As a fascinating case of what the author terms ‘doing performance ethnography’ (p. 124), this study explores the varied intersections of performance and activism in Ghana. Each of its three ‘acts’ addresses a different arena of struggle for human rights. Act I investigates the work of a local human rights non-governmental organization (NGO) that seeks to abolish a religious practice in which Ghanaian women (and their children) become the lifelong property of a priest in order to make up for the misbehaviour of members of the women's families. Act II accompanies democracy advocates in their struggle against the privatization of water and discusses performance pedagogy as a means for political activism. Act III investigates various forms of street performance and community theatre developed by women's rights activists in Ghana.

But Madison's study is not only an examination and analysis of the performative dimension of Ghanaian human rights activism. While the subject of the study is already a hybrid highlighting the potentials of performance for grass-roots activism, the author also offers a compelling approach to this topic. In Act II, for example, she discusses the ritual of bringing young girls to shrines as an act of reparation and the performative dimension of the activists’ ‘public emancipation ceremony’ (p. 56) which frees the women from their subjugation to the shrine's priest. In addition, Madison's study reflects the process of conducting her fieldwork, her status as an ethnographer, the ‘deep particularities’ (p. 60) inherent in this religious practice and the ‘rerouting of positionalities’ (p. 65) which came along with her personal and professional engagement in the topic. Thus her text is both performative analysis and personal narrative.

Most striking about Acts of Activism, however, is that the research itself is inherently performative. On the basis of her interviews, Madison developed performance scripts, which are documented in the Appendix. Excerpts of these scripts also interweave with her analysis in the main part, becoming part of her multifaceted form of inquiry. In Madison's study, performance functions as a ‘third space’ (p. 82), which reflects on the ethics of (ethnographic and theatrical) representation while simultaneously offering ‘a sense of being present in the “there” moments’ (p. 131). Thus performance is not only subject, but also method, a particular way of gaining and experiencing knowledge, a process that is constantly reflected upon, analysed and repositioned. Although Madison offers her readers little preparation for her methodological enterprise, her study becomes a kaleidoscope in which the political, the personal, the theoretical and the artistic not only denote diverse approaches to the topics of performance and activism, but generate remarkable synergies.