Dead geographies - and how to make them live

In this introductory paper-which follows the course of the papers included in this special issue-we argue that there are currently four main apprehens ions of performance. The first of those apprehensions is provided by the wo rk of Judith Butler on performativity. We then move to a second apprehensio n-the rather more general notion of performance found in nonrepresentationa l theory, using as an example the work of Gilles Deleuze. The third apprehe nsion of performance is that taken from work found in the discipline of per formance itself. Then, the fourth apprehension concerns the reworking of ac ademic practices as performative.