Performativity and Cultural Studies

Construed most broadly, performativity refers to the theory that speech or action is constitutive, rather than merely representative, of reality. This is especially germane to questions of identity and identity politics. In other words, statements (speech) or behavior (action) cannot be limited to describing or outwardly manifesting what is real; they should be understood as actually making up what is real. This notion has its most direct roots in the work of speech theorist J. L. Austin, whose key lectures were published posthumously in the 1960s and 1970s; it is perhaps more commonly associated, however, with the writings of Judith Butler, who from the 1980s onward has applied the theory specifically to the discourse of gender identity.