Aleksandra Kołtun Can Knowledge be (a) Performative? Perfomativity in the Studies of Science Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej Lublin 2015 [Presented to the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Social Studies in the Field of Cognitive Studies and Social Communication] CONTENTS Acknowledgements 7 Introduction 9 The work of performance and performativity: a general overview 15 The performative turn: main sources and inspirations 17 Theatre and performance studies 19 From philosophy of language to gender studies 23 Knowledge in “the postmodern condition” 28 “The world is being challenged forth to perform – or else” 29 Performativity and performance: a conceptual outline 33 Shifting boundaries: saying, acting, meaning 35 Temporality: uniqueness and repeatability 40 Producing effects: power and liminality 45 Recapitulation: knowledge in the performative turn 51 Performativity of science and knowledge 55 Science and technology studies: from representing to intervening 57 Postconstructivism and performativity of science and knowledge 60 Actor-network theory: facts construction 62 Andrew Pickering: the performative idiom and mangle of practice 69 Karen Barad: performativity as intra-activity 74 Joseph Rouse: science as a world-transforming activity 77 Science and technology studies and social sciences 82 Abandoning the dualisms: ‘flattened’, posthumanist sociology 83 Łukasz Afeltowicz and Krzysztof Pietrowicz: social machines 86 John Law: performativity of the method 88 Economics’ performativity 92 The turn to things 93 Transitions: towards knowledge performativity 95 6 Contents Knowledge as (a) performative 101 Knowledge as (a) performative: a conceptual outline 103 Knowledge and the world: mutual embeddedness and enaction 108 Knowledge and knowing: bringing product and process together 111 Shift to the big picture: science, ethics, effectiveness 118 Liminal spaces of knowledge production 121 Knowledge as (a) performative within humanities and social sciences 122 Performance and performativity in social research 123 Non-representational theory 127 Ewa Domańska: affirmative humanities 130 Concluding remarks 133 Bibliography 139 Subject Index 151 Reference Index 155 AckNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank to many people and institutions for their indis- pensable support in writing this book. Above all, I am most grateful to my supervisor, Professor Zbysław Muszyński, who encouraged me to embark on this task and provided me with constant feedback, com- ments and countless inspirations. Also, this piece of work would not be possible without my family: my husband, mom and dad, grand- mother, my brother, and parents-in-law. My deepest thanks go to them, for their patience, love, and care were inexhaustible. In addi- tion to them, I would like to thank to Professor Ewa Bińczyk whose review was extremely thought-provoking and greatly helped me to give this book its form and clarify the argument. Very special thanks go to Piotr Wegner, who is the very person responsible for how this book looks on the inside. WunderWegner is precisely the name for a busi- ness of yours! Finally, I am also grateful to Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, and espe- cially to The Faculty Committee of Support for Young Scientists, for providing a creative environment for conducting social sciences inquiry and their financial support for the project entitled “Utility as a social representation of knowledge”. INTRODUCTION Although the notions of performance and performativity entered humanities and social sciences more than half a century ago, only recently have they gained tremendous attention and popularity among scholars and researchers alike. By all means, this reintroduction of the two notions into academic inquiry has been very powerful, espe- cially when we take into account that they have also transformed the landscape of contemporary economics, society, and culture. As Jon McKenzie aptly put it: we are shifting into “the age of global perfor- mance” (see McKenzie 2001). The basic premise of the study presented in this book is that we are currently witnessing a certain performativity-oriented reconfiguration of reflection upon scientific knowledge production. Since the middle of the 20th century, philosophical inquiry into science and knowledge has been marked by at least two seminal shifts: firstly, the downfall of domination of the theory-centered accounts which define knowledge in terms of representations, and secondly, the advancement of some more practice-wise approaches, which, however, have already met some substantial criticism. I argue that this landscape can be refined by one more perspective, not aspiring to replace the former ones, but serving as a certain model that complements them while bringing our attention to those aspects of knowledge production that up till now have remained secondary or even neglected. Therefore, I put forward a concept of ‘knowledge as (a) performative’. The rationale behind this proposition is to highlight the intrinsically transformative facet of knowledge production, espe- cially with regard to its profoundly processual character and a twofold, mutual embeddedness of knowledge and reality, in which ‘the world’ is both a point of departure and an effect of knowledge processes. As a result, introducing the concept of knowledge as (a) performative entails a number of shifts in both language of description and issues at stake, concerning, above all, the character and spaces of knowledge production, 10 Introduction questions of broadly understood effectiveness, a link to power and ethics, as well as a more general problem of delineating the role of science in today’s world. Not surprisingly, a range of already available conceptions take into account broadly understood performative aspect of science and knowl- edge. They have been elaborated mainly within Science and Technology Studies (STS), especially in their postconstructivist versions represented by intellectuals such as Andrew Pickering, Karen Barad, Joseph Rouse, together with the renowned actor-network theory of, among others, Bruno Latour, John Law, Annemarie Mol and Michel Callon. With this I do not want to claim that all these authors explicitly rely upon notions of performance or performativity, nor that they would situate their own work within the so-called performative turn. However, as will become clear, the assumptions made by STS representatives consti- tute a very particular, undoubtedly performative vision of science and knowledge. Their work is profoundly constructivist, and at the same time materialistic, with a focus on the processes of creating the scien- tific objects and facts as well as grounding them in a properly reconfig- ured sector of reality. Altogether, postconstructivist studies of science and knowledge distance themselves from the traditional, positivist con- ceptions of science and knowledge in several important ways, which can be summarised as a shift in areas of interest: from theories and brilliant individuals, epistemology-centered questions, and the issue of settling clear boundaries between science and non-science, towards collective and situated micro-practices, more ontology-wise ques- tions at stake, and the objective of undermining the long-established dualisms together with a belief in some kind of a privileging epis- temic foundation of science. Hence, the concept of knowledge as (a) performative heavily relies upon postconstructivist science and technology studies. However, it also owes to various ideas that, having originated in the fields that are seemingly distant from STS, like performance studies, aesthetics, philosophy of language, literary theory or gender studies, do provide some valuable insights into how performance and performativity work. Especially, they allow me to examine the transformative nature of performatives and the conditions of their success, to relate them to the issues of power and the possibility of resistance and change, but also to theorise upon the liminal spaces of performing and meaning-making, or attempt at exploring the way that performatives’ reconnect the seemingly opposite Introduction 11 features, like that of uniqueness and repeatability. All in all, bringing these diverse strands of thinking – from science and technology stud- ies as well as some broader humanist traditions – in a certain dialogue establishes a reasonable conceptual basis from which I derive the notion of knowledge as (a) performative. However, before going any further I should make a couple of reser- vations. By no means do I intend to provide a full picture of what is currently occurring under the performative turn; inclusively, I do not believe that an exhaustive reconstruction of the performative accounts of – solely – science and knowledge is in my capacity. My focus is rather on selected ideas than a systematic reconstruction, let alone a critical review. At the same time, the proposition I put forward should not be understood as any kind of a complete turnover of what we have known and believed so far. Rather, I wish to provide an incentive for a simple, yet surprisingly productive conceptual shift. For I am convinced that exploring the performative aspect of knowledge production is not only a matter of taking full advantage of what the per- formative turn has to offer, but also that it may serve as a yet another tool of debating some of the still widespread visions of