NotNormativelyHuman 323
form of communicative certainty that there is an Other out there with a
claim on my acknowledging his or her presence. Uncertain as the
contoursofnon-normativeembodimentandtheidentificatorymodalities
which they solicit may be, they are unavoidable points of reference in
everyday encounters. Being less the "property" of an individual or a
class of individuals, they exist only in relation. However, this
relationship is more than evidence that everything is culturally (or
socially) constructed. Instead, it should enable a theoretical move away
fromtheplightofindividualstoward"thecoexistenceandsolidarity,for
good or ill, of 'my' contemporaries.. ." (Jameson,Valences of the
Dialectic524), and thus to the ethical question of how the capability of
biologicallynon-normativepeopletoimaginethemselveswithoutshame
intheworldtheysharewithotherscanbesafeguarded.
And here, Arjun Appadurai's reflections on "the capacity to aspire"
may prove helpful. It is in many ways related to Martha Nussbaum's
"capabilities approach," which I discussed above, and it shares the
latter's concern with the material conditions in which people (are made
to) live. By the capacity to aspire, Appadurai does not simply mean the
humandesireforwishfulfillmentortheuniversalpotentialforhopebut
more precisely a "navigational capacity" (69) by which marginalized
people(hisexamplearethepoorandsubaltern)trytoimprovetheirlot.
This aspirational capacity, "nurtured by the possibility of real-world
conjectures and refutations" (69), consists of local strategies,
experientialknowledgeandshort-termplans.Itmakesrepeatedattempts
at"connectingwhatCliffordGeertzlongagocalledthe'experience-near'
andthe'experience-distant'aspectsoflifeandmaythusrightlybecalled
cultural or, less felicitously, a 'culture'.. ." (70). The idea of an
"aspirational capacity" describes quite well many of the practices
outlined above adopted by the elderly or disabled so as not to allow
socio-culturalidentity to defineordelimitthem andthewaystheylove.
Such aspirational capacities have recently received a big boost by new
technologies in the biomedical sector and in genetics. These will be the
topicofthenextchapter.