Performative Democracy

Matynia (sociology and liberal studies, New School for Social Research) describes examples of what she calls "performative democracy," which is a temporary phenomenon, an emergent public sphere, that involves local people talking to each other in public in order to illuminate the reality around them and find ways to change it. She discusses the Young Theater movement of Poland and how it enabled private voices to become social ones in the early 1970s; the emergence of the Polish union Solidarity, "a masterwork of performative democracy," Polish dissident Adam Michnik; the performativity of negotiations to end communism in Poland and apartheid in South Africa; and the performativity of Polish women artists as Poland joined the European Union. Annotation 穢2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)