Showing papers on "Performativity published in 2021"
TL;DR: Neoliberalism is invariably presented as a governing regime of market and competition-based systems rather than as a set of migratory practices that are re-setting the ethical standards of the Academia as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Neoliberalism is invariably presented as a governing regime of market and competition-based systems rather than as a set of migratory practices that are re-setting the ethical standards of the acad...
36 citations
TL;DR: The Paris architecture as discussed by the authors combines two core elements: an iterative pledge and review process to stimulate global climate action, and a "performative" narrative aimed at aligning actors' expectations on the prospect of a low-carbon future.
Abstract: The 2015 Paris agreement represents a deep-rooted change in global climate governance. While existing scholarly assessments highlight central institutional features of the Paris shift, they tend to overlook its symbolic and discursive dimensions. Our analysis shows that the Paris architecture combines two core elements: an iterative pledge and review process to stimulate global climate action, and a ‘performative’ narrative aimed at aligning actors’ expectations on the prospect of a low-carbon future. We therefore suggest calling it an incantatory system of governance. We then examine the origins of the new approach and find that the rise of ‘soft law’ approaches and communicative techniques in global climate governance are both indicative of a broader process: the entry of management culture in international organisations. Against this backdrop, we examine the prospects, limitations and caveats of the new approach and discuss its wider implications for global politics.
35 citations
TL;DR: The authors conducted ethnographic and biographical research conducted with mixed-status couples and non-governmental organisations in France and Belgium to understand how the citizen partners of mixed status couples interacted with each other.
Abstract: Ethnographic and biographical research conducted with mixed-status couples and non-governmental organisations in France and Belgium provides insights into how the citizen partners of mixed-status r...
20 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors draw on secondary historical literature and primary research with Kenyan and international agritech developers, farmers, and representatives from international organizations, regulators and farmer organizations, to historicize contemporary platformization within a longer history of infrastructural performativity in rural Kenya, in order to tease out both continuities and departures from the past.
Abstract: While there is growing literature on the role of platforms in concentrating market power, this article centres on their role in ‘performing’ economic theory. As infrastructures that measure, monitor and ultimately compel human behaviour, the authors argue that digital platforms should be understood as ‘performative infrastructures’ that seek to incorporate informal populations by compelling behaviour in line with certain theoretical and commercial models. The article draws on secondary historical literature and primary research with Kenyan and international agritech developers, farmers, and representatives from international organizations, regulators and farmer organizations, to historicize contemporary ‘platformization’ within a longer history of infrastructural performativity in rural Kenya, in order to tease out both continuities and departures from the past. While contemporary technologists evoke similar justifications for top-down control over markets as did their analogue predecessors, they nonetheless seek to vest such power within the private sector and to use it to perform neoclassical theory. The authors argue that this particular orientation is not an intrinsic feature of the technology itself but is rather shaped by a longer history of shifting policy paradigms.
20 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the performative collisions between the wrong of genocide and the invocation of this international crime as a means to secure carceral control of borders, drawing on courtroom proceedings to define the right of genocide.
Abstract: This article examines the performative collisions between the wrong of genocide and the invocation of this international crime as a means to secure carceral control of borders. Drawing on courtroom...
18 citations
TL;DR: The intersection of violence and gender matters in tourism, with violence being both a cause and consequence of gender inequality as discussed by the authors, establishing a conversation with the works of Judith Butler and Slavoj Žižek to rethink theories of violence, to develop a theoretical framework that captures the nuances and complexities of gender-based violence.
16 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors draw on theories of gender performativity and on postcolonial African feminisms to develop an account of femininities in the rural context of northern Ghana.
Abstract: In this article, I draw on theories of gender performativity and on postcolonial African feminisms to develop an account of femininities in the rural context of northern Ghana. In doing this, I ref...
14 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors adopt Barad's theory of agential realism to explore how power and performativity are simultaneously processual and ontologically entangled, and use the hyphenated term power-perfo...
Abstract: In this article we adopt Barad’s theory of agential realism to explore how power and performativity are simultaneously processual and ontologically entangled. We use the hyphenated term power-perfo...
13 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, critical performativity has become a promising notion for critical scholars who want to have concrete impact on society, although the number of studies contributing to this literature has significa...
Abstract: Critical performativity has become a promising notion for critical scholars who want to have concrete impact on society. Although the number of studies contributing to this literature has significa...
13 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors developed an account of solidarity as embodied agonism, where difference and contest are experienced and negotiated through the body, and reframed within feminist solidarity projects as resources for, rather than inhibitors to, generating collective agency.
Abstract: Feminist solidarity, after early and idealistic conceptions of an all‐encompassing sisterhood, has become preoccupied with understanding and theorising differences between women. This study develops an account of solidarity as embodied agonism, where difference and contest are experienced and negotiated through the body. Difference and contest are reframed within feminist solidarity projects as resources for, rather than inhibitors to, generating collective agency. This is done through an ethnography of a protest movement in Montenegro, which drew together diverse groups of women, and bring our data into conversation with theories of agonistic democratic practice and embodied performativity. Embodied agonistic solidarity is theorised as a participative and inclusive endeavour driven by conflictual encounters, constituted through the bodies, language and visual imagery of assembling and articulating subjects. Our account of solidarity is presented as constituted through three dimensions, each of which represents a different emphasis on sensory experience: exposing, which is to make one's body open to the hardship of others, enabling alliances between unlikely allies to emerge; citing, which is to draw on others’ symbolic resources and to publicly affirm them; inhabiting, which is to embody the deprivations of others, enabling alliances to grow and persist.
13 citations
TL;DR: The authors provided a sociological explanation for the global emergence of Slavoj Žižek as a public intellectual and presented an integrative account encompassing both personal and institutional a...
Abstract: This article provides a sociological explanation for the global emergence of Slavoj Žižek as a public intellectual. It presents an integrative account encompassing both personal and institutional a...
TL;DR: A close reading of Judith Butler's The Psychic Life of Power underscores the ways in which Butler's account of power liquidates issues of political economy and problematically ontologizes Fr... as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: First, a close reading of Judith Butler’s The Psychic Life of Power underscores the ways in which Butler’s account of power liquidates issues of political economy and problematically ontologizes Fr...
TL;DR: The authors examines a frequent assumption of sociological accounts of knowledge: the idea that knowledge acts, and analyzes the performativity of knowledge claims through the prism of sociolabeled knowledge.
Abstract: This article examines a frequent assumption of sociological accounts of knowledge: the idea that knowledge acts. The performativity of knowledge claims is here analysed through the prism of ‘sociol...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the Cypriot National Guard performs a Greek identity in three key configurations: 1) the operational link between the Greek Army and the CNG; 2) the explicit connection to both ancient and modern Greece through various CNG insignia and practices, including parades and marching songs; and 3) the entrenchment of the Greek Orthodox Church within its practices.
Abstract: Students of International Relations are taught that the modern nation-state has a monopoly on the (legitimate) use of violence. However, in the case of the Republic of Cyprus this does not seem to be the case, since its armed forces, the Cypriot National Guard (CNG), are intimately embedded within Greece’s military structure, and half the island remains under Turkish occupation. The colonization of Cyprus (1571–1960) and subsequent decolonization has led to the gradual construction of two rigid identities, Greek and Turkish, that have been institutionalized legally and imposed constitutionally. This paper seeks to answer two questions. First, how does the CNG perform and therefore constitute a ‘Greek identity’? Second, is this performance epistemically violent, hindering the formation of hybrid identities? We use autoethnography, interviews, and insights from Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the habitus and Judith Butler’s performativity theory to explore these two questions. We argue that the CNG performs a Greek identity in three key configurations: 1) the operational link between the Greek Army and the CNG; 2) the explicit connection to both ancient and modern Greece through various CNG insignia and practices, including parades and marching songs; and 3) the entrenchment of the Greek Orthodox Church within its practices.
TL;DR: The authors reconcile performative theorizing, which captures the place of systems of thought on foreign policy practice, and broader sociological approaches that link networks and institut..., and propose a sociological approach that links networks and institutions.
Abstract: This paper seeks to reconcile performative theorizing, which captures the place of systems of thought on foreign policy practice, and broader sociological approaches that link networks and institut...
12 Apr 2021
TL;DR: In this article, a longitudinal study of the profits per equity partner (PEP) metric for English law firms is presented, where the authors show how the waxing and waning of different forms of legitimacy, in line with the dynamics of the broader institutional environment, affect the performance of a particular valuation device.
Abstract: Existing studies have developed increasingly sophisticated accounts of the performative agency of valuation devices and their effects on markets and organizations. In particular, research has focused on the work of different actors to legitimize valuation devices and ensure their adoption, which then leads to performativity. This paper extends work on the legitimacy and performativity of valuation devices by developing a dynamic, non-linear theorization of the boundary conditions of performativity and the feedbacks that result in changes in performativity over time. We ask: How do evolutions in a valuation device’s legitimacy relate to its performativity? Our analysis is based on a longitudinal study of the profits per equity partner (PEP) metric which between 1995 and 2013 became established as a key valuation device for English law firms. Through this case we draw attention to the dynamic legitimacy-performativity nexus . We show how the waxing and waning of different forms of legitimacy, in line with the dynamics of the broader institutional environment, affect the performativity of a particular valuation device. We also reveal a performativity paradox . The more a device gains legitimacy the more it becomes influential and exercises performative effects. The more this happens, the more the risk that tensions, contradictions and challenges will arise and begin to undermine the valuation device’s legitimacy and consequently its performativity. Consequently, we contribute to better theorizing the dynamic links between legitimacy, performativity and counter-performativity.
TL;DR: In this article, the importance of maintaining and promoting the child's spiritual voice in spite of educational practices that have been reformed to align with the neoliberal agenda, in particular, the role of the parent's voice.
Abstract: This paper argues the importance of maintaining and promoting the child’s spiritual voice in spite of educational practices that have been reformed to align with the neoliberal agenda, in particula...
01 Sep 2021
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore infrastructures of subaltern resistance in Pakistan through a focus on spatial and performative modes and across a number of historical and contemporary examples.
Abstract: This article explores infrastructures of subaltern resistance in Pakistan through a focus on spatial and performative modes and across a number of historical and contemporary examples. I start with...
TL;DR: Non-representational theory illuminates the role of mundane, performative presentations in the production of emotional geographies, while drawing attention to the unexpected (the event, the encount... as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Non-representational theory illuminates the role of mundane, performative presentations in the production of emotional geographies, while drawing attention to the unexpected (the event, the encount...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors adapted feminist, posthuman research methods for a study of the materialities and materialization of working bodies, and introduced flesh as an agentive actor in each moment-to-moment move.
Abstract: The post-Cartesian ‘material turn’ in management and organization studies understands that bodies are far more than vehicles that enable work to be undertaken, but are agentive actors in the constitution of work and working selves. This leads to the need for more empirically-derived understanding of the agency of flesh in the performative corporealization of working, embodied selves. We met this challenge through adapting feminist, posthuman research methods for a study of the materialities and materialization of working bodies. The study takes forward Judith Butler’s and Karen Barad’s theories of performativity by reading them through each other, and introducing flesh as an agentive actor in each moment-to-moment move. In paying close attention to the speech of supposedly ‘dumb flesh’ we show how flesh resists its negation and itself imposes control on the worker. We coin the term ‘body/flesh’ and illuminate how bodies are active and agentive, constituting corporeal/izing working selves in somewhat unexpected ways.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore how trust in teacher professional judgment has been reconstituted through the globalised trends of performative accountability and reductive data-driven logics.
Abstract: This paper explores how trust in teacher professional judgment has been reconstituted through the globalised trends of performative accountability and reductive data-driven logics. The article draw...
TL;DR: Heritage tourism scholars have used notions of performativity and affect to study the ways tourists actively construct and assign meaning to their experience of heritage as discussed by the authors, however, these concepts re...
Abstract: Heritage tourism scholars have used notions of performativity and affect to study the ways tourists actively construct and assign meaning to their experience of heritage. However, these concepts re...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the religious lifestyles of practicing female Roman Catholics in Belgium and explore how these Catholic believers manage to stay in touch with their faith and faith community in times of crisis when physical and real-life contact is very limited.
TL;DR: This article argued that identity is developed already at a bodily level and that this takes place via the processes of habit formation, and they argued for a performative theory of (bodily) habitual identity.
Abstract: This paper will interpret Judith Butler’s theory of performativity and materialization as a theory of identity, and so put it into dialogue with a phenomenological account of habit formation. The goal is to argue that identity is developed already at a bodily level and that this takes place via the processes of habit formation. The constitution of subjectivity, in other words, requires at the most basic level some kind of bodily performativity. What follows intends to draw out the concept of ‘the body’ in Butler’s work, the role of which is surprisingly meagre given her clear favour of language signification in the elaboration of her theory of performativity. Alternatively, this paper will provide a phenomenology of habit formation that re-introduces the body not as thematic materiality, but as lived materiality. The body will therefore be conceived as something which is already skilful and creative, sensitive and vulnerable, and ultimately, as Butler anticipates, responsive to the intertwinement of individual and social aspects of identity formation. In this regard, I will argue for a performative theory of (bodily) habitual identity.
This paper will interpret Judith Butler’s theory of performativity and materialization as a theory of identity, and so put it into dialogue with a phenomenological account of habit formation. The goal is to argue that identity is developed already at a bodily level and that this takes place via the processes of habit formation. The constitution of subjectivity, in other words, requires at the most basic level some kind of bodily performativity. What follows intends to draw out the concept of ‘the body’ in Butler’s work, the role of which is surprisingly meagre given her clear favour of language signification in the elaboration of her theory of performativity. Alternatively, this paper will provide a phenomenology of habit formation that re-introduces the body not as thematic materiality, but as lived materiality. The body will therefore be conceived as something which is already skilful and creative, sensitive and vulnerable, and ultimately, as Butler anticipates, responsive to the intertwinement of individual and social aspects of identity formation. In this regard, I will argue for a performative theory of (bodily) habitual identity.
This paper will interpret Judith Butler’s theory of performativity and materialization as a theory of identity, and so put it into dialogue with a phenomenological account of habit formation. The goal is to argue that identity is developed already at a bodily level and that this takes place via the processes of habit formation. The constitution of subjectivity, in other words, requires at the most basic level some kind of bodily performativity. What follows intends to draw out the concept of ‘the body’ in Butler’s work, the role of which is surprisingly meagre given her clear favour of language signification in the elaboration of her theory of performativity. Alternatively, this paper will provide a phenomenology of habit formation that re-introduces the body not as thematic materiality, but as lived materiality. The body will therefore be conceived as something which is already skilful and creative, sensitive and vulnerable, and ultimately, as Butler anticipates, responsive to the intertwinement of individual and
TL;DR: In popular culture, celebrity auto/biography becomes both space and instrument for self-representation that illuminates the issues of public/private, global/local, normative/disruptive, an...
Abstract: Situated in popular culture, celebrity auto/biography becomes both space and instrument for self-representation that illuminates the issues of public/private, global/local, normative/disruptive, an...
01 Jan 2021
TL;DR: The paper explores how the reconfiguration of identity is experienced as corporeal and as a site of anxiety and lost dignity, and draws some initial conclusions about the potency of cultural and identity transformation for new ethics of non-violence.
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a global cultural crisis, experienced through various losses of everydayness, including particularly restrictions on mobility and the sudden emergence of new fears and anxieties over infection. This paper theorises some of the ways in which that crisis can be understood in cultural and discursive terms, as a rupture in normativity, a disturbance in social relationality and as a state of exception. Drawing on Judith Butler's theories of performativity, the paper investigates how such a cultural rupture can be understood to affect performative subjectivity, identity and selfhood, whereby a breach in normative everydayness prompts the re-constitution of subjectivity itself. The paper explores how the reconfiguration of identity is experienced as corporeal and as a site of anxiety and lost dignity. The final section of the paper draws some initial conclusions about the potency of cultural and identity transformation for new ethics of non-violence, arguing that the obligation to resist norms of mobility and contact is an ethical obligation of necessary cohabitation.
TL;DR: The authors argue that posthumanist philosophy promises the possibility of a more robustly ethical and political practice of social inquiry. But they do not, however, believe analytic and rhetorical tools have been de...
Abstract: I believe posthumanist philosophy promises the possibility of a more robustly ethical and political practice of social inquiry. I do not, however, believe analytic and rhetorical tools have been de...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine how women construct their gameplay identities in relation to the hegemonic "gamer" discourse, based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with women who occupy games.
Abstract: This article examines how women construct their gameplay identities in relation to the hegemonic “gamer” discourse. The article is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with women who occupy...
TL;DR: The concept of critical performativity as discussed by the authors aims to make critical research more relevant for groups outside academia and develop and communicate action-relevant critical insights with some potentia, such as critical relevance, relevance, and relevance.
Abstract: The concept of critical performativity – efforts to make critical research more relevant for groups outside academia and develop and communicate action-relevant critical insights with some potentia...