Performans jako metoda: patrząc z ukosa na Zachód
Performance as a method: looking askance at the West

Summary/Abstract: Taking as its starting point Ted Chiang’s novella “Story of Your Life”, the article revisits Richard Schechner’s definition of performance as a method in the context of such interdisciplinary research fields as decolonial theory and Black Studies, which search for alternatives to the Western ways of gathering and transmitting knowledge. These emerging fields not only promote situated, local knowledge practices as knowledge ecologies, interweaving theoretical and practical approaches. They also look for relational ontologies on which the concept of pluriversum (many worlds in one world) is premised to replace the hegemonic Western dualistic ontology. This encourages a verification of the method of approaching other phenomena as performances. This method, fundamental to performance studies, upholds the dichotomy between an active knowing subject and a passive known object. To subvert this binary approach scholarly writing itself has to become a sort of performance. In the article, Chiang’s novella acts as a First Contact scenario which is actualized by detailed references to scholarly works and thesis. In this way, the scenario allows for a stepwise confrontation of different research approaches, usually analysed separately and situated either in the heart of the Western paradigm or on its margins, if not entirely beyond its boundaries.

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