ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 asks whether it is possible for a truly unexpected conceptual shift to occur, drawing on the final stage of the cumulative theorisation of conceptual performativity—the event. The chapter is structured around two different conceptual performatives. The first was a session at the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) conference in the US where a presenter unexpectedly gave a pro-life presentation. The presentation featured in a number of different discussions with participants and as such the presentation was renarrated in different ways that altered the conceptual performative. The second was the overarching conceptual performative of the Indian Association for Women Studies (IAWS) conference in India, where the entire conference was set up to change Indian feminists’ conceptual configuration to include an understanding of gender in the Northeast region of India. Both of these performatives are explored through the different stages of the cumulative theorisation, which brings to light different aspects of the ways in which concepts were made to mean what they meant at those conferences. However, questions remain about whether the notion of the performative is sufficient to explain what happened to concepts at the conferences—or is there also an aspect of conceptual contestation that is open to the unexpected happening, to the possibility of an event?
