Introduction:BiologizingCulture/CulturingBiology 41
and'livetogether'inthestreet"(ButlerandAthanasiou175).Elsewhere,
Butler's work on precariousness and socially induced vulnerability (to
which I will return later) necessitates her positioning a material, not a
textually constructed, body as the site of critique: "the differential
allocation of precarity... in my view forms the point of departure for
botharethinkingofbodilyontologyandforprogressiveorleftpolitics.
. ." (FramesofWar3). Any such politics and any critique inspired by it
cannot,inmyview,proceedwithoutanacknowledgmentofthematerial
presenceofthehumanbodyanditsbiology.
Unfortunately, Butler has, to my knowledge, never moved on to
describe in what ways exactly the body can be understood as
contravening the lexical maneuvers in society and culture which have
rivetedtheattentionofculturalconstructivists.Thus,ChrisJenks'sview
that "radical constructivisms rest on the over-estimation of human
constructionandauthorship"(qtd.inCooleandFrost26)mighttoquite
some degree even be shared from a Butlerian perspective: "if there is
nothing beyond construction... no space for human agency" is left
(ArmourandSt.Ville3).
What is at stake here is (in a way not unrelated to the race theories
discussed above) the question of how the differential biological
endowment vested in women's bodies can be used in critical and
empowering ways beyond the merely discursive. This is also the
perspective sustaining Rosi Braidotti's recent reflections on the possible
role of posthumanism for feminist theorizing: "The theoretical premise
ofhumanistfeminismisamaterialistnotionofembodiment"(22).
Theprevioussectioncoulddolittlemorethanofferaspotlightonthe
ongoing debate aboutrace and gender and the recent re-engagements in
both fields with the biology of the human body. What I hope to have
shown is that even while there is an overwhelming consensus that both
race and gender are spurious, if not altogether false universals with
dubious referential credentials, the biological dimension of embodied
human life remains a stubbornly unavoidable point of reference.
Meanwhile,raceandgendercontinueto perform important,if nefarious
social and cultural work. Both terms tend toward the normative and
operate on the basis of referential typicalities such that all and only all
membersofoneraceorgenderareprojectedtoshareasetofbiological
characteristics. And these alleged characteristics are in their turn
"embodiedthrough social practices and norms rather thaninvestedin