Subject Formation and Materialization In Recognizing Abjection

Have you ever wondered why you seemingly already know without academically learning what it means to be “white”, “black”, “woman”, or “man”?

It is thought by some theorists that the process of subject formation, whether the subject is identified through lenses of classifications such as race and gender, can be seen as a materialized process regulating against and in relation to societal norms, or “common sense” ideas. These “common sense” ideas can be articulated in the way we seemingly already know without academically learning what it means to be “white”, “black”, “woman”, and so on. The speculation comes when theorist challenge how these “common sense” ideas were formed and are currently materializing. In regards to subject formation in relation to race, Michael Omi and Howard Winant argue in their essay, “Racial Formation”, “…that racial formation is a process of historically situation projects in which human bodies and social structures are represented and organized… [and also linked to] the evolution of hegemony, the way in which society is organized and approached” (55-56). They explain that the social structures and cultural representations that form race develop a “common sense” way of thinking about things. They argue this point by saying, “The theory of racial formation suggests that society is suffused with racial projects, large and small, to which all are subjected. This racial ‘subjection’ is quintessentially ideological. Everybody learns some combination, some version, of the rules of racial classification, and of her own racial identity, often without obvious teaching or conscious inculcation. Thus are we inserted in a comprehensively radicalized social structure. Race becomes ‘common sense’ a way of comprehending, explaining and acting as a world” (60). This is why in many cultures it seems to be “common sense” to know what it is to be “white”, “black”, etc., without traditional teaching. This, “common sense” model of knowledge formation set up by Omi and Winant can also be linked to Judith Butler’s idea of sex materialization.

In her essay, “Bodies That Matter”, Judith Butler calls into question why we categorize gender in the socially constructed realm, and sex in a “common sense” normative way. She challenges this by arguing that sex, like gender and race, was also formed and is also materializing. She explains, “Materiality is formed and sustained through and as a materialization of regulatory norms that are in part those of heterosexual hegemony; the materialization of norms requires those identificatory process by which norms are assumed or appropriated and these identifications preceded and enable the formation of a subject, but are not strictly speaking performed by a subject” (243). Basically Butler is saying that although a societal norm is usually thought to be something pre-fixed and from which other things are measured, this “common sense” was also materialized, and changes over the course of history. We can understand this by tracing the way “sex” a societal norm of being either female or male, has materialized into blurry space of intersex. This blurry materialization is what causes the norm to be upset, and thus upsetting the subject (i.e. female) into refusing not only the object (i.e. male) but also the abject (everything beyond the binary, i.e. neither female or male). She explains subject formation deeper by saying, “in this sense, then, the subject is constituted through the force of exclusion and abjection one which produces a constitutive outside to the subject, an abjected outside, which is, after all ‘inside’ the subject as its own founding repudiation” (237). As Omi and Winant explain the materiality of language in race, does Butler explore the movement of producing a subject (in particular the body) in resistance to created norms, while also recognizing what is not the norm.

This resistance to “common sense” resonates throughout visual culture in the contemporary U.S. and internationally with artists who explore abjection, by using the body as a palette to disrupt identity. First take for example what the image on the newest Cosmopolitan cover featuring Jessica Alba says about being a ‘woman’. We may see a slim, large breasted and arguably beautiful “woman”. Now take this image and compare it to a photograph that comes from Italian visual artist Roberto Kusterle. This image calls to question what we think we know is “woman”, with a curved body and long hair, and couples this identification with a horrifying disavowal at that same time. This abjection of a body then materializes the idea into a new realm: that of the abjected. When we think of ourselves as subjects, and especially our bodies as subjects, Butler advises us to, “think about how and to what end bodies are constructed as it will be to think about how and to what end bodies are not constructed, and further, to ask after how bodies which fail to materialize proved the necessary ‘outside’, if not the necessary support, for the bodies which, in materializing the norm, qualify as bodies that matter” (243). When we materialize our body, we should also address our abjections. Think then, how do you form your body identification in reaction to the abjection displayed by Kusterle?