlier discussion assumes that the primary audience for a theatre-in-war project is an audience of spectators from within that conflict zone, this is certainly not the only option. For example, in Susan Haedicke’s (2002) response to an immersive performance that placed her in the shoes of an asylum seeker for the duration of the performance — where she became Wanmin, an asylum seeker from China for the duration of the experience — Haedicke describes her memorial afterlife from the piece. Haedicke concludes her article by saying that as a result of her experience in Un Voyage Pas Comme Les Autres Sur Les Chemins De L’Exil, while she might not become an advocate for refugee rights in any visible way, the piece resulted in her heightened sensitivity to issues surrounding asylum seekers in the European Union (EU). For the particular kind of memorial afterlife that Chemins aimed for, which was to increase a consciousness amongst EU citizens about the experiences of their asylum seeker counterparts, what was important in terms of audience demography was that the performance be available to non-asylum seekers from the EU. While it was clearly necessary for the piece to be crafted in collaboration with those who had had the lived experience of being asylum seekers, as Chemins did, targeting an audience of non-asylum seekers in the EU was a specific demographic choice that needed to be made given the particular intentions of the piece. Choosing an audience and co-creator demographic thus asks us to go back to our intentions, to our specific sites of focus, and to ensure that we’re asking the right questions with regards to the victimhood/grey zones/perpetration spectrum and how it is understood in a place of war.
Notes from the field
“I used to plant bombs during the years of the civil war in Guatemala”, he said. “I had to creep slowly, quietly, in the night… arm the bombs…the slightest mistake and well, I could have been killed”.
So went the conversation with this ex-guerrilla fighter, who used to write and direct plays during the years of the civil war in Guatemala. Creating scripts about love, making his fellow fighters laugh in a time of intense violence, theatre — for this rebel theatre maker — was a way to provide distraction for his troops during the civil war in Guatemala. His plays provided a space for laughter, he said, a space in which the mandates of his guerrilla group were restated via theatrical forms, and a space that — two decades later — suggested, to me, a possible way for theatre to engage fighters of a war: to entertain.
“I write”, he said, “about my time in the IRA. About the Troubles. I write… because… well, I write”.
An ex-IRA fighter in Northern Ireland who became a playwright after the Troubles, this man wrote plays about the past, about the present. He wrote because writing was a gesture toward what the art form of the theatre could do for a man like him, a man who had chosen to use violence for his fight during the Troubles: to remember.
After a month of working with armed forces cadets at an Academy in western India, working with devised theatre and exploring the art of writing monologues, we had a script. Waiting… (Waiting, 2013) wove together excerpts from Beckett’s (1953/2011) Waiting for Godot, with compilations of texts that were written by the cadets about something they were waiting for.
“I want to be a soldier because the education is good. And they cover all your costs. Also, I saw this Bollywood movie called Border when I was a kid... the image of the brave soldier was my inspiration”.
“I want to be a soldier because my father was one, and my grandfather before him”.
“I am waiting for the day my father will see me in this uniform, with stars shining in his eyes, flagging off the aircraft which is being flown by his son”.
“I wait for the day I can shed every drop of my blood in serving my motherland and her boundaries, and when I come back from war, to continue my work to make this country a better place. It’s this wait that keeps me alive”.
“I’m waiting for her. For her to come back to me and say to me that yes, she was wrong in her choice. I want her to feel that I was the best guy she could have ever met, and she made the biggest mistake of her life by choosing him”.
“I am eagerly waiting for the day when I’ll pass out from the Academy. I feel suffocated; like I’m caged in some kind of prison”.
From fulfilling a father’s dreams to seeing the uniform as an avenue to avenge a lost love; from devout nationalism to a desperate questioning of choices made; the cadets committed to the task of writing monologues. Their gestures of honesty and creativity got stronger every day, and as this happened, the more openly they voiced their opinions about what ‘theatre’ means to them… After reading the script of Waiting…, a script that I pieced together from their monologues and from the desire to give them something challenging to work with, the cadets politely and diplomatically questioned the piece. “What is the point of a performance if it doesn’t entertain?” they asked me. “Pieces like this are too… intellectual… audiences at the Academy won’t understand it; they won’t like it; it won’t be successful”.
“Well, what does it mean for a performance to be successful?” I asked back.
Apart from dealing with the pedagogical challenges of working within a military context, the complexities of my work at the Academy were augmented by the very ‘low’ position that the arts seemed to occupy there. While the Commandant of the Academy told me that he had always wanted to be a performer and that he thought the cadets would have a lot to learn from theatrical processes, his belief certainly did not filter down into the lower ranks at the Academy. My focus on ‘affect’, on emphasizing the potential of the ‘no point; or the ‘bewilderment’ that Thompson (2003, 2009b) evocatively describes, seemed to be at odds with an education that was grounded firmly in an evaluation of ‘effect’. How to work within ‘effect’-based systems while not losing sight of the rich possibility of ‘affect’, was a constant renegotiation between myself, my civilian officer monitors, the cadets, and the Academy itself. A performativity of identities had to be juggled to address this renegotiation — of being a theatre maker in a context that does not seem to value art, of being a woman in an institution that does not allow female students, and of being a civilian in a civil-military binary that remains an unaddressed area of study and reflection in India. These negotiations and renegotiations continued throughout the process and found their way into the final performance of Waiting… for an audience of my multi-national theatre students at a neighbouring school, given the cadets’ reticence at performing a non-entertaining piece for their community at the Academy. The final performance of Waiting… was mired in complexities: battling the Academy’s rules that cadets must not come into contact with foreign nationals; negotiating with officers in command, on the day of the show, who wanted to cancel the performance for a football game; facilitating discussions between young people who came from diverse points on the political/idealist spectrum — one group that was from an educational institution that espouses non-violent ideologies and the other group that came from an educational institution that trains ‘warriors’. In the talk back after the performances, the two groups of young people reflected on each other’s work, resulting in the cadets making one particularly poignant statement: “We never thought someone would find our words interesting”.
What does it mean to use theatre with military men?
What does it mean when those who use gestures of violence use gestures of art?
Would it lead to some variation of ‘sensitive’ soldiering? Some form of embodied cognition about ‘greyness’ in an otherwise black and white setting? Or would it simply be chalked up as being ‘affective’, with a clear understanding that, well, one can never know how the trace of this artistic experience will manifest itself when these young men then get deployed to their field and peace postings across India…?
Perhaps it is not about what gestures of art can do with/for those who wield gestures of violence. Perhaps it is about what working with those who wield violence can do with/for those who work with artistic gestures.
Perhaps it is not about an ethnographic analysis, as I initially assumed it would be, about the place of theatre in a military environment. Perhaps what it is about is auto-ethnography and what the process of working with an armed forces’ establishment might reveal about this theatre maker’s understanding of her own gestures of identity, nationalism, and art.
—
Beginning with intention and then moving toward a chosen site of intervention, subsequently requires a careful identification of collaborators and spectators. These choices, I propose, might be best made through an exploration of the victim/perpetrator/grey zone spectrum that then ties back into the specificities of the context and the practitioner-researcher’s intentions. In this feedback loop between intention, location, and identity politics, once the theatre-in-war researcher-practitioner has an idea of why they are doing the work, where they might work, and who their collaborators/audiences might be, the important question that emerges is What. What are the aesthetics that the theatre-in-war researcher-practitioner will employ based on their co-creators and audiences? What are the ideas that we might use to shape the ‘art’ of our work in places of war? When Chemins uses (a form of) Immersive Theatre to speak to an audience of EU citizens about the experiences of non-asylum seekers, how applicable and relevant would that aesthetic be in dramatizing issues of immigration between the United States and Mexico? How might we ensure that a theatrical intervention focuses as much on aesthetics, as it does on ethical and political questions? Our choices surrounding the people that we work with/for/about in places of war — I have found — can interweave extensively with the aesthetic forms that we might use as theatre practitioners and researchers. Let’s move on then, to What.
1 The reader will notice that the terms ‘victim’, ‘perpetrator’, and ‘grey zones’ are most often put within single quotation marks in this book. In this chapter, however, given the extensive use of these terms, the quotation marks have been used more sparingly.