Between vulnerability and contamination: rethinking the self in the global age
| Autor | Elena Pulcini |
| Cargo | Prof. University of Florence, Italy |
| Páginas | 30-48 |
Periódico do Núcleo de Estudos e Pesquisas sobre Gênero e Direito
Centro de Ciências Jurídicas - Universidade Federal da Paraíba
V. 5 - Nº 03 - Ano 2016 – International Journal
ISSN | 2179-7137 | http://periodicos.ufpb.br/ojs2/index.php/ged/index
30
DOI: 10.18351/2179-7137/ged.v5n3p30-48
BETWEEN VULNERABILITY AND CONTAMINATION:
RETHINKING THE SELF IN THE GLOBAL AGE1
Elena Pulcini2
Abstract: Contemporary feminist thought
undoubtedly has the merit of having called
into question the paradigm of the modern
subject: that is the figure of a sovereign
subject. Despite immense differences,
feminism has tried to rethink the subject
by taking criticism of the modern
paradigm as its starting point. The idea has
emerged of a subject that takes leave of the
modern Self’s unilateralism by
reintegrating the excluded, repressed,
undervalued poles (whether they are
difference, the body, the unconscious or
care). In other words, what has long been
considered “other” loses its negative
connotation and becomes an element
constituting the Self. While sharing this
perspective, I have come up with an idea
that could be defined as the fertility of the
negative. Particularly inspired by the
reflection of Georges Bataille, I have tried
to put forward the notion of a
contaminated subject.
1 Many of the issues discussed in this paper have been developed in Pulcini (2012).
2 Prof. University of Florence, Italy. Email: elena.pulcini@unifi.it.
Keywords: sovereign subject,
contaminated subject, Bataille, Butler,
global vulnerability.
The contaminated subject
Contemporary feminist thought
undoubtedly has the merit of having called
into question, albeit from very different
points of view, the paradigm of the modern
subject: that is the figure of a sovereign
subject, as an autonomous and self-
sufficient, logocentric entity, enclosed
within a logic of identity. We can find a
clear manifestation of this paradigm in the
two hegemonic figures of modernity – the
liberal tradition’s homo oeconomicus and
the subject as a conscience devised by
Descartes – both based on dualism and
opposing positive (reason, thought,
freedom, male) and negative poles
(passions, body, need, female). In other
words, the sovereign subject is based on
excluding what is each time considered
Periódico do Núcleo de Estudos e Pesquisas sobre Gênero e Direito
Centro de Ciências Jurídicas - Universidade Federal da Paraíba
V. 5 - Nº 03 - Ano 2016 – International Journal
ISSN | 2179-7137 | http://periodicos.ufpb.br/ojs2/index.php/ged/index
31
DOI: 10.18351/2179-7137/ged.v5n3p30-48
“other” from the subject itself. As a
consequence, it is essentially unilateral.
Despite immense differences,
feminism has tried to rethink the subject
by taking criticism of the modern
paradigm as its starting point. From Carol
Gilligan’s ethics of care to the Italian
theory of difference, from Jessica
Benjamin and Nancy Chodorow’s
psychoanalytical reflections to Judith
Butler’s more recent reflections on the
topic of responsibility, the idea has
emerged of a subject that takes leave of the
modern Self’s unilateralism by
reintegrating the excluded, repressed,
undervalued poles (whether they are
difference, the body, the unconscious or
care). In other words, what has long been
considered “other” loses its negative
connotation and becomes an element
constituting the Self. It brings about a
profound change in its structure of sense,
extending its boundaries and opening up
new potential.
While sharing this perspective, I
have come up with an idea that could be
defined as the fertility of the negative. By
3 Here I am referring to the concept present in
Habermas’s thinking.
reinstating its dark areas, the Self
apparently loses power, autonomy and
certainties, but acquires the ability to
finally face up to that otherness
constitutive of its deepest, most
inalienable humus.
This means that we do not have to
renounce the idea of the subject and decree
its death, as a certain postmodern vulgata
would have us do. Nor could it be
sufficient to replace it with the idea of
intersubjectivity.3 Rather we need to
rethink it without presupposing its
sovereignty. In other words, the subject is
such due to its acceptance of the challenge
stemming from the unshakeable
materiality of the body, from the fracture
of difference, from the obscurity of the
unconscious. It is such because it is open
to a process of distortion that prevents the
identity from being recomposed, and
causes its deposition from the sovereign
position that modernity had bestowed
upon it. So what I would like to do is also
oppose the pathologies that were
inevitably triggered by a subject that
retains itself sovereign and absolute; that
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