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Beyond Humanism and Postmodernism: Theorizing a Feminist PracticeAuthor(s): Sara AhmedSource: Hypatia, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Spring, 1996), pp. 71-93Published by: Wiley on behalf of Hypatia, Inc.

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Beyond

Humanism

nd

Postmodernism:

Theorizing

Feminist

Practice

SARA AHMED

The model

of feminism

as humanist

n

practice

and

postmodem

n

theory

s

inadequate.

Feminist

ractice

nd

theorydirectlynform

achother o

displace

oth

humanist nd

postmodern

onceptions f

the

subject.

An

examination

f

feminism's

use

of

rights

discourse

uggests

hat

eminist

practice

uestions

he

humanist

oncep-

tion

of

the

subject

as

a

self-identity.

Likewise,

eminist theory

undermines he

postmodernmphasisn theconstitutivenstabilityndindeterminacyf thesubject.

In this

essay,

I

discuss

he

relationship

between

feminist

theory

and

practice.

I

consider the

implications

of a

model of feminist

practice

that creates a

necessarydisjunction

or contradiction

between it and feminist

theory.

This

contradiction relates to

a

perceived

split

between

humanist and

postmodem

elements within

feminism. Feminism

has been viewed as

split

between the

practicalneed forhumanismand the theoreticalattractionof postmoderism.

In

other

words,

eminismhas been

seen

as

straddling

he

disjunction

between

humanism

(in

its need for a

discoursebased

on

women's

rights

as

sovereign

subjects)

and

postmodernism

in

its

theoretical

critique

of

any

such

discourse

of

rights

and

sovereignty).

A

disjunction

is

constructed between

feminist

humanist

practice

and feminist

postmodem

theory

and

is

implicitly

under-

stood in

terms of an

inherent

contradiction between the

demandsof

practice

and

theory

(feminist

practice

s

necessarily

humanist,

eminist

theory

is

neces-

sarilypostmoder).

The

construction of

feminism as

inherently

contradictory,

as

based on

realist,

affirmativeand

humanist

aspirations

s well as on

postmodem

formsof

resistance,

s

readily

apparent

n

recent

feminist cultural

criticism and

philos-

ophy.

Jean

Grimshaw in her article

Autonomy

and

Identity

in

Feminist

Thinking

(1988),

for

example, argues

that feminism

needs to

engage

with

those

theories which

deconstructthe

distinction between the

'individual'

and

the

'social,'

which

recognize

the

power

of desire

and

fantasy

and

the

problem

Hypatia

ol.

11,

no.

2

(Spring

996)

?

by

SaraAhmed







Hypatia

of

supposing

any 'original'unity

in

the

self,

while at the same time

preserving

its concern with lived experienceand the practicaland materialstrugglesof

women

to

achieve more

autonomy

and

control

in their lives

(1988,

105).

Here,

feminism

is constructed as

having

a dual

agenda

that

derives

from

alternative

and

contradictory

attitudes

towards the

subject,

and

there

is no

attempt

made

to

pose

the

problem

of

reconciling

these

agendas

and attitudes

into

a

single position.

Likewise,

Regina

Gagnier

in FeministPostmodernism:

The

End

of Feminism

or

the

Ends

of

Theory

(1990)

argues

that feminism

cannot undermine

its normative

ground

in humanism

given

that

it

presup-

posesthat the oppressionof women exists and that its projectis to makethe

world better

for women.

Yet,

at

the same

time,

Gagnier argues

hat

feminism

is

pushed

toward

a

postmoder

ethics

and

politics

via its

very

critique

of

gender

identity,

its

emphasis

on the

culturally

overdetermined

constitution

of

the

gendered

subject

(Gagnier

1990, 24).

I think what

we

have

in

these

represen-

tations of

feminism is

a

demand

for

a limit

to

be

imposed

to the

process

of

postmodern

critique

in order that feminism

can maintain an

unproblematic

relation

to social

reality,

and

in

order

hat feminism

can

practicallyexploit

the

humanistconstructionof the subjectas a knowingagent.Feminismbecomes

then

humanism

with

imits

and

postmodernism

with imits.

These

contradictory

tendencies

take

place

as

a

result of the

very

nature

of this

political program

which

seems

to

practically require

the

stability

of

the

category

(the

sub-

ject/women)

that

it seeks

to

radically

displace.

These

conceptions

of feminism

hence

construct

a

disjunction

between

what

feminism

needs

(the

demands

of

practice)

and its theoretical tendencies.

Understanding

eminism

in

terms

of an inherent

disjunction

between

prac-

tice and theory is problematicinsofaras it underminesthe importanceof

theory

to the articulation

of

political

choice

and,

perhaps

even more

so,

to the

degree

that

it

implies

that

theory

itself

is

uninformed

by

the

problems

and

contingencies

of

practical politics.

Rather

than

accepting

this

disjunction,

I

suggest

that the

co-existence

within

feminism of

(liberal)

humanist

and

postmoder

tendencies

moves towards

an alternative

and constructive

approach,

which transforms

nd

displaces

both

positions

through

he

focus

on

gender

relations

such

that

they

become

an-other

discourse.

This

other

dis-

coursemay involve the simultaneousdisplacementof humanismand post-

modernism

at the level

of

both

practice

and

theory.

As

such,

this

essay

will

construct

a dialectical

relationship

between feminist

practice

and

theory

which

is

based

on an

acceptance

that

a

position

which

foregrounds

he

social

relation

of

gender

will

radically

displace

those

positions

which

are

structurally

indifferent.

n other

words,

eminism's

oncern

with

understanding

nd

trans-

forming

relations

of

gender

inequality

has

both

practical

and

theoretical

implications:

feminism

cannot

simply

inhabit discourses

which

marginalize

the questionof gender.Indeed, the exclusion of genderfromany political or

theoreticaldiscourse

an

exclusion

that often

operates

hrough

he

assumption

72







Sam Ahmed

of thatdiscourse's

niversality

r

generalizability)

annotbe seen

as

ncidental,

butstructural,o thatdiscourseGatens1991,187).Feminismence hasan

active

role in

displacing

oth

previous onceptualizations

f

the social

world

and modelsof social transformation.

he

difference f feminismdoes

not

negate,

however,

he difference

n feminism:he

way

n which eminism

tself

is an

unstable erm hat

namesdiverse

ractices

ndtheories.The

specificity

andstructuralifference f feminisms

simplydisplayed y

its

inability

o

be

humanistn

practice

r

postmodern

n

theory,

hat

is,

to

inhabit he

terms

f

any

other

particular

iscourse. s a

result,

eminist

ractice

nd

theorymerge

together n theirjointde-stabilizationnddisplacementf humanism nd

postmodernism.

In this

essay,

firstdiscuss

ways

n which

eminist

ractice

annotbe seen

as

simply

nhabiting

he discourse f

humanism. then considerhow feminist

theorymayoccupy

relation f critical

ension

with

postmodernism,

owever

muchthe

boundariesf this

discursive

pace

are,themselves,

ontested.

My

argumentmplies

hat

feminism xceedsthe

very

termsof the

disjunction

between

humanism nd

postmodernism,

nd

concurrently,

etween

practice

andtheory.

BEYOND

HUMANISM?:

E-THINKING FEMINIST

RACTICE

Doesfeminism

eedhumanism

t the level of

practice?

s

feminist

ractice

necessarily

umanist? hese

questionsmay

be

slightlymisleading.

t

is

quite

apparent

hat

humanism

as defined he terrain f

intelligibility

or

politics

(the

centering

f the

subject

n

political

discourse)

nd

communicativean-

guagen general thedistinction etween ubject ndobject n speech)and,

as

such,

cannotbe

simply

ranscendedr

negated.

Gayatri

pivak uggests

hat

the

centering

f the

subject

s

irreduciblend

inevitable

Spivak

1990, 11).

This

may

mply

hat

humanismtself s an

irreducible

omponent

f

anygiven

practice.

However,

lthough

umanism

may

be

irreduciblend

unavoidablen

the sense

of

defining

he

terrain f

the

subject,

his s not

to

say

hat t

cannot

be

problematized

r

resisted:

politics

and

language

annot

themselvesbe

reduced o

humanism.

ndeed,

will

try

and

demonstrate

hat,

rather han

simplyneedinghumanism,eministpractice andnot justfeminist heory)

may

actually roblematize

he

humanist

ubject.

But

n

order

o consider

he relation

etween

eminist

ractice

nd

human-

ism,

I

need

firstly

o

delineate

more

precisely

whatI

mean

by

humanism

nd

consider

he

historicalimitsof

its

production.

ost

Enlightenment

umanist

thought,

manifestmost

mportantly

n

liberal

deology,

onstitutes

n

empha-

sis on

the

primacy

f

the

subject

ver

he

objective

orldof

social

relations

(Grosz 990,

64-65).

Liberal

umanism

as

a

definite

nd

mportant

inkwith

a universalistpistemologyndethics, nsofar s it presupposeshatuniversal

rights

have

their

oundationn

the

subject

s a

self-identity

hat s

prior

o

the

73







Hypatia

contingent

realmsof

history

and culture.The

humanistself is thus a disembod-

ied and unitary categorywhose rightsare guaranteedas natural or intrinsic

properties.

t

may

seem that a

feminist

practice

would

perpetuate

he

assump-

tion

that individual

rights

are

essential and

universal,

nsofaras the normative

project

of

feminism could be described as

the

claiming

of

such

rights

for

women.

But

given

that

liberal feminism reveals

that

the construction

of a

universal,

ntrinsic

right

has

entailed

processes

of

exclusion

and selection

(that

universal

suffrage

quals

male

suffrage)

t

exposes

humanismas an

ideological

legitimation

of

power (perhapsdespite

itself).

A

way

of

analyzing

this is to

theorizeit in terms of the Derrideansupplement(see Derrida1976, 144-45).

Liberal feminism

attempts

to

supplement

liberalism

proper,

by

processes

of

logical

extension

of

the discourseof universal

rights

such

that

they

include

women. But

in

keeping

with the

logic

of the

supplement,

liberal feminism

exposes

the

deficiency

of

the

original.

If

the

concept

of

rights

has to be

extended,

then

its

status

as

universal

and self-evident is called into

question.

Rather than

rights

being

intrinsic,

they

become at

once

historically

produced

and defined

along

exclusive

and

partial

criteria

(in

this case

the

criteria

is

shown to be gendered).Ratherthan the subjectbeingunifiedand transhistori-

cal,

it

becomes

at once divisive or differential

and

historically

embedded.

As a

result,

feminist

practice

may

serve

to de-stabilize he distinction

between the

subject

and what

is

outside

it

(its

historical

situatedness)

which is

essential

to

humanism.

Indeed,

rights

become

productive

of the

very

process

of

group

differentia-

tion,

whereby

the

legitimate

subject

of

rights

(the

subject

who is

proper,

and

has

property)

is

always already

the

subject

of

a

demarcated,

stratifiedsocial

groupthat is exclusiveof others.Within a classical iberal ramework, rights

defined men as

a

group

(or

fraternity )

which excluded

women,

through

the

very

act of

constituting

that

group

as a

universal.

To refuse he universalism

of this

rights

discourse

would be

precisely

to make

visible its role

in the

differentiation

and hierarchization f social

groups.

The focus on the

group

or

the collective

is central to a feminist

discourseof

rights.

A

feminist

focus on

the structural

effects that actual

relations of

inequality

may

have on

the

realization

of

rights

nvolves

a stress on the

way

in which the

mobility

of

subjectsis constituted through the processwhereby rightsdifferentiateone

group

from

another. As

Iris

Marian

Young

has

stressed,

Rights

are not

fruitfully

onceived

as

possessions.Rights

are

relationships

not

things;they

are

institutionally

defined rules

specifying

what

people

can do

in relation to one

another.

Rights

refer

to

doing

ratherthan

having,

to social

relationships

hat

enable or constrain

action

(Young

1990,

23).

The

linkage

of

rights

and

subjectivities

with the hierarchizationof

social

groups may

constitute

in

itself

a refusal of the liberal

politics

of

equality

of

opportunity,which might at first seem to inform feminist practice most

concretely.

The central feature

of

(classical)

liberalism

is its

emphasis

on

74







SaraAhmed

formal

rights,

that

is,

the

right

to

equal

opportunity

ratherthan

equal

condi-

tions, the latterassuming he actual relationsbetween subjectsas its measure.

But a feminist

concept

of

equality (taking

as

its basis the

understanding

f

the

differential

position

of

subjects)

may displace

his

ideology

of

autonomy,

which

assumes

that the

subject

can be

separated

from the social relations

within

which it

operates

and that

the

degree

of

separation

unctions as

a

measure

of

its freedom.

Instead,

equality

in

this

particular

eminist

discourseconstructs

the

subject

as

relational,

as

existing

in connection with other

subjects

in

a

network of

human relations. A

subject

experiences equality,

not when it

operates

without external influence (as the formal

equality

of

opportunity),

but

only

when

those

external

relations

themselves are

equal.

Therefore

a

feminist

practice ultimately

transforms iberal

humanism

by

pointing

to the

arbitrary

ature of the liberal

formal

self,

and

restoring

o

rights

talk,

and the

struggle

for

equitable

conditions,

the realm of

historically

situated

and

bodily

experience.

This

constitutes

a

major

break with

humanism,

as it

undermines the

concept

of the

subject

as a

self-identity,

as

sealed off

from

external

relations. This

feminist

reworking

of the discourse

of

rights

paral-

lels the

model

offered

by

Michael

Ryan

in

Politicsand

Culture

(1989),

where

the

subject

is

conceived as an elastic

and indeterminate

entity

whose

interiority

can

expand

or

contract

depending

on

its

power

to exercise

its

rights

in an

institutional context that is not

deemed

external to

subjectivity

(Ryan

1989, 163).

But doesn't

feminism's

commitment

to

representing

women

as collective

subjects

perpetuate

the

assumptions

and

practices

of

humanism at an

even

more

basic level?

Doesn't this

very

notion of

representing

women

assume

that there are

women

and that

they

can be

represented,

and

doesn't it

therefore

pre-suppose

humanismas a

politics

of

identity?

But

the

emphasis

on

the collective

qualifies

his

apparent

pre-supposition.By

stressing

collectivity,

feminism is at

once

stressing

that

subject

positions

become

intelligible

only

within

structures f

power

and

that

change requires

politics

of

alliance

which

recognizes

and reveals

structures

of

domination and

subordination.Further-

more,

feminism is

not

necessarily

committed

to

women as a

unity

even if

it is

committed to women ascollective. The acceptanceof differencehas become

a

strategic

as well

as

a

theoretical

choice.

Gender,

as a

social

relation,

intersects

with other

social

relations such

as class

and

race,

such that

women's

experi-

ences of

power

and

disempowerment

re

divergent.

Feminist

positions

that are

committedto

women as a

collective

(a

structure

f social

alliance)

must

accept

their

status as

partial

interventions,

as limited

by

the

personal/social

econo-

mies

that

shape

them. To

do

otherwise,

as

Judith

Butler

points

out in

Gender

Trouble:

Feminism

nd the

Subversion

f Identity,

s

to

misrepresentby

posing

a

false and oppressiveunity, a point that links universalizingdiscourseswith

exclusion and

power

(Butler

1990, 1-6).

75







Hypatia

The

development

of a

politics

of difference s one

way

of

reconsidering

how

feminismmay displacehumanismat a strategiclevel. For difference is not

something

that

can

simply

be

added

on to a

pre-existing

model of

subjectiv-

ity,

or

to

a

pre-existing

model of

woman

as

subject.

The

way

in

which

differencesmust

displace

a

model

of a

unitary

and

discrete

subject/woman

s

outlined

by

Elizabeth

Spelman.

Spelman

argues

that the notion of

a

generic

woman

unctions

in

feminist

theory

in

much the

way

the notion

of

a

generic

man has

functioned

in

Western

philosophy.

That

is,

the

generic

use

of

woman unctions

to

exclude an

analysis

of the

heterogeneity

that inflects

the category and so cuts off an examination of the significance of such

heterogeneity

for

feminist

theory

and

political

activity

(Spelman

1990,

ix).

Spelman

drawsour attention to

the

dangers

of an additive

analysis

of differ-

ences

(race

+

gender

+

class).

She

calls

for an

approach

hat

is attentive to the

complications

and contradictions that are involved

in the

construction of

social identities

(115).

The

problem

of

assuming

woman as an essential

and

foundational

category

is

precisely

that this

assumption

works

to

exclude

a

pragmatic

analysis

of the

complex

and difficult intersections

that

trouble

as

well asshape subject positions.

The

importance

of

recognizing

he

way

in which

the

existence

of

differences

between women

may

effect our

understanding

of

gendered

subjectivities

in

practice

is evident when

we

consider the

example

of sexual

violence. Catha-

rine MacKinnon

argues

that what women

experience

as

degrading

and

defiling

when

we

are

raped

includes as much that is distinctive to us as

is our

experience

of sex

(MacKinnon 1987, 87).

The use

of us

and

we

uggests

that women

may

experience

rape

collectively

as a violation of a self

beyond

the male and legalisticfocus on penile penetration.But if we considerhow

sexual violence

may

be

dependent upon

race

as well

as

gender,

then

we

may

begin

to

recognize

the

way

in which

a feminist

politics

of

rape

may

work to

complicate

the

category

of

women's

experiences.

Abena

P.A.

Busia,

for

example,

suggests

hat the

raped

woman is

socially

and

culturally

constructed

as

white,

while black

women

are constructed

as

morally

unrapeable,

as

lacking

the

appropriate

eminine virtues which

would make the

concept

of

rape

and violation makesense

(Busia 1993,

288).

VronWare

n

Beyond

hePale

discusses he wayin which vulnerability s both sexed aswoman,andracially

marked

as white: such that the

dominant media construction

of

sexual

vio-

lence is

of a white woman

threatened

by

the

aggression

of black men

(Ware

1992,

7).

The

position

of black women

in relation to sexual violence

is hence

differential

and divided: at

once an

object

of

violence,

they

are also

removed

from

the

conceptualization

of

woman as

a

victim of

violence. Black

women

who

experience rape

hence cannot

be

simply

included within

a

notion

of

women's

collective

experience

of

rape.

The social relations

of sex and race

divideand intersectwitheach other-so preventingthe securingofanyshared

totality

of women's

xperiences.

f feminismwere to

deny

the otheress that

76







SaraAhmed

divides the

concept

women's

experience

then feminism would

implicitly

supporta racisteconomy,byallowingthe differentialpositionof black women

in reaction to sexual violence

to remain

invisible.

And

yet,

at the same

time,

the

knowledge

of

rape

as a relation of

gender

and

dominance

may

enable

feminism to

forge

connections between

seemingly disparate

social

phenom-

ena: to construct

alliances

through

(rather

han

despite)

differences.

But

despite

the

importance

of

working through

a

politics

of

difference,

doesn't

the

refusal

of humanist

thought,

and the

model of

individual

rights

as

having

essential

foundations,

eave

us

in a situation of a defeatist relativism?

Will it become impossibleto defend one ethical position over another,for

example,

to

defenda

critique

of

sexism,

or a

critique

of racism?

First,

as Chantal

Mouffe

points

out in her article Radical

Democracy:

Modem or Postmodern

(1988),

we can defend the

political

project

of

modernity

while

abandoning

he

notion that it must be based

on a

specific

form of

rationality,

or on

some

ultimate universalist

or

essentialist

oundation

(Mouffe 1988, 32-33).

In other

words,

nonfoundationalist

or

pragmatic

ustifications

o democratic

demands

can be

sought.

This

may

entail

accepting

that the criteria

for

negotiating

between ethical positions are themselves culturallymediatedand that the

validity

of such criteria

can

be measured

nly

in termsof their

practical

effects

and

consequences,

which

points

to the fact that

these criteriamust be

open

to

constant revision.

Second,

although

ethical

disputes

function

superficially

as controversies

over what is

essentially

the case or what is

essentially

valuable,

it is

the

very

undecidability

of what is essential which locates the

dynamics

of

such con-

flicts.

For

example,

the conflict over abortion can be redefined as

a

conflict

over what is essential,that is, over what constitutes a subjectwith proprietal

rights

(Johnson

1987,

193-94).

The abortion conflict

is

characterized

by

competing rights

claims,

based

on either

the notion

of

the

rights

and

autonomy

of the

mother,

or the

rights

and

autonomy

of the fetus. The

conflict,

dealt with

as a

rights

conflict,

becomes

centered

upon

whether the

fetus

constitutes a

subject

with

proprietal

rights.

A feminist

approach

could

argue

that the

sociality

of the

subject,

its constitution within and

through

the social

itself,

means that the

fetus,

attached to the

body

of a social

subject,

does

not

constitute a subject (with rights).A feminist approachcould conclude that

the

argument against

women's choice is

based

on an

illegitimate

model of

rights,

which is

perhaps

how

we can define Rosalind Pollack

Petchesky's

argument

in

Morality

and

Personhood: A Feminist

Perspective

(Petchesky

1992,

419).

Alternatively,

a feminist

approach

could base

itself on

the

undecidability

of

where the

body

of

the woman ends. The

question

of the fetus becomes a

question

of the

integrity

of

the mother

(Is

it inside or

outside

the

body?

s

it

an

aspectof, or externalto, herproperself?).The impossibilityof answering his

question

without

neglecting

the

instability

of

the

boundaries

of

the mother's

77







Hypatia

body

and statusas a social

subject

does not

simplynegate

the

autonomy

of the

mother.Moreprecisely, he impossibility fdecidingwhether the fetus is inside

or

outside

her

body

establishes that

autonomy

(of

the

mother

or

the

fetus)

cannot

be

the

grounds

for

the

viability

of

abortion,

as the lack of

bodily

integrity

(and

hence the

instability

of the boundariesof the social

subject)

leaves us without a

proper

ubject

o actualize ts

rights

n a

freedom

of will

and

action.

By

showing

how

the

problematic

of

pregnancy

declares

the non-

availability

of

a notion of

autonomy

grounded

on the

integrity

or

rights

of the

subject,

a feminist

approach

could shift the

debate aroundabortionfrom one

of abstractrightsto one of power.

Indeed,

it is

apparent

hat a feminist

approach

does

not

strategically equire

a model of women's

rights

as

true,

essential or

proper.

As

Catharine MacK-

innon and

Mary

Poovey

have

both

pointed

out,

in the

light

of their

interroga-

tion

of

Roe

vs.

Wade

(1973),

the

feminist use of the discourse

of

individual

rights

(the

right

to

choose)

can be

problematic.

This is

because

individual

rights

are framed

n

terms of

privacy

noninterference

rom

public

bodies).

This

concept

of

the

private

s

precisely

hat which conceals

the

political

nature

of the genderedsubject'saccess to resources,uchas informationandguidance

on

contraception,

as well as abortion

procedures

MacKinnon

1992,

358).

As

Poovey

argues,

he

notion of individual

rights

framed

n termsof

the

ideology

of

privacy,

may

actually

exacerbate sexual

oppression

because it

protects

domestic

and maritalrelations rom

scrutiny

and

from

intervention

by

govern-

ment or social

agencies

(Poovey

1992, 290).

The

disruption

of the discourse

of

individual

rights

may

situate the

very potential

of a

feminist

approach.

It shifts the

question

from one of

autonomy

to one of

power,

and could

function by pointing out the various limitations the removal of choice

would

have on women as

a

collective,

in the form of the

appropriation

and

control

of women's bodies.

This

example may

serve

to

suggest

that is not

enough

in

any

pragmatic

context to

simply

defend

one's

position

as

being

basedon

an

essential

truth or

right.

What is

required

s a more

general argument

or

approach

which

justifies

one's own

conception

of

what is essential in the first

place,

or which locates

the effects

of various

models of

essence

on

the

distributiverelation

of

power

between subjects.So if we were to assume a position (such as pro-choiceor

pro-life

in the abortion

conflict)

that has recourse o absolute

foundationsto

be

untenable

and

implausible,

hen this would not lead us to

a

situation

where

the defense of

a

position

is

impossible

or

unlikely.

We would

be,

that

is,

be

in

the same situation of

having

to

justify

our

interpretation.

n

fact,

Nancy

Fraser

argues

hat

we

may

be more able to

argue

or

our

position

precisely

because

we

would

not have

recourse o

any simplistic

and

ultimately

imited

foundations

(Fraser

1989,

181).

As

Emesto Laclau

points

out

in

Politics

and the Limitsof

Moderity, the discourseof equality and rights . . ., need not rely on a

common

human essence as their

foundation,

it

suffices

to

posit

an

egalitarian

78







Sara Ahmed

logic

whose limits

of

operation

are

given by

the

concrete

argumentative

practices

existing

in a

society

(Laclau 1988, 81).

Furthermore,

a

pragmatically

oriented

feminist

practice,

disclaiming any

disinterested

knowledge

or

ethics,

needs

to remain attentive to the

interests

that structure

all forms of

discursive

exchange.

We

need to consider

the

empirical

ssue

of

who

organizes

or

dominates,

and what effects

are

implied

by,

each

intervention

in the

public sphere.

Such

a considerationwould restorean

awarenessof

the

importance

of

institutions,

ethical

procedures,

and

group

dynamics

o

any

radicalized

model of

political

action.

Indeed,

a

radical

politics

needs to acknowledge hat thelinguisticmarketcan be no more a 'free'one

than

any

other

market,

or verbal

agents

do not

characteristically

nter

it

from

positions

of

equal advantage

or

conduct their transactions on

equal

footing

(Herrnstein

Smith

1988, 17).

Such an

approach

has immediate

practical

implications:

egalitarianism

may

be

possible only

when

space

is

allocated

institutionally

for those

subjects/groups

who have less

discursive

or

material

power

in

order

that their interests can

become heard within the

public

sphere.

A feminist

practice

does not then

necessarily ely

on a humanist

assumption

of

absolute foundations to

individual

rights

as the intrinsic

property

of a

unitarysubject.

Instead,

eminism

moves towarda

pragmatic

historicismwhich

Nancy

Fraser

defines as an insistence on

the social

context and

practice

of

all

truth

positions,

and

the

plurality

of

historically

changing

discursivesites

and

practices

(Fraser1990, 100).

Such

a

pragmatist

erspective

s not

linked to

the

school of

thought

identified with Richard

Rorty,

which is

shaped by

a belief

that

the

only

constraints to

linguistic

practice

are

conversational

ones,

thereforeassuming hat suchpracticescan in themselvesguaranteeand legit-

imate ethical

choice

(Rorty

1982, 165).

Rather a feminist

pragmatic

histori-

cism

points

to the fact that

social and

linguistic

practices

and

conceptual

systems

are

sites of contestation

and are overdetermined

by

an

unequal

distri-

bution of

power.

As

such,

feminism is

committed to

interrogating

he

ways

in

which

gender

inequality

is

produced

within

linguistic

practices

and

institu-

tional

norms,

and to

affirming

alternative,

more

egalitarian

distributionsof

power

and

resources.Feminism

tself can be

understoodas a

body

of theoretical

workwhich is, at once, a form of praxis-it interprets he multiplicityof sites

that

constitute social

relations as

being organized

around the

dominance of

men over

women,

and it

intervenes

in

these

sites with a

variety

of

interpre-

tative and

communicative

strategies

in

order

to

engage

the

possibility

of

social

change.

It can

be

concluded that the

contingencies

of

feminist

practice

entail a

displacement

of

humanism,

n

particular,

y

exposing

that the

liberal

humanist

model of the self

reifiesthe

culturally pecific,

differential tatusof the

subject.

Feminismseemsto be committed to refusinga model of the subjectashaving

intrinsic

properties,

and

is so

pushed

towarda

seeminglypostmoder recogni-

79







Hypatia

tion

of the

textual

or

constructednatureof

subjectivity.

But in fact the

feminist

displacementof liberalhumanism can be linked to the

displacement

of the

postmodem subject.

I will

argue

hat the

subject

of

postmodernism

ends to

be

undifferentiatedand

undetermined,

hence

repeating

some of the

problems

of

the

liberal humanist

position.

It

must

be

stressed

hat to

argue

that

feminism

displaces

some of

the

assumptions

f

postmodernism

does

not

mean that there

are no continuities between

their theories of the

subject.

Both feminists

and

postmoderists

have

argued

or

the textual and

constructed

nature of

subjec-

tivity.

To

displacepostmodernism

s

not

necessarily

hen to return

o a formof

humanism.The subjectcan be textualized n manydifferentwayswith differ-

ent

political

implications.

I

will,

throughmy

critique

of

some

paradigmatic ostmodern

exts,

point

out

analogies

between

postmoderism

and

other

political ideologies

such as liber-

alism,

in an

attempt

to ask

what the discourseof

postmodernism

does,

rather

than

simply

ask what it means

or

what

it

is. This is the

sort

of

question

raised

by

Steven Connor

in

Postmodernist

ultures

(1989).

Such

a

question,

he

suggests,

will

help

us

to

focus

on the

very

conditions

which

determine

that a

particular erm be circulated for debate and, therefore,to engage with that

term's

conditions of

production

and

its

practical

effects

(Connor 1989, 10).

By

asking

the

question

whatdoes the discourseof

postmodernism

do?

I

will be

able

to

theorize

postmoderism

as a

discursive

space

which

has boundaries

(however

much

they

are unstable and

contested).

The

problem

with the

nomenclature of

postmoderism

is

that

it

implies

a

unity

or sameness

between

all critical

readings

of

modernity

and humanism.

Critiques

of moder-

nity,

and humanist

thought

in

particular,

unction

within

specific

fields

of

utterance.That is, a need to see postmodernismthat is, texts which become

cited

as

typical

of the

postmodern

or which

argue

for the

peculiarity

of a

postmodern

condition )

as

a

specific

way

of

critiquing

the

moder,

rather

than as an umbrella term

for all such

critiques.

This

approach

may

protect

the

alterity

of

other discursive

formations that are

structured

by

an ambiv-

alence to humanism

and

modernity,

such as

feminism

and

post-colonial

theory.

My

analysis

will

help

undermine

postmodemism's

problematic

ten-

dency

of

encompassing

and

containing many

differential,

antagonistic

politics under the unity of its name, so emptying them of the potential for

a radical

difference.

BEYONDPOSTMODERNISM?:EADINGSEDUCTION

AND

THEORIZING

HESEXED

SUBJECT

Jean

Baudrillard

as

been

read as the ultimate

postmodern.

ndeed,

the

Notes

to Contributors

rom

Body

Invaders:

exuality

nd the

Postmodern

ondi-

tion describe Baudrillardas himself the postmodernscene (Krokerand

Kroker

1988, 276).

Baudrillard's

exts are hence

very important

o

any

articu-

80







Sara

Ahmed

lation

of the

political

limits

of

postmodernism

as

a

theoretical

discourse.

The

crucial text by Baudrillardor feminist readers s Seduction 1990) which is

explicitly

concerned with

theorizing

the sexed

subject.

Seduction

begins:

Nothing

is less certain

today

than

sex,

behind the liberationof its discourse

(1990,

5).

Baudrillard

rgues

here that

the

proliferation

of

images

of sex s

approaching

otal

loss,

and that the

principle

of

uncertainty

has extended from

political

and economic

reason to sexual reason

(5).

He

suggests

hat we are

immersed

in

a sexual indetermination

where there

is

no

more

want,

no

more

prohibitions,

and no

more limits: it

is

the loss

of

every

referential

principle

(5). The

passage

romdeterminationto

general

ndetermination

and to the

neutralization

of structure

entails,

in his

thesis,

a flotation

of

the

law that

regulates

he differencebetween the sexes

(6).

Such

a

flotation

is

represented

as a

passage

toward

seduction.

Seduction

becomes a

metaphor

or that which resistsnatureand

essentialism,

or

artifice,

appearance,

and the

dispersal

of

truth

ideologies.

Seduction continues to

appear

to all orthodoxies as malefice and

artifice,

a black

magic

for

the

deviation of all

truths,

an exaltation

of

the

malicioususe of

signs,

a

conspiracy

of

signs

(Baudrillard

1990,

2).

Seduction

is

associated with

the

feminine,

which rather han

being

considered

he

negation

or

opposite

of

masculinity,

s

defined in terms

of

the deconstruction of

the

masculine/feminine

sexual

hierarchy.

It becomes a

sign

for the indeterminable and undifferentiated

subject,

the

subject

in and

of

free

play.

Baudrillard ence

rejects ideologies

which

argue

that

the

subject

is deter-

mined

in

the last instance.

According

to Baudrillard's

eading,

Freudian

psy-

choanalysis

assumes hat

anatomyfully

determinesthe

subject'sdestiny(as

in

anatomy

s

destiny ). Concurrently,

he

suggests

hat Marxism akes

class to

be

fully determining,

and

that

feminism

takes

gender

to be

fully determining.

But it is

here that

the

postmodern gesture

can

itself be

problematized.

For

rather than

refusing

the

concept

of

destiny,

the

concept

of

determination

n

the last

instance,

Baudrillard ffers an alternative.

He

argues

hat

seduction

is

destiny

(Baudrillard

1990,

180).

That

is,

the

very

structureof free

play

becomes the normative account of

subjectivity.

The

subject

is

determined

by

indeterminacy(ratherthan anatomy,class,or gender).As such, Baudrillard's

postmodernism

an

be read as a normative

and

positive

reading

of the

subject,

ratherthan as a

rejection

of its

limits,

a

reading

which

refuses o

recognize

he

determining

nfluence of

structures f

power,

but

sees the

subject

as

governed

only by

the

radical free

play

of its

own

(in)difference.

The

subject

is deter-

mined

(it

has a

destiny),

but

by nothing

positive

which exceeds it

or

is

beyond

it.

The

subject

s

determined hen

by

its own

undetermined

possibilities,by

its

own limitless

potential

for

dispersal

and

betrayal.

Rather than

recognizing

he

subject as an effect of discourseand power (and in this sense as being posi-

tioned and

relational)

this

approachontologizes

and

autonomizes he

subject

81







Hypatia

by rendering

t

primary

at the same

time

as

emptying

it of

any

determinate

content.

Baudrillard's

nterpretation

of

transvestism,

or

example,

as

the

exposureby

the male of the

artifice

of

femininity

(not

the female

subject

but that

non-ref-

erential other of

sexuality

and

production),

refuses o

recognize

actual

power

as

operative

within the

determination of

subjectivity

(Baudrillard

1990,

12-

17).

The

transvestite

s radical

and

powerful

nsofaras

it

retrieves he

symbolic

power

of

the feminine

(for

Baudrillard,

atriarchy

s a mere trivialand

pathetic

defense

against

the austere

power

of the

feminine to

disperse

and

betray

truth

itself). The transvestiteradicallyrefuses he regimesof truth and production

and hence

signifies

the free

floating

of

the

sign.

Baudrillard

writes:

What transvestites ove

is

this

game

of

signs,

what excites them

is to

seduce

the

signs

themselves.

With

them

everything

is

makeup,

theater,

and

seduction.

They appear

obsessed with

games

of

sex,

but

they

are

obsessed,

irst of

all,

with

play

itself;

and if their lives

appear

more

sexually

endowed than our

own,

it is because

they

make

sex into

total, gestural,sensual,

and

ritual

game,

an exalted but ironic

invocation.

(Baudrillard

1990,

12-13)

In

Baudrillard's

rgument

transvestism

nvolves the seduction of

the

sign

itself:

a

process

hat

leaves the

sign

indeterminate ather han referential.

Now,

I will not

disagree

with

the

analysis

of

transvestism

or

sexuality

more

broadly)

as a

signifyingsystem

rather

than

as referential.

I am

quite

in

agreement

with

this textualization

of the sexual

subject.

But the

opposition implied

here,

between indeterminacyandreferentialitys, itself,a false one. The absenceof

a referentdoes not

mean that

signs

arenot

determined,

however

pragmatically,

in stratifieddiscursive

rhetorical/syntactical),

olitical,

and

ethical situations

(Derrida1988,

148).

In contrast to

Baudrillard,

argue

that the

signs

intrinsic

to

the

production

of the transvestite

subject

are material and

determined.

They

form

part

of

a

generalized

discursive

economy

that stabilizes

meanings

n

the form

of the delimitation

of

subject

positions.

The

signs

used

by

the

transvestite

subject

(as

the

signs

of

a

fully

negotiated, although

unstable,

femininity), hence entail the delimitation of the play of their meaning via

their

occupation

in an

already

determined

cultural

space.

Given

this,

one

may

ask

why

the transvestite

s

a man

playing

at

being

a

woman

as women are

produced

under

patriarchy.

For

what Baudrillardnter-

prets

as

radical

artifice

(makeup,pretense) represents

he

production

of femi-

ninity

by

the

symbolic

and

political

order:

he

man is

mimicking

what

women

become

and are

within

patriarchy.

f

the feminine as artifice and

women as

artificial

onnect,

then

what

Baudrillard

s

celebrating

in

his

idealization

of

the transvestitesubject) is preciselywomen'sstatus as signsand commodities

circulated

by

and

for male

spectators

and

consumers. n this

sense,

the

dynam-

82







SaraAhmed

ics of the transvestite

subject occupy

and

repeat

the

power

divisions

within

which the gendered subject is always already negotiated. This is not to

argue

that

the transvestite

subject

is

necessarily

conservative,

as

obvious

forms of

disruption

and

displacement

from the commodified structure

of

woman as

sign

could take

place

in

specific

negotiations.

I

simply

want

to

suggest

that the transvestite

subject's

performance

is overdetermined

by

a

broader

signifying system,

from

which

its

politics

cannot

be

simply

disasso-

ciated,

and which

hence delimits

or

constrains the

play

and

significance

of

its

performance.

In contrast,in a feministanalysis,transvestismmaybe shown to be func-

tioning

at the level of the material

dynamic

of the

sign, overdetermining

he

subject

effects

produced by

a

signifying system,

rather

than

functioning

at

another order

suspended

rom material

effects and determinate

meanings.

A

feminist

analysis

may interpret

he

system

of

gender

as

relatively

stable,

with

the

genderedsubject

constitutedwithin

an

overdetermined

tructure

perhaps

named

as

patriarchy,

ntailing

the

negotiated hierarchy

masculine/feminine)

from which

a

play

in

its terms s made

possible.

Indeed,

it

is

interesting

o

note

the shift inJudithButler'sworkfroma model of transvestism s a quasi-volun-

taristic

performance

hat

disrupts

a

system

of

differences in

GenderTrouble:

Feminism nd the

Subversion

f Identity

1990)

to an

emphasis

on

the

regulatory

and

normativemechanisms

hrough

which

subjects

are

identifiedas sexed and

which

may

delimit

the

potential

for

transgression

hrough

he

reincorporation

of

difference nto

systematicity

n

BodiesThat

Matter:

On the

Discursive

Limits

of

Sex

(1993).

The absence of

a referent to secure

the

regime

of sexual

difference

(as

the

sign

of

gender),

does

not

lead, here,

to a mere

flotation of

the law regulatingsexual difference.That law maynot be a referent,but its

stabilization is

pragmatically

and

normatively regulated

through

the

very

structures

of

identification

(woman, man,

Black, white,

working

class,

middle

class)

implicit

to the

sexing,

racializing,

and

classing

of

subjects.

Baudrillard's

se

of

transvestism

uggests

hat his

version of

postmodemism

workswithin

the

ideology

of

liberalism.

ndeed,

his

postmodemsubject

repeats

rather than

transforms

he status

of the

subject

under liberal

ideology,

in

its

freedom rom

determination

by regimes

of truthand

power

to determine

reely

the conspiracyof signs(one could addcommoditiesto completethe analogy).

Also in his

text

the

circulation of

signs

is

reified;

it

is

separated

rom social

relations

via the

very

stresson

indeterminacy.

n

fact,

Baudrillard's

ostmodem

vision of

signs

as

proliferating

nd

neutralizing

onnects with

the

very

nature

of

money

as

a

signifier

which

can

only

quantify,

and as

such idealizes

he

very

symbolic

power

of

capital

itself to

displace

the

possibilities

of value

and

utility.

It is

quite

cear that the

signs

in

the

postmodern

world of the

simulacra re

not

free-floating; they

are

attached to

determinate

subject

positions

and

invested interests via their status as commodities.This attachment is most

aptly

reflected in the

use of female

bodies

as

vehicles

for

advertising

products.

83







Hypatia

A

feminist

reading

of

Baudrillard,

which

may

share the

assumption

that

sexualityinvolves the textualnegotiation of

meanings,

maywant to

critique

his

model

of

sex as indetermination

by showing

how

this model disassociates

sexual difference rom the

reproduction

of

power inequalities.

BEYOND

POSTMODERNISM?:

OWER,

PRAGMATICS ND ETHICS N

THE POSTMODERN

ONDITION

AND THE

DIFFEREND

Jean-FrancoisLyotard's

The

Postmoder Condition

1989)

represents

one of

the most influential theses on what constitutes

postmodernism.

As a

report

on

knowledge Lyotard's

ext

describes

phenomena

within a

particular

histor-

ical

period.

This mode

of discourse

haracterizes

he bulk of the

first

part

of the

text and

situates

his thesis on

the

postmodern

condition.

Hence,

Lyotard's

opening

sentences

begin:

The

object

of this

study

is the condition

of knowl-

edge

in

the

most

highly

developed

societies.

I

have decided

to use

the word

postmodern

to describe that condition

(1989, xxiii).

Lyotard's eport

on

knowledge

is concerned

with what he defines as a crisis

of

legitimation-a

crisis in modem

philosophy.

The term moder is used to

designate

any

science

that

legitimates

itself with reference to a metadiscourse

of this

kind,

making

an

explicit

appeal

to some

grand

narrative,

such

as the dialectics

of

Spirit,

the

hermeneutics

of

meaning,

the

emancipation

of the rational

or

working

subject,

or

the creation

of

wealth

(xxiii).

The term

postmodern

s

used

to

designate

an

incredulity

toward

metanarratives

which is simulta-

neously

a

product

of,

and

presupposed y, progress

n the sciences

(xxiv).

Here,

the narrative

unction

is

losing

its

functors,

its

great

hero,

its

great dangers,

its greatvoyages, its great goal. It is being dispersed n clouds of narrative

language

elements

(xxiv).

Lyotard

onstructs

wo versionsof science

in a

postmodem

age,

the relation

between

them

being

somewhat

unclear. In the first

version,

discourses

are

legitimated

according

to

the

criterion

of

utility

which

is at

once

the criterion

of

capital.

Knowledges

are

perpetuated

only

if

they

are

economically

viable

propositions.

Lyotard

comments at an

earlier

point

that

knowledge

n the

form

of

an informational

commodity indispensable

to

productive

power

is

already,and will continue to be, a major-perhaps the major-stake n the

worldwide

competition

for

power (Lyotard

1989, 5).

So the criterion

of

performance

s the

goal

of an

optimal

contribution

of

higher

educationto

the

best

performativity

of the social

system

(48)

functions

as the

discourse

of

power.

But

Lyotard

hen

argues

that

performance

cannot be

considered

a

post-

moder

form

of

legitimation

because

it

assumes

he

stability

and

predictability

of

the

system

as

a

positivist

philosophy (Lyotard

1989,

54).

He concludes

that a trulypostmodernegitimation sonlypossiblewhenscience is conceived

as

operating

within

a

paralogic

context,

where

the

structure

t inhabits is not

84







SaraAhmed

intact

or

stable,

but is

continually

transformed

y

the introductionof new

and

antagonisticclaims. Science is not determinedby anything other than the

transforming

oundariesof its

own

production;

concepts

of

performance

and

power

become,

at one and the

same

time,

impossible.

As

such,

postmodem

legitimation

is local or

context-immanent;

t

can

only emerge

from within a

given

linguistic practice

and communicational

nteraction

(41),

like the

nar-

ration

by

the

Cashinahua

toryteller

which

obeysonly

the rules hat define the

pragmatics

of

its transmission

20).

What

are the

problems

in

Lyotard's

ejection

of the idea of

power

as

determinate n favorfor a postmodernpragmatics? irst,one couldargue hat

power may

still be

a

motive

or

operational principle

even

if

knowledge

production

and

transmissionare

problematized

y

contradiction

and indeter-

minacy. Knowledgemay

still be tied to certain

concrete social interests

(and

therefore

the intent or criteria of

efficiency),

even

if

its

own

boundaries

are

indeterminate

or

undecidable. So

although

performancemay

contradict

the

heterogeneity

of

languagegames,

it

may

still function to

regulate

hat hetero-

geneity

as a form of

power

legitimation.

Performance

may

still function to

overdetermine the production of scientific knowledge in the postmodem

world.

It could be

argued

n

defense

of

Lyotard

hat

this

criticism

is a false

one,

as

it

takes a

prescriptive

mode of address or

a

descriptive

one-that

Lyotard's

model

of

the

paralogic

unctions

as

a

preferred

trategy

of

legitimation

rather

than as a

characterization

f what

strategies

are

in

use.

This

points,

in

fact,

to

a

problem

n

Lyotard's

ext,

which

is the

tendency

to confuse these two modes.

Certainly,

at

times

postmodernism

s

used to

designate

a state

of

affairs

pro-

duced in particularby the impactof certain technologieson knowledgeand

the content of

certain sciences such

as

quantumphysics)

while

elsewhere

it

is

used

quite

clearly

to define a new ethics based

on

paralogy.

So in

arguing

against

performance

and for

paralogy

he dimension is

simultaneously

thical

and normative

or

descriptive.

As

such,

his

final

designation

of

performance

and

power

as

nonpostmodem

or

antipostmodem

carries

he

implication

that

they

are not

determining

forms

of

legitimation

in the

contemporary

produc-

tion

of

knowledge.

Second,Lyotard'sonceptofparalogyasan internal ormof legitimationcan

provide

a rationale

for

the

perpetuation

of such

power

interests.

Indeed,

this

concept

of

paralogy

repeats

the liberal

concept

of

the free

market,

where

antagonistic

and

competing

interests are defined as the

only

basis for human

relations within an

unstructuredand

undetermined

context. The

problem

with

Lyotard's

aralogy

s thus the same

problem

with free market

heories. In

its

very

aestheticismand

formalism

t

fails to

recognize

hat local

situationsor

events are

overdeterminedwithin

broader tructuresor

social

relations char-

acterizedby systematic nequality, uch asrepresentedbythe genderdivision.

It refuses

to

recognize,

and even

conceals,

that

subjects

are

always already

85







Hypatia

differentiated

rom each other in termsof

power

and

resources,

and that local

formsof legitimationwill be determinedby,and hence reinforce, uchinequal-

ities.

Lyotard's

model

of

paralogy negates

the

(gendered) power

imbalance

under

which all formsof human

activity

are

already

determined.

Furthermore,

it could be

argued

hat if ethical

policy

and

political practice

were

merely

to

follow the

principle

of

the

paralogic

then there would be no means for

countering

the

prevailing

hierarchical

systems.

As Boris Frankel

argues

in

The

CulturalContradictionsof

Postmodemity,

he resourcesand structures

needed to

mediate, facilitate,

and

strengthen

the values

and

practices

which

maximizedemocracyand socialist pluralismcannot springsolely from the

boundaries

of

local communities ormedon a loose alliance

(Frankel1990, 98).

Such

social

change

would both

presuppose

nd entail the

emergence

of

larger

political

structuresand

movements,

which would necessitate

collecting

sub-

jects

together

under

the

recognition

of shared

and

(relatively)

stable

or

determinate

positions

of

inequality,

such as

represented

by

the

categories

of

gender,

race,

and class.

In

contrast,

feminist

philosophers

of science have

engaged

in their

critique

of scientific rationalismby focusingon the way in which the productionof

knowledge

is overdetermined

by

the

social

positions

and interestsof scientists.

This involves a

recognition

that

it

does matter who

defines the boundaries

of scientific

knowledge.

In

the

light

of

the work

by

Sandra

Harding

(1986),

Donna

Haraway

1990),

ElizabethFee

(1983),

and

Evelyn

Fox Keller

(1982),

Lyotard's

ostmoder

paralogy

can

also be considered to

ignore

the

relation

between scientific

knowledge

and structuresof

patriarchy.

That

is,

Lyotard's

postmoder paralogy

can be seen to

neglect

the

way

in which science

legiti-

mates the exclusionandrepression f the feminine and womenvia the ideals

of

impartiality

nd

objectivity,

the

very

metanarrative

f

scientific

rationalism

itself.

As Sandra

Harding

establishes

in The Science

Question

in

Feminism

(1986)

such ideals

function

ideologically

to

conceal

or

disguise

the

status

of

science as

a social institution

with a division

of labor hat

marginalizes

women,

and

a set of interestsand

values that tend

to

reflect

and

justify

such

a

division.

She

suggests

that what

we

took

to be

humanly

nclusive

problematics,

con-

cepts,

theories,

objective

methodologies,

and transcendental

ruths

do

in

fact

bear he markof their collective and individualcreators,and the creators n

turn have

been

distinctively

marked as

to

gender,

class,

race

and

culture

(Harding

1986, 15).

A

feminist

interpretation

may

stressthat the

production

of scientific

knowledge

is

stabilized

by

its

immersion

in

dynamics

of

power,

entailing

the

gendering,

classing,

and

racializing

of what is

knowable within

and

beyond

science.

This

departs

roma

postmodern

model

of

paralogy

n

that

science

is

positioned

as

over

determined

by

broader structural

and

power

relations.

The variousproblemsassociatedwith Lyotard'soncept of paralogyare also

implicit

to his

analysis

of narrative

pragmatics,

which will lead us

finally

to

the

86







Sara Ahmed

issueof ethics.

At one

point

in The Postmodern

ondition

Lyotard istinguishes

a pragmatic analysisof the narrativefunction from one which focuses on

extrinsic

details such as

the

institutional

assignment

of

subject

positions

(Lyotard

1989,

20).

The

pragmatics

of the Cashinahua

narratives,

he

argues,

are intrinsic o

them. Details such as the

assignment

of the role of the

narrator

to

certain

categories

on

the basisof

age,

sex,

or

family

or

professional

group

are hence excluded

from his model of the

pragmatics

of

the

transmis-

sion

of narratives

20).

The

contrast

or

opposition

that this

passage

rom

The Postmodern ondition

sets up is between the intrinsicand the extrinsic (as institutional). However,

the

passage

tself works o

complicate

the termsof such

an

opposition.

Lyotard

links

the

authority

of the narratoror

story-teller

to the

priorpost

of

being

a

listener: The narrator's

nly

claim to

competence

for

telling

the

story

is the

fact that

he

has heard it himself.

The

currentnarratee

gains

potential

access

to the same

authoritysimply by

listening (Lyotard

1989, 20).

Lyotard

omes

to this

position by

focusing

on the

naming

function

of the

narrative.

The

story

is introduced

with

the

name of its

hero,

and it is ended with the name of the

narrator.This identifies the hero with the narratorand implies a possible

interchange:

In

fact,

he is

necessarily

such a hero because he bearsa

name,

declined

at

the end

of

his

narration,

and that name was

given

to him in

conformity

with the canonic narrative

legitimating

the

assignment

of

patronyms

among

the Cashinahua

21).

Lyotard's nterpretation

of the

naming

process

as intrinsic to the canonic

narrative

can,

I

think,

be

problematized.

The

assignment

of

patronyms

nam-

ing

from

the

father)

brings

into

play

the narrative'sconstitution within a

broadersocial structureorganizedaround the authorityof the father. In this

sense,

the

positions

of the

narratorand the hero are not

fluid,

open,

or

determined

simply y

the

pragmatics

f the narrative's

ransmission;

hey

are

overdetermined

by

the social divisions of

power

which

assign

the

proper

name

(as

transcendental

ignifier)

to the male. This

closureor delimitation

simulta-

neously

takes

place

in

narrative

(the

assignment

of

patronyms)

and

beyond

narrative

(in

the

gendering

of

subject

positions

within institutional

struc-

tures).

The transmissionof the narrative takes

place

then

within a

social

context that becomes intrinsic to its effect. This blurs he distinction between

the

intrinsic and extrinsic that

Lyotard

uses to exclude an

analysis

of social

structures

(age,

sex,

family, professional

group)

from

his model of

narrative

pragmatics.

Such

contradictions

enable us to consider how

The Postmodern

Condition

eparates inguistic

exchanges

from broader

tructuresof social dif-

ferentiation. The

authority

of

the

storyteller

becomes

inseparable

rom

(even

if it

remains rreducible

o)

the

authority

of the father and

the transmission

f

the father'sname.

This autonomizationof the narrative unction from the socialorganization

of

power

has

quite

clear

ideological

implications.

It

neutralizes he

political

87







Hypatia

effects of

discourse and

implies

the

fluidity

of

narrative

in

the form of the

interchangeability fpositionsof discursiveauthority. tconcealshowpostsin

language

are overdetermined

by

prior

and

relatively

stable

social

assign-

ments such as

representedby

those

groups

the

text

itself

identifies:

age,

sex,

family, professional group.

The

pragmatics

of

a narrative's

ransmission

are

therefore

inseparable

from the divisions

of

power

that

give

certain

subjects

or social

groups authority

to

speak.

Such

authority

cannot be seen as

intrinsic

to

narratives,

but

complicates

the

very

separation

of narratives

rom

institutions.

It is interesting o considerthat in his text concerned less with postmodem-

ism but

more

explicitly

with

questions

of

justice

and

ethics,

The

Differend

(1988),

Lyotard

also attends to the

example

of the

Cashinahua narratives.

Here,

the

example

is

used

in

order o elaboratea

theory

of the incommensura-

bility

of

phrase

regimes.

Such an

incommensurability,

refusal

of one

phrase

to

translate

nto the termsof

another,

is defined

as a

differend:

a conflict that

cannot be

resolved

due to the lack of

a rule

of

judgment applicable

to

both

arguments

1988, xi).

Lyotardargues

hat a

wrong

occurs

when

a

single

rule

of judgment is applied in the case of a differend. His basic point is that a

universal

rule of

judgment

between

heterogeneous

games

s

lacking

in

general

(xi).

In

relation

to

the Cashinahua

narratives,

Lyotard

points

out that author-

ity

within

these narrativesrests

on a

paradox:

he

subject

that is named has

authority,

and the

subject

with

authority

has the

power

to name

(156).

The

self-determining

nature

of

these

small

narratives

annot be reconciled into

universal

(his)story

of man as a

subject

who translates

acrossnarratives.The

differend

occurswhen

the

Cashinahua

ubject

(narrative)

s

judged

n relation

to the universalstoryof man 156).

I have

already

considered

the

problems

implicit

to

Lyotard's

efusal

to

acknowledge

how the

gendering

of

the

Cashinahua'snarratives

may

alter our

understanding

f the

(pragmatic)

relation between narrative

and the institu-

tional

assignment

of

subject

positions.

What

I want to

consider

more

closely

here is the

inadequacy

of

Lyotard's onception

of ethics

(as

the ethics of

the

differend)

for

dealing

with institutional

(and

gendered) power

differences.

First,

I

think we need

to

consider

the fact that

Lyotard's

wn

text still worksas

a narrative hatpositionsor enlists the Cashinahua n acertainway, nvolving

in some sense

the

translation

of the Cashinahua into

an

example

in an

argument.

My

point

here would not

be to accuse

Lyotard

of

wronging

he

Cashinahua

community according

o

the ethics of the differend

he

has

delin-

eated

(to

accuse

him

in

this sense

of

being

a failed

postmodernist).

Rather

I

want

to

argue

that

this

conception

of

an ethical

practice

as

being

a

respect

for

the differend

s

an

impossible

one. The

very

demands

of narrativeand

argu-

ment mean

that

incommensurability

s

already

violated,

even

in

the event

of

taking incommensurabilityas an ethical ideal. Accepting that violence

against

the other is

irreducible

may

alter

how we

relatenarrative

o ethics.

We

88







SaraAhmed

would

no

longer

work with

an

opposition

between

narratives

which

totalize,

which refuse he otherness f the other(humanistandmodem) ornarratives

which resist

that totalization

by respecting

the

other as

radically

other

(anti-

humanist

and

postmoder).

What

we have instead is an

economy,

an

under-

standing

of

the differencebetween

narratives

as a matterof

degree.

What

follows from an

alternative

analysis

of ethics in relation to an

econ-

omy

of

differences

between narratives

is that

injustice

cannot

simply

be

identified with a violence

against

radicaldifference.

Instead,

what is

required

is a more

pragmatic,

cautious,

and

contingent

model of how different

ethical

practicesdeal with the other in casesof conflict or dispute.I do not think

that

justice

can be

simply

identified with

respecting

the other as

a radical

other. While

it is

important

o

recognize

hat

such

an identification of

justice

and radicalotheress would be a

logical impossibility

the

evaluative demand

implicit

to the

just

may

alreadynegate

the

supposed

adicality

of

otherness),

it is

also

important

to consider that

a

radical

incommensurability

between

discourses

may

not be the

case

in

pragmatic

situations.

Linda Nicholson has

argued

n contrast to

Lyotard

hat the

availability

of

criteria

for

adjudicating

between disputesmaycome fromthe pragmaticand hence contingentfact of

the existence of

cross-cultural

mediating

standardsof

validity

(Nicholson

1992, 85).

This

point

does not exclude the

possibility

that

discourses

may

be

incommensurable.

But it

suggests

hat

incommensurability

may

not

be

radical,

as

the

very

fact that discoursesare

conflicting

or

competing

means that

they

exist in some formof

relationship

o

each other.This

may

imply

that

there will

be some

degree

of

continuity

between

conflicting

discourses,

however much

that

continuity

is

inflected with

otherness

and difference. As Nicholson

argues: It is not as though the abandonmentof the search for foundational

means of

adjudication

entails the admission of no means of

adjudication.

Particularly

when

the communicative conflict occurs between

participants

who share a common

history,

one could

frequently

ind

some

common

belief,

value,

or

criterion

of

adjudication

o resolve the conflict

(88).

It

may

also be

significant

to

recognize

that

some

ways

of

adjudicating

n the case of

dispute

between discourses

may

be less

unjust

than others. So for

example,

we

may

ask:

How

egalitarian

are

the

procedures

or

resolving

conflicts?How

much do

they

attend to structural owerdifferences?Refusingsimplyto conceive of ethics in

terms

of the

respect

for radical

differences

may

allow

us

to

focus more on the

specificities

of

ethical conflicts:

who

they

involve,

whom

adjudicates

hem,

and

whose interestsare

at

stake.

Furthermore,

an

attention

to

the

institutionalized

power

differences

through

which

varying

discourses

ompete

(and

one

can recall here the

power

.structure

hat enables

the Western

ethnographer

o

speak

of

the

Cashinahua

narratives

n the first

place)

may

complicate

the model of

justice

which

equates

wrong with a violence againstdifference.Recognizingthat powerinequali-

ties

alreadyposition

what

can

happen

in

cases of

discursive onflict

meansthat

89







Hypatia

justice

may only

be made

possible by

varying

procedures

hat

require

the

structuraldelimitationof difference as a value. That is, if differenceis to be

realizable,

hen certain

institutionalor

structural ransformationsn

the distri-

bution

of

resourcesneed

to

take

place.

Those

redistributions

may

entail the

very

compromising

of

difference-they may

entail collective

policy

decisions and

the

formation of

largerpolitical

movements.

Indeed,

we

need to

agree

n

the value of

difference

and this

agreementmay

have the

status of a

pragmatic

onsensus

or

even a

meta-prescription.

or

example,

as

I

discussed

n

the

first

section,

a radical

politics may require

a

policy

decision to

allocateinstitutionalspacesforthose with lesspowerso that their interestscan

be articulated n

the

public

sphere.

Furthermore,

we

need to

acknowledge

he

gap

between

an ethical

principle

and

the

effect-rendering necessarydialogue

and consensus

over

procedure.

The ethic of the differend

cannot

be

sustained,

for it fails

to

acknowledge

he

implications

of

such a

gap

and the

demand

such

a

gap puts

in

place

for

some

form

of

regulative

structure f

any

ethical

effect

is

to be

negotiable.

The

equation

between

justice

and the value of difference

embedded in

Lyotard's

arrativeof the differend s

practically

unsustainable

and requiresdismantlingthroughan understanding f the complicatedrela-

tions between

value,

process,

and

effect.

This

postmodem

ethics

can

only

sustain itself as

being againstany regulative

or

totalizing

structure,

nsofaras it

resists he

complications

that

arise n the

practice

and

negotiation

of

everyday

ethical differences

and

conflict.

The

inadequacy

of

Lyotard's

ostmodem

ethics for

dealing

with structural

power inequalities

s

hence

apparent.

The

existence

of

such

power inequality

would mean that

simply respecting

the

differend could not ensure

or make

possiblea transformationn social relations.Respectingdifferencesand the

otheress

of the other

may

involve both

adjudicating

riteria or

defending

the

value

of difference

in

cases of

dispute,

as well as

developing

institutional

procedures

hat

would make

it

possible

for

various

phrase

egimes

o

con-

front each

otheron

more

equitable

terms.

Here,

the

political

(as

the macro as

well

as

micro

adjudication

of

power

relations)

inflects what can and

cannot be

considered

the domain

of

ethics

and

justice.

CONCLUSION

My readings

of

Baudrillard's

nd

Lyotard's

postmoder

narratives have

suggested

hat

the terms

on which the

postmoder

is

constructed

are

antago-

nistic to the aims

of feminist

theory

and

practice.

Feminism's

constitutive

belief

that

gender

inequality

structures

all

aspects

of social life

(from

which

many

deviations and differences

exist between

feminists)

has certain theoret-

ical

implications.

This

belief

recognizes

the delimitation

of difference and

possibilitiesby structural elationsof powerand constraint.I have suggested

that

both

Baudrillard

nd

Lyotard

tress

the

instability

and

indeterminacy

of

90







Sara

Ahmed

signifying

structures in

a

way

that makes broad-scale

categories

such

as

gender impossible. In the case of Seduction,I have problematized

Baudrillard'shift

from the

argument

that

sexuality

is nonreferentialto

the

conclusion that sexual difference is indeterminate: a site of

play

that is

unbounded.

In

relation to The Postmodern ondition nd

The

Differend,

have

suggested

hat

Lyotard's

model of

knowledge

as

determined

only by

the

bound-

aries of its own

production (paralogy)

and his model of

ethics as reducible

to

the value of radicaldifferenceand

othemess

(the

differend)

are

inadequate

or

dealing

with

large-scale

nstitutional

and

power inequalities.

My

critical

read-

ingsof Baudrillard ndLyotardmaysuggest hat anyintroductionof feminism

to such

postmodem

narrativeswould effect a

major

shift in their

terms;

it

would

interrupt

or

displace

their stress on

indeterminacy

and

instability.

A

feminist

approach

would

require

an

analysis

of how

power

relations

are stabi-

lized in

specific

historicalmoments

(in

the

empirical

ormof

male

dominance),

however much that

stability

is

relative

or

provisional

and

itself

open

to

contestation and

change

by

the

very

discourseof

feminism,

by

the

force of our

own

strategies,

our

rhetoric,

and

our collective

ambitions.

So feminismcannot be in the last instance either humanistor postmodem

(which

is

not to create

any

absolute

discontinuity

between

feminismand these

discursive

spaces).

The

interrogation

of

gender

inequality

in

linguistic

prac-

tices and

institutional norms involves the

critical transformationof

both

discourses.What

appears

to be a

contradiction between humanist

feminist

practice

and

postmodem

feminist

theory may

not exist.

Feminist

practicemay

not be

humanistand

feminist

theory

may

not be

postmodem,

if we

interrogate

these

discourses for the

historical and

political

limits

of

their

production.

Humanism s displacedvia the focus on the historicaland partialcharacterof

the

subject,

and the

recognition

of

the

ideological

investment in the

construc-

tion of a

universal

subject.

Postmoderism

is

displaced

via

the focus on the

differentiated

and determined

statusof

the social

subject,

and the

recognition

of

the

ideological

investment in the

idea that

subjectivities,

knowledges,

and

values are

free from

determination

by

relations of

power

and

constraint.

Feminist

theories of the

production

of

knowledges

and

subject

positions

are

finally,

then,

at

odds with

these discourses.

They

stress

that

the

(gendered)

subject is alwaysdifferentiatedwithin linguistic practicesand institutional

norms

and that such

structures

epresent

hegemonic

sites of

contestation

and

are

overdetermined

by

an

unequal

distributionof

power.

Feminist

theory

and

practice

affirm

through

their

very

recognition

and

critique

of

such

structures

the

possibility

and

necessity

of

reconstructing

ocial

relationsand

subjectivit-

ies

along

more

egalitarian

or

equitable

lines.

91







Hypatia

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