ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 lays out the theoretical map for the book, which is then put to work in the subsequent chapters. This chapter develops a cumulative theorisation of conceptual knowledge production. The first part of the chapter sets out a conceptualisation of concepts, and applies this conceptualisation to the concept of gender. The notion of conceptuality, which is a term used to expresses the nature of concepts, is used in this chapter to explore the instability of concepts, and in particular the instability of the concept of gender, which has its own specific trajectory and characteristics as a volatile concept. If concepts are unstable in nature, they are open to contestation in a different way to if they are understood as fixed and discrete—they become open to definitional politics. The second part of the chapter traces through a multi-stage theorisation of conceptual performativity, which in essence seeks to explain how concepts come to mean what they mean. Drawing on a familiar theoretical path which moves through performativity and citationality, conceptual performativity is then developed further in relation to notions of ‘elsewhereness’, materiality and finally the event. The stages through which the second part of this chapter moves are then the focus of the three subsequent chapters.
