psi12 :: Performing rights library

Maybe I can try and say something about some of the issues raised in this session. It was about reaction. About the differing modes and temporalities of reaction to moments of crisis. Paul talked about the crisis that set in just days before PSi10 in Singapore, when he was suddenly required to obtain the names, passport numbers and paper abstracts of all 173 delegates in order to obtain a license that the organisers had assumed they would not need to obtain. For Paul in this situation the reaction was more or less 'in real time' - as the crisis took hold he found his own 'neurotic' response to it as a kind of internalisation of the logics of the bureaucracy to which he was forced to respond. We talked too about the need to make distinctions of proportion. In detailing different sources, targets and modes of censorship Kathy Rowland urged those reacting to crises around restrictions on their artistic practice to be careful when to use and when not to use terms such as 'ban' and 'censorship',and to be precise in identifying the source and nature of the suppression under way. Is the discourse of 'rights' always the best basis on which to respond. This related to a more general question, raised on numerous occasions and not just in this session, about the adequacy of rights discourse. Do we want to rely on a set of texts and discursive practices which are embedded in an enlightenment project with such deep implication in colonialism, for example? In this respect - and very important for PSi12 to think about - can the idea of 'performing rights' be a way of thinking about struggle and action that brings rights into being that are not identical to those set out in such documents as the Universal Declaration?