Performance, Feminism and Affect in Neoliberal Times ed. by Elin Diamond, Denise Varney, and Candice Amich (review)

The manifestations of neoliberalism are as diverse as the nations subjected to its authority, and so too are the performances that have risen in defiance. In Performance, Feminism and Affect in Neoliberal Times, edited by Elin Diamond, Denise Varney, and Candice Amich, twenty-three essays by members of the Feminist Research Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research illuminate and critique the ways in which these performances on four continents challenge (or in some cases support) the neoliberal state and its consequences.

The anthology’s editors argue that the neoliberal state reinforces not just the power of the elite, per David Harvey, but also the power of patriarchy. Therefore, they interrogate the featured performances through intersectional feminist and affect theories. In the second section of five, titled Violence and Performance Activism, Diana Taylor examines the work of Jesusa Rodríguez of Mexico and Liliana Felipe, originally from Argentina, who together have criticized the Mexican dictablanda (near-dictatorial control by neoliberal persuasion) for over thirty years. In 2006, Felipe effectively organized 3200 performances over fifty days for over a million protestors who occupied the Zócalo and Reforma in Mexico City to force a recount of presidential election votes.

Most of the activism documented here is performed by women, but not celebrated for that merit alone. For example, the feminist activists known as Femen International, who originated in Kiev and are now based in Paris, use a signature gesture in protest, painting their bare breasts with slogans they assert will be read by their target audience (men). However, Tiina Rosenberg, following Peggy Phelan, questions whether their actions, lacking critical analysis, actually re-inscribe the neoliberal position they claim to defy, particularly as responses to French Anti-Islamism.

Within the anthology, a number of the performances resonate with literal, physical danger, as activists put themselves in hazardous scenarios to embody the precariousness of life under neoliberal rule. Feigning death, Regina José Galindo of Guatemala inserts her body into a large plastic bag among heaps of garbage to be eventually discovered by dump workers. Amich reflects that the dump workers’ lack of concern for the presumed corpse illustrates the casual disrespect for the lives of women whose femicides often go unprosecuted due to the sheer volume of such murders near the maquiladoras that employ the women for cheap labor. Referencing Judith Butler, Amich situates Galindo’s various actions in a “shared corporeal vulnerability” (102) that draws its audiences into the true risks experienced by the artivist and the women who are murdered while trying to make a living (102).

The researchers engaged in this anthology delve incisively into the nuances of affect stimulated by the varied performances. Specific socioeconomic and political histories contextualize each essay, but what emerges through reading the whole book is the broader global weave of neoliberal dominance. The collection is sweeping and powerful, a testament to those who actively, creatively resist neoliberal abuse around the world—deficient only by the notable absence of African performances of resistance. Nevertheless, the book is itself an urgent textual indictment by unified researchers against neoliberalism.