The Dictionary of Human Geography

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existing locations ... specific performances

bring these spaces into being’ (p. 441).

Non-representational styles of thinking

bring to the notion of performativity more

emphasis on creativity, what is excessive to

representation, cognition and discourse,

everyday skills, affect and the ‘binding of

bodies-with-environment’ (Thrift, 2004c,

p. 177). With respect to the last, Thrift writes

of the ‘technological unconscious’, a vast ‘per-

formative infrastructure’ that provides the

stable ground for our practices and is produ-

cing the vast standardization of space. The

spatial imaginary is that of connections, inter-

sections, movement and assemblages; the

temporality that of becoming and the

momentary event.

Non-representational styles of thought take

much from performance studies, an interdis-

ciplinary focus with closer ties to the perform-

ing arts, especially theatre and dance. It shares

the emphasis on creativity and play, the inter-

mingling of the normative and transgressive,

the limits of representation, the expressive

qualities of the body beyond discourse, and

the full range of the senses, including the

kinaesthetic (as well as attempts to develop

vocabularies to document these). Perfor-

mance studies places especial emphasis on

liminal times and spaces that allow the tem-

porary suspension of norms and transitory

nature of an event, which can never be fully

captured, preserved or repeated.

The focus on performance has opened new

ways of thinking of and about research

methods. The emphasis on the extra-discursive

underlines the importance of witnessing in

order to understand – not just how people

describe their world – but how they act in their

world (seeethnomethodology). Witnessing

this ‘doing’ can offer opportunities to access a

range of experiences and emotions that are not

easily expressed through interview talk. It also

prompts a different methodological approach

to talk. Instead of asking respondents to

describe their world, researchers have become

more interested in listening to potential

respondents talk while they are in their worlds.

They are interested in the talk that does things.

More and more researchers are experimenting

with performative writing strategies, and

expanding the boundaries of what counts as

valuable research data and research products,

to include theatre and video productions (see

qualitative methods). Self-conscious research

performances stretch debates aboutposition-

alityand researchethicsin new directions

(Routledge, 2002).

Despite the convergences and overlap

between different approaches to performance,

there are significant disagreements that war-

rant further debate, especially about what

counts as politics and effective political strat-

egy. Thrift (2004c) directs us to the minutiae

of performativity to harness ‘the energy of

moments’ (p. 188). Houston and Pulido

(2002) have criticized the individualism of

much of the work within geography influenced

by the concept of performance and the ten-

dency to reduce resistance to the scale of the

body. They direct us back to historical materi-

alism and collective politics. Jacobs and Nash

(2003) are also measured in their reception of

non-representational theory. They argue that

the emphasis on escaping categorical fixity, in

an effort to accentuate processes of becoming,

risks returning the unmarked (implicitly mas-

culine) subject. They argue as well for the

need to discriminate between power relations:

‘In a world in which power is understood to be

radically dissimulated (as much about negoti-

ating subjectivity or negotiating household

chores, or work relations, or claiming and

refusing rights), the ... research imperative

becomes one of being sensitive to the relations

and proximities that matter, either in their

determining forces or their transforming

potential’ (pp. 274–5). How to make these

determinations offers grounds for debate. gp

Suggested reading

Butler (1990); Jacobs and Nash (2003); Phelan

and Lane (1998); Thrift (2000a).

performativity One strand of the recent

thinking aboutperformance: it has been an

important means of theorizing the workings of

powerin the production of rules and norms.

The concept is rooted in the linguistic distinc-

tion between constative and performative

utterances. A performative utterance (famously

exemplified by the statement: ‘I pronounce

you ...’, uttered at the marriage ceremony) is

itself an act that performs the action to which it

refers. The performative ‘brings to centre stage

... an active, world-making use of language’

(Culler, 1997, pp. 97–8).

The concept has been worked up most thor-

oughly by Judith Butler in relation togender

and norms of heterosexuality (1990, 1993a;

seequeer theory). She argued that gender is

a performance without ontological status:

‘There is no gender identity behind the

expression of gender; that identity is performa-

tively constituted by the very ‘‘expressions’’

that are said to be its results’ (1990, p. 25).

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PERFORMATIVITY