Thesis Title:
Silence and the Politics of Performativity: Engaging with the Choreography of Silence Doing Things in the Context of UK Peace Politics
Abstract:
Luke’s work focuses on how we understand an aporia within democratic accounts of political participation and activism: how do we make sense of actors who engage, participate, or demonstrate politically by performing silence? In engaging with question, Luke’s work sits within the research area of ‘Silence Studies’, an area of study which engages with the neglected topic of how silence can be a productive site of political activity or interaction rather that a phenomenon that only indicates the presence of repression, inhibition, or agentic smothering. I
n this space, Luke engages with two broad concerns. First, how does a productive understanding of silence change our understanding of our own agency in political interaction and, second, how does this challenge our understanding of the social context within which political interaction occurs. To point one, Luke engages with how silence relates to our understanding of agency through the use performative speech act theory. To point two, Luke aims to understand how a productive approach to silence as a performative act changes our understanding of the social context of political interaction. Luke’s research captures this by showing how a performative understanding of silence highlights the dramaturgical character of political interaction, and, more specifically, the particular way actors are choreographed in contexts when silence is enacted or mobilised. These insights are then developed in order to analyse how silence was enacted, performed, and mobilised in UK peace politics.
Specifically, Luke looks at this context and social movement in order to capture an overlooked context where silence was a core rather than marginal part of political participation and interaction. The exact context Luke looks at here relates to the concerted efforts of peace activists to integrate silence into their protest repertoire in the first wave of CND activism in relation to the Aldermaston Marches. By engaging with this context Luke’s research aims to capture how political actors do things with silence and, more specifically, show what silence does, has done, or can do for the cause of peace politics. In engaging with this context in particular, Luke’s research shows how engaging with silence can help us understand alternative means of political engagement beyond traditional forms of verbal exchange.
Social Media:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-lavender1997/
First Supervisor:
Lasse Thomassen
Pathway:
Pathway 11: Global Order, Violence & Security Practice
Cohort:
2022-23