Paper short abstract:

This paper conjures up a realignment of theories or performativity through a Strathernian imaginary and evokes trajectories of theoretical and ethnographic engagement that partially re-connect anthropology to interdisciplinary fields of gender theorising.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I draw on the work of Marilyn Strathern on the ethnography of relations and anthropological knowledge practices, with a view to extend Strathernian insights and theorize the pre-theoretical commitments of inquiries into the study of categories such as 'gender' and 'secrecy'. My aim is to do so specifically in relation to theories of performativity, to both disentangle multiple genealogies of performativity at play in contemporary debates and evoke a realignment of theories of performativity through a Strathernian imaginary. To say, as Strathern does, that our accounts 'conjure up' their own objects, entails acknowledging the pre-theoretical commitments of anti-foundational epistemologies marked by performativity, whilst conjuring up trajectories of theoretical and ethnographic engagement that partially re-connect anthropology to interdisciplinary fields of gender theorising.