I use the term "bending Discourse" to describe acts of resistance that use performative elements within regimes of truth in order to expand the regimes of truth (Gee 1996, Butler 1990, Foucault 1980).
I believe, as Judith Butler contends, that performance creates identities "instituted through a stylized repetition of acts, which are internally discontinuous [so that] the appearance of substance is precisely that, a constructed identity, a performative accomplishment which the mundane social audience, including the actors themselves, come to believe and to perform in the mode of belief" (Butler 1990, p. 271). This fits nicely with Michel Foucault's argument that,
"Normative conceptual systems that the state or an elite imposes on others in order to discipline them, defining the "normal" and the "deviant". Power/knowledge involves a particular kind of truth, which is located within the deep regimes of discourse and practice. The path to freedom requires us to detach ourselves from the regimes of truth associated with the human sciences, because these have become manipulative, if not dominating and enslaving. (Foucault 1980, p.153.)
This concept of normativity and deviance, coupled with Butler's performativity suggest that regimes of truth tend to protect themselves through performativity. This protection of regimes of truth may erode naturally and change slowly through a naturally evolution or growth. Regimes of truth may also change radically because of an external paradigm shift (Kuhn 1962).
They may also be pushed (or pulled?) to evolve by performers operating on the edges or periphery of the regimes of truth. These performers may not be fully entrenched in the discourse and practice (what Jim Gee terms Discourse) enough to fully subscribe to performative acts that enforce and reinforce the regimes of truth. Any discourse and practice engaged in by these performers that broadens the scope of normativity can be said to be an act of bending Discourse.
Butler, J. (1990). "Performative acts and gender constitution: An essay in phenomenology and feminist theory," in Case, Sue Ellen (Ed.), Performing feminism, pp. 270-282. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University.
Foucault, M. (1980). "Power/Knowledge," in Colin Gordon (ed.), Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977. New York: Pantheon Books.
Gee, J. P. (1996). Social linguistics and literacies: ideology in discourses, 2nd edn. London: Taylor and Francis.
I think that this is one of the most important ideas I've had. Granted, it's simply a way to connect a lot of others' ideas together into one term that addresses a process that already happens. I just hadn't run into a name for it yet, and I use "bending Discourse".
