Subjects of Subversion: Rancière and Butler on the Aesthetics of Politics

Judith Butler’s intellectual project has been concerned throughout with the relationship between politics and performance and, more specifically, the ways in which we can subvert the “performance” of our everyday practices and norms to prompt the emergence of alternative ways of living. Initially motivated by questions concerning how the performativity of gender and sex can reinforce the heterosexual order, and restrict and efface the possibilities of living outside of heterosexual norms, her writings on subversion have increasingly questioned the restrictive force of norms in general. Butler’s work offers the beginnings of a strategy for subversion of the dominant order whilst encompassing a search for moments in which alternatives could emerge. However, in seeking to theorize subversion more precisely, we find that questions still remain for Butler concerning the site and subject of subversion. In this brief essay, Woodford proposes that we might address these issues through recourse to the work of Jacques Rancière. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.