Self, Performativity and Vipassana Meditation

Some Theoretical Considerations

Bibliographic Data

ID4910285
AuthorsAntónio Carvalho (0000-0001-6149-8883, corresponding author)
Year2010
Issue08
Publication date2010-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
Venuee-cadernos CES (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1647-0737 • E-ISSN: 1647-0737
PublisherOpenEdition (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.4000/eces.445
OpenAlexW2006985198
LanguageEN
References cited38

The present proliferation of alternative and non-western practices challenges the way how modern selves are enacted, the distinction between ancient and contemporary, and obliges us to rethink the ways our bodies and minds are produced. By mingling the care of the self and self knowledge, some technologies of the self offer interesting paths to redefine and change our selves, questioning the hegemony of Science and Technology as the only way to operate a radical transformation of the human condition. I propose, through this article, an ontological and performative conception of vipassana meditation, faithful to the performative idiom of Science and Technology Studies, but recognizing its limitations to talk about selves and non-western practices. Performativity, here, is not understood as some naïf nostalgia of pre-representational realism - it rather explores the substantial nature of practice (and ritual), questioning ontological determination and carrying anthropological and political implications

Performative utterance · Performativity · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism · Theatre and Performance Studies