ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the situation in 2008/2009, when those cultures were nascent in Portugal, to analyse how their emergence suddenly changed longstanding epistemic categories and hierarchies. It utilizes the data from 2015/2016 to examine what the epistemic climate looks like now that a culture of performativity has become institutionalised as the dominant and over-riding organising principle. To better understand the relation between the 'performative university' and issues of epistemic status, it is helpful to consider, the conventional understandings of 'performativity' used in Women’s, Gender, Feminist Studies scholarship. The chapter explains the discursive framework, of academic work, not just in Portugal but also in many other countries throughout the world. Researchers of academia argue that the concept of paradox is a helpful tool in that research, because it renders visible the ways in which seemingly contradictory practices might not just coexist, but be mutually constitutive.
