Judith
Butler and Athena Athanasiou present a lot of information in the first chapters
but I am going to focus on the main definition of dispossession as it relates
to the concept of grief that Butler presents in “Beside Oneself: On the Limits
of Sexual Autonomy” . Butler and Athanasiou distinguish between two types of
dispossession in which one can either be dispossessed or can become dispossessed.
Athanasiou states that being dispossessed
means that “the subject comes to exist by installing within itself lost objects
along with the social norms that regulate the subject’s disposition to the
address of the other.”(2) Butler adds to
this by asserting that “we are dispossessed of ourselves by virtue of some kind
of contact with another.” In this definition of dispossession, a subject is can
only defined as such because of the dependency and relationships they have with
the other and with culture. From my understanding, in this form identity is
formed in relation to what it is not, by what it lacks. Becoming dispossessed,
on the other hand, happens when a subject has normative culture and values
imposed on them in a way that renegotiates the terms of their subjectivity.
This form of dispossession describes the process in which one is violently
relegated to the sphere of the other.
In the
chapter we read in Undoing Gender, she talks about mourning and what this
process proves about the dependency of subjectivity. She states that while
grief is temporary, “something about who we are is revealed, something that
delineates the ties we have to others, that shows us that those ties constitute
a sense of self, compose who we are…”(18) Butler calls this the process of
being undone by another but she also explicates that grief should be understood
as one of the modes of dispossession. She states that the self that relies on
relationality does not replace the autonomous self but rather explains the
rupture between self and other that it the crux of identity itself. I think
this is the same point that is being made in the book.
Lynette, I had fun reading your post! I hadn't made the connection between Butler’s concept of being “undone” by grief and her definition of being dispossessed when coming in contact with another. As discussed previously in class, Butler uses the concept of humanness and interconnectedness to established political theory and I definitely think you captured that in your connection of the two readings. What I also appreciated in your post was how you defined “becoming dispossessed.” As I read this, I also thought about Young’s “Five Faces of Oppression” and its connection to cultural imperialism. (Hopefully, we talk about this more in class!)
ReplyDeleteOverall, I thought you made great connections and demonstrated that you understood the reading well!