Det nakna ordet - Den protesterande kroppens transkorporala etik

Abstract

This essay brings feminist corporeal theories and material feminisms to bear upon the many naked protests occurring worldwide, asking how the naked body functions within these events. While most feminist corporeal theories remain within the demarcation of the Human, the naked protests considered here extend human corporeality into actual places, enacting nakedness as an ethical performance of vulnerability – the allied, mutual vulnerabilities of human/animal/environment. Taking up the concept of intercorporeality, as defined by Gail Weiss and others, I propose the term ‘‘trans-corporeality,’’ which emphasizes the imbrication of human bodies not only with each other, but with non-human creatures and physical landscapes. Feminist theories of performance, particularly those of Peggy Phelan (1993) and Rebecca Schneider (1997), are crucial for understanding the possibilities for expressing this sense of trans-corporeality, which redefines the human as material, and thus requires a critique, subversion, or evasion of the dominant modes of representation and the gendered scenarios of visibility. The performance artist/activist La Tigresa, who strips for loggers to save old-growth forests, and the many Bare Witness activists who spell out words with their naked bodies perform vulnerability as a trans-corporeal condition in which the material interchanges between human corporeality, geographical places, and vast networks of power, provoke ethical and political actions. Paying attention to particular corporeal actions, activities, practices, and events can help feminist theory reconsider ‘‘the body’’ as more than a site of cultural inscription. Moreover, the naked protests considered here extend the parameters of the political domain by seeking an ethical recognition of vulnerable, interdependent, interwoven, human and non-human flesh.