Foucault’s primary aim was not to analyse how sexual practices had changed throughout history, but rather to examine how sexuality had transformed from a ‘particular activity that we may engage in’ to an object of knowledge, accompanied by a complete field of science, that tells us something about ‘who we are’.
In The History of Sexuality: the Will to Knowledge (1978), Foucault delivered a genealogy of how we came to think about sex. Furthermore, I claim that Butler overcame these shortcomings, by providing concrete opportunities for resistance through discursive deviation and performative protest. In this essay, I argue that Foucault’s reconceptualization of power provided important insights, but insufficient opportunities to resist the modern forms of power he adequately addressed. Foucault dismissed political action based on essentialist notions of social identity, but did he offer any alternative principles on which resistance could be based? Foucault famously claimed that ‘where there is power, there is resistance’, but simultaneously argued that power could not be escaped, as power would always be ‘already present, constituting that very thing which one attempts to counter it with’. However, his ambivalent stance on agency and resistance, left scholars to wonder whether his ideas were actually useful for political action. Going far beyond questions of gender, in this book the theorist looks into the precariat’s struggle to be seen, heard and recognised, and explains why this struggle is important not only for minorities but for the society as a whole.How Judith Butler Overcame Foucault’s Shortcomings While Foucault’s legacy reminds us that identity politics can be problematic, Butler shows how domination can be escaped through other means. This is particularly relevant in a time when identity-based resistance, such as #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter, is becoming increasingly // August 25th, 2018 //īy reconceptualising power from a solely repressive, to a rather productive and disciplining force, Foucault changed the way we came to think about power. Passive bodies become agents of inclusion and performativity. "Bodies that assemble together «speak» even when they are silent," Butler claims.
Only through creating alliances can precariat create a space to emerge-to make the transition from the private to the political and resist the current norms and state of affairs. Not only an outstanding thinker but also a dedicated human rights activist, Butler reminds the reader that still today "not everyone can take for granted the power to walk on the street or into a bar without harassment" and neoliberalist capitalism pushes more and more people beyond the line of livability. In other words, people who represent different social groups spontaneously get together-often without clear demands- and present their bodies instead of verbal performativity ( Occupy being one of the obvious examples). Whether they assemble to defend the right to education, protest against war or racism, show their solidarity with the LGBT community, refugees or migrants-or to start a revolution-these movements have a number or common traits: they are spontaneous, heterogeneous, largely created by bodies, and silent. Building on the methodology of her earlier works, including Gender Trouble (1990), Bodies That Matter (1993) and Frames of War (2009), and developing concepts of performativity gender and power introduced by Hannah Arendt, Foucault, Agamben, Deleuze, and Guattari, Butler analyzes the phenomenon of spontaneous street assembly, which became the key form of protest in the twenty-first century.īutler calls such gatherings alliances.
Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly is based on a lecture course Butler read at Bryn Mawr College in 2011 and elucidates many concepts of her gender theory. Philosopher, activist, and author of gender performativity theory Judith Butler envisages new types of public assembly that have emerged over recent decades as an unprecedented form of political protest. …the right to have rights predates and precedes any political institution that might codify or seek to guarantee that right…
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