Queering Performativity

One of the most precious legacies of the long and tortuous itinerary of deconstructing Western metaphysics is the contestation of the image of the sovereign individual. That image is the very premise that enables the justification, normalization, or obfuscation of political and social practices of o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inRepresentations (Berkeley, Calif.) Vol. 158; no. 1; pp. 64 - 76
Main Author Gambetti, Zeynep
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Berkeley University of California Press Books Division 01.05.2022
Subjects
LGBTQ studies
Performance theory
Performativity
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Summary:One of the most precious legacies of the long and tortuous itinerary of deconstructing Western metaphysics is the contestation of the image of the sovereign individual. That image is the very premise that enables the justification, normalization, or obfuscation of political and social practices of oppression, exclusion, and expropriation. As an admirer of Hannah Arendt and the Frankfurt School, and as a latecomer to poststructuralist epistemology, I was fascinated by the breakthrough that the performative accomplished in transforming the relationship between actor and act. A term borrowed from John Austin, but deployed as a prism through which to reappraise theories that decenter the subject, the performative opened up the possibility of moving away from causal rationality (the actor is the cause of the act) and toward a circular, self-reflexive model according to which the doer is inseparable from the deed.
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ISSN:0734-6018
1533-855X
DOI:10.1525/rep.2022.158.7.64