Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with the idea of performative communication, more in the manner of an Alice in Wonderland than in the manner of a scientist seeking for definitive formulation. It seeks to place performative communication within the ambit of a larger trope of cultural politics. A snapshot of the bewildering ubiquity may give a sense that the scheme of performative communication has to be essentially inconclusive and thereby accommodative of the variety of experiences from across cultural-political contexts. The polyphony of performance maps intimate relations, spheres (public or private) and institutions (informal or formal). And to top it all, performance is paradoxical in most contemporary schemes of reckoning, and this is certainly true when it is followed by a suffix such as communication. The book also focuses on a peculiar case in the discursive framework of performative communication.