Performance and Political Economy (PPE) is a loosely structured research collective that first came together in 2018 as a reading group in London. Our initial ambition was to explore how Marxist value theory can be used to study performance. As our numbers grew so too did our scope of interest, expanding out from the specifics of value theory toward a broader critique of political-economic thought in performance studies. Our conversations have covered a wide terrain, including but not limited to such topics as emotional labor, social reproduction, fossil capital, strikes and riots, and the gendered and racialized dynamics of primitive accumulation. Reading together has helped us shape shared understandings of important categories in political economy—definitions of which we have since circulated through our collaboratively written keywords project.
We continue to meet as a monthly reading group, based in London. If you would like to join our discussions, please sign up for our mailing list via the ‘contact us’ tab. Our discussions are open to all.
The steering group of the research collective is made up of:
Shane Boyle
Nicholas Ridout
Caoimhe Mader McGuinness
Jaswinder Blackwell-Pal
Martin Young
Clio Unger
Alessandro Simari