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10 - Language, Gender and Sexuality, and Performativity

from Part Two - Knowledges and Domains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 September 2023

By
William L. Leap
Edited by
Cecilia McCallum ,
Silvia Posocco  and
Martin Fotta
Cecilia McCallum
Affiliation:
Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil
Silvia Posocco
Affiliation:
Birkbeck College, University of London
Martin Fotta
Affiliation:
Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences
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Summary

Performative inquiry – studies of doing and its consequences for being – is a prominent feature of research projects in exploring gender and sexuality, especially when gender and sexuality are closely tied to linguistic practices. Moreover, because performativity of doing unfolds in specific social and temporal contexts, performative inquiry shows how gender and sexuality become inflected variously in relation to intersectionalities and inequalities, and how language use connected to gender and sexuality becomes inflected in similar terms, as well. Performative inquiry is also concerned with assumptions about normative (or ideological) assumptions that regulate “commonsense” distinctions between valued and not-so-valued practices of doing and being. This chapter’s case studies and discussion show how gender and sexuality are shaped by performative practices and how language use is entailed within these gendered and sexual performative formations.

Keywords

performativitygendersexualityqueerideologyintersectionalitiesdisidentificationrefusalagency
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook for the Anthropology of Gender and Sexuality , pp. 260 - 282
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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