Talking Across Epistemological Difference: Seeing Gender Identity as Performances and Performativities

• In Event: Roundtable Session 45
  In Roundtable Session: Embodied Curriculum: Racialized, Gendered, and Confined Corporealities

Abstract

This conceptual paper uses classroom data to build upon theoretical trends in qualitative research to accomplish two methodological goals: first, to reclaim theories of performance and performativity as analytical tools and second, to illustrate how reading, analyzing, or seeing with both theories in mind offers a richer depiction of gender and its variations in social contexts. Additionally, in tracing the ontology of these concepts, the paper talks across epistemological difference to foster dialogic engagement between the theories so that their vision together might offer a more complex and even complementary story about the social world.

Author

• Michael Macaluso, Michigan State University