Introduction

Abstract

The introduction explores the concept of performative economy, defined as the reciprocities, obligations, and moral norms that are shared by a population and the ways they are materialized and transmitted intergenerationally via performance—broadly defined to include religious ritual, storytelling, kinship conventions, body language, and gesture. In doing so, the chapter introduces a politics where the marginal position of street youth—the self-defined “kids on the street,” hair fairies, hustlers, queens, and “undesirables”—is the basis for a moral economy of reciprocity and mutual aid. Additionally, the introduction provides an overview of the book’s interdisciplinary approach, which draws on ethnographic research, oral history interviews, and archival research, and employs methods from performance studies, which approaches performance, broadly defined, as a system for transmitting cultural memory.