Decolonizing Performance Research

This essay examines the potentialities and limitations of the Anglo-American performance paradigm. It discusses the epistemological and methodological implications of the "performance turn" in the social sciences. It considers the Indigenous critique of dominant Western knowledge systems that support a form of cultural imperialism privileging binary thinking and mind-body dualism. The exploration of the strands of scholarship emphasizing the political dimension echoes Diana Taylor's dual concepts of archive and repertoire, material traces and non-written performance, exposing the social and cultural biases behind the archive's supposed neutrality.