Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2012, 13 (2): 18-27

Political difference and feminist theory

Ľubica Kobová

The paper discusses the uses of the concept of the political in both feminist political theory and mainstream postfoundational political theory, and its implications for feminist political theorizing today. In feminist theory, the concept primarily emerged as a counter-reaction to the disputed foundations of feminism, the subject of women. The political was identified with contingency and contingent foundations; however, no thorough exploration of the term was carried out within the field of feminist theorizing. The mainstream postfoundational political theory rests in identifying political difference, i.e. a difference between the ontic level of politics and its foundations on ontological level. I introduce Mouffe's notion of agonism as an exemplary normative theory of political difference. Next to it I juxtapose Jacques Rancière's approach which attempts to undermine the distinctions on which ontological political differences are based. His account of politics seems to point beyond ontologization of politics and, instead, focuses on the immanent plane of politics, in which the given, the visible can be merely recomposed. In conclusion I link his account to that of Linda Zerilli's political judgment, and argue for a feminist political philosophy and theory without the need for a purified founding concept of the political.

Published: June 1, 2012  Show citation