Dispossession 21

Judith Butler and Athena Athanasiou discusses spaces of appearance and politics of exposure in their last chapter of the book. In fact, this chapter does indeed appear to be a culmination of the performative politics that they discuss at length throughout the book. Spaces of appearance often take the form of the performative arena, as they allude to, and exposure to this performative arena has its own political implications. For example, the undocumented worker who wants her rights and humanity to be recognized must face the risk of exposure when she makes herself visible; sometimes this risk is more ideological in that she can face political and rhetorical backlash, and other times this risk is more literal with the fear and threat of deportation. Another example is that of a transwoman who wishes to have her rights respected and her humanity recognized but must risk exposing that she is a transwoman; not something that every transperson wishes to do (especially after a complete change or shift form their previous gender). In this way, the marginalized group must determine whether visibility, or in this case, exposure will lead to the desires political results or whether the ramifications of visibility will interrupt the gains experienced from doing so.

This reminds me of one of Ortega’s earlier readings on the visibility of minority women in feminist discourse. On the one had the need for minority voices and experiences to be included in feminist discourse (and subsequent policy) comes at the expense of making these identities painfully aware of just how marginalized or “different” they are. One cannot engage in discourse in an attempt to include differing identities until the recognition of these identities as “different” is made. The politics of this exposure can be both beneficial to the wider scope of feminist understanding but also marginalizing as it remains complicit in the notion of difference.