covering almost every aspect of human activity […] [p]erformance discourse and its close theoretical partner, "performativity", today dominate critical discourse not only in all manner of cultural studies, but also in business, economics, and technology. The rise of an interest in performance reflects a major shift in many cultural fields from the what to the how, from the accumulation of social, cultural, psychological, political, or linguistic data to a consideration of how this material is created, valorized, and changed, to how it lives and operates within the culture, by its actions (Carlson 2004 2 , p. ix).