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Chapter 6 - The Performativity Test

from Part II - Post-Performative Approaches to Studying Markets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2024

Susi Geiger
Affiliation:
University College Dublin
Katy Mason
Affiliation:
Lancaster University
Neil Pollock
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
Philip Roscoe
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews, Scotland
Annmarie Ryan
Affiliation:
University of Limerick
Stefan Schwarzkopf
Affiliation:
Copenhagen Business School
Pascale Trompette
Affiliation:
Université de Grenoble
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Summary

It is no longer news to argue that economics is performative, that it does not only describe markets, but takes part in producing or manufacturing them. Once accepted as close to a matter of fact, the performativity argument risks becoming too much of a general statement. So, what’s next for performativity? This chapter turns the performativity into an empirical research agenda which moves from demonstrating the existence of performativity to putting the performativity argument to the test and investigate sites and modes of performativity. We need to distinguish between the performativity of research as constitutive, that is how knowledge production has an effect on the world; while simultaneously being aware that this is not by itself enough to effectively shape actual markets. To find empirical and analytical ways to observe performativity in action, we go back to one of the original sites from where the performativity of economics argument was developed: economic and marketing experiments. We find that both much more is made in these settings than the making of actual markets, for instance the making of economics as a discipline and so also knowledge of markets, and much less, as the markets produced in these settings do not always move out of them.

Type
Chapter
Information
Market Studies
Mapping, Theorizing and Impacting Market Action
, pp. 100 - 113
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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