Belonging Flashcards
Explain shortly what Judith Butler arguments in Gender Trouble. 1990.
in Gender Trouble, Butler seeks to problematise the idea that one simply belongs to one of two oppositional genders: instead, she argues, gender is produced through the reiteration of particular actions (Butler 1990). However, the performative nature of identity is obscured by the very credibility of those performances, with the result that gender is ‘a construction that conceals its genesis’ (1990: 140)
How can you extend Butler gender performativity, to belonging?
For Bell, a less explored aspect of Butler’s work is that it allows us to see that ‘one does not simply or ontologically “belong” to the world or any group within it’, rather ‘belonging s an achievement at many levels of abstraction’ (1999: 3).
Explain how belonging can be citational
Like gender identity, belonging itself is citational: ‘the performativity of belonging “cites” the norms that constitute or make present the “community” or group as such’ (Bell 1999: 3).
What is “narrative”?
narrative is defined by Aristotle as having four components, of which the most important is PLOT (the use of linguistic devices to convey causality, surprise, the unexpected, somethign that deviates from the canonical - and most of all peripetea = TROUBLE). There’s also chronology (unfolding over time), characters of greater or lesser virtue (heroes, villains etc), a setting (the ‘stage’ of course). Following this a couple of millenia later, Kenneth Burke proposed the narrative pentad of Act + Actors + Scene + Agency + Purpose.
What is discourse
Discourse is the study of language in use. Why this word rather than that word? Why express an observation in numbers rather than words or pictures? Why this particular metaphor? Why formal language not casual language? What is not being talked about in this document and why? Who is setting the rules for what can and can’t be said?
