Editing Performativity (section)

==History<!--'Performative turn' redirects here-->==
The '''performative turn'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> is a [[paradigmatic shift]] in the [[humanities]] and [[social sciences]] that affected such disciplines as [[anthropology]], [[archaeology]], [[linguistics]], [[ethnography]], [[history]] and the relatively young discipline of [[performance studies]]. Previously used as a metaphor for [[theatrical]]ity, performance is now often employed as a [[heuristic]] principle to understand [[human behaviour]]. The assumption is that all human practices are 'performed', so that any action at whatever moment or location can be seen as a public presentation of the self. This methodological approach entered the [[social sciences]] and [[humanities]] in the 1990s but is rooted in the 1940s and 1950s.
Underlying the performative turn was the need to conceptualize how human practices relate to their contexts in a way that went beyond the traditional sociological methods that did not problematize representation. Instead of focusing solely on given symbolic structures and texts, scholars stress the active, social construction of reality as well as the way that individual behaviour is determined by the context in which it occurs. Performance functions both as a metaphor and an analytical tool and thus provides a perspective for [[framing (social sciences)|framing]] and analysing social and cultural phenomena.

===Origins===
The origins of the performative turn can be traced back to two strands of theorizing about performance as a social category that surfaced in the 1940s and 1950s. 

The first strand is anthropological in origin and may be labelled the dramaturgical model. [[Kenneth Burke]] (1945) expounded a 'dramatistic approach' to analyse the motives underlying such phenomena as communicative actions and the history of philosophy. Anthropologist [[Victor Turner]] focussed on cultural expression in staged theatre and ritual. In his highly influential ''[[The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life]]'' (1959), [[Erving Goffman]] emphasized the link between social life and performance by stating that 'the theatre of performances is in public acts'. Within the performative turn, the dramaturgical model evolved from the classical concept of 'society as theatre' into a broader category that considers all culture as performance. 
 
The second strand of theory concerns a development in the philosophy of language launched by [[J. L. Austin|John Austin]] in the 1950s. In ''How to do things with words''<ref>Austin (1962)</ref> he introduced the concept of the '[[performative utterance]]', opposing the prevalent principle that declarative sentences are always statements that can be either true or false. Instead he argued that 'to say something is to do something'.<ref>Austin (1962), p. 12</ref> In the 1960s [[John Searle]] extended this concept to the broader field of speech act theory, where due attention is paid to the use and function of language. In the 1970s Searle engaged in polemics with postmodern philosopher [[Jacques Derrida]], about the determinability of context and the nature of authorial intentions in a performative text.

The performative turn is anchored in the broader cultural development of [[postmodernism]]. An influential current in modern thought, postmodernism is a radical reappraisal of the assumed certainty and objectivity of scientific efforts to represent and explain reality. Postmodern scholars argue that society itself both defines and constructs reality through experience, representation and performance. From the 1970s onwards, the concept of performance was integrated into a variety of theories in the humanities and social sciences, such as [[Phenomenology (psychology)|phenomenology]], [[critical theory]] (the [[Frankfurt school]]), [[semiotic]]s, [[Lacanian psychoanalysis]], [[deconstructionism]] and [[feminism]].<ref name="McKenzie 2005" /> The conceptual shift became manifest in a methodology oriented towards culture as a dynamic phenomenon as well as in the focus on subjects of study that were neglected before, such as everyday life. For scholars, the concept of performance is a means to come to grips with [[human agency]] and to better understand the way social life is constructed.

===J. L. Austin===
The term derives from the founding work in [[speech act]] theory by ordinary language philosopher [[J. L. Austin]]. In the 1950s, Austin gave the name [[performative utterances]] to situations where saying something was doing something, rather than simply reporting on or describing reality. The paradigmatic case here is speaking the words "I do".<ref>{{cite book|last=Austin|first=J L|title=How To Do Things With Words|url=https://archive.org/details/howtodothingswit0000aust|url-access=registration|year=1962|page=[https://archive.org/details/howtodothingswit0000aust/page/5 5]}}</ref> Austin did not use the word ''performativity''.

Breaking with [[analytic philosophy]], Austin argued in ''[[How to Do Things With Words]]'' that a "performative utterance" cannot be said to be either true or false as a constative utterance might be: it can only be judged either "happy" or "infelicitous" depending upon whether the conditions required for its success have been met. In this sense, performativity is a function of the [[pragmatics]] of language. Having shown that ''all'' utterances perform actions, even apparently constative ones, Austin famously discarded the distinction between "performative" and "constative" utterances halfway through the lecture series that became the book and replaced it with a three-level framework:

* ''locution'' (the actual words spoken, that which the linguists and linguistic philosophers of the day were mostly interested in analyzing) 
* ''illocutionary force'' (what the speaker is attempting to do ''in'' uttering the locution) 
* ''perlocutionary effect'' (the actual effect the speaker actually has on the interlocutor ''by'' uttering the locution)

For example, if a speech act is an attempt to distract someone, the illocutionary force is the attempt to distract and the perlocutionary effect is the actual distraction caused by the speech act in the interlocutor.

==== Influence of Austin ====
Austin's account of performativity has been subject to extensive discussion in philosophy, literature, and beyond. [[Jacques Derrida]], [[Shoshana Felman]], [[Judith Butler]], and [[Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick]] are among the scholars who have elaborated upon and contested aspects of Austin's account from the vantage point of [[deconstruction]], [[psychoanalysis]], [[feminism]], and [[queer theory]]. Particularly in the work of feminists and queer theorists, performativity has played an important role in discussions of [[social change]] (Oliver 2003).

The concept of performativity has also been used in [[science and technology studies]] and in [[economic sociology]]. [[Andrew Pickering]] has proposed to shift from a "representational idiom" to a "performative idiom" in the study of science. [[Michel Callon]] has proposed to study the performative aspects of [[economics]], i.e. the extent to which economic science plays an important role not only in describing markets and economies, but also in framing them. [[Karen Barad]] has argued that science and technology studies deemphasize the performativity of language in order to explore the performativity of matter (Barad 2003).

Other uses of the notion of performativity in the social sciences include the daily behavior (or performance) of individuals based on social norms or habits. Philosopher and feminist theorist [[Judith Butler]] has used the concept of performativity in their analysis of [[gender]] development, as well as in analysis of political speech. [[Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick]] describes [[Queer theory|queer]] performativity as an ongoing project for transforming the way we may define—and break—boundaries to identity. Through her suggestion that shame is a potentially performative and transformational emotion, Sedgwick has also linked queer performativity to [[affect theory]]. Also innovative in Sedgwick's discussion of the performative is what she calls ''periperformativity'' (2003: 67–91), which is effectively the group contribution to the success or failure of a [[speech act]].