So, I came to thinking about the idea of methodological performativity from a paper by Susan Nordstrom and Alison Happel-Parkins about methodological drag, which draws on Judith Butler’s thinking about gender performativity. Nordstrom & Happel-Parkins define methodological drag as “a performance, or strategy, in which qualitative methodologists make themselves intelligible in various settings (e.g., teaching qualitative research classes, mentoring students, interacting with other faculty in committee meetings, and conducting their own research)” (2016). They argue that “these performances point to the impossibility of a stable, coherent, and essential identity of qualitative methodologist.” Building on this concept, I argue that both methodological identity, including the identities of qualitative methodologists, and methodology itself are constructed through various performative acts and that these acts are not inherently subversive—they can be subversive, but they can also perpetuate norms and normative violences.

Put simply, performative acts, whether through speech, gesture, or performance, do what they purport to do. Saying I pronounce you married, under the appropriate conditions, makes people married (for better or for worse), walking in a specific way (that matches a recognizable gendered walk; a walk that cites a prior walk) re-constructs gender, and performing methodological acts, following the steps of specific methods, or citing specific bodies of methodological literature re-constructs methodology and lends authority to methodological norms. For example, if we code qualitative data, we contribute to the naturalization of coding as thematic analyses and lend credence to coding as a norm. Describing coding as “the ordinary way” or “the traditional method” further entrenches coding’s normativity. Through iterations of these acts or gestures, we construct methodology.

However, Butler clarifies that these performative acts only succeed provisionally: “If a performative provisionally succeeds (and [they] suggest that ‘success’ is always and only provisional), then it is not because an intention successfully governs the action of speech, but only because that action echoes prior actions, and accumulates the force of authority through the repetition or citation of a prior, authoritative set of practices” (1993, pp. 226-227). Furthermore, performative acts are not singular acts but reiterations which reinforce that which the act refers to. They are “a nexus of power and discourse that repeats or mimes the discursive gestures of power” (1993, p. 225).

By anticipating methodology’s essence, we create the illusion of that essence, which constructs methodology. We perform both methodology and methodological identity, in anticipation, in ways that create what we anticipate: methodology itself. Through waiting for permission or arbitration, we give authority to methodology and its gatekeepers. Butler states that “if gender is instituted through acts which are internally discontinuous, then the appearance of substance is precisely that, a constructed identity, a performative accomplishment which the mundane social audience, including the actors themselves, come to believe and to perform in the mode of belief” (2006, p. 191-192). In this sense then, one comes to believe the methodological acts which they perform. This echoes Elizabeth St. Pierre’s observation about qualitative methodology that “we’ve forgotten that we made it all up” (2011, p. 613). Hence, we perform acts of methodology in belief while forgetting that we’ve constructed methodology and that this construction is what lends methodology its authority.

Through repetition, these acts, gestures, or performances reinforce what is already established: “As in other ritual social dramas, the action of gender requires a performance that is repeated. This repetition is at once a reenactment and reexperiencing of a set of meanings already socially established; and it is the mundane and ritualized form of their legitimation” (2006, p. 191). In the sense of methodological performativity, performing methodological identity or performing specific methodological acts references (frequently in this case literally through citations) the authority of existing practices and in the process borrows authority from those practices and lends authority to those practices to reinforce their power.

In the sense of methodological performativity, methodological acts may do different things (or nothing at all) in certain contexts or with certain audiences. The effect of the act may be different when performed for colleagues with similar methodological identities, those who don’t value your methodological acts, or graduate students learning about methodology. For each of these audiences, the act may also have a different citational or ritual meaning. For example, a graduate student new to methodology may not recognize the referential nature of the act in order to understand what is being reinforced.

Returning to the concept of drag, Butler uses drag to show that gender doesn’t exist prior to subjects or that individuals do not innately have gender. Butler writes that “in imitating gender, drag implicitly reveals the imitative structure of gender itself—as well as its contingency” (2006, p. 187). In the case of methodology, it’s clearer that individuals are not innately quantitative or qualitative methodologists, and as I pointed out earlier, Nordstrom & Happel-Parkins argue that “a stable, coherent, and essential identity of qualitative methodologist” is impossible. However, we can perform various methodologies and methodological identities, expressing ourselves through new ways of being and doing. However, we might wonder: “is this subversive?”

For Butler, drag “serves a subversive function to the extent that it reflects the mundane impersonations by which heterosexually ideal genders are performed and naturalized and undermines their power by virtue of effecting that exposure. But there is no guarantee that exposing the naturalized status of heterosexuality will lead to its subversion. Heterosexuality can augment its hegemony through its denaturalization, as when we see denaturalizing parodies that reidealize heterosexual norms without calling them into question” (1993, p. 231).

Subversion in methodological performativity may lead to consideration of methodology beyond a binary of quantitative and qualitative (and beyond amalgams of qualitative and quantitative). Are there ways to perform methodology that expose the ways in which methodologies are naturalized? Can methodological drag be used to subvert a binary of quantitative and qualitative methodologies? Within paradigms of qualitative research, what would subversive acts look like, how would they be performed, and in what contexts? And how might normative methodology renaturalize itself within and through methodological drag? In the context of methodology, the use of drag must be careful and intentional to avoid unintentionally reidealizing these norms. Genuine, rather than parodic, subversive acts may be possible and may skirt this problematic potential.

In instances where qualitative methodologists hide aspects of their identities in front of other methodologists, methodological drag may not be subversive. And perhaps, these protective acts are more immediately necessary for personal safety than subversion, though we may ask who has the privilege to protect themselves and who is left vulnerable. When does methodological drag serve a protective rather than subversive function? And are these mutually exclusive? What happens when we perform uncomfortable identities? When our identities become uncomfortable or when we take on disingenuous identities? If we’re coerced into identities that aren’t our own? Or, as may be happening in our current political moment, if we’re forced or feel forced into normative identities?

We may think then about regimes of control within methodology. In repetition, performative acts of methodology follow and thus reinforce methodological norms. These norms might also be reinforced through gatekeeping actions that limit what methodological acts can be thought. As a result, creativity is limited. These norms may be reinforced through doctoral committees, peer review, funding agencies, or university administrators acting preemptively. Regimented methodology reminds me again of, St. Pierre arguing that “in general, qualitative inquiry, especially after SBR [scientifically-based research], comes with so many instructions and limits that rigor seems impossible” (2011, p. 620). These instructions and limitations are indicative of methodological norms and regulations that limit the possibility of methodological constructions and acts and confine creativity to only the continual reinforcement of narrow views of methodology that reinforce what has already been done. For St. Pierre, qualitative research “has been so disciplined, so normalized, so centered-especially because of recent assaults by SBR—that it has become conventional, reductionist, hegemonic, and sometimes oppressive” (2011, p. 613) These oppressive regimes of methodology may be explained through performative acts that reinforce norms and regulations.

Butler places performative acts within a history wherein they specifically reference the language of citation: “that binding power [of performative acts] is to be found neither in the subject of the judge nor in his will, but in the citational legacy by which a contemporary ‘act’ emerges in the context of a chain of binding conventions” (1993, p. 225). In this instance, Butler specifically speaks of judges in a legal process through reading Derrida reading Kafka and thus the citation is to specific legal documents. In the case of methodological drag, citation as regulation may come through what must be cited or through a process-based approach to methodology that simply follows steps as inculcated through instruction, through reinforcement of methodological norms, and through citational gatekeeping. Citation then becomes the binding power of methodological performatives both in the requirement to cite what came before and then in the requirement to follow the binding conventions described therein.

As subjects in relation to this authority, we don’t have complete agency or control: “gender is not a performance that a prior subject elects to do, but gender is performative in the sense that it constitutes as an effect the very subject it appears to express. It is a compulsory performance in the sense that acting out of line with heterosexual norms brings with it an ostracism, punishment, and violence, not to mention the transgressive pleasures produced by those very prohibitions” (“I&GI”, p. 363, emphasis in original). For methodology, we may not elect to perform methodology or to perform an identity as a methodologist. Norms may similarly be enforced through ostracism and punishment, experienced within a field or discipline, or even through formal mechanisms, such as peer review. Methodological deviation specifically may prompt immediate rejection or effect research impact, such as through citations.

If citation is regulation, then perhaps there is a hope in citation as well through citational justice. Sara Ahmed discusses citation as “how we acknowledge our debt to those who came before; those who helped us find our way when the way was obscured because we deviated from the paths we were told to follow.” Ahmed’s approach to considering citation specifically references deviance. Citation is both a process of giving credit or acknowledging debts but also directly related to the process of seeing a new path and deviating from the norms and regulations. Thus, citation becomes a process of building a deviating path through performances, which through their iteration become new methodologies and methodological identities. We may still wonder though how we do justice to that which is not citable, such as unpublished work, work that was kept from being? And how is citational authority constructed performatively? A snowballing effect of citational iteration, to the point that a short citation itself invokes meaning? Who are we in relation with through our citations and what future are we iteratively constructing for methodologies and our own methodological identities?

Thinking about methodology and methodologist performatively reminds us that we made it all up. By recognizing that the repeated performative construction of methodology and methodologist serve to naturalize this essence and identity, we see that while not entirely agential, our methodological performances can naturalize or subvert norms—naturalize the taken-for-granted position of methodology or undermine it.

Methodological performativity provides avenues for thinking about methodology and methodological identity that opens up new questions or new ways of thinking about old questions to understand how discipline, regulation, norms, and power are enacted through methodology’s history. By subverting methodological norms and specific methodological regimes, we can explore opportunities to be more creative about methodology and to grow methodology in new directions. Methodological performativity incites us to be mindful of how practices and acts reinforce ways of doing methodology. It asks us to consider how we are doing and undoing methodology and perhaps to further explore methodological undoing.

With that, I’m open to questions but excited for comments, thoughts, and reactions. I’m curious if folks have thoughts or experiences that resonate with performative methodology or that demonstrate the performative nature of methodology and methodologist.