Mediations of performative political action

Abstract

This article collects the partial results of the doctoral research: Performative political action: relationality and assemblage in the current forms of claim. This research asked about the performative nature in some current forms of social claim. It specifically focused in those in which recourse to repertoires or mediations of an aesthetic or artistic nature is implied. In this sense, this article collects some of the theoretical elements of performance studies and of the understanding of performativity. Along with this, it alludes to performative ethnography analyzing three mediations: the graffiti, “Who gave the order?,” the report “Never again” by the Pacifistas digital portal, and the photographic exhibition Madres terra to put the “false positives” case on the public scene. The findings reveal four functions of performativity that shed some light on the variability in languages, the expressivities and the effects that are generated in these forms of claim. The first function refers to political actions such as convergence and materialization of the claim through graffiti, performances, tattoos, photographs, The second function talks about how mediations are expressions of a rituality that is responsible for updating and renewing symbols. The third function proposes that such expressions are used, above all, by victims as a way of embodying the complaint. And the fourth of these functions establishes how through mediations, it is possible to mobilize the conventional senses regarding the claim and the complaint.