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This is a more radical position than that of
conventional feministsocial construction,
because she argues that biological sex is also
produced: there is no interiorized, biological
foundation on which gender rests. In this
sense, gender norms are materialized by the
body: they literally become matter. Butler also
wrestles with a more complexsubjectivity
than is evident in many social constructivist
accounts, because she attempts to holdpsy-
choanalysis in tension with discourse
analysis. She argues that identities are not
simply performed on the surface of the body:
what is performed always operates in relation
to what cannot be performed or said (notably
homosexual relations), mediated by the
unconscious. In contrast to some accounts of
social performances, those analysed as per-
formative are not seen to be freely chosen; they
are compelled and sanctioned by the norms of
compulsory heterosexuality (heteronorma-
tivity), and the subject has no choice but to
exist within gender norms and conventions
of nature (i.e. binary sex difference).
Performances are also historically embedded;
they are ‘citational chains’ and their effect is
dependent on conventions (i.e. previous utter-
ances). Norms and identities are instantiated
through repetitions of an ideal (e.g. the ideal of
‘woman’ or ‘man’). Since we never quite
inhabit the ideal, there is room for disidentifi-
cation and agency (seehuman agency).
Geographers have been divided in their
reactions to performativity theory. Bell,
Binnie, Cream and Valentine (1994) were
among the first to deploy the concept, in their
case to consider the subversive potential of
particular performances ofsexuality. Critics
have been concerned that the subject of per-
formativity is abstracted in time and place, has
little agency, is conceived within a purely dis-
cursive, non-material world and is one that
shares characteristics with the masculinist sov-
ereign subject (for a review of these criticisms,
see Pratt, 2004). Others have found the con-
cept fruitful to think with: some have theorized
space itself as performative (Gregson and
Rose, 2000); others have drawn out the spati-
alities that are under-theorized in Butler’s
work but necessarily underpin the process
described by the concept (Thrift, 2000;
Pratt, 2004). In Thrift’s words: ‘Social prac-
tices have citational force because of the
spaces in which they are embedded and
through which they work’ (2000, p. 677).
Non-representational styles of thinking, in
particular, emphasize the significance of the
non-discursive and the instability of thecitational process, envisioning social life ‘aspro-
cessually enactive, as styles and modes of per-
formative moving and relating rather than as
sets of codified rules’ (McCormack, 2003,
p. 489; original emphasis). The concept has
been put to work to theorize more than gender
and sexuality. Gregory (2005), for instance,
brings the concept to his analysis ofsovereign
power; Thrift (2000) outlines a new ‘ecology’
of capitalist business practices that produce
‘fast’ managers with aptitudes for constant
innovation and permanent high performance
(see alsocultural economy). gpperiodic market systems The regular pro-
vision of retail and other service functions at
fixed points on predetermined days in the
week. All of the functions may be available on
certain days only: in others – as with ‘market
days’ in British towns – additional functions to
those available every day are provided on set
days each week. There are analogies in their
distribution withcentral place theory,asin
a classic series of papers by Skinner (1964–5)
on Chinese market systems. In situations with
relatively low ranges and high thresholds,
traders moving around markets on set days
overcome problems of insufficient demand to
justify permanent provision. Empirical anal-
yses have identified a considerable range of
ways in which such systems operate, however,
often reflecting local cultural norms. rjSuggested reading
Bromley (1980).petro-capitalism It has been said that mod-
ern life is a form of ‘hydrocarbon civilization’
(Yergin, 1991). Energy, said one critic, is ‘the
precursor of economies’ (Shelley, 2005, p. 1).
oiland gas account for over two-thirds of the
world’s energy supply and are indispensable to
modern forms of mobility and power supply.
Since the early part of the twentieth century,
petroleum and industrial capitalism (and
indeed industrial socialism) has been predi-
cated on the availability of cheap petroleum.
Petro-capitalism refers to two distinct but
related ideas. The first is that petroleum is
the fuel of modern industrial capitalism. In
the context of contemporary debates over
global climate change (seeglobal warming),
addiction to (or dependency on) oil as a geo-
politically risky strategy for oil-importing
states and the continuing debate over whether
global peak oil output has been reached, there
may be the beginning of a turn to other
sources of energy (biofuels, nuclear and solar).Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_P Final Proof page 527 1.4.2009 3:20pmPETRO-CAPITALISM