More-than-human gender performativity
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More-than-human gender performativity. / Dichman, Anne-Sofie.
In: Distinktion, Vol. 25, No. 1, 2024, p. 71-87.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - More-than-human gender performativity
AU - Dichman, Anne-Sofie
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - This article engages with Judith Butler’s concepts of gender performativity and materiality as they develop from Bodies That Matter (1993) to The Force of Nonviolence (2020). The article shows how Butler has moved toward a materialism that is less dependent on language and thus open for animals and other nonhuman creatures to become intelligible as liveable lives. At the same time, however, Butler has not expanded the concept of gender performativity into a correspondingly more-than-human direction, which raises the issue of how to understand gender performativity when nonhumans act as living matters alongside humans. To develop such a full-fledged concept of gender performativity, the article turns to new materialism, in particular the work of Jane Bennett. Combining Butler’s concept of gender performativity with Bennett’s work on vibrant matter, the article proposes a new concept of ‘more-than-human gender performativity,’ defined as an assembled enactment of multiple forces that in the very entanglement of human and nonhuman modes of life articulates a multiplicity of gender identities. The article concludes by illustrating the relevance of such a concept by using the recent work of the Danish artist Rasmus Myrup as its point of reference.
AB - This article engages with Judith Butler’s concepts of gender performativity and materiality as they develop from Bodies That Matter (1993) to The Force of Nonviolence (2020). The article shows how Butler has moved toward a materialism that is less dependent on language and thus open for animals and other nonhuman creatures to become intelligible as liveable lives. At the same time, however, Butler has not expanded the concept of gender performativity into a correspondingly more-than-human direction, which raises the issue of how to understand gender performativity when nonhumans act as living matters alongside humans. To develop such a full-fledged concept of gender performativity, the article turns to new materialism, in particular the work of Jane Bennett. Combining Butler’s concept of gender performativity with Bennett’s work on vibrant matter, the article proposes a new concept of ‘more-than-human gender performativity,’ defined as an assembled enactment of multiple forces that in the very entanglement of human and nonhuman modes of life articulates a multiplicity of gender identities. The article concludes by illustrating the relevance of such a concept by using the recent work of the Danish artist Rasmus Myrup as its point of reference.
KW - Faculty of Social Sciences
KW - Judith Butler
KW - gender performativity
KW - materiality
KW - Jane Bennett
KW - new materialism
KW - entanglements
KW - nonhumans
U2 - 10.1080/1600910X.2023.2178476
DO - 10.1080/1600910X.2023.2178476
M3 - Journal article
VL - 25
SP - 71
EP - 87
JO - Distinktion
JF - Distinktion
SN - 1600-910X
IS - 1
ER -
ID: 339907269