France and the Maghreb: Performative Encounters (review)

In the opening pages of Mireille Rosello’s France and the Maghreb: Performative Encounters, the reader will find an answer to the question its title begs: “What is a ‘performative encounter?’” Inspired by J. L. Austin’s theory of performative enunciation, Rosello explains that her use of the term refers to the dynamics binding human beings with a long history of strife, but who nonetheless succeed in disrupting the scenarios, practices, and overdetermined languages that have shaped their relations. In her critical perspective, a performative encounter takes place when individuals and peoples, assumed to be incompatible, resist being placed in positions that limit the form and content of their exchanges. In spite of the violence of certain shared historical experiences, these opponents are able to invent a common, heretofore unspoken language. These exchanges produce a new subject position, a new language and a new type of engagement which, although not necessarily devoid of conflict, does manage to disrupt dominant discourses and scenarios by giving rise to new forms of expression and dialogue.