This thesis uses the theory of abjection to understand differentiations in non-heterosexual identity performances in two distinct spaces - the 2005 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras (SGLMG) parade and its associated press coverage, and latrinalia (graffiti found inside public toilets). At the same time, this thesis also presents evidence for a new concept of neo-normativity, where the stereotypical is normalised, both internally and externally, and actively reproduced. Neo-normativity, in turn, succeeds in explaining the many abjected relationships that between non-heterosexual communities and the stereotypical and quintessentialised performances. At the 2005 SGLMG parade such quintessentialised (or neo-normalised) performances were treated with both contempt - for being stereotypical and narrowly representative of the very diversity of non-heterosexual communities - as well as a tool for attracting commercial sponsorships which have growingly become an integral part to the continued survival of the annual parade. On a different level, another expression of abject was also revealed when these neo-normalised performances are persistently criticised by academics, news reporting and official photography for being stereotypical and non-representative which in itself are both a recognition as well as an ejection of the non-normative aspects of non-heterosexualities. Such an expression of abject was also evident in latrinalia found in several public toilet facilities throughout Greater Sydney were the interplay of desire and ejection were played out in a more covert manner, all the while highlighting the marginality of non-heterosexualities in these presumably heteronormative spaces. This application of abject theory emphasises neo-normative performances as permanently peripheral, a marginality of which makes these performances (and identities) intrinsically Queer.

This studio-based project explores a method of working that assigns agency to paint and process within the medium of painting. Underpinning this exploration is the notion that process driven making could potentially pose as a per formative event. Choreographed yet contingent, the practice investigates the relationship between the potentiality inherent within media and the extent to which this is affected by temporal/ external factors in the determining of outcome. A dialogue between the intentional and the contingent is initiated through a systematic approach that involves manipulation of the constituent elements of paint and the implementation of procedure and protocols as a means to activate conditions of possibility. Central to the research concerns are issues surrounding the ability of media to articulate itself, determine its own temporality and of process and content to operate conterminously. The images produced evidence this investigation as both enquiry and consequence.

This thesis explores how law is performed in daily life through physical acts. I propose that the body expresses, generates and is intertwined with an understanding of legal normativity. That is to say that law is developed through embodied acts of communication. The thesis, which takes the form of a website, provides a lens through which to see how corporeality shapes our legal landscape. I use text, video and live performance to propose ways to engage with this landscape. I demonstrate that in even the most banal gestures there is a microcosm of norm generation and reproduction processes that can be highlighted by paying closer attention to our daily life practices.

This thesis explores abjection as it comes to be socially reproduced across generations, and contested in moments of cultural resistance. It does so by examining how children from the rough inner harbour town of Marsa, Malta, responded to the presence of Sub-Saharan African migrants within their social space. The children seemed implicitly aware of how their working class town had historically been constituted as a socially marginal space, dubbed ‘low status’ by virtue of the social transgressions and vices which were considered to occur within it. The subsequent state of being symbolically cast off, or socially marginalized, is considered in terms of ‘abjection’. I explore how some people come to be devalued according to predominant symbolic systems of classification and value, and I examine how these peripheral social positions often come to be reproduced and resisted. The introduction of an open centre for sub-Saharan African migrant men in 2005 saw a sudden shift in the demographic population of Marsa, as hundreds of socially marginalized men were relocated within a dilapidated trade school on the outskirts of the town, whilst others sought to take advantage of cheap rent in the area. This thesis explores how my child informants came to constitute oppositional relationships with the migrants and with the Maltese bourgeoisie in turn, by appropriating concepts of dirt and social pollution as a symbolic boundary. In so doing, children subconsciously resisted the states of abjection conferred upon them, effectively and performatively shifting the abject in another direction whilst constructing a vision of their own alterity. In making this argument, my thesis brings together existing literature on social reproduction and abjection, whilst addressing a lacuna in anthropological literature by considering how politicized processes of abjection are undertaken by those who are socially marginalized themselves. It also marks a significant contribution to child-focused anthropology, in understanding ways in which children engage with processes of abjection.

This study explores the pedagogical experience of male nursing students. Research questions explored male students being subjected to feminine gender performance expectations, and an inequitable exercise of power and discipline and the relation of high attrition rates of male nursing students to feminine gender performativity expectations. The framework utilized included Butler's theory of gender performativity, Foucault's concepts of power and discipline and Queer theory. A Van Manen phenomenological method was utilized, with interviews of 20 current and past male and female students. Analysis of the data revealed that male students identified a need to perform in a feminine gendered manner, felt isolated and excluded in academic and clinical settings and perceived that they were subject to stricter surveillance and expectations. The discussion identified three key concepts; constructing the ideal, enforcing the ideal and surviving the ideal. Understanding the male student experience can help nurses in clinical and educational settings become more inclusive and create safer educational environments. Future research is needed to examine experiences of marginalized groups and develop interventions to assist students in navigating the education experience.

This diploma thesis called 'Performative Power and Terrorism in Europe in the 2010s', deals with the evolution of terrorism, counterterrorism and the use of the theory of performative power, as coined by Beatrice de Graaf in 2010. Since the recent attacks in Paris (13th of November 2015) and Nice (14th of July 2016), terrorism has become a hot topic again for both scholars and policymakers. De Graaf has provided a schedule of fourteen signifiers in order to measure the performativity of authorities, and the extent to which they are capable of influencing public fears and opinion when it comes to terrorism. A schedule that should concretise the way in which theory can be 'translated' to practice. By means of two case studies, regarding the terrorist attacks mentioned above, the theory and its signifiers will be analysed. The result of this analysis was stunning. This paper argues the theory and the signifiers are partially flawed and anachronistic. Although De Graaf considers her theory to be universal, the research conducted in this document reveals shortcomings and proves it does not stand the test of time. In order to make performative power and the signifiers time-resistant it has to be altered. Recommendations are therefore provided at the end of this paper.

The category of the entrepreneur has been increasingly adopted as a social identity in Brazil, a country where even the term ‘entrepreneurship’ was absent from ordinary language until recently (Melo, 2008). Where did this category come from? How does it disseminate in Brazil? And how do people come into contact and experience it? Research suggests that the end of the twentieth century witnessed the emergence of a socioeconomic agenda, policies, and discourses that placed entrepreneurship and the associated values of individualism, self-reliance, and enterprise culture in evidence (Audretsch, 2007; Boltanski & Chiapello, 1999; Gilbert, Audretsch, & McDougall, 2004; Keat & Abercrombie, 1991). These studies leave largely unaddressed the concrete mechanisms through which the category of the entrepreneur diffuses to the Global South. This thesis addresses this gap in the literature by applying an analytical framework that shines a spotlight on the practices of organizations that promote entrepreneurship in Brazil. Taking Empretec, Endeavor, and Online Networks of Support as case studies, I draw conceptual and methodological insights from policy diffusion and institutional analysis, science and technology studies, and organizational studies (Stone, 2012; Callon, 1998; Tomaskovic-Devey & Avent-Holt, 2019) to analyze data generated through interviews and content analysis. I argue that controversial aspects of post-War knowledge associated with the category of the entrepreneur gave way to an institutionalized normative and seemingly neutral depiction of the entrepreneur. I show how a growing number of organizations deploy varied strategies to encourage entrepreneurship and constitute entrepreneurial subjects in Brazil. It results in new groups performed across gender, racial, and class lines, with varying symbolic capital, and receiving support of different magnitude. Organizations that promote entrepreneurship are thus central in the dissemination of the category of the entrepreneur, but they inadvertently create a system of distribution of resources that exacerbates social inequalities.

Washington Square, like The Portrait of a Lady, is an open-ended Henry James novel that concludes ambiguously and unhappily, counter to the trend of many other Victorian novels. While many contemporary Victorian novels center on marriage and inheritance plots, concluding their protagonists' struggles with felicitous performative utterances of "I do" and "I bequeath," Catherine Sloper's future is less clear: at the conclusion of Washington Square, she remains both unmarried and disinherited. Both characters and readers alike seem stymied by Catherine's motivations at the end of the novel, as famously studied in Judith Butler's essay, "Values of Difficulty." Catherine seems calculable, submissive, and guileless at the beginning of the novel--both her father, Dr. Sloper, and her suitor, Morris Townsend, judge her to be good but "decidedly not clever." So what happens over the course of the novel to produce Catherine's infelicitous and incomprehensible outcome? This thesis's performative reading of Washington Square sheds light on the infelicitous and inscrutable conclusion to Catherine's story. At a critical moment in the novel, when her inheritance is at stake, Catherine refuses to be coerced into offering a promise that is demanded from her by her father. "I can't explain," says Catherine," "And I can't promise." This refusal to promise, or refusal to enact a felicitous performative--accompanied by an inability to explain her refusal--is a suspensive and powerful method of disinterpellation. Catherine unmakes herself as a subject in the capitalist ideology of the male antagonists in Washington Square--and thus, becomes incomprehensible to them--by insisting on infelicity. This powerful disinterpellation helps Catherine regain control over her future.

Hannah Arendt has been widely criticized for conceiving a theory of action and the public realm as devoid of any ethical restraints. This paper suggests that such criticism, as well as proponents of Arendt’s theory, fails to deal with her theory on its own terms and argue that her own notion of manifesting principles as the purpose of action, provides an account of political action that is ethically oriented towards our common world. Although such an account does not determine the rectitude of political judgement nor direct action towards ethically preconceived goals, it distinguishes political from practical reasoning as a distinct sphere of normativity that accords with the necessary conditions of Arendt’s theory of action. This paper suggests that the necessary conditions for a valid notion of action and thus a valid political normativity are (1): the performativity of action, (2): the autonomy of action and (3): action as the generative source of our common world. This paper concludes by suggesting that a proper critique or defence of Arendt’s theory of action should proceed by first engaging with the relationship between her notion of principles and the necessary conditions of a political normativity. Such an endeavor would refrain from shackling action according to the precepts of moral philosophy that either deny or downplay the importance of these conditions.

I Sverige i dag, är män underrepresenterade i förskolan, cirka 3% av arbetskraften är män. Utbildningsstyrelsen i Sverige, Skolverket, försöker ändra på detta genom elevrekryteringskampanjer riktade mot män. De upprättar också nätverk inom universiteten för att öka antalet manliga sökande i förskoleutbildningen och för att minska antalet män inom detta område som dra sig tillbaka. Det huvudsakliga syftet med denna studie var att avgöra vilka kvaliteter och / eller egenskaper män har som är tillgångar till förskolor i Sverige. Känner barn och förskollärare ett behov av män i förskolan, och i så fall, hur definieras dessa behov? Undersökningen sker genom observationer och intervjuer med tio pedagoger i två förskolor; Men endast en av dessa lärare var män. Barnen intervjuades i grupp eller ensamma, beroende på situationen, vanligen under observation. Litteraturen som vi använt för att analysera vårt material var Raewyn Connells tankar om kön och maskulinitet och Judith Butlers tankar om performativitet. Vi fann att det inte finns något särskilt behov av män i förskolan. De behov som lärare och barn eftersökte var kvaliteter och egenskaper som är könsneutrala, och det förmodade behovet av män existerade grundades endast sig på föreställningar om att kvinnor inte kunde eller ville besvara dessa behov. Svaret, snarare än att försöka få fler män i arbetskraften skulle vara att sluta göra könsbaserade antaganden. Fler män i förskolan kan i bästa fall visa att inte är en kvinnas jobb / In Sweden today men are underrepresented in pre-schools, where about 3 % of the workforce is male. The National Board of Education in Sweden, Skolverket, is trying to change this by student recruitment campaigns aimed towards men. They also establish networks within the universities to increase the number of male applicants in pre-school education and to decrease the number of men in this field who withdraw. The main purpose of this thesis was to determine what qualities and/or characteristics men have that are assets to pre-schools in Sweden. Do children and pre-school teachers today feel the need of men in that workforce, and, if so, how are those needs defined? The study is made through observations and interviews with ten educators in two pre-schools; however, only one of those educators was male. The children were interviewed in groups or alone depending on the situation, usually during observation. The literature we used to analyze our material was Raewyn Connells thoughts about gender and masculinity and Judith Butlers thoughts about performativity. We found that there is no specific need for men in pre-school. The needs expressed by educators and children were qualities and characteristics that are not gender-specific, and that the presumed need for men existed solely based on beliefs that females could not or would not answer those needs. The answer, rather than attempting to get more men in the workforce would be to stop making gender-based presumptions. More men in pre-school could at best indicate that being a pre-school teacher isn’t a woman’s job.