I chose to read chapter 21, which I called “Spaces of
appearance, politics of exposure. The main thing that really caught my
attention with the chapter is when Butler describes the symbolism of assembled
bodies in the public domain. She describes this presence as meaning “we are
still here”. She unpacks this statement further by stating, “We have not yet
been disposed of. We have not slipped quietly into the shadows of public life:
we have not become the glaring absence that structures your public life" (196). I
thought that this was a powerful description of what it means to be truly
present. It made me think of the Mike Brown protests. Through protesting
against how disposable black lives are in society, people were also making
another statement through being visible, which was “we are still here”. This
illustrates that performative politics allows people to embody the same thing
they are fighting against though visibility.
Moreover, right at the beginning of this chapter, Athanasiou sums up
the entire book as discussing the cycle of being “doing, undoing, being undone
and becoming, as well as multiple forms of giving and giving up” (193). The
fluidity that we have discussed in class with regards to gender and sexuality
are also relevant to continuous cycle of dispossession. Even if we may not
currently be dispossessed, or think we are disposed, we are always under the
constant threat of being dispossessed. We
are dependent on others for our place in this cycle of being undone and
becoming.
Furthermore, in this chapter there is talk about a “body
politic”, which ties in very well with everything else we have read from
Butler. This body politic is used to represent the idea that when people
demonstrate in the street even though one person speak it is not that they are
speaking on behalf of everyone, but instead they are asserting “presence as
plural”. This reminded me of what we read last week as Butler previously
mentioned that “I” is social, which can be tied back to my previous example of
the black lives matter protests. Unity comes about through recognizing that
there is a shared struggle. A more powerful unity can come about when the group
decides that they will transform that struggle into resistance. It is this
“body” that allows protests such as the “Un(occupy) Albuquerque” movement to
come to life.
I agree very much with Catherine's points on Butler's discussion on the political ramifications of the body (or what it means to have body politics). In regard to the Mike Brown protests and how black lives became "visible" through the protests, it's also necessary to note that the protesters do not also represent the body of "all black people," especially as a monolith. It's easy to fall into the conundrum of visibility that also attempts to wholly categorize those that are made visible.
ReplyDeleteCatherine, your post resonates with a lot of things this class has made me consider throughout the semester. I struggle with the idea of independence while living among others. I like how you conclude your post on unity coming from that disconnect. The space between identity and others can be used for something profitable rather than merely a space of confusion and conflict. The notion of "slipping into the shadows of public life" makes one feel as though their identity is insignificant, but perhaps we should think of it in a different way where one's identity contributes to that social space, although those contributions are vastly unequal.
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