On the 'thesis by performance': a feminist research method for the practice-based PhD

Singh, Nicola (2016) On the 'thesis by performance': a feminist research method for the practice-based PhD. Doctoral thesis, Northumbria University.

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Abstract

This doctoral project challenges the conventions of academic enquiry that, by default, still largely shape the procedures of practice-based PhDs. It has been submitted in the form of a ‘thesis by performance’ - a thesis that can only be realized through live readings that present knowledge production as something done in and around bodies and their contexts. The aim has been to reposition institutional and educational knowledge in an intimate, subjective relationship with the body, particularly the researchers own body.

The ideas gathered together in this ‘thesis by performance’ address the body and its context using material that was sometimes appropriated, sometimes invented and sometimes autobiographically constructed. From the start, these approaches and sources were used to directly address those listening in the present, the ‘now’ in which words were spoken. An approach influenced by feminist thinkers in the arts, Kathy Acker, Chris Kraus, Katrina Palmer and Linda Stupart. The methodological development of the research has been entirely iterative – developed through the making and presenting of performance texts. Each text was presented live as part of mixed-media installations, experimenting with how language and voice can be visualised and choreographed.

Consequently, the resulting ‘thesis by performance’ is a doctoral submission unimpeded by a printed script - only an introductory statement and two appendices are available outside of a live reading. In this way the process of performance can inspire new terms of reference in the field of postgraduate practice-led research entirely on its own terms.

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