Bodies of Democracy: Modes of Embodied Politics 9783839449233

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Amanda Machin Bodies of Democracy

Political Science  | Volume 84

Amanda Machin is a professor of sociology at the University of Agder, Norway. Her research focuses on radical democracy and environmental politics.

Amanda Machin

Bodies of Democracy Modes of Embodied Politics

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http:// dnb.d-nb.de © 2022 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover layout: Maria Arndt, Bielefeld Printed by docupoint GmbH, Magdeburg Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-4923-9 PDF-ISBN 978-3-8394-4923-3 https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839449233 ISSN of series: 2702-9050 eISSN of series: 2702-9069 Printed on permanent acid-free text paper.

Contents

Acknowledgements ......................................................... 11 Introduction: A Political Remembering of Bodies ............................ 13 Thinking the Body ........................................................... 16 Modes of Politics and Chapter Outline......................................... 21 References ................................................................. 28 Chapter 1. Embodied Representation: Performances of Identity ............ 35 1.1 Delegates and Trustees: Acting for Others.............................. 39 1.2 Descriptive Representation: Standing for Others......................... 41 1.3 Constitutive Representation: Performing for Others..................... 42 1.4 Bodies of Representation .............................................. 45 1.5 “I am what you call a hooligan” ......................................... 47 1.6 “Mother of the Nation” .................................................. 51 1.7 Strange Democracy.................................................... 54 References ................................................................. 55 Chapter 2. Embodied Deliberation: Conditions, Excesses, Disruptions, Opportunities .......................................................... 61 2.1 Disembodied Deliberation.............................................. 63 2.2 Bodies Matter: Conditions ............................................. 67 2.3 Bodies Matter: Excesses ............................................... 70 2.4 Bodies Matter: Disruptions ............................................ 72 2.5 Bodies Matter: Opportunities ........................................... 75

2.6 Bodies of Deliberation .................................................. 77 2.7 Beyond Deliberation ................................................... 78 References ................................................................. 79 Chapter 3. Embodied Disagreement: The Agony of Others .................. 85 3.1 Us and Them .......................................................... 89 3.2 Habits of Us ............................................................ 91 3.3 Bodies of Others ...................................................... 96 3.4 Cultivating Agonistic Respect .......................................... 99 3.5 Democratic Disagreements ............................................ 101 References ................................................................. 102 Chapter 4. Embodied Protest: The Politics of the Hunger-Strike............ 107 4.1 Hunger as protest ..................................................... 110 4.2 Irish republicans ....................................................... 111 4.3 Suffragettes........................................................... 116 4.4 Anti-apartheid......................................................... 120 4.5 The spectacular body .................................................. 122 4.6 The identifying/identified body......................................... 124 4.7 The dissenting body ................................................... 127 4.8 Hunger and Paradox ................................................... 129 References ................................................................ 130 Chapter 5. Embodied Occupation: Disciplined Bodies in Counter-Conduct .. 137 5.1 Conducting and Countering ............................................139 5.2 Twyford Down ........................................................143 5.3 Dimensions of Occupying Bodies at Twyford Down ...................... 145 5.3.1 Surplus Meaning ................................................ 145 5.3.2 Politicisation of Place........................................... 146 5.3.3 Circulation of Emotions ......................................... 148 5.3.4 Identity Construction ........................................... 149 5.3.5 (Re)Disciplining ................................................. 151 5.4 Roads to Resistance ................................................... 152 References ................................................................. 154

Chapter 6. Embodied Counsel: Bodies of Knowledge........................ 157 6.1 Scientific Knowledge .................................................. 160 6.2 Knowledge of Bodies .................................................. 164 6.3 Bodies of Knowledge ..................................................168 6.4 Expertise and Democracy .............................................. 172 References ................................................................. 174 Conclusion: Recalling Bodies ............................................... 179 References ................................................................ 183

For Kester and Alex

Acknowledgements

This book is the outcome of various research endeavours over several years and it has therefore benefited from conversations with a huge number of people to whom I am wholeheartedly grateful. In particular I want to thank Nico Stehr, André Bächtiger, Alan Irwin, Karsten Fischer, Graham Smith, Hans Asenbaum, Michael Saward and Helen Beynon. Jakob Horstmann has been an insightful and patient editor and Martin Beckford a ruthless copyeditor. My family, as ever, have been incredibly supportive. Most of all, I thank Alex and Kester who remind me to occasionally stop, breathe and laugh. Parts of this manuscript have appeared elsewhere. I am very grateful to the publishers who have allowed sections of the articles below to be reproduced here.

Machin, A. (2015) “Deliberating Bodies: Democracy, Identification and Embodiment”, Democratic Theory, 2 (1), pp. 42–62. DOI: 10.3167/dt .2015.020104 Machin, A. (2014) “Mouffe, Merleau-Ponty and Others: The View from Somewhere?”, Parallax, 20 (2), pp. 73-87. DOI: 10.1080/13534645.20 14.896553 Machin, A. (2015) “Hunger Power: The embodied protest of the political hunger strike”, Interface: A Journal for and About Social Movements, 8 (1), pp. 157 – 180. Machin, A. (2018) “Bodies of Knowledge and Knowledge of Bodies: “We can know more than we can tell”, Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, 55 (4), pp. 84-97.

Introduction: A Political Remembering of Bodies

Political institutions are populated by living, breathing, desiring, suffering, ageing human beings. And yet these institutions are frequently depicted in the lofty journals and revered venues of social science as if they were designed and indwelled by disembodied minds, detached and distinct from their corporeal existence. Paradoxically, the political bodies in which citizens and their representatives congregate and communicate are depicted as forums in which human bodies are largely irrelevant. But are participants of politics truly able to consider themselves, each other and the world around them in an entirely rational and deliberate way, unhindered by bodily processes, gut instincts and emotional connections? Do the corporeal markers of gender, race and religion not affect political interaction and identification? Might the political activity of some citizens be impeded by disease and disorders as well as their stigmatization? Do bodies not enrich, enliven and disrupt democratic processes? When a protestor lies in front of a tank, when a politician adorns traditional clothing, when a group of women strip naked in a detention centre, when a speaker is intimidated by the gestures of the audience around her, do the causes, consequences and specificities of their actions not exceed much of the toolkit of contemporary social science? I will argue in this book that theories and models of democracy can be challenged and improved by greater attentiveness to the embodiment of its political agents. The ‘somatophobic forgetting’ of the body goes back centuries (Coole 2007a; Grosz 1994; Threadcraft 2016). While contemplating his immi-

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nent execution in Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates describes philosophy as the search for truth that is essentially accompanied by the urge to disassociate the thinking soul from the earthly body—a disassociation that is ultimately only possible in death. He warns of the “innumerable distractions” of the body that “fills us with loves and desires and fears and all sorts of fancies and a great deal of nonsense” and therefore hinders the pursuit of knowledge and truth (66b-c). The soul is only contaminated by beguiling corporeal “passions and pleasures” (81b. See Broadie 2001). Echoing Plato, the body has been often pictured in Western cultural tradition and philosophy as liable to intrude into the work of the mind and reduced, as Elizabeth Grosz describes, to “a brute givenness which requires overcoming” (Grosz 1994: 4). Feminists have revealed how female bodies in particular have been historically coded as ‘too embodied’ for the political realm. This realm was the domain of universal reason to which women, continually distracted by the ‘fleshy limitations’ of their bodies, could never expect to ascend (Duncan 1996: 15). Carole Pateman finds in the texts of political philosophy the presumption that men have the capacities for citizenship and politics whereas women are depicted as unable to transcend their bodily passions and therefore incapable of developing such capacities (1989: 4; see also Alaimo 2010 and Prokhovnik 2002). It is precisely the abstraction of the political participant from the body that disguises the historical construction of this participant as masculine (Pateman 1989: 4). These feminist arguments draw attention to the omission of the body in general, which permits the dismissal of particular bodies and the privileging of others. If the myth of disembodied rationality leads to the marginalisation of those participants who are expected to be unable to attain it, it also builds an invisible boundary for those whose capacity to enter the public sphere is eroded by disease or its stigmatization (Machin and Ruser 2020). In order to fully grasp socio-political inequalities and exclusions, the body therefore should be wrestled (back) into political theory. However, to acknowledge that bodies are excluded from the allegedly disembodied political realm is not enough. It is important to notice not only that the political realm is a space in which bodies interact, but that

Introduction: A Political Remembering of Bodies

bodies both constrain and contribute to politics, perhaps in part precisely by drawing attention to the exclusions and inequalities that exist within this space. This is not to say that there has been a total lack of interest in bodies and embodiment; important scholarship has emerged in recent decades (see for example Alaimo 2010; Beausoleil 2014; Coole and Frost 2010; Crossley 2013; Davis 1997; Heyes 2007; Grosz 1994; Shilling 2012; Sullivan 2001; Young 2005; Zeiler 2013). In political theory, research on embodiment has mainly been confined to theories of gender (Alcoff 1996; Diprose 2002; Grosz 1994; Zeiler 2013), sexuality (Butler 1990), race (Ahmed 2004; Alcoff 1999; Ngo 2017) and disability (Cadwallader 2010; Clifford 2012; Garland-Thomson 2005; Shildrick 1999). Scrutiny of the bodily is somewhat missing however in contemporary democratic theory (although see Mendonça et al. 2020). In turning our attention to the bodies of democracy we see the ambiguous, unpredictable yet powerful role they play in politics in myriad ways and in a variety of circumstances, from the mundane to the spectacular. As Diana Coole remarks, attending to bodies might improve our understanding of “the visceral dimension of democratic exchanges” (2007a: 415). In response to the diagnosis of ‘somatophobic forgetting’, then, I hope to provoke a ‘political remembering’ of the body. My aim is to show that it is as embodied creatures that we interact in the political realm, and to challenge the dualism between political subjectivity and lived body. By standing attentively or turning away, by moving or staying, by eating or starving, by dancing or wailing, embodied humans can challenge stereotypes, inspire protests, rupture conventions and provoke change. This book investigates the bodies of democracy, grappling with their various performances and illustrating their capability to rupture the political realm and any reductive account of their own existence. To do this it refers to an eclectic set of empirical examples and draws on various bodies of theoretical literature, hoping to bring together different perspectives on the political nature of human bodies. In the next section I introduce three thinkers I turn to throughout the book—Michel Foucault, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Simone de Beau-

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voir—whose provocations and ideas I have found particularly helpful in grappling with the implication of bodies for democratic politics.

Thinking the Body Bodies appear in politics most obviously perhaps as its disciplined objects: the physical items that a government or ruler commands, imprisons, monitors, rganizes, manages and secures. As Foucault famously revealed, bodies are governed by powerful institutions and discourses. In the prison, the army, the hospital and the school for example, bodies are continually coached and corrected. Foucault uses the term ‘docile bodies’ to refer to the ways in which human beings are compelled to conform to social standards and expectations (1977: 135; Heyes 2007: 29). A docile body is trained, treated, ranked, enclosed and separated to become more healthy, efficient, productive, normal and individual (Foucault 1977: 144). Foucault draws our attention to how the bodies of soldiers, students, patients, prisoners, housewives, commuters and workers are disciplined through the daily rituals that separate human beings into categories, organise their time and regulate their activity. The processes and standards that order our lives “are a part of our most familiar landscape” that is often simply taken for granted (1988: 11). It is not only in the prison cell and the schoolyard that disciplinary power is manifest, but also in beauty, fashion and health regimes (Bartky 1988; King 2004; Heyes 2007). Here we see that our bodies are disciplined through our own aspirations as much as by the overt commands of others. Cressida Heyes highlights the “intensified and proliferating forms of surveillance of the body” (2007: 31) that generate our wish to change our bodies not only to conform to beauty norms but to reflect our “authentic inner selves” (2007: 36). Power works, we are reminded, not simply to repress human desires but also to create them (Foucault 1980a: 59). Our goals, values and expectations are conditioned by the discourses that determine what

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voir—whose provocations and ideas I have found particularly helpful in grappling with the implication of bodies for democratic politics.

Thinking the Body Bodies appear in politics most obviously perhaps as its disciplined objects: the physical items that a government or ruler commands, imprisons, monitors, rganizes, manages and secures. As Foucault famously revealed, bodies are governed by powerful institutions and discourses. In the prison, the army, the hospital and the school for example, bodies are continually coached and corrected. Foucault uses the term ‘docile bodies’ to refer to the ways in which human beings are compelled to conform to social standards and expectations (1977: 135; Heyes 2007: 29). A docile body is trained, treated, ranked, enclosed and separated to become more healthy, efficient, productive, normal and individual (Foucault 1977: 144). Foucault draws our attention to how the bodies of soldiers, students, patients, prisoners, housewives, commuters and workers are disciplined through the daily rituals that separate human beings into categories, organise their time and regulate their activity. The processes and standards that order our lives “are a part of our most familiar landscape” that is often simply taken for granted (1988: 11). It is not only in the prison cell and the schoolyard that disciplinary power is manifest, but also in beauty, fashion and health regimes (Bartky 1988; King 2004; Heyes 2007). Here we see that our bodies are disciplined through our own aspirations as much as by the overt commands of others. Cressida Heyes highlights the “intensified and proliferating forms of surveillance of the body” (2007: 31) that generate our wish to change our bodies not only to conform to beauty norms but to reflect our “authentic inner selves” (2007: 36). Power works, we are reminded, not simply to repress human desires but also to create them (Foucault 1980a: 59). Our goals, values and expectations are conditioned by the discourses that determine what

Introduction: A Political Remembering of Bodies

is healthy, beautiful and normal. And these discourses are internalised so that each individual becomes “his own overseer” (1980b: 155). Docile bodies are the ordered bodies who stand behind the line, smoke in the designated area, sit in the right part of the bus, queue at the ballot box and wear their uniforms. By conforming to social standards and expectations, human bodies enflesh prevailing socio-political norms and corporealise self-evident ideals (Foucault 1988: 15). This means, however, that bodies are not only passive objects sculpted by social institutions but active participants in shoring up and weighting down those institutions. Bodies don’t just reflect conventions but actively reproduce them and by doing so preserve the social order. Foucault’s account of governmental power sought to show that in many ways the everyday ‘conduct’ of bodies is directed or disciplined or ‘conducted’ by government, and therefore government is defined as the “conduct of conducts” (1994: 341). And yet, says Foucault, there is always resistance. Although there is no escaping the power relations that structure our social realities, it is always possible to struggle against and within them (Deacon 1998). The marked irony here is that it is healthy, strong, disciplined bodies who have the capacity to resist (Foucault 1980a: 56). Docile bodies can become disruptive and dangerous. Although the body cannot ever free itself entirely from power, it can obstruct power and it is this insight that informs Foucault’s notion of ‘counter-conduct’ (Foucault 2009). As I show in Chapter Five using the case of the occupation of the site of a proposed motorway bypass, protest as ‘counter-conduct’ does not free bodies from discipline, but rather involves their re-disciplining. Bodies, then, cannot be reductively understood as mere docile objects. Bodies don’t just follow conventions and norms but by conducting themselves also creatively perform and cultivate and also sometimes counter them. We can understand the human body as not just a vehicle for an agent but as itself possessing some sort of agency. Judith Butler explains that while Foucault deposes the body as an anterior substance to disciplinary power, he still alerts us to its ambiguous role as the site at which power is redirected: “Power happens to the body, but this body is also the occasion in which something unpredictable…

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happens to power” (Butler 2002: 15). If bodies are created through disciplinary power, then they also recreate that disciplinary power and are not only the docile objects but the active subjects of politics and thus capable of democratic contribution. “As democratic citizens”, urges Sharon Krause, “we ought to be more attentive… to the politics of our own bodily agency” (2011: 306). To do this it is it helpful to turn to the work of Merleau-Ponty, who provides a rich source for thinking about and with the body, by positing the necessary interrelation of mind and body and world. Indeed, according to Richard Shusterman, for Western philosophy Merleau-Ponty is “the patron saint of the body” (2005: 151). Numerous scholars of politics interested in embodiment and materiality have engaged with his philosophy (see Ahmed 2006; Alcoff 1999; Cadwallader 2010; Coole 2005; Diprose 2002; Grosz 1994; Malmqvist and Zeiler 2010; Parkins 2000; Sullivan 2001; Young 2005; Zeiler 2013). Merleau-Ponty goes further than Foucault in attending to the creativity of the body that gives us our world. What Merleau-Ponty brings to attention in his book The Phenomenology of Perception is the embodied existence of human beings who are “destined to the world” (2002: xii) and therefore “the inescapable rootedness to our situation” (Adams 2001: 215). He shows how we always experience the world from our corporeal position that provides the horizon of our experience: My body is “my point of view on the world” (MerleauPonty 2002: 81) or “a movement towards the world” (2002: 408). As Iris Marion Young notices, Merleau-Ponty encourages us to reflect differently upon our individual subjectivity, by locating it not in consciousness but in the body (2005: 8 and 35). But he also prods us to think differently about social co-existence and political activity (Coole 2007b: 16; Plot 2012; Whiteside 1988). For example, as I explore in Chapter Two, our inescapable embodied existence poses difficulties for political deliberations in which participants are expected to interact and communicate unhindered or unaided by their bodies. The messages of interlocutors are conveyed with physical gestures and sounds, so that their meaning overspills their conscious intentions: language is never fully transparent (Coole 2005: 130; Adams 2001: 213). We encounter other

Introduction: A Political Remembering of Bodies

subjects through our bodily interaction with them in a shared world, but we cannot know them completely and they can be mysterious and troubling. This is the concern of Chapter Three, in which I suggest that the bodies of others are sometimes antagonistically constructed as “bodyobjects”, which threatens collective democratic life. Still, we are not enclosed in our situations “like an object in a box” (2002: 419). The important point made by Merleau-Ponty is not that bodies simply limit perspective, nor that they passively provide it, but rather that bodies creatively organise the world and therefore actively produce meaning (Grosz 2004: 89). As human creatures we are able to shift perspectives (Whiteside 1988: 7). As I show in Chapter Six, this idea resonates with the argument of Michael Polyani (1966), that a scientist depends upon her tacit, or bodily, knowledge, in order to extend and refine her scientific knowledge. And this holds for more mundane tasks too; our bodies develop habitual knowledge that allows much of our surrounding (including the body itself) to recede the background, so that when we attend to something, it stands out, becoming a figure against a background—something we “plunge” into (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 78). Merleau-Ponty is important for scholars of democratic politics, then, not only because he draws attention to the body, but because the body he draws attention to is not simply a docile instrument or fleshy container but the very condition of social and political experience and interaction (Grosz 2004: 86). Although Merleau-Ponty reminds us that all perspectives are situated within the horizons and habits of the body, he nonetheless still seems to assume there is one ‘normal’ sort of body lying beneath its differentiated situation and that unless we are pathologically impaired, we have no need to question our habits, since ‘normal’ bodies will function accurately in the world. Feminists in particular have criticised MerleauPonty’s assertion of an unproblematic ‘normal’ body, a ‘natural’ sexuality, and a universally applicable somatic experience of a ‘common world’. As Judith Butler puts it, Merleau-Ponty sets himself “the impossible project of maintaining an abstract subject even while describing

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concrete, lived experience” (Butler 1989: 95. See also Cadwallader 2010; Shildrick 1999; Weiss 1999; Young 2005).1 The work of Beauvoir is informative in grasping the differentiated situatedness of bodies. Beauvoir agrees that all bodies are rooted within a particular context, but unlike Merleau-Ponty, she highlights the biological and social differences of that rootedness: “every concrete human being is uniquely situated” (Beauvoir 2010: 4). She is particularly interested in the situation of women and draws attention to the experiences of gendered bodies. As Sonia Kruks explains, Beauvoir is alert to the way that women can experience their bodies as “sites of profound alienation” due to physical limitations but also to social objectification (Kruks 2010: 263). Although she offers no concrete feminist strategies in her work, feminism is clearly indebted to her (Bair 1986: 162). When she famously wrote that “one is not born, but rather becomes, woman” Beauvoir rejected the notion that gender is biologically given and attests to its social construction and contingency. The statement continues: “No biological, psychic or economic destiny defines the figure that the human female takes on in society; it is civilisation as a whole that elaborates this intermediary product between the male and the eunuch that is called feminine” (2010 [1949]: 293). ‘Woman’ is not biologically determined but is something that a female human being becomes by partaking “in this mysterious and endangered reality known as femininity” (Beauvoir 2010: 3). The body as lived, in Young’s words, is “always enculturated” (2005: 17). A woman’s body does not “establish for her a fixed and inevitable destiny” (Beauvoir 2010 [1949]: 65). She insists that: “within the human collectivity nothing is natural, and woman, among others, is a product developed by human civilisation” (ibid.: 777). The “inferiorisation” of woman can be understood “as emerging through the interconstituencies of social structure and lived, embodied experience” (Kruks 2010: 268). In Chapter One I illustrate this idea of becoming and its relevance to political representation with two famous examples: Winne Madikizela-Mandela and Emmeline Pankhurst, women 1

See Sullivan 2002 and Weiss 2002 both in special issue of Hypatia for an interesting exchange over the issue of the ‘anonymous body’.

Introduction: A Political Remembering of Bodies

who subvert dominant understandings of women by becoming different. For Butler, Beauvoir’s insights open the possibility for the subversion of gender norms and “autonomy within corporeal life” (1986: 48). In her response to Beauvoir, Butler writes: “The body becomes a choice, a mode of enacting and re-enacting received gender norms which surface as so many styles of the flesh” (1986: 48). And yet, it is important to notice that Beauvoir also highlights the very real difficulties of doing this. By attending to the body, she helps illuminate the tension between the possibilities of ‘becoming’ within a particular context, and the constraints placed on those possibilities by that very context. Such constraints exist, for example, in sickness and death and in Chapter Four I consider the situation of the bodies in a hunger strike that live/die and appear/disappear in protest. The starving body of the hunger strike illustrates well how bodies are both situated in a socio-political context as well as constituting situations themselves. As we can see already from this brief survey of these three philosophers, bodies are disciplined, active, habituated, situated, chosen and creative. But what does this imply for our conceptions and assumptions of democratic politics? Does it imply that our bodies contribute to the democratic discussions, debates and protests in ways that often go unnoticed? How can we grapple with the perpetual ambiguities and political capacities of living bodies? These are questions that are considered in the following chapters, which I outline in the next section.

Modes of Politics and Chapter Outline The use of the term ‘democracy’ in this book exceeds a reference to the manoeuvres of professional politicians. I mean a much broader set of activities—from petitioning to picketing, from boycotting to barnstorming and from rallying to rhetoric—which involve the engagement of the demos in contemplating, contesting and changing the established rules of society. If we understand democracy, with William Connolly, as crucially involving “the periodic disturbance and denaturalization of

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Introduction: A Political Remembering of Bodies

who subvert dominant understandings of women by becoming different. For Butler, Beauvoir’s insights open the possibility for the subversion of gender norms and “autonomy within corporeal life” (1986: 48). In her response to Beauvoir, Butler writes: “The body becomes a choice, a mode of enacting and re-enacting received gender norms which surface as so many styles of the flesh” (1986: 48). And yet, it is important to notice that Beauvoir also highlights the very real difficulties of doing this. By attending to the body, she helps illuminate the tension between the possibilities of ‘becoming’ within a particular context, and the constraints placed on those possibilities by that very context. Such constraints exist, for example, in sickness and death and in Chapter Four I consider the situation of the bodies in a hunger strike that live/die and appear/disappear in protest. The starving body of the hunger strike illustrates well how bodies are both situated in a socio-political context as well as constituting situations themselves. As we can see already from this brief survey of these three philosophers, bodies are disciplined, active, habituated, situated, chosen and creative. But what does this imply for our conceptions and assumptions of democratic politics? Does it imply that our bodies contribute to the democratic discussions, debates and protests in ways that often go unnoticed? How can we grapple with the perpetual ambiguities and political capacities of living bodies? These are questions that are considered in the following chapters, which I outline in the next section.

Modes of Politics and Chapter Outline The use of the term ‘democracy’ in this book exceeds a reference to the manoeuvres of professional politicians. I mean a much broader set of activities—from petitioning to picketing, from boycotting to barnstorming and from rallying to rhetoric—which involve the engagement of the demos in contemplating, contesting and changing the established rules of society. If we understand democracy, with William Connolly, as crucially involving “the periodic disturbance and denaturalization of

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settled identities and sedimented conventions” (1993: 379) then bodies can play a key role in this. Democratic bodies, as I hope to illustrate, are bodies that contribute to a pluralised and dynamic politics; constituting representation, enlivening participation, enriching knowledge and enfleshing differences. There are many different ways of engaging in democratic politics. We might argue that democracy necessarily involves a variety of forms of participation, undertaken by different types of actors in relation to different sorts of issues and that are possible in specific contexts. Members of the demos can ‘do’ democratic politics in many different ways. This is why I have chosen to use the term ‘mode’ when considering the wide array of democratic activity. By a ‘mode’ of politics I mean a form of participation but I also wish to draw attention to the conditions of that participation. For certain social, economic and material conditions render different forms of political activity appropriate and recognising this opens space for bringing in the bodies of democracy. Each of the following six chapters considers what I call a ‘mode’ of embodied democratic politics: representation, deliberation, disagreement, protest, occupation and counsel. Chapter One considers the mode of representation. This is probably the most dominant mode of contemporary politics; when we think of politics many of us think of the processes of electing our representatives and watching them (mis)represent us in legislatures and governments. Yet how exactly do some bodies ‘represent’ others? Can we assume that those who have bodies that look—more or less—like our own, will replicate our opinions and desires? It is often assumed in discussions of representation that certain bodies can stand for the others with similar features. The active role the representing body itself plays in creating such differences is too easily ignored. The markers of such differences are not fixed and given, but are disrupted by the very bodies that are marked. Focusing on two different examples that nevertheless have certain similarities, Pankhurst and Madikizela-Mandela, I argue that representing bodies perform for others. As with representation, other modes of politics also involve bodies that are left out of the picture while they simultaneously bring it

Introduction: A Political Remembering of Bodies

to life. One currently celebrated mode of democratic politics is deliberation, which has become the dominant paradigm in democratic theory; many theorists regard democratization as a matter of expanding or deepening the opportunities for deliberation between citizens. Numerous ‘deliberative’ innovations exist: for example, citizen summits, deliberative polling (Bächtiger et al. 2010) and citizens’ assemblies (Dryzek, Bächtiger and Milewicz 2011) that are supposed to form together with other such innovations a ‘deliberative system’ (Parkinson and Mansbridge 2012) But where are the bodies in this system? What exactly does this deliberation feel like? Does it involve corporeal interaction between embodied human beings? Or are bodies and embodiment irrelevant to the discussion process and the resulting decision? By bracketing out the body, its orderly and disorderly contributions to deliberation go unnoticed, along with the situatedness and identifications of its participants. In Chapter Two, then, I attend to the mode of deliberation and draw attention to the bodies between which deliberation always occurs. Bodies can extend or disorder the careful conscious conversation invoked by deliberative democrats in important yet unpredictable ways. The chapter argues that bodies provide conditions, excesses, disruptions and opportunities for deliberative democracy. At the same time, bodies and their identifications are themselves transformed through the experience of deliberation.2 Deliberation has come to be seen as almost synonymous with democracy (Pateman 2012: 8; Pateman and Smith 2019). Along with Michael Walzer (1999) I resist this reductive understanding and the other chapters point to other modes of democratic politics that I believe, perhaps in contrast to deliberative democrats, are distinct to deliberative participation. An important alternative to deliberative democracy, for example, is offered by theorists of political agonism (Connolly 2005; 2013; Honig 1993; 2009; Mouffe 2000; 2005; 2013; Norval 2007; Tully 2001). Chapter Three therefore engages with the agonistic 2

One important concern here is the way that the health of bodies affects their capacity to deliberate, so that the social inequalities that are reflected in health inequalities are reproduced in the political realm (see Machin and Ruser 2020).

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model of democratic politics, which highlights and celebrates the mode of disagreement. Agonists are orientated away from a focus upon inclusive and rational agreement and towards pluralism and contestation (Wenman 2013). According to this body of theory, the disagreement between political opponents who offer clear alternatives yet respect each other and the value of democracy are integral to politics. This chapter considers how agonistic accounts may be expanded through attending to the bodies of disagreement (see also Machin and Smith 2014). I suggest that bodies bring to life the political disagreements that agonists celebrate as central to democratic politics. Attending to the incorporation of identifications, the chapter argues that collective identifications are bodily reproduced through the ongoing and contingent construction of us/them. With reference to Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of “other selves”, Sara Ahmed’s work on racism and Chantal Mouffe’s distinction between agonism and antagonism, I suggest that ‘others’ can be respected as embodied subjects, but there is also the danger that they are constructed as ‘body objects’ who are different and repellent. Wary of the danger that the body of the other might become a hated ‘object’ for an ‘us’, an agonistic approach to democracy demands that disagreements are both respectful and respected. The body appears in politics most obviously perhaps in the mode of protest. The bodies that stand in squares or chain themselves to railings or parade down streets contribute to politics in striking ways. Marching, assembling, singing, sitting, eating or starving are all embodied acts that can be used in protest. What counts as protest, of course, depends upon the particular material and cultural context in which they are situated as much as the goal and the target of protest. In some circumstances, military attire or mourning dress make powerful political statements (Dighton 2017) while in others stripping naked is a potent act of resistance (Sutton 2007; Tyler 2013). Refusing to leave a seat on a bus can be a crucially mobilising act for civil rights movement.3 Refus3

In 1955 Rosa Louise McCauley Parks, an African-American activist in Alabama, refused to relinquish her seat for a white passenger. Her actions and subsequent arrest provoked the Mongomery bus boycott against racial segregation

Introduction: A Political Remembering of Bodies

ing to take a seat on a plane can draw attention to the fate of another passenger onboard, who is to be deported.4 The next two chapters analyse two distinct forms of embodied protest; hunger-striking and occupation. Chapter Four examines the role of the body in the ‘spectacular’ protest of the hunger strike. The hunger strike features in numerous historical and contemporary political and social movements and part of its power lies in its contradictions. What might appear to be a straightforward albeit painful denial of food is belied by a number of intriguing ambiguities. Undertaken by those denied voice it nevertheless can be an extremely effective form of communication. It deftly interiorises the violence of the opponent within the body of the protester, affirming and undermining the protest simultaneously. It can be undertaken for highly strategic and rational reasons and yet it is often effective because of the emotional response it provokes. Finally, the strength of the protest lies in the display of death on a weakening body. Yet despite these contradictions, or perhaps precisely because of them, the hunger-striking body offers a pertinent reminder of the embodiment of political subjectivity via its provocative display of politics simultaneously by and on the body. Using three historical examples (the Suffragette, Irish republican and anti-apartheid movements), and using a phenomenologically informed approach, this chapter attends to the potency of the weakening body, revealing its potential to dissent, draw attention and to galvanise collective identification. Some of these aspects are also evident in political occupation, another form of sustained and embodied protest in which bodies gather together at a particular site to demonstrate dissent. While crowds of

4

in the United States. See https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/mont gomery-bus-boycott (last accessed 9 March 2019) In 2018 Elin Ersson, a Swedish student, refused to sit down on a plane due to take off from Gothenburg flight, in order to prevent it taking off until an Afghan asylum seeker due to be deported was removed. The footage of her protest was widely watched. See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/25/swed ish-student-plane-protest-stops-mans-deportation-afghanistan (last eaccessed 9 March 2019).

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bodies might be seen as a source of fear, they can also be perceived in terms of “radical hope for the future” (Butler 2015: 1). Using the case study of the Twyford Down anti-roads protest that took place in the south of England in 1992, Chapter Five traces the way that occupying bodies contribute and respond to environmental politics. Embodied occupation, it is argued, produces an excess of meaning beyond verbal and written communication, provokes emotion, encourages and enlivens cooperation and reconstructs public space. However occupation is not the free untethered performance of an autonomous subject but involves the (re)disciplining of bodies. Using Foucault’s concept of ‘counter-conduct’ (Foucault 2009) as developed by scholars such as Carl Death (2010) and Arnold Davidson (2011) the chapter considers the way that protest exposes, challenges and discredits a governmental regime but should not be conceptualised as ‘pure resistance’ (Death 2010: 248). Counterconduct is not the expression of the desire not to be governed at all, but rather “the will not to be governed thusly, like that, by these people, at this price” (Foucault 2007: 73). Political opposition entails its own form of discipline and, intriguing, is sometimes shaped by the very regimes of power that it opposes (Death 2010: 241). A richer understanding of ‘counter-conduct’ I argue is provided when it is understood to be embodied. The body of counter-conduct is not simply a vehicle nor an object of counter-conduct but is its creative subject. Chapter Six considers the role and relevance of the knowledge of bodies in politics and therefore engages with the mode of counsel. One important topic for social scientists has been the challenges of navigating the ‘science-policy interface’. How is science incorporated into policymaking? What role are experts expected to play in government? What role are citizens supposed to play with regards to science? And what constitutes ‘expertise’ in the first place? Scholars have long challenged the dominance of scientific knowledge over other forms of knowledge in policy-making, particularly regarding environmental issues (Fischer 2000; Irwin 1995; Jasanoff 2005). I extend this challenge, highlighting the tacit and habitual knowledge of bodies. Using insights from Michael Polanyi (1961; 1962; 1966) and feminist epistemology (Grosz 1993; Haraway 1988), this chapter not only claims that bodies have a knowledge

Introduction: A Political Remembering of Bodies

of their own, but also challenges the idea that scientific knowledge is itself separable from the bodies of scientists. This chapter focuses particularly upon the recent recommendations for the democratic inclusion of local or indigenous knowledges in environmental politics. I argue that not only local but also bodily knowledge is relevant in detecting, understanding and responding to environmental concerns and implementing, resisting and extending policy. I intend to show that science itself is entangled with bodily knowledge and I suggest, following Haraway, that far from undermining the value of scientific knowledge, acknowledging its corporeality may allow a reassessment of the role and responsibilities of scientists. Polanyi’s ideas lead him to defend the authority of “the body of scientists”. In contrast I contend here that his ideas rather compel an ongoing critical attentiveness to the constitution of this body. The chapter underlines the omission of the body from prevailing epistemological and policy discussions and shows that bodily knowledge contributes to both to science and democracy. These six modes of democratic politics do not of course comprise the entirety of political participation. They are all, notwithstanding, key aspects of democracy today. The six chapters each grapple with a particular mode of politics and attempt to locate the bodies within that mode, seeking to trace and analyse their impact upon political life. Each chapter makes a distinct argument, while also reflecting upon what this means for theories of the body and embodiment more generally. The argument throughout the book is the claim that human bodies are not simply tools of politics but contribute to democracy, albeit in sometimes ambiguous ways. By attending to the bodies that appear streets and squares, in prison cells, in parliaments and in mini-publics I hope to disrupt the simplistic distinction between disembodied political agency and passive disciplined bodies. For that distinction, I believe, limits our understanding of political interaction and democratic possibility. The bodies of democracy may make representation salient, deliberation opaque, disagreement tangible, protest unpredictable, occupation sustainable and counsel situated. They both reproduce and disturb po-

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litical institutions and conventions. They are also, of course, the prior condition for the possibility for any politics at all. This means that our conceptions of the possibilities and limitations of democracy are conditioned by the way that we reflect upon our embodiedness.

References Adams, H. (2001) “Merleau-Ponty and the Advent of Meaning: From Consummate Reciprocity to Ambiguous Reversibility”, Continental Philosophy Review, 34, pp. 203–224. Ahmed, S. (2004) “Collective Feelings: Or, the Impression Left by Others”, Theory, Culture and Society, 21 (2), pp. 25-42. Alaimo, S. (2010) Bodily Natures. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Alcoff, L. (1996) “Feminist Theory and Social Science”, in Duncan, N. (ed), BodySpace: Destabilising Geographies of Gender and Sexuality. London: Routledge, pp.13-27. Alcoff, L. (1999) “Towards a Phenomenology of Racial Embodiment”, Radical Philosophy, (95), pp. 15 – 26. Bächtiger, A., Niemeyer S., Neblo M., Steenbergen, M. and Steiner, J. (2010) “Disentangling Diversity in Deliberative Democracy: Competing Theories, Their Blind Spots and Complementarities”, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 18 (1), pp. 32-63. Bair, D. (1986) “Simone de Beauvoir: Politics, Language, and Feminist Identity”, Yale French Studies, 72, pp. 149-162. Bartky, S. (1988) “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power”, in Diamond, I. and Quinby, L. (eds) Feminism and Foucault: Reflections on Resistance. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Beausoleil, E. (2014) “‘Only They Breathe’: Identity, Agency and the Dancing Body Politic”, Constellations, 21 (1), pp.111–133. Beauvoir, S. de (2010) The Second Sex. Translated by C. Borde and S. Malovany-Chevallier. London: Vintage Books. (Original work published in French 1949)

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litical institutions and conventions. They are also, of course, the prior condition for the possibility for any politics at all. This means that our conceptions of the possibilities and limitations of democracy are conditioned by the way that we reflect upon our embodiedness.

References Adams, H. (2001) “Merleau-Ponty and the Advent of Meaning: From Consummate Reciprocity to Ambiguous Reversibility”, Continental Philosophy Review, 34, pp. 203–224. Ahmed, S. (2004) “Collective Feelings: Or, the Impression Left by Others”, Theory, Culture and Society, 21 (2), pp. 25-42. Alaimo, S. (2010) Bodily Natures. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Alcoff, L. (1996) “Feminist Theory and Social Science”, in Duncan, N. (ed), BodySpace: Destabilising Geographies of Gender and Sexuality. London: Routledge, pp.13-27. Alcoff, L. (1999) “Towards a Phenomenology of Racial Embodiment”, Radical Philosophy, (95), pp. 15 – 26. Bächtiger, A., Niemeyer S., Neblo M., Steenbergen, M. and Steiner, J. (2010) “Disentangling Diversity in Deliberative Democracy: Competing Theories, Their Blind Spots and Complementarities”, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 18 (1), pp. 32-63. Bair, D. (1986) “Simone de Beauvoir: Politics, Language, and Feminist Identity”, Yale French Studies, 72, pp. 149-162. Bartky, S. (1988) “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power”, in Diamond, I. and Quinby, L. (eds) Feminism and Foucault: Reflections on Resistance. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Beausoleil, E. (2014) “‘Only They Breathe’: Identity, Agency and the Dancing Body Politic”, Constellations, 21 (1), pp.111–133. Beauvoir, S. de (2010) The Second Sex. Translated by C. Borde and S. Malovany-Chevallier. London: Vintage Books. (Original work published in French 1949)

Introduction: A Political Remembering of Bodies

Broadie, S. (2001) “XIV—Soul and Body in Plato and Descartes”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 101 (1), pp. 295–308. Butler, J. (1986) “Sex and Gender in Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex”, Yale French Studies, 72, pp. 35-49. Butler, J. (1989) “Sexual Ideology and Phenomenological Description: A Feminist Critique of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception”, in Allen, J. and Young, I.M. (eds) The Thinking Muse: Feminism and Modern French Philosophy, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, pp. 85-100. Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Butler, J. (2002) “Bodies and power, revisited”, Radical Philosophy, 114, pp.13-19. Butler, J. (2015) Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Cadwallader, J. (2010) “Archiving Gifts”, Australian Feminist Studies, 25 (64), pp. 121-132. Clifford, S. (2012) “Making Disability Public in Deliberative Democracy”, Contemporary Political Theory, 11 (2), pp. 211-228. Connolly, W.E. (1993) “Beyond Good and Evil: The Ethical Sensibility of Michel Foucault”, Political Theory, 21 (3), pp.365-389. Connolly, W.E. (2005) Pluralism. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Connolly, W.E. (2013) The Fragility Of Things: Self-Organizing Processes, Neoliberal Fantasies And Democratic Activism. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Coole, D. (2005) “Rethinking Agency: A Phenomenological Approach to Embodiment and Agentic Capacities”, Political Studies, 53, pp. 124142. Coole, D. (2007a) “Experiencing Discourse: Corporeal Communicators and the Embodiment of Power”, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 9 (3), pp. 413-433. Coole, D. (2007b) Merleau-Ponty and Modern Politics After Anti-Humanism. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

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Coole, D. and Frost, S. (2010) “Introducing the New Materialisms”, in Coole, D. and Frost, S. (eds) New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency and Politics, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 1-43. Crossley, N. (2013) “Habit and Habitus”, Body and Society, 19 (2–3), pp. 136-161. Davis, K. (1997) “Embody-ing Theory: Beyond Modernist and Postmodernist Readings of the Body”, in Davis, K. (ed) Embodied Practices: Feminist Perspectives on the Body. London: SAGE. Davidson, A. (2011) “In praise of counter-conduct”, History of the Human Sciences, 24 (4), pp. 25-41. Deacon, R. (1998) “Strategies of Governance: Michel Foucault on Power”, Theoria, 45 (92), pp. 113-149. Death, C. (2010) “Counter-conducts: A Foucauldian Analytics of Protest”, Social Movement Studies, 9 (3), pp. 235-251. Dighton, A. (2017) ”Mutatio Vestis: Clothing and Political Protest in the Late Roman Republic.” Phoenix 71 (3/4): 345-369. Diprose, R. (2002) Corporeal Generosity: On Giving with Nietzsche, MerleauPonty and Levinas. New York: State University of New York Press. Dryzek, J., Bächtiger, A. and Milewicz, K. (2011) “Toward a Deliberative Global Citizens’ Assembly”, Global Policy, 2 (1), pp. 33-42. Duncan, N. (1996) “(Re)Placings”, In Duncan, N. (ed), BodySpace: Destabilising Geographies of Gender and Sexuality, London: Routledge, pp.1-10. Fischer, F. (2000) Citizens, Experts, and the Environment. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by A. Sheridan. London and New York: Vintage. (Original work published in French 1975) Foucault, M. (1980a) “Body/Power”, in Gordon. C. (ed) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings. London and Toronto: Vintage, pp. 55-62. Foucault, M. (1980b) “The Eye of Power”, in Gordon. C. (ed) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings. London and Toronto: Vintage, pp.146-165. Foucault, M. (1988) “Truth, Power, Self: An Interview with Michel Foucault October 25, 1982”, in Martin, L., Gutman, H. and Hutton, P.

Introduction: A Political Remembering of Bodies

(eds), Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. London: Tavistock Publications. Foucault, M. (1994) “The Subject and Power”, in Faubion, J. (ed) Power: Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984. London: Penguin, pp. 326-348. Foucault, M. (2007) “What is Critique?”, in Lotringer, S. (ed), The Politics of Truth. Translated by L. Hochroth and C. Porter. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), pp. 41–81. (Lecture given at the Sorbonne 1978 and first published in French 1990) Foucault, M. (2009) Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College de France 1977-78. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Garland-Thomson, R. (2005) “Disability and Representation.” PMLA, 120 (2), pp. 522–527. Grosz, E. (1993) “Bodies and Knowledges: Feminism and the Crisis of Reason”, in Alcoff, L. and Potter, E. (eds) Feminist Epistemologies. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 187-216. Grosz, E. (1994) Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Haraway, D. (1988) “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective”, Feminist Studies, 14 (3), pp. 575-599. Heyes, C. (2007) Self-Transformations: Foucault, Ethics and Normalised Bodies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Honig, B. (1993) Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Honig, B. (2009) Emergency Politics: Paradox, Law, Democracy. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Irwin, A. (1995) Citizen Science: A Study of People, Expertise and Sustainable Development. London and New York: Routledge. Jasanoff, S. (2005) Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the United States. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. King, A. (2004) “The Prisoner of Gender: Foucault and the Disciplining of the Female Body.” Journal of International Women’s Studies, 5 (2), pp. 29-30. Krause, S.R. (2011) “Bodies in Action: Corporeal Agency and Democratic Politics.” Political Theory, 39 (3) pp. 299–324.

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Kruks, S. (2010) “Simone de Beauvoir: Engaging Discrepant Materialism.” In New Materialisms, edited by Coole, D. and Frost, S., pp. 258280. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Machin, A. and Smith, G. (2014) “Means, Ends, Beginnings: Environmental Technocracy, Ecological Deliberation or Embodied Democracy?”, Ethical Perspectives, 21 (1), pp. 47-72. Machin, A. and Ruser, A. (2020) “Corporealising a healthy democracy? Inequality, bodies and participation”. Representation: Journal of Representative Democracy (Forthcoming). Malmqvist, E., and Zeiler, K. (2010) “Cultural Norms, the Phenomenology of Incorporation, and the Experience of Having a Child Born with Ambiguous Sex”, Social Theory and Practice, 36 (1), pp. 133–156. Mendonça, R., Ercan, S. and Asenbaum, H. (2020) “More than Words: A Multidimensional Approach to Deliberative Democracy”, Political Studies. DOI:10.1177/0032321720950561 Merleau-Ponty, M. (2002) Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by C. Smith. London and New York: Routledge. (Originally published in French 1945) Mouffe, C. (2000) The Democratic Paradox. London and New York: Verso. Mouffe, C. (2005) On the Political. London and New York: Routledge. Mouffe, C. (2013) Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically. London: Verso. Ngo, H. (2017) The Habits of Racism: A Phenomenology of Racism and Racialized Embodiment. Lanham, Boulder: Lexington Books. Norval, A. (2007) Aversive Democracy: Inheritance and Originality in The Democratic Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Parkins, W. (2000) “Protesting Like a Girl: Embodiment, Dissent and Feminist Agency”, Feminist Theory, 1 (1), pp. 59 -78. Parkinson, J. and Mansbridge, J. (2012) Deliberative Systems: Deliberative Democracy at the Large Scale. Cambridge University Press. Pateman, C. (1989) The Disorder of Women. Oxford: Polity Press. Pateman, C. (2012) “Participatory Democracy Revisited.” Perspectives on Politics, 10 (1), pp. 7-19. Pateman, C. and Smith, G. (2019) “Reflecting on Fifty Years of Democratic Theory: Carole Pateman in Conversation with Graham Smith”, Democratic Theory, 6 (2), pp. 111-120.

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Plot, M. (2012) “Our Element: Flesh and Democracy in Merleau-Ponty.” Continental Philosophy Review, 45, pp. 235-259. Polanyi, M. (1966) The Tacit Dimension. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Polanyi, M. (1962) “The Republic of Science.” In Knowing and Being (1969), edited by Grene, M., pp. 49-72. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Polanyi, M. (1961) “Knowing and Being.” In Knowing and Being (1969), edited by Grene, M., pp. 123-137. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969. Prokhovnik, R. (2002) Rational Woman: A Feminist Critique Of Dichotomy. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press. Shilling, C. (2012) The Body and Social Theory. Los Angeles: Sage. Shildrick, M. (1999) “The Body Which is Not One: Dealing with Differences.” Body & Society, 5 (2–3), pp. 77-92. Shusterman, R. (2005) “The Silent, Limping Body of Philosophy”, in by Carman, T. and Hansen, M. (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Merleau-Ponty, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 151-180. Sullivan, S. (2001) Living Across and Through Skin: Transactional Bodies, Pragmatism and Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Sutton, B. (2007) “Naked Protest: Memories of Bodies and Resistance at the World Social Forum”, Journal of International Women’s Studies, 8 (3), pp. 139-148. Threadcraft, S. (2016) “Embodiment”, in Disch, L. and Hawkesworth, M. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory. New York: Oxford University Press. Tully, J. (2001) “An Ecological Ethics for the Present”, in Gleeson, B. and Low, N. (eds), Governing for the Environment: Global Problems, Ethics and Democracy, New York: Palgrave, pp. 147-164. Tyler, Imogen (2013) “Naked protest: the maternal politics of citizenship and revolt” Citizenship Studies. 17 (2), pp. 211-226. Walzer, M. (1999) “Deliberation, And What Else?” in Macedo, S. (ed) Deliberative Politics: Essays on Democracy and Disagreement, Oxford University Press

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Weiss, G. (1999) Body Images: Embodiment as Intercorporeality. London and New York: Routledge. Wenman, M. (2013) Agonistic Democracy: Constituent Power in the Era of Globalisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whiteside, K. (1988) Merleau-Ponty and the Foundation of an Existential Politics. New Jersey, Surrey: Princeton University Press. Young, I.M. (2005) On Female Body Experience: ‘Throwing Like a Girl’ and Other Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zeiler, K. (2013) “A Phenomenology of Excorporation: Bodily Alienation, and Resistance: Rethinking Sexed and Racialized Embodiment.” Hypatia, 28 (1), pp. 69-84.

Chapter 1. Embodied Representation: Performances of Identity

‘One is not born, but rather becomes, woman. No biological, psychical or economic destiny defines the figure that the human female takes on in society; it is civilisation as a whole that elaborates this intermediary product between the male and the eunuch that is called feminine’ (Simone de Beauvoir 2010: 293).   ‘Through the story of her own life we are able to read the story of many others… Through her the invisible were made visible’ (Bishop Manas Buthelezi, in Mandela 1985: 21). Naked, vulnerable yet indignant: babies are born wailing, a declaration of their arrival and the shock of arriving in the wide bright world. Their protest is appropriate for several reasons; they must cope not only with the unfamiliar rigid material surroundings, but also an equally unforgiving social environment. Utterly innocent, their bodies are nevertheless immediately measured, assessed and categorised: weight, height, sex, nationality, ethnicity, religion. Boy or girl. Black or white. Able or disabled. Normal or not. These social categories will have an impact on their future, defining their roles and sculpting their horizons. Children learn to identify themselves according to these categories that place expectations upon where they go, what they wear, how they walk, how they talk. They adjust their demeanour and hairstyle in line with their assigned class, race and gender. They become who they are supposed to be.

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For some these categories are unproblematic, for others they are not. Willingly or unwillingly, deliberately or unconsciously, most of us perform the identifications we have been assigned, conforming to certain standards that demarcate ‘us’ from ‘them’, and we expect others to do the same. These symbolic markers persist like rules worn into the body. Such rules can be bent or broken, but this very possibility reinforces their resilience. So, if pre-existing identity categories that a child is born into inevitably and indelibly impact the life experiences of that child, then arguably there is a robust connection between their bodily appearance and their life experiences. If the possession of certain physical features either shape someone’s expectations, ambitions and possibilities, or are seen by the society they live in as somehow doing so, then those who share those features may well have in common a shared experience of existential joy or physical pain, degrading prejudice or smiling favour, unquestioned inclusion or repeated exclusion. Does that mean, then, that another person who looks or sounds like them is able to better represent their socio-economic interests, cultural perspectives and political preferences than someone who does not? The political implication here is that in order to be truly representative, a representative assembly should ‘stand in’ or ‘mirror’ the population, as if it were a “portrait in miniature of the people” as John Adams would have it (Pitkin 1967: 60). Can a parliament or mini-public that contains no women, for example, be said to be truly representative? Does an assembled group of diverse bodies necessarily make more legitimate, appropriate and just decisions? These sorts of questions have long occupied theorists of democratic representation and political scientists more generally. My aim in this chapter is not to try to provide answers, but to show that although such questions seem to show a preoccupation with the bodies of representatives, they miss the role that bodies themselves play in the processes of representation. For bodies are not passive objects that mutely stand for others. But nor are they irrelevant vessels that allow disembodied agents to speak for predefined constituents. Bodies are rather creative subjects and, as I will argue, in some sense perform for their constituents.

1. Embodied Representation: Performances of Identity

Bodies, in short, play an active role in the dynamics of representation. And this is important when considering democratic politics, because representative democracy has been the dominant form of politics in the modern era; for over 100 years there has been a prominent belief that good government is government by representatives of the people (Alonso et al. 2011: 2). Of course, political representation has always had prominent critics. In the 18th century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau claimed that the sovereign people could only be represented by itself and is enslaved by transferring its freedom to determine its own will to another body (Douglass 2013; Urbinati and Warren 2008: 391). Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, more recent defenders of direct democracy, are similarly sceptical of the possibilities of representation, since “representation is in itself, by definition, a mechanism that separates the population from power” (2012: 27) and that therefore “representation is not, in fact, a vehicle of democracy but instead an obstacle to its realization” (2012: 25). Hanna Pitkin agrees that the connection between democracy and representation is problematic: “representation has supplanted democracy instead of serving it… people (are) deeply alienated from what is done in their name and from those who do it” (Pitkin 1967). Others, however, suggest that representation plays a crucial role in democracies, and not only because it is the only feasible way in which democracy could work in the busy, atomistic and populous modern world or “a defective substitute for direct democracy” (Mansbridge 2003: 515). The “representative turn” in democratic theory that began in the 1990s involved “reclaiming representation in the name of democracy” (Brito Vieira 2017a: 5). For Nadia Urbinati: “It is wholly inaccurate to see representation as a mere remedy for the implementation of popular sovereignty in a large territory” because it is “deeply intertwined with the democratic transformation of society” (Urbinati 2011: 30-31; Urbinati and Warren 2008). Consider how the political representative does not represent only her constituency but also (with other representatives) the entire nation or polity (2011: 43). Urbinati and Mark Warren emphasise that in this way the process of representation works to unify a large and diverse population and yet does not homogenise them: “Political representation can function to focus without permanently

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solidifying the sovereignty of the people, while transforming their presence from formally sanctioning into political influence” (Urbinati and Warren 2008: 391; Alonso et al. 2011: 5). And this is precisely why, they argue, representation is so important for democracy; it retains plurality while encouraging unity. Likewise for David Plotke, representation should not simply be tolerated as “an unfortunate compromise between an ideal of direct democracy and messy realities” but rather should be regarded as “crucial in constituting democratic politics” (Plotke 1997: 27). Representation, these theorists agree, is a dynamic and creative process that does not respond to already-existing constituencies but rather contingently constructs a constituency identity (Saward 2010; Brito Vieira 2017a). In this chapter I investigate representation not only as a dynamic and creative but also as an embodied process. I attend first to theories of political representation, focusing in particular on the recent conceptions in the ‘representative turn’. I then turn to the role of bodies in representation. Since the absence of women’s bodies in political life is commonly understood as a problem for representation and for democracy, I am particularly interested in the connection between women’s representation and women’s bodies. I trace the way that the embodied performances of women representatives, enacted to a responsive audience, help establish, sustain and disrupt identifications and how, at the same time, the meanings of these embodied performances are conditioned by their socio-political situation. As Simone de Beauvoir highlights, gender identifications are not biologically given but socially contrived, so that one ‘becomes’ a woman. Nevertheless, there are constraints placed both on and by the woman’s body in most societies (2010 [1949]: 293; Kruks 2010: 260). The examples of Emmeline Pankhurst and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela provide useful and distinct illustrations of both the possibilities and obstacles of representing women in such a restricted context. I suggest that while representing bodies can reaffirm dominant norms and identities they can also disorder them and thus contribute to the dynamic plurality of the political realm. The implication is that a body does not passively stand for others but performatively constructs them and itself.

1. Embodied Representation: Performances of Identity

1.1

Delegates and Trustees: Acting for Others

Discussions about political representation frequently start with the contrast between the ‘delegate’ model and the ‘trustee’ model. If the representative is supposed to be a ‘delegate’, then she is expected to be well-acquainted with the preferences of her constituents and is entrusted to express them on their behalf and to act as they would do. According to this model the delegate is understood to represent the represented by saying what they would have said, and doing what they would have done: “putting instructions from the represented above their own judgment” (Andeweg and Thomassen 2005: 507). This model is immediately challenged when we consider that a group of constituents are unlikely to have a single coherent preference (Pitkin 1967: 144). As a ‘trustee’, by contrast, the representative makes decisions on behalf of her constituents, and has been chosen because she has the capacity to determine what is in their best interests. As Edmund Burke notably stated to the electors of Bristol in 1774, shortly after being elected to the Houses of Parliament, “it ought to be the happiness and glory of a Representative, to live the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents” and yet “your representative owes you… his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion”. The elected member, Burke holds, has no obligation to blindly obey the opinion of his constituents but rather to use his own judgement: “Parliament is not a Congress of Ambassadors from different and hostile interests… Parliament is a deliberative assembly” (Burke 1774). According to this model, the representative is entrusted to act for them by independently deciding the best course of action (Pitkin 1967: 145). This “delegate-trustee distinction”, also known as the “mandate-independence controversy” (Pitkin 1967), is commonly made, but has also been widely challenged as nonsensical. For in order for there to be any meaningful representation, the representative clearly must not be entirely disconnected from her constituents—the represented must be acting through her in some way—but yet at the same cannot be iden-

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tical to them (Pitkin 1967: 154). Paradoxically, as Pitkin observes, representation, “means the making present in some sense of something which is nevertheless not present literally or in fact” (Pitkin 1967: 8-9). In order to represent the electors of Bristol, Burke must be somehow connected to but not indistinguishable from them. The representative must therefore be both part-delegate and part-trustee, but neither fully: “at the extreme opposites of the mandate-independence controversy we can no longer speak of representation” (Andeweg and Thomassen 2005: 508). But what does Pitkin by stating that representation involves “making present in some sense”? In re-presentation there is a physical absence; members of parliaments, for example, represent their constituents who are not physically there, for these constituents could all not fit in the parliament building nor, presumably, would they want to. As Plotke observes, however, physical presence is different to political presence, for if slave-owners bring their slaves to an assembly “we would hesitate to say that the slaves were present in a political sense” (Plotke 1997: 30). So I can be physically present but politically absent and, as is the case with representative democracy, I can be politically present yet physically absent. Plotke’s point is that presence and representation are not opposites, as Pitkin’s formulation might seem to imply. And yet, although the represented person may not be physically present, the representative usually is. Although Plotke’s point may seem to jettison the need for bodies, it actually also brings them back in. Someone (whether or not they are themselves physically present or absent) is re-presented if their political presence is embodied by their representative in a political forum. But what role does the body of the representative play? Is it irrelevant to political presence? Or does it bring that presence to life? As I consider next, it might be helpful to understand bodies as relevant to representation, not because they ‘stand for’ constituencies but because they ‘perform for’ them.

1. Embodied Representation: Performances of Identity

1.2

Descriptive Representation: Standing for Others

The relevance of bodies is emphasised in discussions of descriptive representation, which revolve around the question of whether somebody who shares certain characteristics with others can best represent them in a political forum. Somebody is representative in this sense when she ‘stands for’ others by being like them; descriptive representation is said to exist to the extent that there is a resemblance between representative and represented (Pitkin 1967: 61). Bodies appear in this discussion as the bearer of the markers of collective identities such as gender, ethnicity and race. When we look at the parliaments that are expected to represent the demos, the continued dominance of certain types of bodies is striking. Scholars have long discussed the importance of the presence of women and minority groups in political forums (Celis et al. 2008; Childs and Lovenduski 2013). For a long time it has been undeniable that “the proportion of women among those designated as representatives is considerably smaller than the proportion of women found among the represented” (Sapiro 1998: 163). As Anne Phillips asks, “can an all-white assembly really claim to be representative when those it represents are so much more ethically diverse”? (Phillips 1995: 6). One problematic assumption in this discussion is that the descriptive similarities between the bodies of represented and representative are assumed to connect to a substantive representation of interests. In other words, it is expected that “women have interests that are best represented by women” (Squires 2001: 368; Childs and Krook 2009). On this assumption it might seem that ‘numbers matter’ and that if there are enough women in parliament then this will almost automatically translate into a greater attention to women’s policy concerns (Celis et al. 2008: 99). Yet while some feminists have promoted gender quotas as a way of ensuring greater representation, others are deeply sceptical, since this sort of mechanism can reify the very gender differences that are the source of the problem (Disch 2016: 794). For what, precisely, counts as a ‘women’s issue’ and does the assertion that there is such a thing

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merely reinforce the idea that women inevitably have distinct political interests and priorities? Women, it is emphasised, are a heterogeneous group and do not share all or even any particular experiences (Celis et al. 2008: 102). This means that their interests are not predefined and cannot be straightforwardly represented though the inclusion of women in parliaments. Even those who support the push for greater ‘presence’ within parliaments may challenge the idea that descriptive representation is enough to ensure democratic representation (Disch 2016: 795). “It is no simple correlation” states Pitkin bluntly “the best descriptive representative is not necessarily the best representative for activity or government” (Pitkin 1967: 89). Assertions of descriptive representation must acknowledge that the salience and meaning of certain identity categories do not stay the same; they morph along with forms of socio-political exclusion and prejudice. As we will see, constituency identities are themselves changed through the process of representation. This means that even if lived experiences cannot be grasped easily by those who haven’t lived with or through them, nor can they be straightforwardly represented by a body who stands up and in for them.

1.3

Constitutive Representation: Performing for Others

Aware of the problems of reductive and narrow accounts, recent theorists have explored the rich possibilities and varieties of political representation. They highlight a variety of non-electoral forms of democratic representation (Saward 2011: 75; Urbinati and Warren 2008) and offer a ‘thicker’ understanding of political representation as an ongoing and dynamic activity in political life beyond elections. There are a variety of ways that one body can represent another (Saward 2010: 4). Defining representation in terms of the elections that either authorise an agent or remove them from office overlooks the crucial aspect of what goes on during representation (Pitkin 1967: 58). Thus, for Sonia Alonso and colleagues, “elections do not put an end to the representative process… every election is as much a beginning as

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merely reinforce the idea that women inevitably have distinct political interests and priorities? Women, it is emphasised, are a heterogeneous group and do not share all or even any particular experiences (Celis et al. 2008: 102). This means that their interests are not predefined and cannot be straightforwardly represented though the inclusion of women in parliaments. Even those who support the push for greater ‘presence’ within parliaments may challenge the idea that descriptive representation is enough to ensure democratic representation (Disch 2016: 795). “It is no simple correlation” states Pitkin bluntly “the best descriptive representative is not necessarily the best representative for activity or government” (Pitkin 1967: 89). Assertions of descriptive representation must acknowledge that the salience and meaning of certain identity categories do not stay the same; they morph along with forms of socio-political exclusion and prejudice. As we will see, constituency identities are themselves changed through the process of representation. This means that even if lived experiences cannot be grasped easily by those who haven’t lived with or through them, nor can they be straightforwardly represented by a body who stands up and in for them.

1.3

Constitutive Representation: Performing for Others

Aware of the problems of reductive and narrow accounts, recent theorists have explored the rich possibilities and varieties of political representation. They highlight a variety of non-electoral forms of democratic representation (Saward 2011: 75; Urbinati and Warren 2008) and offer a ‘thicker’ understanding of political representation as an ongoing and dynamic activity in political life beyond elections. There are a variety of ways that one body can represent another (Saward 2010: 4). Defining representation in terms of the elections that either authorise an agent or remove them from office overlooks the crucial aspect of what goes on during representation (Pitkin 1967: 58). Thus, for Sonia Alonso and colleagues, “elections do not put an end to the representative process… every election is as much a beginning as

1. Embodied Representation: Performances of Identity

an ending” (Alonso et al. 2011: 6). Jane Mansbridge notices, for example, the way that representatives often try to anticipate the preferences of future voters (2003: 517). The capacity of constituents to hold them to account in the next election generates what she calls “anticipatory representation”, which means that what happens before the next election is as important in understanding representation as what happened in the last one (2003: 517). Mansbridge argues that representation is improved by good communication between the voter and representative (2003: 519; see also Alonso et al. 2011: 6). Clearly, the better the ability of the represented to communicate their preferences and problems to the representative, the better the quality of representation. And yet the communicative process works in the other direction too. Mansbridge also notices the potential for influencing voters’ future preferences through either ‘education’ or ‘manipulation’ by the representative (2003: 520). Representation is a two-way process: the voter chooses a representative who then influences, deliberately or not, their preferences and interests. The process of representation not only involves the instalment of representatives, but also the construction of both the representative and the represented. Michael Saward examines this process: representation, he explains, does not only influence the minds of future voters, but continually works to construct the constituencies that are being represented. The representative does not only have to determine what the voter will want tomorrow but who the voter is today. Representatives must make an assumption about whom it is they are representing, on the basis of which they make decisions. They paint a picture of their constituents: “Representation in politics is at least a two-way street: the represented play a role in choosing their representatives, and representatives ‘choose’ their constituents in the sense of portraying them or framing them in particular, contestable ways” (2006: 301). This portrayal has an impact on how a constituency sees itself. Cultural and media representations tell stories about bodies as abled/disabled, for example, which then govern their capacities and their possibilities: “Representation structures rather than reflects reality” (Garland-Thomson 2005: 523).

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The represented are not a given constituency who exist prior to representation and are transparently knowable (Saward 2006: 301). The representative makes claims about the constituency, and about themselves, and about the links between them both (Saward 2010). We witness this when a politician declares that he speaks for “the people”, when a child states that she speaks on “behalf of future generations” (Thunberg 2019: 57), when a protestor holds a banner proclaiming “I am the 99%’ or when a celebrity wears a T-shirt stating “this is what a feminist looks like”. The people, future generations, the 99% and feminists—these constituencies are depicted in particular ways, which may resonate or not with the people identifying with those depictions and who may accept the claim or not. These depictions actually, then, construct the collective identities that are to be represented; they “form constituencies by soliciting their identification with a portrait that accords with a specific political project or initiative” (Disch 2016: 796). Lisa Disch uses the term ‘constitutive representation’ to highlight the way in which “acts of representation help to engender that for which they purport merely to stand” (2016: 799). Monica Brito Vieira emphasises too that representation has the ‘poetic power’ to generate new realities (2017b: 44). Representatives are therefore perhaps best understood not as delegates or trustees but as creative actors: “To an important extent, representation is not something external to its performance, but is something generated by the making, the performing, of claims to be representative” (Saward 2006: 302). Saward therefore rejects the idea of representation as a given, factual, product of elections and instead understands it instead as a dynamic relationship (2006: 298). The claims about the interests of certain groups can be understood not as arising from certain subjectivities but as soliciting them. In short, representation is a creative process that helps construct constituency identities rather than simply depicting them and by doing so it can empower or silence certain individuals and groups and encourage or dissuade them from political participation (Squires 2008: 191-2). But the representative claim, Saward reminds us, can always

1. Embodied Representation: Performances of Identity

be contested. “Claims to authentic or ‘true’ representation remain just that—claims. A claim may be compelling, largely accepted, motivating or prompting self-conscious awareness among members of an invoked community” but “to accept it as ‘authentic’ is to try to foreclose the unforecloseable play of politics” (Saward 2006: 313). If representative democracy constructs constituencies, how does it do this exactly? Shirin M. Rai argues that claims of representation are made through the mode of performance (2015: 1181). The political performances that occur on different stages involve a dialectical relationship between audience and performer (or between represented and representative). Saward agrees that performance is key to understanding representative claims; representation is what he calls “an unstable effect” of performances (Saward 2017: 75). As Rai notices, political performances involve the harnessing of the body; bodily performances, constrained by the social context in which they take place and marked by signs of power, can consolidate or rupture dominant social narratives and are able to invoke new identities (2015: 1183). The political performance that re-presents is therefore an embodied process. It is the role that bodies play in the representative process that I consider next.

1.4

Bodies of Representation

Representation, I propose, can be understood as an embodied performance in which bodies are doing some of the work. As we have seen, although bodies are revered as objects of representation, they are ignored in much analysis as the subjects of representation. They thus simultaneously appear and disappear. And their reification as static markers of collective identifications such as gender or ethnicity is precisely what disguises their agency. As I will argue, it is the performances of the bodies of representatives that can affect the meanings and boundaries of constituencies through the embodiment of collective identifications. The representative who is elected re-presents not by plucking words out of nowhere, but by acting for their constituency with an embodied performance. They stand for the other with a certain posture. They speak

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be contested. “Claims to authentic or ‘true’ representation remain just that—claims. A claim may be compelling, largely accepted, motivating or prompting self-conscious awareness among members of an invoked community” but “to accept it as ‘authentic’ is to try to foreclose the unforecloseable play of politics” (Saward 2006: 313). If representative democracy constructs constituencies, how does it do this exactly? Shirin M. Rai argues that claims of representation are made through the mode of performance (2015: 1181). The political performances that occur on different stages involve a dialectical relationship between audience and performer (or between represented and representative). Saward agrees that performance is key to understanding representative claims; representation is what he calls “an unstable effect” of performances (Saward 2017: 75). As Rai notices, political performances involve the harnessing of the body; bodily performances, constrained by the social context in which they take place and marked by signs of power, can consolidate or rupture dominant social narratives and are able to invoke new identities (2015: 1183). The political performance that re-presents is therefore an embodied process. It is the role that bodies play in the representative process that I consider next.

1.4

Bodies of Representation

Representation, I propose, can be understood as an embodied performance in which bodies are doing some of the work. As we have seen, although bodies are revered as objects of representation, they are ignored in much analysis as the subjects of representation. They thus simultaneously appear and disappear. And their reification as static markers of collective identifications such as gender or ethnicity is precisely what disguises their agency. As I will argue, it is the performances of the bodies of representatives that can affect the meanings and boundaries of constituencies through the embodiment of collective identifications. The representative who is elected re-presents not by plucking words out of nowhere, but by acting for their constituency with an embodied performance. They stand for the other with a certain posture. They speak

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for them with a particular voice. They act for them by shaking hands, by nodding their head, by refusing to sing a national anthem, or choosing to kneel. The body of a representative gesticulates, expresses emotions, demonstrates belonging and helps persuade (Diehl 2017). If the audience is responsive to them, bodily performances can reaffirm social norms or subvert them, and in this way sustain or challenge the identity categories they are purported to represent as well as the political institutions they are part of. Political or military leaders, for example, physically embody the authority of the state (Tempest 2016; Lowndes 2013). These performances, however, do not take place in an empty public space in which the performers can step beyond their particular situated bodies to freely project their intentions, unrestrained or enhanced by their fleshy existence. The performances of representatives are situated in a socio-political context, always-already imbued by values that give meaning to the bodies of actors. Yet these performances can alter the context in which they take place; they can tear up the scenery and use the props in different ways; they provoke new interpretations and expectations. A woman’s body in a parliament does not only ‘stand for’ other women’s bodies, but also impacts what is meant by ‘woman’ from the outset. For Beauvoir “the woman’s body is one of the essential elements of her situation she occupies in this word” and yet “her body is not enough to define her” (2010: 49). By conforming to standards of femininity, or by disrupting them, by ‘becoming’ differently (or perhaps by being unbecoming), the body of the woman politician can augment or delimit the meaning of a gender category. At the very least, she may well disorder the tight connection between women and the domestic sphere (perhaps even while paradoxically demanding its continuation through her support of certain policies). Yet, at the same time, this performance takes place within an arena in which her dress, deportment and hairstyle are all drenched with cultural and normative coding. Sarah Childs, for example, highlights both the difficulty and the costs of employing a different style of politics in arena not familiar with (or to) women (2004: 9). She concludes that an increased number

1. Embodied Representation: Performances of Identity

of female politicians by itself may not lead to any substantive change in representation; she implores us instead “to think of different kinds of women acting in different gendered environments and to explore whether particular political contexts are ‘safe’ for women to act like (and for) women” (Childs 2004: 14). The public sphere is not neutral and the bodies within it do not float around unimpeded. As Diana Coole writes, “the bodies which enter the political arena… are already mediated by a range of social and institutional factors that affect their reception and that are in turn reinforced or challenged by further processes intrinsic to the political situation itself” (Coole 2007: 413). Are opportunities available for a woman representative to challenge this situation? How does she perform her ‘representative claim’? Does she have to make her claim more strongly than a man would do? Can her embodied performance itself contradict prevailing socio-political norms and challenge political exclusions? How might women in politics navigate the tension between representing the polity or nation as a whole and also representing ‘women’? In the next section I consider these questions in relation to two examples: Emmeline Pankhurst and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

1.5

“I am what you call a hooligan”

Feminists, as we have seen above, have long been concerned with issues of representation and embodiment. Feminism, Lisa Disch observes “must not only contest the patriarchal arrogation of the power to speak on women’s behalf but also reflect on the representativity of the movement itself”. She argues that “The concern is not to ask who speaks for a “we” but to interrogate how that “we” is pictured and to analyse the possibilities and constraints on action that such picturing produces” (2016: 792). Two very distinct examples can be used to interrogate the way that women are ‘pictured’ in the public realm and the way that bodies play a role in political representation. Emmeline Pankhurst and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela are both controversial, contested, intriguing and

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of female politicians by itself may not lead to any substantive change in representation; she implores us instead “to think of different kinds of women acting in different gendered environments and to explore whether particular political contexts are ‘safe’ for women to act like (and for) women” (Childs 2004: 14). The public sphere is not neutral and the bodies within it do not float around unimpeded. As Diana Coole writes, “the bodies which enter the political arena… are already mediated by a range of social and institutional factors that affect their reception and that are in turn reinforced or challenged by further processes intrinsic to the political situation itself” (Coole 2007: 413). Are opportunities available for a woman representative to challenge this situation? How does she perform her ‘representative claim’? Does she have to make her claim more strongly than a man would do? Can her embodied performance itself contradict prevailing socio-political norms and challenge political exclusions? How might women in politics navigate the tension between representing the polity or nation as a whole and also representing ‘women’? In the next section I consider these questions in relation to two examples: Emmeline Pankhurst and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

1.5

“I am what you call a hooligan”

Feminists, as we have seen above, have long been concerned with issues of representation and embodiment. Feminism, Lisa Disch observes “must not only contest the patriarchal arrogation of the power to speak on women’s behalf but also reflect on the representativity of the movement itself”. She argues that “The concern is not to ask who speaks for a “we” but to interrogate how that “we” is pictured and to analyse the possibilities and constraints on action that such picturing produces” (2016: 792). Two very distinct examples can be used to interrogate the way that women are ‘pictured’ in the public realm and the way that bodies play a role in political representation. Emmeline Pankhurst and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela are both controversial, contested, intriguing and

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important figures who feature in two of the resistance movements that have shaped contemporary political reality. I do not attempt exhaustive case studies here. My aim here is to trace how the embodied performances of political women, living within certain contexts, can rupture gender norms and political conventions and construct their constituencies in ways that potentially enrich and enliven democratic struggles for equality. There are some striking similarities between the two women; both were cultural icons, revolutionary leaders, political subjects and famous mothers, who suffered for their cause for equal and fair representation. Through impassioned, provocative and highly visible embodied performances, both made representative claims that resonated throughout the particular social context in which they lived, and beyond. Although they both mainly performed outside formal political insitutions, their ‘representative claims’ were upheld by loyal constituents. Both were said to be extraordinarily beautiful and fashionable, and at the same time radical and uncompromising, both thus embodying the possibility of being simultaneously feminine and political. Pankhurst and Madikizela-Mandela re-presented woman, using their gendered bodies to attract and construct their audiences and to subvert norms and challenge exclusions from the political realm. Included in the Time magazine list of “the 100 most important people of the twentieth century” (Time 1999) Emmeline Pankhurst (18581928) is said to have “shaped an idea of women for our time” (Warner 1999). As the charismatic leader of the votes for women campaign in Edwardian England, she “roused women to demand their citizenship rights in a mass movement that has been unparalleled in British history” (Purvis 2003: 96). Although, as Paula Bartley underlines, no one person was responsible for the women’s movement, nevertheless “if any one person was responsible for the increased interest in suffrage in Edwardian Britain, it was Emmeline Pankhurst” (2002: 232). As her biographers observe, Pankhurst is a highly contested figure; she has been labelled a “busy-body” and “a dangerous subversive” (see Purvis 2000) yet also “a courageous and beautiful heroine” (Bartley 2002: 3). In her authoritative book June Purvis describes Pankhurst’s

1. Embodied Representation: Performances of Identity

‘magic and complex personality’: “she could be gentle and fiery, idealistic and realistic, creative and destructive, kind and ruthless, democratic and autocratic, invincible and vulnerable, courageous and afraid” (2002: 7). What is undisputed is that she drew huge crowds to her speeches and lectures. It was to a packed Carnegie Hall in New York that she famously announced “I am what you call a hooligan” and “a great shout of warm and sympathetic laughter shook the walls” (Pankhurst 2014: 72). It was clear to Pankhurst that “both Houses of Parliament were unrepresentative until women had a voice in changing legislatures and influencing law making” (Pankhurst 1914: 73). She set up the womenonly Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903, for which she coined the motto “deeds not words” (Purvis 2003: 78). The WSPU was notorious for its militant tactics. Pankhurst had decided that peaceful argument for women’s suffrage was not working and instead embraced tactics of civil disobedience: the suffragettes chained themselves to railings, threw stones, disrupted the postal service, committed arson, bombed empty buildings, cut telegraph and telephone wires (Bartley 2002: 10; Purvis 2003: 91). After being arrested for breaking windows at 10 Downing Street in 1912, Pankhurst went on hunger strike with other members of the WSPU to protest against the Government’s refusal to treat them as political offenders (Purvis 2003: 89). 1 Over the following years she was frequently in and out of prison: her hunger-striking was repeated along with thirst and sleep strikes which “wrought havoc to her body” (Purvis 2003: 92). And yet she continued to advocate violent action (Bartley 2002: 10). In her trial at the Old Bailey in 1913 in which she stood accused of inciting women to violence, she addressed the court: “Over one thousand women have gone to prison in the course of this agitation… have come out of prison injured in health, weakened in body, but not in spirit… I speak to you as representing others in the same position.” (1914: 130). Commentators notice how Pankhurst’s militant behaviour and attitude was in tension with her feminine appearance. Her “radical words 1

The role of the hunger strike in suffragist protest is explored further in Chapter Four.

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seemed incongruent with her appearance as a middle-class law-abiding widow and mother” (Purvis 2003: 80). “At all times” writes Bartley, “she maintained a professional façade of femininity while at the same time breaking every known standard of acceptable female conduct” (Bartley 2002: 2). Wendy Parkins explains that the protest of militant suffragettes contradicted the idea of woman as irrational, emotional, and hysterical. By marching, smashing windows, chaining themselves to railings, pouring acid in pillar boxes, and hunger-striking, risking violent responses, women depicted themselves as possessing bodily characteristics understood at the time to be “masculine” as opposed to “feminine”, as “disciplined rather than disorderly, self-controlled rather than hysterical” (Parkins 2000: 68; Coole 2000). In this way the suffragettes “subverted dominant constructions of citizenship as exclusively masculine and primarily deliberative; [they] kept the women’s cause at the forefront of public attention and debate; and [they] provided them with a powerful sense of their own bodily capacities” (2000: 63). By using their bodies, suffragettes demonstrated against their unjust exclusion from politics and the norms that justified such exclusion. It was not just the vote itself that the suffragettes demanded, but for ‘woman’ and politics to be reimagined and re-presented. Such embodied protest did not actually appear to bring them closer to enfranchisement yet it did provide a profound challenge to the ‘common sense’ of the era. By using their bodies they also challenged the dominant notion of politics as disembodied: “Suffragettes corporealised the political; they insisted that their citizenship be recognised as female citizenship, refusing a model of citizenship consisting solely of disembodied deliberation” (Parkins 2000: 72). As the elegant and articulate symbolic leader of the suffragettes, Emmeline Pankhurst embraced and embodied these contradictions, and by doing so she challenged dominant representations of women in order to assert their right to enter the sphere from which they had been excluded. “You know, every single one of you,” she said to the jury at the Old Bailey, “that I should not be standing here… if I had the rights that you possess” (1914: 131). And after she was found guilty: “To the women I have represented… to them, I want to say I am not going

1. Embodied Representation: Performances of Identity

to fail them, but to face it as they face it, to go through with it, and I know that they will go on with the fight whether I live or whether I die” (1914: 133).

1.6

“Mother of the Nation”

Nomzamo Nobandla Winnifred Madikizela-Mandela (1936-2018) was not only “the wife of the world’s most famous political prisoner” (Pohlandt-McCormick 2000: 585) but also renowned for her own prominent role in the struggle of black South Africans against the apartheid state. As Shireen Hassim puts it “no other woman occupies the place in South African politics that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela does, in her life and now in her afterlife” (Hassim 2019).  After the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, whom she had married a few years previously in 1958, she became his spokesperson: “an important link between Robben Island and the outside world” (Munro 2014: 95). Over the decade that followed she was a target of police and state brutality, frequently arrested and held in solitary confinement for 13 months during which her body became “the terrain of struggle” (Hassim 2019). She became a hugely iconic figure for the ANC and for the African townships (Pohlandt McCormick 2000: 613), frequently referred to as “mother of the nation” (Bridger 2015; Munro 2014). Yet in the late 1980s this image began to falter when she became embroiled in numerous violent events including the murder of Stompie Sepei, one of the young men known as the Mandela United Football Club who acted as her bodyguards and who had a reputation of brutality (Bridger 2015: 453; Munro 2014: 102). In 1991 she was sentenced to six years in prison for her part in the kidnapping and beating of four youths at her home in Soweto. She had turned from “mother of the nation” to “mugger of the nation” (Munro 2014: 107) and was also denigrated for her overt materialistic consumption of luxury goods (Iqani 2015). Like Pankhurst, then, Madikizela-Mandela was, and continues to be, portrayed in contradictory ways: not only as “mother of the nation” but also an “astute politician” (Iqani 2015: 781) and a “global fem-

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to fail them, but to face it as they face it, to go through with it, and I know that they will go on with the fight whether I live or whether I die” (1914: 133).

1.6

“Mother of the Nation”

Nomzamo Nobandla Winnifred Madikizela-Mandela (1936-2018) was not only “the wife of the world’s most famous political prisoner” (Pohlandt-McCormick 2000: 585) but also renowned for her own prominent role in the struggle of black South Africans against the apartheid state. As Shireen Hassim puts it “no other woman occupies the place in South African politics that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela does, in her life and now in her afterlife” (Hassim 2019).  After the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, whom she had married a few years previously in 1958, she became his spokesperson: “an important link between Robben Island and the outside world” (Munro 2014: 95). Over the decade that followed she was a target of police and state brutality, frequently arrested and held in solitary confinement for 13 months during which her body became “the terrain of struggle” (Hassim 2019). She became a hugely iconic figure for the ANC and for the African townships (Pohlandt McCormick 2000: 613), frequently referred to as “mother of the nation” (Bridger 2015; Munro 2014). Yet in the late 1980s this image began to falter when she became embroiled in numerous violent events including the murder of Stompie Sepei, one of the young men known as the Mandela United Football Club who acted as her bodyguards and who had a reputation of brutality (Bridger 2015: 453; Munro 2014: 102). In 1991 she was sentenced to six years in prison for her part in the kidnapping and beating of four youths at her home in Soweto. She had turned from “mother of the nation” to “mugger of the nation” (Munro 2014: 107) and was also denigrated for her overt materialistic consumption of luxury goods (Iqani 2015). Like Pankhurst, then, Madikizela-Mandela was, and continues to be, portrayed in contradictory ways: not only as “mother of the nation” but also an “astute politician” (Iqani 2015: 781) and a “global fem-

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inist icon” (Munro 2014: 96) as well as a “wicked woman” (PohlandtMcCormick 2000: 586) and a “monster” (Bridger 2015: 457). After her death in 2018, the President of the ANC Cyril Ramaphosa said in a eulogy that “she was an African woman who in her attitude, her words and her actions defied the very premise of apartheid ideology and male superiority”, while the poet Mzwakhe Mbuli hailed her as “the embodiment of courage. The embodiment of resilience. The embodiment of strength” (De Greef 2018). What cannot be disputed is that by embodying a black and female and political subject, Madikizela-Mandela represented those who previously were deprived of voice; as a South African woman, she did not simply act as the mouthpiece for the disenfranchised masses but was able to help construct those masses as a political subject. Raising her fist in a black power salute when she walked with Nelson Mandela after he had been released, she embodied a strong black political agency subverting expectations about women in politics. As Hassi puts it she “drew on gender as a political resource” (Hassim 2019). Madikizela-Mandela repeatedly referred to her identity as a mother while at the same time engaging in militant fighting. Instead of being confined to the domestic sphere by her motherhood, she turned this motherhood into “an active, revolutionary role” (Munro 2014: 96). Following a strategy that Emily Bridger calls “militant motherhood” Madikizela-Mandela exploited the traditional gender norms in South Africa by emphasising the maternal duty to protect or avenge their children (Bridger 2015: 447). This allowed her to enter the political realm while at the same time contravening “expected female behaviour” (Bridger 2015: 448). MadikizelaMandela called on women to participate not as conventional peaceful mothers but as militant subjects and thus “asserted a more forceful image of womanhood that challenged male prejudices against politicised women” (Bridger 2015: 450). She also bodily flouted the rules of subjection—for example, by walking into a “whites-only” supermarket to “deliberately take an hour to get whatever I needed” (Mandela 1985: 27). Her consumption can actually be seen as part of her politics: like Pankhurst she dressed carefully and fashionably, maintaining “a distinctly feminine image” while

1. Embodied Representation: Performances of Identity

at the same time exuding militancy (Bridger 2015: 451). By dressing herself in luxury clothes and driving expensive cars, she illustrated the new possibilities of wealth, long denied to most black South Africans. Methita Iquani writes: “Winnie standing proud in her Xhosa designer outfits, enjoying pink champagne, and living in a beautiful home cut a compelling figure of freedom… for the dispossessed majority. She was a symbol of aspiration and economic empowerment” (Iqani 2015: 790). Iquani points out that although “role models of economic success” such as Madikizela-Mandela were probably very important for poor black South Africans at the time, her consumption was commonly portrayed in the media not as a symbol of achievement but rather of irresponsibility (Iqani 2015: 786) and betrayal (Iqani 2015: 790). This, Iqani concludes “is very revealing in terms of the politics of race and gender in that context” (2015: 790). Indeed, both Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Emmeline Pankhurst were situated within socio-political contexts that coded and gendered their bodies. Both women entered the political arena not by shunning the identities that restricted them but by disrupting them. Both women indicate how democratic representation can take place outside conventional institutions while challenging the representativeness of those institutions. The theatricality and passion of both these women attracted the audiences who they represented not only by standing for them, or speaking for them, but by performing for them. They illustrate the creative process of ‘constitutive representation’ in which embodied performances of representation actually help new constituencies to become. In making a representative claim they stood for the disenfranchised, they spoke for them, but they also performed for them. By using their bodies, they constructed their constituencies as constituencies, as political subjects. Moreover, they not only represented their particular constituencies but also represented a reimagined demos or nation. It is noticeable how both are regarded as highly symbolic figures not only for women but for radical politics: Pankhurst is said to be “the radical symbol of the Edwardian political age” (Bartley 2002: 241). Madikizela-Mandela is described

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as “the woman who symbolises the black struggle for liberation” (Benjamin, in Mandela 1985: 27) but also “a symbol of radical politics in the 21st Century” (Hassim 2018: 898). Pankhurst and Madikizela-Mandela re-populated the demos, using their bodies to subvert socio-political norms and performatively re-present political identities and re-construct both the meaning of ‘woman’ and the boundaries of the political realm.

1.7

Strange Democracy

In the sketch above, I have attempted to illustrate how the embodied performances of two famous women have had a profound effect on collective identities and the political sphere. In making their representative claim, the body of each of these representatives performs for the represented. In doing so, she does not simply pass on their demands, but constitutes anew the collective identities of the constituents whom she is claiming to represent. The markers of represented differences are not eternally fixed or essentially given; they are scrambled by the very bodies that are marked. I suggest, then, that bodies do some of the work in representation, and that the performance of representation cannot be fully comprehended without considering the role of bodies. Saward bids us to “make democracy strange again” (2010: 167) and by that I think he means we should acknowledge the rich variety and dynamic effects of representation. In order to understand the full potential of contemporary democracy we should look beyond the descriptive representation of institutions and organisations to the lived performances of bodies that are often peculiar or surprising and do more than ‘mirror’ us back to ourselves. The performances of these representative bodies are continually enacted across the full spectrum of political life, subverting norms, championing the excluded, and inspiring the demand for inclusion. We might wonder if democracy was ever unstrange. The role of bodies in augmenting the creative and constitutive process of representation is of significance because representation plays

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as “the woman who symbolises the black struggle for liberation” (Benjamin, in Mandela 1985: 27) but also “a symbol of radical politics in the 21st Century” (Hassim 2018: 898). Pankhurst and Madikizela-Mandela re-populated the demos, using their bodies to subvert socio-political norms and performatively re-present political identities and re-construct both the meaning of ‘woman’ and the boundaries of the political realm.

1.7

Strange Democracy

In the sketch above, I have attempted to illustrate how the embodied performances of two famous women have had a profound effect on collective identities and the political sphere. In making their representative claim, the body of each of these representatives performs for the represented. In doing so, she does not simply pass on their demands, but constitutes anew the collective identities of the constituents whom she is claiming to represent. The markers of represented differences are not eternally fixed or essentially given; they are scrambled by the very bodies that are marked. I suggest, then, that bodies do some of the work in representation, and that the performance of representation cannot be fully comprehended without considering the role of bodies. Saward bids us to “make democracy strange again” (2010: 167) and by that I think he means we should acknowledge the rich variety and dynamic effects of representation. In order to understand the full potential of contemporary democracy we should look beyond the descriptive representation of institutions and organisations to the lived performances of bodies that are often peculiar or surprising and do more than ‘mirror’ us back to ourselves. The performances of these representative bodies are continually enacted across the full spectrum of political life, subverting norms, championing the excluded, and inspiring the demand for inclusion. We might wonder if democracy was ever unstrange. The role of bodies in augmenting the creative and constitutive process of representation is of significance because representation plays

1. Embodied Representation: Performances of Identity

such an important role in democratic politics. For many theorists, however, it is deliberation not representation that holds the key to democratic legitimacy. It is the role of bodies in deliberation that I discuss in the next chapter.

References Alonso, S., Keane, J. and Merkel, W. (2011) “Editors’ introduction: Rethinking the future of representative democracy” in Alonso, S., Keane, J. and Merkel, W. (eds) The Future of Representative Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press. Andeweg, R.B. and Thomassen, J. (2005) “Modes of Political Representation: Toward a New Typology”, Legislative Studies Quarterly, 30 (4), pp. 507-528. Bartley, P. (2002) Emmeline Pankhurst. London and NY: Routledge. Beauvoir, S. de (2010) The Second Sex. Translated by C. Borde and S. Malovany-Chevallier. London: Vintage Books. (Original work published in French 1949) Bridger, E. (2015) “From ‘Mother of the Nation’ to ‘Lady Macbeth’: Winnie Mandela and Perceptions of Female Violence in South Africa, 198591”, Gender & History, 27 (2), pp. 446-464. Brito Vieira, M. (2017a) “Introduction”, in Brito Vieira, M. (ed.) Reclaiming Representation Contemporary Advances in the Theory of Political Representation. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 1-21. Brito Vieira, M. (2017b) “Performative Imaginaries: Pitkin versus Hobbes on Political Representation”, in Brito Vieira, M. (ed) Reclaiming Representation Contemporary Advances in the Theory of Political Representation. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 25-49. Burke, E. (1774) “Speech to the Electors of Bristol”, in Select Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 4 (Miscellaneous Writings) Available at the Online Library of Liberty website: https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/burke-sel ect-works-of-edmund-burke-vol-4 (last accessed November 2021).

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such an important role in democratic politics. For many theorists, however, it is deliberation not representation that holds the key to democratic legitimacy. It is the role of bodies in deliberation that I discuss in the next chapter.

References Alonso, S., Keane, J. and Merkel, W. (2011) “Editors’ introduction: Rethinking the future of representative democracy” in Alonso, S., Keane, J. and Merkel, W. (eds) The Future of Representative Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press. Andeweg, R.B. and Thomassen, J. (2005) “Modes of Political Representation: Toward a New Typology”, Legislative Studies Quarterly, 30 (4), pp. 507-528. Bartley, P. (2002) Emmeline Pankhurst. London and NY: Routledge. Beauvoir, S. de (2010) The Second Sex. Translated by C. Borde and S. Malovany-Chevallier. London: Vintage Books. (Original work published in French 1949) Bridger, E. (2015) “From ‘Mother of the Nation’ to ‘Lady Macbeth’: Winnie Mandela and Perceptions of Female Violence in South Africa, 198591”, Gender & History, 27 (2), pp. 446-464. Brito Vieira, M. (2017a) “Introduction”, in Brito Vieira, M. (ed.) Reclaiming Representation Contemporary Advances in the Theory of Political Representation. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 1-21. Brito Vieira, M. (2017b) “Performative Imaginaries: Pitkin versus Hobbes on Political Representation”, in Brito Vieira, M. (ed) Reclaiming Representation Contemporary Advances in the Theory of Political Representation. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 25-49. Burke, E. (1774) “Speech to the Electors of Bristol”, in Select Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 4 (Miscellaneous Writings) Available at the Online Library of Liberty website: https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/burke-sel ect-works-of-edmund-burke-vol-4 (last accessed November 2021).

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Celis, K., Childs, S., Kantola, J. and Krook, M.L. (2008) “Rethinking Women’s Substantive Representation”, Representation, 44 (2), pp. 99110. Childs, S. (2004) “A Feminised Style of Politics? Women MPs in the House of Commons”, British Journal of Political and International Relations, 6, pp. 3-19. Childs, S. and Krook, M.L. (2009) “Analysing Women’s Substantive Representation: From Critical Mass to Critical Actors”, Government and Opposition, 44 (2), pp. 125-145. Childs, S. and Lovenduski, J. (2013) “Political Representation”, in Waylen, G., Celis, K., Kantola, J. and Weldon, L. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Coole, D. (2000) “Threads and Plaits or an Unfinished Project? Feminism(s) Throughout the Twentieth Century”, Journal of Political Ideologies, 5 (1), pp. 35-54. Coole, D. (2007) “Experiencing Discourse: Corporeal Communicators and the Embodiment of Power”, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 9 (3), pp. 413-433. De Greef, K. (2018) “Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, ‘Mother of the Nation,’ Mourned in South Africa”, New York Times. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/world/africa/winnie-man dela-funeral.html Diehl, P. (2017) “The Body in Populism” in Heinisch, R.C., Holtz-Bacha, C. and Mazzoleni, O. (eds) Political Populism: A Handbook. BadenBaden: Nomos, pp. 361-372. Disch, L. (2016) “Representation”, in Disch, L. and Hawkesworth, M. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory. New York: Oxford University Press. Douglass, R. (2013) “Rousseau’s Critique of Representative Sovereignty: Principled or Pragmatic?”, American Journal of Political Science, 57 (3), pp. 735-747. Garland-Thomson, R. (2005) “Disability and Representation”, PMLA, 120 (2), pp. 522-527. Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2012) Declaration. New York: Argo Navis.

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Hassim, S. (2018) “Not Just Nelson’s Wife: Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Violence and Radicalism in South Africa”, Journal of Southern African Studies, 44 (5), pp. 895-912. Hassim, S. (2019) “Landscape for a Rebel Woman: Winnie MadikizelaMandela, Violence and the Intimacies of Gender in South African Politics”, Lecture at Swarthmore College. Available at: https://www .swarthmore.edu/news-events/listen-winnie-madikizela-mandela -and-violence-and-intimacies-gender-south-african Iqani, M (2015) “The Consummate Material Girl?”, Feminist Media Studies, 15 (5), pp. 779-793. Kruks, S. (2010) “Simone de Beauvoir: Engaging Discrepant Materialism”, in Coole, D. and Frost, S. (eds) New Materialisms. Durham and London: Duke University Press, pp. 258-280. Lowndes, J. (2013) “Barack Obama’s Body: The Presidency, the Body Politics, and the Contest over American National Identity”, Polity, 45 (4), pp. 469-498. Mandela, W. (1985) Part of My Soul. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Mansbridge, J. (2003) “Rethinking Representation”, American Political Science Review, 97 (4), pp. 515-528. Munro, B. (2014) “Nelson, Winnie, and the Politics of Gender”, in Barnard, R. (ed) The Cambridge Companion to Nelson Mandela. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp.115-133. Pankhurst, E. (2020) [1914] Suffragette: My Own Story. London: Eveleigh Nash. Parkins, W. (2000) “Protesting Like a Girl: Embodiment, Dissent and Feminist Agency”, Feminist Theory, 1 (1), pp. 59 -78. Phillips, A. (1995) The Politics of Presence. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Pitkin, H. (1967) The Concept of Representation. Berkeley and London: University of California Press. Plotke, D. (1997) “Representation is Democracy”, Constellations, 4 (1), pp. 19-34. Pohlandt-McCormick, H. (2000) “Controlling Woman: Winnie Mandela and the 1976 Soweto Uprising”, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 33 (3), pp. 585-614.

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Purvis, J. (2000) “Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928) and votes for women” in Purvis, J. and Stanley Holton, S. (eds) Votes for Women. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 109-134. Purvis, J. (2002) Emmeline Pankhurst: A Biography. London and New York: Routledge. Purvis, J. (2003) “Emmeline Pankhurst: a biographical interpretation”, Women’s History Review, 12 (1), pp. 73-102. Rai, S. (2015) “Political Performance: A Framework for Analysing Democratic Politics”, Political Studies, 63, pp. 1179-1197. Sapiro, V. (1998) “When are Interests Interesting? The Problem of Political Representation of Women”, in Phillips, A. (ed) Feminism and Politics. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. pp.161-192. Saward, M. (2006) “The Representative Claim”, Contemporary Political Theory, 5 (3), pp. 297-318. Saward, M. (2010) The Representative Claim. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Saward, M. (2011) “The Wider Canvas: representation and democracy in state and society”, in Alonso, S., Keane, J. and Merkel, W. (eds) The Future of Representative Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Saward, M. (2017) “Performative Representation”, in Brito Vieira, M. (ed) Reclaiming Representation Contemporary Advances in the Theory of Political Representation. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 75-94. Squires, J. (2001) “Feminism and Democracy” In Nash, K. and Scott, A. (eds) The Blackwell Companion to Political Sociology. Malden, Oxford: Blackwell. pp.365-374. Squires, J. (2008) “The Constitutive Representation of Gender: ExtraParliamentary Re-Presentations of Gender Relations”, Representation, 44 (2), pp. 187-204. Tempest, R. (2016) “The Charismatic Body Politics of President Putin”, Journal of Political Marketing, 15 (2-3), pp. 101-119. Thunberg, G. (2019) No One is Too Small to Make a Difference. Milton Keynes: Penguin Random House UK.

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Time (1999) “TIME 100 Persons of The Century” Sunday, June 06, 1999. Available at: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171 ,26473,00.html (last accessed November 2021). Urbinati, N. (2011) “Representative Democracy and its Critics”, in Alonso, S., Keane, J. and Merkel, W. (eds) The Future of Representative Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Urbinati, N. and Warren, M.E. (2008) “The Concept of Representation in Contemporary Democratic Theory”, Annual Review of Political Science, (11), pp. 387-412. Warner, M. (1999) “The Agitator Emmeline Pankhurst”, Time, Available at: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,917 1,991250,00.html (last accessed November 2021).

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Chapter 2. Embodied Deliberation: Conditions, Excesses, Disruptions, Opportunities

Scandals and spin doctors, empty promises and backroom bargaining, the uncivil antics of professional politicians and the apathy of their electorates—all of this has left many unimpressed by contemporary representative democracy (see Plotke 1997; Tormey 2016). Indeed, once considered a worthy pursuit of a responsible citizenry, politics today appears to have been reduced to the secretive strategising of an elite few. For many, this is a monstrous betrayal of democracy. As both a reaction and an antidote to this situation, a ‘deliberative’ model of democracy has emerged and been consolidated over the last few decades (Ackerman and Fishkin 2002; Benhabib 1996; Bohman 1998, 2004; Böker 2017; Chambers 2003, 2018; Cohen 1996; Dryzek 2005, 2009; Dryzek et al. 2019; Manin 1987; Mansbridge et al. 2010; Miller 1992; Parkinson 2006). Democracy, according to this model, requires the inclusive discussion and reasoned reflection of deliberation of ordinary citizens, for only in this way will truly legitimate decisions be reached. “If we are to preserve and deepen our democratic life,” say Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin, “we must create institutions that sustain citizen engagement in a shared public dialogue” (2002: 130). Some proponents promote the value of deliberation in the “open public sphere” (Chambers 2018) and in “political culture” (Böker 2017). Others focus on creating “mini-publics” or “innovative deliberative forums” (Niemeyer 2011) such as citizens’ assemblies, in which the “right” or “ideal” conditions for “high quality deliberation” are put in place (Dryzek et al. 2019: 1145).

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Whether narrowly conceptualised as occurring within particular institutional innovations or understood as enriching political life more broadly, deliberation has come to occupy a prominent place in democratic thought. Although the representative mode of democracy clearly continues to characterise the political institutions of liberal states around the world, the deliberative mode dominates political theory. As Carole Pateman points out, deliberation is now often understood to be synonymous with democracy (2012: 8). As John Parkinson comments, “it sometimes seems as though we are not just all democrats, but deliberative democrats now” (2006: 2). But what exactly does this deliberation look and feel like? Does it involve corporeal interaction between embodied human beings? Or are bodies and embodiment irrelevant to the discussion process and the resulting decision? There has been surprisingly little attention to the implications for bodies and embodiment for the deliberative mode of democracy (see, however, Clifford 2012). In this chapter I attempt to begin to bridge this gap. As I will show, it is often quietly implied by the deliberative model that democracy occurs in a disembodied public realm, where individuals think and speak as ethereal ghosts. Deliberative democratic theory, I will argue, would benefit from the acknowledgment that all perspectives and all participation remain necessarily embodied. Using particularly the work of Merleau-Ponty, I show that bodies matter for deliberative democracy. Bringing bodies in reveals certain conditions, excesses, disruptions and opportunities that are pertinent for deliberation. Bodily habits and instincts might provide corporeal barriers to fully transparent and rational discussion, stunting the possibilities of communicating with others. Yet bodies can provoke the formation of new alliances across previously impermeable boundaries and disrupt the conventions of the political realm. At the same time, deliberative forums offer new possibilities for the bodies of participants who are themselves transformed through the political interaction they affect. The chapter starts by depicting the problematic overlooking of the body in deliberative democratic theory. I then explain how bodies matter for deliberative politics in four ways: (1) they provide the conditions for deliberation—every body provides a unique (but not fixed or prede-

2. Embodied Deliberation: Conditions, Excesses, Disruptions, Opportunities

termined) perspective that both forestalls fully transcendent objective vision but also allows the possibility for a meaningful contribution (2) they produce excesses—bodily communication overspills deliberation, by conveying messages that cannot be reduced to verbal exchange (3) they create disruptions of deliberative events because the incorporated habits of bodies may interrupt or hinder rational and transparent reflection and finally (4) they open opportunities for deliberation, because bodies facilitate the building of new identifications and alliances. I consider, finally, whether the body is not only implicated in deliberation in ways too often overlooked, but that it is also itself affected by that deliberation. There is a symbiotic relation between democratic deliberation and bodily experience.

2.1

Disembodied Deliberation

The model of deliberative democracy that has become so dominant in democratic theory has emerged over the past two decades and in “three generations” (Elstub 2010). According to Stephen Elstub, Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls were the first generation of deliberatives, who focused upon the normative justifications of deliberation in democracy and were highly theoretical. Their theories were reformed by a second generation, who were more aware of the issues of complexity, diversity, scale and inequality. The third generation has focused upon the institutional underpinning of these accounts, asking not theoretical questions but raising more practical problems such as those posed by scale (Parkinson 2006), measurement (Bächtiger 2005) or the communication of its outcomes to the wider public (Raphael and Karpowitz 2013). Many of the theoretical presuppositions have gone underexamined. One such presupposition, which I assert needs addressing, is the lack of attention to the human bodies in deliberation. A common assertion across the three generations of deliberative democracy is that political decisions and institutions can only claim legitimacy when they are underpinned by, in the words of the deliberative theorist Seyla Benhabib, “processes of collective deliberation conducted

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termined) perspective that both forestalls fully transcendent objective vision but also allows the possibility for a meaningful contribution (2) they produce excesses—bodily communication overspills deliberation, by conveying messages that cannot be reduced to verbal exchange (3) they create disruptions of deliberative events because the incorporated habits of bodies may interrupt or hinder rational and transparent reflection and finally (4) they open opportunities for deliberation, because bodies facilitate the building of new identifications and alliances. I consider, finally, whether the body is not only implicated in deliberation in ways too often overlooked, but that it is also itself affected by that deliberation. There is a symbiotic relation between democratic deliberation and bodily experience.

2.1

Disembodied Deliberation

The model of deliberative democracy that has become so dominant in democratic theory has emerged over the past two decades and in “three generations” (Elstub 2010). According to Stephen Elstub, Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls were the first generation of deliberatives, who focused upon the normative justifications of deliberation in democracy and were highly theoretical. Their theories were reformed by a second generation, who were more aware of the issues of complexity, diversity, scale and inequality. The third generation has focused upon the institutional underpinning of these accounts, asking not theoretical questions but raising more practical problems such as those posed by scale (Parkinson 2006), measurement (Bächtiger 2005) or the communication of its outcomes to the wider public (Raphael and Karpowitz 2013). Many of the theoretical presuppositions have gone underexamined. One such presupposition, which I assert needs addressing, is the lack of attention to the human bodies in deliberation. A common assertion across the three generations of deliberative democracy is that political decisions and institutions can only claim legitimacy when they are underpinned by, in the words of the deliberative theorist Seyla Benhabib, “processes of collective deliberation conducted

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rationally and fairly among free and equal individuals” (1996: 69). Deliberation is crucially different from the clichéd political pursuits of bargaining and backstabbing. The political realm envisioned by deliberative democrats is not a heated forum of blinkered, self-centered antagonists who shout down and shut out those who disagree with them. Rather, it is supposed to be an inclusive space of equal voices in which all can speak and be heard. “A legitimate decision,” for Bernard Manin, is “one that results from the deliberation of all” (1987: 352). The inclusion of all inevitably widens the scope for the expression of difference. Deliberative democrats do not deny that significant conflicts of opinion exist—this is precisely why they believe deliberation is needed. Through an “open-minded exchange of ideas, views and arguments” in which “participants are forced to reflect upon the position they advocate” (Vlerick 2020: 6) individuals can hope to become more informed, to come to better understand different perspectives, and to reflect upon and refine their own preferences: “Deliberation is debate and discussion aimed at producing reasonable, well-informed opinions in which participants are willing to revise preferences in light of discussion” (Chambers 2003: 309). According to its proponents, deliberation produces better decisions. For Simone Chambers “we humans… gain better cognitive results when thinking interactively and intersubjectively” (2018: 148). Decisions are taken only after time has been devoted to this exchange; deliberation is “the process of the formation of the will, the particular moment that precedes choice” (Manin 1987: 345). The ideal outcome of deliberation for many proponents would be the rationalisation of perspectives, the resolution of persistent and substantive conflicts of opinion, and “the agreement of all those affected by a decision” (Bohman 1998: 400). Deliberation “has the power to open our perspectives even to the viewpoints of people we originally met with suspicion or even hostility” (Vlerick 2020: 6). More recent accounts have acknowledged that such consensus may not be achieved—deliberation may actually result in the polarisation of opinions (Lindell et al. 2017), but nevertheless, in general, deliberation is expected to result in a better, more legitimate outcome (Chambers

2. Embodied Deliberation: Conditions, Excesses, Disruptions, Opportunities

2003: 309) or at the very least a “clarification of conflict” (Mansbridge et al. 2010: 68). Deliberation involves “giving reasons” to others in an ongoing dynamic and public conversation: reasons that only count if they are “compelling to others” (Cohen 1996), reasons “that should be accepted by free and equal persons seeking fair terms of cooperation” (Gutmann and Thompson 2004: 3). By expressing themselves, reasonably, in the public realm, individuals can attain “conceptual clarity” that they would not have otherwise had (Benhabib 1996: 71). Deliberation will “spread light” (Manin 1987: 354). For many, individual participants are required to “go beyond the self-interests typical in preference aggregation and orient themselves to the common good” (Bohman 1998: 402). In this way, not only are political decisions improved, but a public-spirited generosity is also fomented: “preferences that are ... narrowly self-regarding will tend to be eliminated by the process of public debate” (Miller 1992: 61) and deep division will be healed (Dryzek et al. 2019: 1145). As Mansbridge and colleagues (2010) have pointed out, this does not necessarily preclude the expression of self-interest from deliberation. The ideal, as they see it, is the articulation and exploration of self-interests by mutually respectful individuals who are nevertheless open to the transformation of such self-interests through fair, noncoercive, and cooperative deliberation (Mansbridge et al. 2010: 79). Various critics of deliberative democracy have posed important challenges to the deliberative model, calling attention to its problematic prioritising of caution over spontaneity (Sanders 1997); generality over particularity; formality over informality (Young 1996); consensus over disagreement (Mouffe 2005); interpersonal discussion over internal reflection (Goodin and Niemayer 2003); and reason over passion (Hall 2007; Walzer 2004). I focus in this chapter on the tendency of deliberative democracy to construe its political subjects as disembodied, or rather, to portray their bodies as somewhat irrelevant for their political interaction. Deliberative democrats are certainly not blind to the exclusions that have occurred in the past as a result of the overt privileging of certain bodies. Indeed, Benhabib contrasts the deliberative public sphere she envisages with the conception of

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the public sphere that dominated “well into the twentieth century,” which was “historically, socially, and culturally a space for male bodies” (Benhabib 1996: 81). So we read that no bodies would be excluded from the “multiple, anonymous, heterogeneous network of many publics and public conversations” that characterises the institutionalisation of deliberative democracy (Benhabib 1996: 87). However, is formally granting all bodies equal access to the public sphere or mini-public enough? Drawing attention to bodies not only reveals the exclusion and privilege allocated to certain embodied identifications, but also bodily limits and capacities overlooked by a focus upon deliberation. Deliberative democrats are very good at demanding the creation of the places in which the citizen body can meet and converse “face-toface” (Dryzek et al. 2019: 1146). “Democracy” notes Parkinson “depends on physical space” (2012: 21). As Goodin and Niemayer put it, deliberatives “cherish the ‘forum’” where “actual interpersonal engagement” takes place (2003: 627–628). Indeed, the practical innovations recommended by deliberative democrats include the institutions of citizens’ juries, citizens’ panels, citizens’ assemblies, consensus conferences and deliberative polls, all of which “involve diverse participants facilitated dialogue and an emphasis on norms of civility” (Dryzek et al. 2019: 1145; see also Smith and Setälä 2018). Citizens’ assemblies, in particular, have recently risen to prominence (Devaney et al. 2020). In a citizen’s assembly, typically, around 100 citizens who are selected to be randomly representative of the wider population, spend several weekends or 20—30 days learning from experts and collectively deliberating an issue, and at the end vote on a set of recommendations (Smith and Setälä 2018; Escobar and Elstub 2017). This innovation has most famously been used in Ireland (Devaney et al. 2020; Dryzel et al. 2019) while the prominent protest movement Extinction Rebellion has demanded the government “create and be led by the decisions of a citizens’ assembly on climate and ecological justice” (Extinction Rebellion 2019: 5), which it says will “provide an opportunity to explore the views of a broadly representative sample of people in fair and equitable way” (7). Far from being a means that encourages the opposition of the prevailing social order, however, citizens’ assemblies can be accused

2. Embodied Deliberation: Conditions, Excesses, Disruptions, Opportunities

of shoring it up and building legitimacy for the regime rather than facilitating citizens’ critical capacities (Böker 2017). If, as I claim, bodies play a role in both ordering and disordering the political realm, then attending to the bodies of the participants in citizens’ assemblies might reveal some further issues and concerns for their adherents. For where are the living and breathing, sighing and shrugging, fidgeting and fragile human bodies in the descriptions of these minipublics? Ackerman and Fishkin (2002) draw up plans for a Deliberation Day, a day on which, a week before a general election, voters are summoned together to deliberate over important issues. This account indicates awareness of participants as having bodies insofar as they meet and eat: the deliberators “sit together” in “neighbourhood schools and community centres” (Ackerman and Fishkin 2002: 135). Likewise, Extinction Rebellion explicitly states that the citizens’ assembly they are demanding takes place in “an accessible location” with “adequate accommodation and catering” (Extinction Rebellion 2019: 14). However, this is where embodiment begins and ends in these descriptions. In the next sections I consider four ways in which bodies matter for deliberation, because they provide conditions, excesses, distortions and opportunities that importantly affect any deliberative process or innovation.

2.2

Bodies Matter: Conditions

First, bodies matter for deliberation because they provide the conditions necessary for deliberation in the first place. To put it simply: to have a perspective on the world, we must be situated in that world. MerleauPonty’s phenomenological perspective emphasises that my body is “my point of view on the world” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 81). To try to remove oneself from one’s embodied situation, then, is impossible. There can be no view from nowhere; all views are from somewhere (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 77). This is not to say that one is tightly jammed into a solitary position from which there is no escape; for him the question is “how vision

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of shoring it up and building legitimacy for the regime rather than facilitating citizens’ critical capacities (Böker 2017). If, as I claim, bodies play a role in both ordering and disordering the political realm, then attending to the bodies of the participants in citizens’ assemblies might reveal some further issues and concerns for their adherents. For where are the living and breathing, sighing and shrugging, fidgeting and fragile human bodies in the descriptions of these minipublics? Ackerman and Fishkin (2002) draw up plans for a Deliberation Day, a day on which, a week before a general election, voters are summoned together to deliberate over important issues. This account indicates awareness of participants as having bodies insofar as they meet and eat: the deliberators “sit together” in “neighbourhood schools and community centres” (Ackerman and Fishkin 2002: 135). Likewise, Extinction Rebellion explicitly states that the citizens’ assembly they are demanding takes place in “an accessible location” with “adequate accommodation and catering” (Extinction Rebellion 2019: 14). However, this is where embodiment begins and ends in these descriptions. In the next sections I consider four ways in which bodies matter for deliberation, because they provide conditions, excesses, distortions and opportunities that importantly affect any deliberative process or innovation.

2.2

Bodies Matter: Conditions

First, bodies matter for deliberation because they provide the conditions necessary for deliberation in the first place. To put it simply: to have a perspective on the world, we must be situated in that world. MerleauPonty’s phenomenological perspective emphasises that my body is “my point of view on the world” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 81). To try to remove oneself from one’s embodied situation, then, is impossible. There can be no view from nowhere; all views are from somewhere (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 77). This is not to say that one is tightly jammed into a solitary position from which there is no escape; for him the question is “how vision

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can be brought into being from somewhere without being enclosed in its perspective” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 78). Merleau-Ponty’s crucial insight is to emphasize not that my body limits my perspective, but rather that it provides it in the first place. A body does not simply transmit undifferentiated sensation; rather, it gives an organised perspective. When I pay attention to something, I can only do this because it “stands out” against the background of everything else, other objects that are not noticed, which often includes the body itself (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 78). An object that has stood out may later recede from my attention, becoming part of the everyday background to my perception. The day-to-day embodied experience of the world gives individuals a particular existence. The environments they live in, the personal experiences they live through, sediment into the body to overlap with other experiences and provide each individual body a singular perspective. As Elizabeth Grosz puts it, “experience is not outside social, political, historical and cultural forces and in this sense cannot provide an outside vantage point from which to judge them” (1994: 94). This hints at an irreducible shifting pluralism of outlooks and understandings of the world, which enlivens the political interaction that must negotiate it. For Diana Coole, “because embodiment situates us, each enjoys a relatively unique perspective and hence potential originality” (2005: 133). Our truths are always situated, although never predetermined or rigidly restricted. In contrast, a common theme in accounts of deliberative democracy is that of expansion or even transcendence of perspective. Deliberation demands its participants take “a wider view” (Miller 1992: 55) or “expand their knowledge” (Gutmann and Thompson 2004: 12) and “rise above self interest” (Ackerman and Fishkin 2002: 143), even to “consider the global good” (Vlerick 2020: 1). Participants reform their perspectives “because they have adopted to some degree the perspective of another” (Mansbridge et al. 2010: 78). Deliberation aims at helping the community “leverage its entire political conversation onto a higher plane” (Ackerman and Fishkin 2002: 135) and to lessen “bounded rationality” (Smith and Wales 2000). For Benhabib, in a deliberative democratic public realm, an individual “is forced to think from the standpoint of all

2. Embodied Deliberation: Conditions, Excesses, Disruptions, Opportunities

involved” (Benhabib 1996: 72). But is it truly possible to think from “the standpoint of all”? Is it possible to move beyond or outside a particular embodied and situated perspective? Benhabib’s claim implies that those who are deliberative can detach themselves from their bodily situation. While deliberatives do not claim that this is easily done, there is nevertheless a certain privileging of transcendence that too easily forgets the specificity that ultimately orientates our attempts to understand any particular issue and any other perspective on that issue. For Merleau-Ponty, as for many proponents of deliberative democracy, rationality is not the function of a single transcendental mind, but arises from a coalescing of concrete and finite perspectives. As he explains: “To say that there exists rationality is to say that perspectives blend, perceptions confirm each other, a meaning emerges” (2002: xxii). But on the other hand, he continues that “it should not be set in a realm apart, transposed into absolute Spirit, or into a world in the realist sense” (2002: xxii). He does not imply that we are simplistically stuck within our bodies—we do not have bodies, we are our bodies (Carman 2008: 11)—but we are nevertheless embedded in the world and thus our perspectives are finite. Rationality is not a conscious and easy intersubjectivity, but rather a bodily intersubjectivity. We cannot expect to unproblematically think ourselves into each other’s perspectives, or even fully understand our own. It is not that we cannot understand others, but that understanding others is an achievement that cannot simply be taken for granted (Sullivan 2001: 74). Our situated, contingent, and ambiguous “view from somewhere” cannot be unproblematically translated into Benhabib’s proposed “the standpoint of all involved”. What might an acknowledgment of the embodied situatedness of all perspectives bring to deliberation? Might it bring an acknowledgement of the difficulty, contingency and partiality of any attempt to see things from another point of view? Perhaps it would not only help build humility into the deliberative process but also draw attention to the richness of perspectives that may inform that process as well as the ultimate limits of the process itself.

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2.3

Bodies Matter: Excesses

Second, bodies facilitate communication in ways that cannot be contained within deliberation and therefore are always exceeding deliberative interaction. Coole explains that on the one hand verbal communication is punctured by the preconscious body: “[The] speaker’s intentions are both over-determined by carnal-affective phenomena and drenched with bodily meanings that exceed explicit speech acts” (2005: 130). And yet on the other hand bodies importantly allow us to express ourselves in nonverbal ways, through gestures, facial expressions, dress, and appearance (Coole 2005: 129). Bodies can agitate or accelerate the supposedly smooth and steady process of public reasoning, with an awkwardly placed elbow and a subtly raised eyebrow. By sighing or shrugging; by turning one’s back or shaking a hand; by wearing a badge or a veil, the body communicates. Such corporeal communication draws attention to both the deliberate and non-deliberate use of the body in political interaction: “Bodies communicate with other bodies through their gestures and conduct to arouse visceral responses and prompt forms of judgement that do not necessarily pass through conscious awareness” (Coole and Frost 2010). The meanings of gestures are not given but are dependent upon their social context. “It is through my body that I understand other people, just as it is through my body that I perceive ‘things’. The meaning of a gesture thus ‘understood’ is not behind it, it is intermingled with the structure of the world outlined by the gesture, and which I take up on my own account” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 216). Deliberative democracy focuses, however, almost exclusively upon verbal communication, privileging lingual exchanges that occur at the conscious level and thus overlooks the role of the body in communication and the way that verbal and non-verbal communication is mixed up (Mendonça et al. 2020). Advocates of citizens’ assemblies, for example, demand that there are opportunities “to speak and to be heard” (Extinction Rebellion 2019: 12) and that presentations during the assembly should be made public in order to achieve transparency (Extinction

2. Embodied Deliberation: Conditions, Excesses, Disruptions, Opportunities

Rebellion 2019: 14). These assemblies are understood to be “structured processes of dialogue” (Extinction Rebellion 2019: 17). But dialogue involves bodily interaction that sometimes overspills articulate speech. Iris Marion Young complains that “the entrance of the body into speech” is interpreted by deliberative democrats as “signs of weakness that cancel out one’s assertions or reveal one’s lack of objectivity” (1996: 124). Young suggests supplementing deliberation with other forms of communication, such as greeting, rhetoric, and storytelling (Young 1996; see also Sanders 1997). Such forms of communication, she believes, are more able to “recognise the embodiment and particularity of interlocutors” (Young 1996: 129). Cheryl Hall, however, notices that the suggestion that different forms of communication such as “emotionally laden speech” supplement deliberation itself reinforces the binary between (rational) deliberation and (emotional) bodies: “Deliberation is not and cannot be a purely rational enterprise… deliberation is a process that inherently involves passion as well as reason” (2007: 82). The problem is not that bodies are not rational, but that deliberation is expected to be so. And this problematic expectation is easier to hold when bodies are disregarded. Disability theorists are especially aware of the privilege given to verbal language in deliberative democracy. As Stacy Clifford writes: “By neglecting alternative modes of non-verbal and embodied communication, deliberative theorists disable the speech of multiple populations” (2012: 211). While Clifford focuses particularly upon Habermas, who explicitly privileges language, she notes that more critical deliberative theorists (such as Benhabib) still harbour “a lingering attachment to lingual norms” (2012: 215). She believes that speech acts should be deposed as the only valued mode of communication, since through bodily nonverbal gestures and behaviour, messages are conveyed and questions posed. As she goes on, language is not always clear and coherent. “Like bodies ... language can be ambiguous, opaque and contested” (2012: 218). Clifford doesn’t dismiss deliberative democracy, but rather attempts to revise it, advocating “more attentiveness in listening and more humility in interpretation” (2012: 225). Indeed, others suggest that different styles of communication, such as storytelling,

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should be brought into deliberative venues (Dryzek et al. 2019: 1146) and that the ‘deeds’ that occur within the wider deliberative system should be acknowledged (Rollo 2017; Mendonça et al. 2020). Ultimately, however, the interaction between lived bodies exceeds the possibilities of deliberation. Attending to the inescapable banality of our bodily condition, we become aware that non-verbal communication is not distinct from deliberation, but that it is bound up with it, and yet cannot be contained within the expectations and values placed on deliberation by its proponents. Our deliberating bodies run over the transparent exchanges depicted by deliberative democrats.

2.4

Bodies Matter: Disruptions

Indeed, bodies matter for deliberation because as embodied human creatures we cannot be reduced to conscious self-interested actors who listen respectfully to each other as they present their own viewpoints. Bodies are not vessels of knowledgeable citizens, they have a knowledge of their own, a preflective ‘know-how’ that allows us to live our daily lives, to focus on particular aspects and activities that need our attention while others can be dealt with without conscious thought. Through ongoing interaction in the world, the body gains “habits” that allows us to function, to carry out banal activities without thinking. Merleau-Ponty gives the examples of typing and dancing as activities that involve habitual knowledge (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 95). As I type this paragraph on my laptop, I am not consciously paying attention to my hands and fingers hitting the keyboard. Habit is a “knowledge of the hands” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 166). Through persistent habitual use, familiar objects such as keyboards, litter bins, light switches and smart phones disappear into the background of our awareness, and yet we can continue to function with them. Such objects become “incorporated” into our bodies, working as an extension of our bodies to allow us to function smoothly in the world. Bodies “incorporate” not only material objects, but also social norms and cultural patterns that “make their way into the lived body”

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should be brought into deliberative venues (Dryzek et al. 2019: 1146) and that the ‘deeds’ that occur within the wider deliberative system should be acknowledged (Rollo 2017; Mendonça et al. 2020). Ultimately, however, the interaction between lived bodies exceeds the possibilities of deliberation. Attending to the inescapable banality of our bodily condition, we become aware that non-verbal communication is not distinct from deliberation, but that it is bound up with it, and yet cannot be contained within the expectations and values placed on deliberation by its proponents. Our deliberating bodies run over the transparent exchanges depicted by deliberative democrats.

2.4

Bodies Matter: Disruptions

Indeed, bodies matter for deliberation because as embodied human creatures we cannot be reduced to conscious self-interested actors who listen respectfully to each other as they present their own viewpoints. Bodies are not vessels of knowledgeable citizens, they have a knowledge of their own, a preflective ‘know-how’ that allows us to live our daily lives, to focus on particular aspects and activities that need our attention while others can be dealt with without conscious thought. Through ongoing interaction in the world, the body gains “habits” that allows us to function, to carry out banal activities without thinking. Merleau-Ponty gives the examples of typing and dancing as activities that involve habitual knowledge (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 95). As I type this paragraph on my laptop, I am not consciously paying attention to my hands and fingers hitting the keyboard. Habit is a “knowledge of the hands” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 166). Through persistent habitual use, familiar objects such as keyboards, litter bins, light switches and smart phones disappear into the background of our awareness, and yet we can continue to function with them. Such objects become “incorporated” into our bodies, working as an extension of our bodies to allow us to function smoothly in the world. Bodies “incorporate” not only material objects, but also social norms and cultural patterns that “make their way into the lived body”

2. Embodied Deliberation: Conditions, Excesses, Disruptions, Opportunities

(Malmqvist and Zeiler 2010: 139; Zeiler 2013). Bodies reproduce the “common sense” of society, heavily influenced by “the memory of the community of thinkers” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 46). Our bodies learn to walk in a particular way; to eat with particular utensils; to bow, or nod, or offer a handshake in greeting someone. Our bodies learn what not to do, and when not to do it. The norms of a society are imprinted, exhibited, performed and affirmed through human bodies. “As young children, we may appropriate gender, class, and ethnicity-specific patterns of behaviour in close relation to others, and we often do this on a practical and prereflective level” (Zeiler 2013: 74). Such norms and cultural patterns are not entirely irresistible, but nor are they merely a matter of voluntary adherence (Malmqvist and Zeiler 2010). These incorporated habits often evade awareness; they are “too intimate to admit the distancing required for that kind of scrutiny” (Malmqvist and Zeiler 2010: 144). Incorporated norms and habitual behaviour may not come to attention until they suddenly do not fit, when they are out of place within a new context, when they produce awkward rather than seamless interaction. When you look the wrong way when crossing a road on a trip abroad; when you extend a hand in welcome to someone who was expecting a kiss on the cheek; when your posture or costume or accent somehow doesn’t fit quite right in the crowd in which you are standing—these are moments that disrupt social activity and political conversation. Zeiler and Malmqvist use Merleau-Ponty’s work to examine what they call ‘excorporation’, which is what happens when our habits ‘malfunction’ (Malmqvist and Zeiler 2010: 148) and when we become suddenly and painfully aware of them. In a context in which strangers are brought together to discuss political issues, it is worth considering whether some of them will feel more comfortable than others and the way in which incorporated habits may disrupt the interaction between them. Deliberative democracy has struggled to incorporate the role of the habitual preconscious knowledge of the body in the process of deliberation. A common theme in accounts of deliberative democracy is the rationalisation of opinions—their refinement from “raw opinions”

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to those that are the “product of deliberation” (Ackerman and Fishkin 2002: 149). “Preferences which may be more or less vague, unreflective, ill-informed, and private,” explains Parkinson, “are transformed into more firm, informed and other-regarding ones through the deliberative encounter” (2006: 4). For Miller, “we have good reason to expect the deliberative process to transform initial policy preferences” (1992: 62). “The deliberation preceding a decision helps to clarify interests and preferences in addition to transforming them,” claim Mansbridge and colleagues (2010: 73). Such clarifications help participants decide “what they really want and what is right for them as well as for others” (Mansbridge et al. 2010: 73). And a recent article suggests that in contrast with the “knee jerk responses” to “populist cues” that seem to be currently characterising the public sphere, “deliberation leads judgements to become more considered” (Dryzek et al. 2019: 1145). This places the focus upon the process through which raw opinions are transformed to “informed judgements” (Smith and Wales 2000: 53). This process is depicted as a matter of reflection upon the various arguments proffered in the deliberating process. The very term “deliberation”, as Lynn Sanders points out, has certain connotations: “appeals to deliberation amount to demands for a certain kind of discourse in democratic political settings: reasonable, foresighted, steady and orientated to a common, not sectarian, problem” (1997: 356). The process of deliberation has tended to be construed to be highly rational, conscious, cognitive, careful, and deliberate and something that “buffers against distortions” (Niemeyer 2011: 107. My italics). Can such a line between the rational and non-rational be drawn? Can deliberation work as rationally and transparently as implied, free from the trespass of passions, instincts and habits that are disregarded by this depiction? As Cheryl Hall asks, is passion not actually present within deliberation? She argues that passion is not necessarily irrational, and deliberation is not dispassionate: “[C]itizens must ... observe and reflect on their passions in order to gain insight into what they really care about... passion not only motivates citizens to do the hard work of deliberating, it helps them do the work itself” (2007: 91–92).

2. Embodied Deliberation: Conditions, Excesses, Disruptions, Opportunities

A similar point can be made regarding habitual knowledge of the body. Deliberation and reflection is always-already shot through with non-rational affects and preconscious habits (Coole 2005). Deliberative interaction may be facilitated by the pre-reflective know-how that allows discussion to run smoothly. But when some bodies feel more comfortable or fit more easily in a deliberative forum than others, it is unlikely that deliberative exchange is equal and even. Deliberative institutions, it is believed, are particularly appropriate for incorporating different types of knowledge. For Graham Smith, “deliberative institutions promise an ingenious mechanism through which the application of scientific and technological knowledge and expertise might be democratically regulated” (Smith 2001: 73). But here it is surely important to take into account the authority carried by certain bodies and the selfconsciousness carried by others. By noticing the role of bodily habits, we become attentive to the way that bodies habitually replicate inherited traditions and routinely embody conventions. Such incorporated habits make deliberation possible, but they may also disrupt the deliberative process, rupturing any expectation of smooth and transparent operation of rational exchange, by confusing the signals between individuals, creating misunderstandings, doubts and gaps. Habitual knowledge plays a role that is often hard to detect but nevertheless subsists and suffuses all conscious deliberation. Attention to the role of habitual knowledge might not only bring an awareness of the boundaries of rational exchange, but also the distortions and inequalities that persist within it. However, although bodies may persistently disrupt deliberative venues and events, as I explain next, some instances of disruption can be viewed as opportunities.1

2.5

Bodies Matter: Opportunities

The knowledge of the body cannot be reduced to robotic programming. As Nick Crossley explains, for Merleau-Ponty habits are “structures of 1

Thanks to Hans Asenbaum for highlighting this point.

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2. Embodied Deliberation: Conditions, Excesses, Disruptions, Opportunities

A similar point can be made regarding habitual knowledge of the body. Deliberation and reflection is always-already shot through with non-rational affects and preconscious habits (Coole 2005). Deliberative interaction may be facilitated by the pre-reflective know-how that allows discussion to run smoothly. But when some bodies feel more comfortable or fit more easily in a deliberative forum than others, it is unlikely that deliberative exchange is equal and even. Deliberative institutions, it is believed, are particularly appropriate for incorporating different types of knowledge. For Graham Smith, “deliberative institutions promise an ingenious mechanism through which the application of scientific and technological knowledge and expertise might be democratically regulated” (Smith 2001: 73). But here it is surely important to take into account the authority carried by certain bodies and the selfconsciousness carried by others. By noticing the role of bodily habits, we become attentive to the way that bodies habitually replicate inherited traditions and routinely embody conventions. Such incorporated habits make deliberation possible, but they may also disrupt the deliberative process, rupturing any expectation of smooth and transparent operation of rational exchange, by confusing the signals between individuals, creating misunderstandings, doubts and gaps. Habitual knowledge plays a role that is often hard to detect but nevertheless subsists and suffuses all conscious deliberation. Attention to the role of habitual knowledge might not only bring an awareness of the boundaries of rational exchange, but also the distortions and inequalities that persist within it. However, although bodies may persistently disrupt deliberative venues and events, as I explain next, some instances of disruption can be viewed as opportunities.1

2.5

Bodies Matter: Opportunities

The knowledge of the body cannot be reduced to robotic programming. As Nick Crossley explains, for Merleau-Ponty habits are “structures of 1

Thanks to Hans Asenbaum for highlighting this point.

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behaviour, attaching the embodied actor to their world” (2013: 147), but crucially these structures are dynamic: “habits are formed, reformed and in some cases, extinguished across time” (Crossley 2013: 147). Habits change, but often without conscious involvement; bodily perception is not the result of pre-programmed response—it has a certain “element of creative genius” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 50). Each keyboard, each light switch is different, and yet I can (in most cases) unproblematically use them. Merleau-Ponty thus reminds us that the body is not simply a docile surface or passive vessel, but that it plays an active role in the construction of meaning (see Grosz 1994; Coole 2005; Young 2005; Crossley 2013). Bodies can enable us to function in new situations and contexts, to allow us to do certain things without thinking and to interact easily with people with have never before met, in places we have never previously visited. Bodies matter for political interaction because they actively generate opportunities for deliberation, because they are doing a lot of the work for us in new social situations and political forums. It is through bodies that connections and alliances can be fomented and understandings generated, working across or below the verbal exchange of opinions. A smile, a shrug, a raised eyebrow, a slight incline of the head: these are small bodily movements that can have an enormous impact in a conversation between strangers. The role of such bodily input, however, often goes unappreciated and unexamined. Ackerman and Fishkin, to be sure, observe the importance of being physically present with other bodies: “[B]eing in a room with randomly assigned fellow citizens can stimulate understanding across social cleavages” (2002: 141). Yet such understanding is often not a matter of the exchange of reasons in a “serious discussion,” as they imply (2002: 141). Such understanding might be a matter of empathy. As Goodin and Niemayer state, “empathy requires no harangues. It may not even be compatible with them” (2003: 644). For MerleauPonty, an unthinking bodily empathy comes before any conscious attempt to put ourselves in someone else’s position: “[I]t is precisely my body that perceives the body of the other and discovers there a miraculous extension of my own intentions, a familiar way of dealing with the

2. Embodied Deliberation: Conditions, Excesses, Disruptions, Opportunities

world” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 412). At the same time, as I explore further in Chapter Three, this preconscious knowledge of others is constantly in tension with an asymmetrical experience of them as not “I”: “[C]onsciousnesses present themselves with the absurdity of a multiple solipsism” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 418). Political solidarity cannot completely resolve such tension (Carman 2008: 147). Conversely, bodies also play a role in challenging stereotypes and enfleshing critiques. Marit Hammond (nee Böker), who is critical of a narrow focus upon deliberative mini-publics such as citizens’ assemblies, promotes instead a deliberative democratic political culture, consisting of “high levels of citizen-led critique and disruption of authoritative acts and discourses” that also fosters “toleration, inclusiveness and acceptance of the justificatory process” (Böker 2017: 34). It is worth considering the embodiment of citizens here; bodies are involved in the construction of collective identifications and coalitions, they incorporate political values as well as disrupt taken-for-granted practices and policies. By disturbing and subverting expectations, bodies can open up opportunities for cooperation and interrogation and generate new understandings and new questions.

2.6

Bodies of Deliberation

The habitual knowledge of bodies endures but never becomes fixed. Our habits change, our pre-reflective knowledge morphs, as we interact in different social and material situations. How might deliberative innovations and cultures affect the bodies they incorporate? Perhaps it is worth considering whether it is not only that bodies have important implications for deliberative practice and theory, but that deliberation has implications for the bodies that enflesh it. Might, for instance, the activity of deliberation stir emotions, disorder habits and fortify different types of identifications? James Tully notices that the sense of belonging to a polity demands something more than simply having a formal status as a citizen; instead, it is only being “in on” dialogues about the public good that cre-

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world” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 412). At the same time, as I explore further in Chapter Three, this preconscious knowledge of others is constantly in tension with an asymmetrical experience of them as not “I”: “[C]onsciousnesses present themselves with the absurdity of a multiple solipsism” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 418). Political solidarity cannot completely resolve such tension (Carman 2008: 147). Conversely, bodies also play a role in challenging stereotypes and enfleshing critiques. Marit Hammond (nee Böker), who is critical of a narrow focus upon deliberative mini-publics such as citizens’ assemblies, promotes instead a deliberative democratic political culture, consisting of “high levels of citizen-led critique and disruption of authoritative acts and discourses” that also fosters “toleration, inclusiveness and acceptance of the justificatory process” (Böker 2017: 34). It is worth considering the embodiment of citizens here; bodies are involved in the construction of collective identifications and coalitions, they incorporate political values as well as disrupt taken-for-granted practices and policies. By disturbing and subverting expectations, bodies can open up opportunities for cooperation and interrogation and generate new understandings and new questions.

2.6

Bodies of Deliberation

The habitual knowledge of bodies endures but never becomes fixed. Our habits change, our pre-reflective knowledge morphs, as we interact in different social and material situations. How might deliberative innovations and cultures affect the bodies they incorporate? Perhaps it is worth considering whether it is not only that bodies have important implications for deliberative practice and theory, but that deliberation has implications for the bodies that enflesh it. Might, for instance, the activity of deliberation stir emotions, disorder habits and fortify different types of identifications? James Tully notices that the sense of belonging to a polity demands something more than simply having a formal status as a citizen; instead, it is only being “in on” dialogues about the public good that cre-

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ates and sustains an identity. As he puts it, “‘having a voice’ in these activities of discussion and negotiation generates bonds of solidarity and a sense of belonging to the political association” (Tully 2002: 156). Tully doubts that such dialogues would result in agreement; yet participants who do not agree with the outcome nevertheless still identify with the association. “Direct or representative participation in the inter-subjective and agonistic activity of putting forward a demand ... and of knowing that one can always fight again generates a sense of respect for one’s fellow adversaries and a sense of attachment to the form of political association” (Tully 2002: 171). Craig Calhoun offers a similar argument, explaining that identification is not pregiven but arises through human interaction: “[A] democratic public is not merely contingent on political solidarity; it can be productive of it” (2007: 168). If, as I argue in this book, identifications are incorporated and performed by bodies, it is worth investigating the consequences of different types of active involvement in various forms of public deliberation for the bodies that deliberate. Might embodied participation in deliberation itself potentially alter the body’s habitual knowledge and incorporated norms and collective identities? How does “being in a room with randomly assigned fellow citizens” impact upon the habits and orientations of fidgeting and fragile bodies? Could it encourage a collective identification with others or rather obstruct it? And how distinctly does deliberation through a “virtual public sphere” nurture common identifications (Bohman 2004)?

2.7

Beyond Deliberation

I have argued in this chapter that theories of deliberative democracy commonly and problematically overlook and undermine bodies. Even detailed descriptions of mini-publics such as citizens’ assemblies gloss over the implications and possibilities of embodiment. By promoting the forums and innovations for deliberation but omitting the bodies that populate them, this dominant model disguises the conditions, excesses and disruptions of deliberation as it simultaneously misses impor-

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ates and sustains an identity. As he puts it, “‘having a voice’ in these activities of discussion and negotiation generates bonds of solidarity and a sense of belonging to the political association” (Tully 2002: 156). Tully doubts that such dialogues would result in agreement; yet participants who do not agree with the outcome nevertheless still identify with the association. “Direct or representative participation in the inter-subjective and agonistic activity of putting forward a demand ... and of knowing that one can always fight again generates a sense of respect for one’s fellow adversaries and a sense of attachment to the form of political association” (Tully 2002: 171). Craig Calhoun offers a similar argument, explaining that identification is not pregiven but arises through human interaction: “[A] democratic public is not merely contingent on political solidarity; it can be productive of it” (2007: 168). If, as I argue in this book, identifications are incorporated and performed by bodies, it is worth investigating the consequences of different types of active involvement in various forms of public deliberation for the bodies that deliberate. Might embodied participation in deliberation itself potentially alter the body’s habitual knowledge and incorporated norms and collective identities? How does “being in a room with randomly assigned fellow citizens” impact upon the habits and orientations of fidgeting and fragile bodies? Could it encourage a collective identification with others or rather obstruct it? And how distinctly does deliberation through a “virtual public sphere” nurture common identifications (Bohman 2004)?

2.7

Beyond Deliberation

I have argued in this chapter that theories of deliberative democracy commonly and problematically overlook and undermine bodies. Even detailed descriptions of mini-publics such as citizens’ assemblies gloss over the implications and possibilities of embodiment. By promoting the forums and innovations for deliberation but omitting the bodies that populate them, this dominant model disguises the conditions, excesses and disruptions of deliberation as it simultaneously misses impor-

2. Embodied Deliberation: Conditions, Excesses, Disruptions, Opportunities

tant opportunities that bodies provide. While bodies limit the capacity of deliberation in many ways, they are also able to enhance communication, foment connections and challenge stereotypes, albeit unpredictably and ambiguously. Attentiveness to embodiment poses important questions for deliberative democratic theory. On the one hand, it demands asking if and how the dominant model of deliberative democracy is able to incorporate the bodies that deliberate. On the other hand, it probes the issue of whether deliberation by itself is enough for a lively democratic politics today. Simon Niemeyer boldly states that “politics as usual is the illness, and deliberative democracy can provide a cure” (2011: 125). This dismissal of the other modes of politics surely both overestimates the possibilities of deliberation and underestimates the political capacity of embodied human beings that exceeds the deliberation that they condition and disrupt. As I go on to consider in the next chapter, disagreement is a crucial ‘mode’ of democratic politics in which bodies, again, play a crucial role.

References Ackerman, B. and Fishkin, J.S. (2002) “Deliberation Day”, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 10 (2), pp. 129-153. Bächtiger, A. (2005) The Real World of Deliberation: A Comparative Study of its Favorable Conditions in Legislatures. Bern: Paul Haupt. Benhabib, S. (1996) “Toward a Deliberative Model of Democratic Legitimacy” in Benhabib, S. (ed) Democracy and Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 67-94. Bohman, J. (1998) “The Coming of Age of Deliberative Democracy”, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 6 (4), pp. 400-425. Bohman, J, (2004) “Expanding Dialogue: The Internet, the Public Sphere and Prospects for Transnational Democracy”, The Sociological Review, 52, pp. 131-155.

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tant opportunities that bodies provide. While bodies limit the capacity of deliberation in many ways, they are also able to enhance communication, foment connections and challenge stereotypes, albeit unpredictably and ambiguously. Attentiveness to embodiment poses important questions for deliberative democratic theory. On the one hand, it demands asking if and how the dominant model of deliberative democracy is able to incorporate the bodies that deliberate. On the other hand, it probes the issue of whether deliberation by itself is enough for a lively democratic politics today. Simon Niemeyer boldly states that “politics as usual is the illness, and deliberative democracy can provide a cure” (2011: 125). This dismissal of the other modes of politics surely both overestimates the possibilities of deliberation and underestimates the political capacity of embodied human beings that exceeds the deliberation that they condition and disrupt. As I go on to consider in the next chapter, disagreement is a crucial ‘mode’ of democratic politics in which bodies, again, play a crucial role.

References Ackerman, B. and Fishkin, J.S. (2002) “Deliberation Day”, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 10 (2), pp. 129-153. Bächtiger, A. (2005) The Real World of Deliberation: A Comparative Study of its Favorable Conditions in Legislatures. Bern: Paul Haupt. Benhabib, S. (1996) “Toward a Deliberative Model of Democratic Legitimacy” in Benhabib, S. (ed) Democracy and Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 67-94. Bohman, J. (1998) “The Coming of Age of Deliberative Democracy”, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 6 (4), pp. 400-425. Bohman, J, (2004) “Expanding Dialogue: The Internet, the Public Sphere and Prospects for Transnational Democracy”, The Sociological Review, 52, pp. 131-155.

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Böker, M. (2017) “Justification, Critique and Deliberative Legitimacy: The Limits of Mini-Publics”, Contemporary Political Theory, 16, pp. 1940. Calhoun, C. (2007) “Nationalism and Cultures of Democracy,” Public Culture, 19 (1), pp. 151–173. Carman, T. (2008) Merleau-Ponty. London: Routledge. Chambers, S. (2003) “Deliberative Democratic Theory”, Annual Review of Political Science, 6, pp. 307-326. Chambers, S. (2018) “Democracy in the Open”, The Good Society, 27 (1-2), pp. 146-154. Clifford, S. (2012) “Making Disability Public in Deliberative Democracy”, Contemporary Political Theory, 11 (2), pp. 211-228. Cohen, J. (1996) “Procedure and Substance in Deliberative Democracy” in Benhabib, S. (ed) Democracy and Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 95-119. Coole, D. (2005) “Rethinking Agency: A Phenomenological Approach to Embodiment and Agentic Capacities”, Political Studies, 53, pp. 124142. Coole, D. and Frost, S. (2010) “Introducing the New Materialisms”, in Coole, D. and Frost, S. (eds) New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency and Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 1-43. Crossley, N. (2013) “Habit and Habitus”, Body and Society, 19 (2-3), pp. 136-161. Devaney, L., Torney, D., Brereton, P. and Coleman, M. (2020) “Ireland Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change: Lessons for Deliberative Public Engagement and Communication”, Environmental Communication. Dryzek, J. (2005) “Deliberative Democracy in Divided Societies: Alternatives to Agonism and Analgesia”, Political Theory, 33 (2), pp. 218-242. Dryzek, J. (2009) “Democratization as Deliberative Capacity Building”, Comparative Political Studies, 42 (11), pp. 1379-1402. Dryzek, J., Bächtiger, A., Chambers, S., Cohen, J., Druckman, J. et al (2019) “The Crisis of Democracy and the Science of Deliberation”, Science, 363 (6432), pp.1144-1146.

2. Embodied Deliberation: Conditions, Excesses, Disruptions, Opportunities

Elstub, S. (2010) “The Third Generation of Deliberative Democracy”, Political Studies, 8, pp. 291-307. Escobar, O. and Elstub, S. (2017) “Forms of Mini-publics”, New Democracy: Research and Development Note. Available at: www. newdemocracy.com.au Extinction Rebellion (2019) “The Extinction Rebellion Guide to Citizens’ Assemblies”. Available at: https://rebellion.earth/act-now/resource s/citizens-assembly/ (last accessed November 2021). Goodin, R., and Niemeyer, S. (2003) “When Does Deliberation Begin? Internal Reflection Versus Public Discussion in Deliberative Democracy”, Political Studies, 51, pp. 627-649. Grosz, E. (1994) Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Gutmann, A., and Thompson, D. (2004) Why Deliberative Democracy? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hall, C. (2007) “Recognizing the Passion in Deliberation: Toward a More Democratic Theory of Deliberative Democracy”, Hypatia, 22 (4), pp. 81-95. Lindell, M., Bächtiger, A., Grönlund, K., Herne, K., Setälä, M. and Wyss, D. (2017) “What Drives the Polarization and Moderation of Opinions? Evidence from a Finnish Citizen Deliberation Experiment on Immigration”, European Journal of Political Research, 56 (1), pp. 23-45. Malmqvist, E. and Zeiler, K. (2010) “Cultural Norms, the Phenomenology of Incorporation, and the Experience of Having a Child Born with Ambiguous Sex”, Social Theory and Practice, 36 (1), pp. 133-156. Manin, B. (1987) “On Legitimacy and Political Deliberation”, Political Theory, 15 (3), pp. 338-368. Mansbridge, J., Bohman, J., Chambers, S., Estlund, D., Føllesdal, A., Fung, A., Lafont, C., Manin, B. and Martí, J. (2010) “The Place of Self-Interest and the Role of Power in Deliberative Democracy”, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 18 (1), pp. 64-100. Mendonça, R.F., Ercan, S.A. and Asenbaum, H. (2020) “More Than Words: A Multidimensional Approach to Deliberative Democracy”, Political Studies. DOI:10.1177/0032321720950561

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Merleau-Ponty, M. (2002) Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by C. Smith. London and New York: Routledge. (Originally published in French 1945) Miller, D. (1992) “Deliberative Democracy and Social Choice”, Political Studies, 40, pp. 54-67. Mouffe, C. (2005) On the Political. London: Routledge. Niemeyer, S. (2011) “The Emancipatory Effect of Deliberation: Empirical Lessons from Mini-Publics”, Politics and Society, 39 (1), pp. 103-140. Parkinson, J. (2006) Deliberating in the Real World: Problems of Legitimacy in Deliberative Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Parkinson, J. (2012) Democracy and Public Space: The Physical Sites of Democratic Performance. New York: Oxford University Press. Pateman, C. (2012) “Participatory Democracy Revisited”, Perspectives on Politics, 10 (1), pp. 7-19. Plotke, D. (1997) “Representation is Democracy”, Constellations, 4 (1), pp.19-34. Raphael, C. and Karpowitz, C.F. (2013) “Good Publicity: The Legitimacy of Public Communication about Deliberation”, Political Communication, 30 (1), pp. 17-41. Rollo, T. (2017) “Everyday Deeds: Enactive Protest, Exit, and Silence in Deliberative Systems”, Political Theory, 45 (5), pp. 587-609. Sanders, L.M. (1997) “Against Deliberation”, Political Theory, 25 (3), pp. 347-376. Smith, G. (2001) “Taking Deliberation Seriously: Institutional Design and Green Politics”, Environmental Politics, 10 (3), pp. 72-93. Smith, G. and Setälä, M. (2018) “Mini-Publics and Deliberative Democracy”, in Bächtiger, A. Dryzek, J., Mansbridge, J., and Warren, M.E. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smith, G., and Wales, C. (2000) “Citizens’ Juries and Deliberative Democracy”, Political Studies, 48 (1), pp. 51-65. Sullivan, S. (2001) Living Across and Through Skin: Transactional Bodies, Pragmatism and Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press Tormey, S. (2016) “The Contemporary Crisis of Representative Democracy”, Papers on Parliament, 66. Parliament of Australia.

2. Embodied Deliberation: Conditions, Excesses, Disruptions, Opportunities

Tully, J. (2002) “Reimagining Belonging in Circumstances of Cultural Diversity: A Citizen Approach” in Hedetoft, U. and Hjort, M. (eds) The Postnational Self: Belonging and Identity. Minneapolis: Minnesota, pp. 152-177. Vlerick, M. (2020) “Towards Global Cooperation: the Case for a Deliberative Global Citizens’ Assembly”, Global Policy, doi.org/10.1111/1758-5 899.12785 Walzer, M. (2004) Politics and Passion: Towards a More Egalitarian Liberalism. New Haven, NC: Yale University Press. Young, I.M. (1996) “Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy”, in Benhabib, S. (ed) Democracy and Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 120-135. Young, I.M. (2005) On Female Body Experience: “Throwing Like a Girl” and Other Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zeiler, K. (2013) “A Phenomenology of Excorporation: Bodily Alienation, and Resistance: Rethinking Sexed and Racialized Embodiment”, Hypatia, 28 (1), pp. 69-84.

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Chapter 3. Embodied Disagreement: The Agony of Others

“Disagreement is not the conflict between one who says white and another who says black. It is the conflict between one who says white and another who also says white but does not understand the same by it or does not understand that the other is saying the same thing in the name of whiteness” (Rancière 1999: x).   “Whiteness is only invisible for those who inhabit it, or for those who get so used to its inhabitance that they learn not to see it… we do not face whiteness; it ‘trails behind’ bodies as what is assumed to be given” (Ahmed 2006: 133).   “Marking-irons are heated, and when an iron is sufficiently hot, it is quickly dipped in palm-oil, in order to prevent its sticking to the flesh. It is then applied to the ribs or hip, and sometimes even to the breast. Each slave dealer uses his own mark, so that when the vessel arrives at her destination, it is easily ascertained to whom those who died belonged” (John Duncan, quoted in Keefer 2019). The feuds and frictions that are a perennial feature of human interaction are commonly regarded as hindrances to the democratic process, which is said to hinge on consensus and compromise. For some, the disagreements between political subjects who refuse to concede should be seen as either serious subversions to political negotiation or as tiresome and unfortunate inconveniences. Certain theorists, however, have

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presented an opposing vision: that disagreements are not disruptive of political life but are instead central to it (see for example Connolly 1991; 2005; 2013; Honig 1993; 2009; Mouffe 2000; 2005; 2013; Norval 2007; Tully 1995; 2001). It is this ‘agonistic’ approach that is the focus of this chapter. Agonism comes from the Greek word agon, meaning conflict or strife. Although distinct in many ways, agonistic theorists all hold what Mark Wenman describes as a ‘tragic’ view of the world because, for them “conflict, suffering and strife are endemic in social and political life and not a temporary condition on a journey towards reconciliation or redemption” (2013: 35). Disagreement, explains Aletta Norval, is “a constitutive characteristic of modern society” (Norval 2007: 39). Conflict is not only seen as inevitable, it is also viewed as potentially valuable in that it illustrates and facilitates the expression of political plurality (Wenman 2013: 45). Agonism is therefore distinct from the deliberative approach discussed in the previous chapter, in its celebration of political disagreement. For while deliberative democrats might acknowledge differences and disagreement, they are usually orientated towards agreement. By contrast, agonism, as I understand it here, holds that democracy is enriched and enlivened through the persistent disagreement between irreconcilable differences. As Bonnie Honig writes, “agonistic contention” is “a generative resource of politics” (2009: 3). Agonists resist the reduction of the political realm to an arena for the bargaining between various subjects, the reconciliation of their political differences or the interrogative exchange of their perspectives. It is instead, according to the agonistic picture, constituted by unruly, unending and unpredictable political practices in which the boundaries of that realm, as well as the political subjectivities within it, are a matter of ongoing contestation (see Honig 2009: 121). This approach helps us understand the negotiations of different types and arenas of politics. As I have argued elsewhere, agonism is helpful in approaching the politics of ‘wicked’ ecological problems over which disagreement inevitably persists (Machin 2013; Machin 2019a). Eschewing the futile pursuit of consensus on climate change,

Chapter 3. Embodied Disagreement: The Agony of Others

for example, opens up the possibility for a livelier and more engaging environmental politics in which radical alternatives to the unsustainable status quo can be offered, debated and consolidated. What I call ‘ecological agonism’ involves the appreciation of the plurality of perspectives on environmental issues and the respect for the value of ongoing political disagreement between opponents (Machin 2020a; Machin 2020b). The term ‘disagreement’ encompasses various forms and degrees of political conflict (Norval 2007: 39; Bowman and Stamp 2009). Disagreement can involve the straightforward clash of interests of rival parties—the tussle over a piece of land or the introduction of a new tax—but it can also relate to the formation of those rival parties and the always contested and antagonistic process of drawing boundaries around a political ‘us’. According to Jacques Rancière, political disagreement involves more than a dispute about a particular issue; it can also involve a contest over who is regarded as having the capacity to make something into an issue (1999: xii). Political disagreement in this sense does not concern who gets what, but rather who is included as a legitimate member of the demos, who is heard and seen and counted, who is even worthy of a response (Bowman and Stamp 2009: 1). This is the struggle for inclusion and recognition by the currently excluded, who demand that they are counted. This disagreement, for Rancière, is fundamental for politics, which arises when those who have not been counted demand a recount and force the configuration of the political realm: “political activity is whatever shifts a body from the place assigned to it or changes a place’s destination” (1999: 30). For agonists, however, this fundamental struggle between differences continues within the political realm. Disagreement concerns not only the boundaries surrounding the demos, but also the boundaries inside it that delineate rival parties. The formation of collective identities of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and the pulsation of struggles around them are viewed as a persistent feature of democratic politics. The aim is to facilitate the inclusion of others in politics and celebrate their differences while guarding against their political exclusion or discounting on the

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one hand, and their veiling through the pursuit of consensus on the other. The problem with which agonism must continually wrestle, however, is that the disagreements surrounding collective identities can ultimately destabilise the political associations that allow its expression. For while disagreement might take the form of polite civil dissent, it might also become grossly polarised and brutally violent. How is it possible to safeguard the pertinent expression of alternatives that coagulate around ‘us’ and ‘them’ while ensuring that this relation is constructed in a way that is compatible with democracy? In this chapter I am interested in the role that human bodies play in the struggles between ‘us’ and ‘them’. The suggestion that antagonism between collective identifications can lead to violence already implicates the body (Collins 2010: 925). I will argue that bodies bring to life the political disagreements that can be seen as central to politics. Bodies are involved in the construction of both ‘us’ and ‘them’. Through habituated practices, performances and perceptions the bodies of ourselves are identified as ‘us’ and the bodies of others are constructed either as ‘body objects’ or as ‘embodied subjects’. I start, in the next section, by considering the construction of collective identities and the antagonistic ‘us-them’ relation that arises from this. Second, I bring bodies into the picture by picking up on an argument made in Chapter One; the claim that collective identifications are reproduced by bodies in a recurrent and ambiguous performances. Identities, I explain, are not given by bodies, but bodies can mark the differences between group identities. The diverse examples of Nelson Mandela, Greta Thunberg and Mo Farah and are helpful here to illuminate how embodied performance may reaffirm, confront and foment collective identities that are constructed as an ‘us’ opposed to a ‘them’. Third, I take a closer look at the ways in which the bodies of ‘them’ can be ‘othered’. I find Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s discussion on “other selves” in the Phenomenology of Perception helpful here, as well as the work by Sara Ahmed and Helen Ngo, for addressing how the body of the ‘other’ can be constructed as an embodied subject worthy of respect but also as a body object. As a body object, the ‘other’ becomes a threat and a target of ha-

Chapter 3. Embodied Disagreement: The Agony of Others

tred and I refer here to the practices of branding slaves and tattooing inmates to the Nazi death camps. Fourth, I correlate this distinction with Chantal Mouffe’s differentiation between antagonism and agonism (Mouffe 2013: 7). I suggest that whereas a respectful agonistic disagreement with another embodied subject can enliven democratic politics, an antagonistic conflict with an ‘other’ whose body is constructed as an object of hatred, actually undermines the possibility of democracy. I conclude by highlighting the problem with which agonism cannot solve, but nevertheless must always acknowledge and struggle with, which is that while disagreements can enliven a pluralistic and democratic politics, they can also threaten to pull it apart, and I ask: how might bodies themselves contribute to the fostering of agonistic respect?

3.1

Us and Them

Alert to the plurality of social experiences and the reductive character of any attempt to smooth out their differences, agonists highlight the non-rational aspects of human life including the tenacity of collective identifications in human existence. Group identities are not seen as natural or fixed, but rather as powerful constructions that are connected to the desires and passions that circulate in the political realm. James Tully, for instance, draws attention to the irresolvable tension between the “human aspiration to belong to a culture and place, to be at home in the world” and “the aspiration to be free from the ways of one’s culture and place” (1995: 32) and for Connolly: “Life without the drive to identity is an impossibility” (1991: 65). Mouffe suggests that there is an insuppressible human need for collective identifications that arises from libidinal forces (2005: 24). Collective identifications wield an emotional power that is difficult to explain with reference only to rational interests (Machin 2015: 62; Machin 2019b). Not only are identities inevitable, they are also actually integral to the formation and continuity of political movements, parties and coalitions. Changing collective identifications allow the expression of demo-

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tred and I refer here to the practices of branding slaves and tattooing inmates to the Nazi death camps. Fourth, I correlate this distinction with Chantal Mouffe’s differentiation between antagonism and agonism (Mouffe 2013: 7). I suggest that whereas a respectful agonistic disagreement with another embodied subject can enliven democratic politics, an antagonistic conflict with an ‘other’ whose body is constructed as an object of hatred, actually undermines the possibility of democracy. I conclude by highlighting the problem with which agonism cannot solve, but nevertheless must always acknowledge and struggle with, which is that while disagreements can enliven a pluralistic and democratic politics, they can also threaten to pull it apart, and I ask: how might bodies themselves contribute to the fostering of agonistic respect?

3.1

Us and Them

Alert to the plurality of social experiences and the reductive character of any attempt to smooth out their differences, agonists highlight the non-rational aspects of human life including the tenacity of collective identifications in human existence. Group identities are not seen as natural or fixed, but rather as powerful constructions that are connected to the desires and passions that circulate in the political realm. James Tully, for instance, draws attention to the irresolvable tension between the “human aspiration to belong to a culture and place, to be at home in the world” and “the aspiration to be free from the ways of one’s culture and place” (1995: 32) and for Connolly: “Life without the drive to identity is an impossibility” (1991: 65). Mouffe suggests that there is an insuppressible human need for collective identifications that arises from libidinal forces (2005: 24). Collective identifications wield an emotional power that is difficult to explain with reference only to rational interests (Machin 2015: 62; Machin 2019b). Not only are identities inevitable, they are also actually integral to the formation and continuity of political movements, parties and coalitions. Changing collective identifications allow the expression of demo-

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cratic differences because political demands can be most legitimately and powerfully expressed as the demands of a collective subject. As Mouffe puts it: “In order to act politically people need to be able to identify with a collective identity which provides an idea of themselves they can valorize” (2005: 25). The existence of a plurality of identities allows the expression of differences that can present alternatives and the formation of alliances that can counter the status quo. However, and this is really a crucial point for this chapter, the existence of any collective identity involves the unstable demarcation of an ‘other’; the drawing of a frontier between those who are ‘us’ and those who are not ‘us’ (Mouffe 2013: 45). “Identity”, Connolly writes, “is always connected to a series of differences that help it to be what it is” (1991: xiv). He explains that any collective identity requires difference, and that in order to secure itself, identity converts difference into ‘otherness’ (Connolly 1991: 64). The entanglement between ‘us’ and ‘them’ therefore can be seen as a relation of antagonism. Antagonism does not entail a simple opposition between two complete identities, A and B, but rather the relation in which A cannot become fully A without B. So, while A is dependent upon B, at the same time A is threatened by B precisely because: “the presence of the other prevents me from being totally myself” (Laclau and Mouffe 2001: 125). Antagonism therefore involves the paradoxical and irresolvable entanglement in which an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ are opposed and yet at the same time mutually constitutive. In short, we can only recognise ourselves by constructing otherness; otherness resides within identity as its condition and its limit (Tully 1995: 13). An irresolvable antagonism exists because no identity is ever fully complete and sated, but is always haunted by difference. Otherness serves to protect the ‘self-certainty’ of an identity. For Connolly: “constellation of constructed others now becomes both essential to the truth of the powerful identity and a threat to it. The threat is posed not by the actions the other might take to injure or defeat the true identity but by the very visibility of its mode of being as an other” (1991: 66). In a relation of antagonism, the other is seen as a danger for ‘our’ existence, precisely because ‘our’ existence is dependent upon theirs; ‘we’ cannot

Chapter 3. Embodied Disagreement: The Agony of Others

escape our dependence on the other who must be excluded in order for us to exist, and it is this very dependence that is threatening. This means that where there is identity, there is difference, where there is an ‘us’, there is a ‘them’ and where there is politics, there is antagonism. As Mouffe writes, “the very condition of possibility of the formation of political identities is at the same time the condition of the impossibility of a society from which antagonism can be eliminated” (Mouffe 2013: 5). The antagonistic ‘us/them’ relation can be constructed in different ways, however. We might dread and detest the other so that they become dehumanised. But we are also able to live with otherness. The task for agonistic democracy is therefore to create institutions and cultures in which we can reimagine the experience of otherness in a way that treats the other not as an enemy object but as a legitimate political subject. This is where Mouffe’s distinction between ‘antagonism’ and ‘agonism’ is helpful. Before considering this distinction further, I bring identifying bodies and embodied identities into the picture to show how identities of ‘us’ are constructed in opposition to a ‘them’ with and on the body.

3.2

Habits of Us

Agonists are both fully aware of, and openly wary of, the resilience and salience of passionate collective identifications in the political realm. But what is not so often remarked upon by agonists is the way in which these collective political identifications are incorporated by the body in everyday behaviour and performance. It is the role of the body in reproducing collective identities that I consider in this section. As already discussed in Chapter One, socio-political identities—such as race, gender, class, nation or party—are not biologically given by bodies but are socially assigned to them. The hues and textures and shapes and sizes of various physical features are culturally coded and different societies may code them in dissimilar ways. The identities that are assigned are loaded with expectations and norms of behaviour and appearance, which delimit the corporeal possibilities of

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escape our dependence on the other who must be excluded in order for us to exist, and it is this very dependence that is threatening. This means that where there is identity, there is difference, where there is an ‘us’, there is a ‘them’ and where there is politics, there is antagonism. As Mouffe writes, “the very condition of possibility of the formation of political identities is at the same time the condition of the impossibility of a society from which antagonism can be eliminated” (Mouffe 2013: 5). The antagonistic ‘us/them’ relation can be constructed in different ways, however. We might dread and detest the other so that they become dehumanised. But we are also able to live with otherness. The task for agonistic democracy is therefore to create institutions and cultures in which we can reimagine the experience of otherness in a way that treats the other not as an enemy object but as a legitimate political subject. This is where Mouffe’s distinction between ‘antagonism’ and ‘agonism’ is helpful. Before considering this distinction further, I bring identifying bodies and embodied identities into the picture to show how identities of ‘us’ are constructed in opposition to a ‘them’ with and on the body.

3.2

Habits of Us

Agonists are both fully aware of, and openly wary of, the resilience and salience of passionate collective identifications in the political realm. But what is not so often remarked upon by agonists is the way in which these collective political identifications are incorporated by the body in everyday behaviour and performance. It is the role of the body in reproducing collective identities that I consider in this section. As already discussed in Chapter One, socio-political identities—such as race, gender, class, nation or party—are not biologically given by bodies but are socially assigned to them. The hues and textures and shapes and sizes of various physical features are culturally coded and different societies may code them in dissimilar ways. The identities that are assigned are loaded with expectations and norms of behaviour and appearance, which delimit the corporeal possibilities of

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their bearer and insculp embodied existence. The lived body is never experienced outside of a particular cultural situation. For Iris Marion Young the body is always ‘enculturated’ by accents, outfits and comportment: “the person experiences herself as looked at in certain ways, described in her physical being certain ways, she experiences the bodily reactions of others to her, and she reacts to them” (2005: 17). These assigned or constructed identities are not passively accepted, they are performed on and by and with the identifying body. Through continual and habitual interaction, the body itself is transformed along with its identities. We can understand this as the incorporation of identities. As discussed in Chapter Two, Merleau-Ponty shows how bodies incorporate social norms and cultural patterns, habitually reproducing and reaffirming the “common sense” of society (Zeiler 2013). The places in which I live, the experiences I have gone through and the choices I have made, are incorporated into my body to influence my perspective: “We must recognise a sort of sedimentation of our life: an attitude towards the world, when it has received frequent confirmation, acquires a favoured status for us” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 513). It is not only norms but identities themselves that are incorporated; identifications are inscribed upon, reproduced and perceived by bodies—sometimes joyfully, sometimes painfully (Fournier 2002). Through their appearance and performance, their costumes, hairstyles, skin tones and gestures, bodies manifest the categories with which they are identified. Identities are sometimes consciously brandished and yet perhaps more often are unconsciously presented. Michael Billig explains how national identity, for example, “is to be found in the embodied habits of social life” (Billig 1995: 8). Nations, as he puts it, are “daily lived” (1995: 69). Standing to sing a national anthem, wearing a traditional costume, dancing and eating at a festival: in various ways in everyday life nations are reproduced in the clothes, postures and gestures of bodies. Theorists have used Merleau-Ponty’s work to explain how the body also plays a role in performing but also perceiving identities of gender (Young 2005; Butler 1999) and race (Ahmed 2006; Alcoff 1995; 2006; Ngo 2016; 2017; Sullivan 2001). The way in which gender is an effect of a ritual performance is shown by Judith Butler (1999: xv). Gender is a do-

Chapter 3. Embodied Disagreement: The Agony of Others

ing (Butler 1999: 35) a “parodic repetition” (Butler 1999: 187). Knowledge about racial identities is also carried in the body, as what Linda Martin Alcoff calls “the tacit backdrop of practical consciousness” (Alcoff 1995: 19). Alcoff notices the “gestural and perceptual practices” that correlate to racial identities (Alcoff 1995: 19). Our bodies learn to perceive identities as much as perform them. As Ngo explains, perceptions of race do not always come prior to bodily responses, but are themselves developed through embodied experiences that lead to unconscious habits (Ngo 2017: 25). The sedimented understandings of identifications such as nation, gender and race, then, are incorporated, often intersecting or interlocking in unique ways that cannot simply be layered but are co-constitutive in the individual’s experience of identity and prejudice (Sullivan 2001: 20). Collective identities are assigned to the bodies that habitually reproduce them but also sometimes reinvent them. Embodied subjects can contest and transform their identifications, challenge stereotypes and sometimes subvert or create them anew. Kristen Zeiler describes the possibility of embodied resistance to sedimented norms of gender and race: “subjects try to find new ways of expressing their bodily selves, new ways of living as bodily beings, even if this is done in ways that others implicitly and explicitly question” (Zeiler 2013: 82). Identities can be challenged through the embodiment of contradictions that contest or reinvent notions of ‘us’ and alter, expand or narrow their boundaries. Through bodily appearance and performance, then, collective identities can be reaffirmed, fomented or confronted. However I suggest that, in line with agonistic theory, these collective identities are bodily incorporated in opposition to a ‘them’. Consider these three examples that illustrate the body’s enactment of collective identification, that demarcates an ‘other’ and brings to life the us/them distinction:        

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1

When Nelson Mandela went on trial at a court in Pretoria, South Africa, in October 1962, he wore a traditional Thembu royal costume.1 The donning of traditional regalia in a “white man’s court” was a moment that was “electrifying” and highly symbolic for South African politics (Ngwane 2014). Mandela’s embodied performance in which he represented black South Africans stood in defiance of the apartheid regime that he was clearly demarcating as an ‘other’, reversing the ‘us/them’ construction of that regime. The court was fully aware of this—out of concern that the costume would inflame his audience, the magistrate ordered that the costume was not worn in front of the building. His body become “the centrepiece in a medley of symbolic references” reflecting “the multiple ideological heritages of a colonial society” (Ngwane 2014: 126). Utilising and reaffirming traditional cultural norms and ideals of masculinity while expressing himself in legal terms, Mandela was balancing his different allegiances (Boehmer 2008: 131). His body was situated at the point of ambiguous tension: while his traditional dress worked to highlight the possibility and power of active resistance, there was also the risk that it reinforced racist stereotypes of African primitive barbarity. What it also did, however, was signify and communicate a strong collective identity of disenfranchised black South Africans, arguably placing the symbolic tribal costume into wider discourses of national and pan-African resistance. As Zolani Ngwane points out, Mandela did not simply surrender to tradition but nurtured a new form of collective consciousness (2014: 116). The collective identity powerfully reaffirmed by Mandela’s bodily performance played a powerful role in the resistance to the apartheid regime and those who maintained it.   When Greta Thunberg sat in front of world leaders at the United Nations assembly in 2019, she made a short and angry speech that Charged with inciting an illegal strike and leaving the country without a passport, Nelson Mandela was acting both as defendant and attorney. For a transcript of extracts from the court record see Mandela (1969).

Chapter 3. Embodied Disagreement: The Agony of Others

•

began with the statement: “My message is that we’ll be watching you” (Vaughan 2019: 6; NPR 2019). With these words, Thunberg, who had become the widely known leader of the Fridays for Future movement, was already discursively demarcating an adult ‘you/they’ from the youth ‘we/us’ whose future will be drastically impacted by a changing climate. If social media played a role amplifying her claims (Jung et al. 2020) then so did her body. Her embodied performance on the stage underlined her arguments about the urgent need for effective climate policy. As a scientifically literate, highly articulate and unapologetically emotional sixteen-year-old (who, as she pointed out, ‘should be in school’), she could deliver a message that a differently embodied speaker could not have done. With her bodily appearance alone, Thunberg not only challenged longstanding assumptions about young people’s political apathy, but also encouraged their identification as politically active citizens and more specifically with the Fridays for Future movement. The youth and passion of her embodied performance worked to emphasise the stakes in climate policy and to foment the continuation and collective identification of the movement that is currently leaving a mark on the political landscape in various parts of the world and is aiming to hold ‘them’ – the adult political leaders – accountable.   When athlete Mo Farah won gold medals for Britain in the 10,000 and 5,000 metre races at the 2012 Olympics and was heralded by Lord Sebastian Coe as “a distance running great and arguably the best British runner of all time” (BBC 2012), he actively disturbed the racialised boundaries of certain versions of British identity. Scholars have noticed how the representation of Britishness as ‘white’ belies its history of empire and constructs ‘darker citizens’ as outsiders (Bhambra 2017). Farah’s otherness was hardly erased, and in some ways reaffirmed when his Somali heritage was continually emphasised by the media as part of his immigrant story (Black 2016; Skey 2010). And yet his spectacular sporting feat, as well as the deafening sounds of the crowd in a packed London stadium that accompanied it, passionately and bodily reproduced national identification while

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at the same time exposing its latent exclusions. While Farah’s performance worked to construct a British ‘us’ in the sporting arena, it also highlighted the tension between different boundaries of that ‘us’. Mo Farah’s achievements confronted, if only momentarily, ethnic assumptions of British collective identity and its ‘other’. These three dissimilar examples illustrate how bodies play a role in the reaffirmation, fomentation and confrontation of the various identifications, old and new, sedimented or fluid, that populate the political realm. These examples already hint at the way that their bodily performances delineate an ‘other’. The embodiment of collective identifications involves not only the construction of an ‘us’ but also the construction of a ‘them’, who is both constitutive and threatening, as discussed in the next section.

3.3

Bodies of Others

An ‘us’ cannot be imagined without a ‘them’, but it is important to notice that the specificity of ‘them’ relates to the particular constructions, contexts and crises of ‘us’; ‘otherness’ can be understood in different ways (Black 2016) and distinctions are made between different types of otherness (Billig 1995: 80). I consider here how the frontier between us and them is drawn on and with the body, and how the body of the other can be a subject with whom a world is shared or can become a threatening object for an ‘us’. It is helpful to turn to Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of the bodily coexistence here to understand how the other can be a fellow subject or a mysterious and troubling object. This discussion, according to Taylor Carman, is “one of the most original and important elements in his phenomenology” (2008: 149). Merleau-Ponty starts this discussion by posing the question “how can I speak of an I other than my own?” (2002: 406). For the other seems to be an object in-itself and yet at the same to exist as a subject for-herself (2002: 407). The problem of the existence of others, however, is not solved but rather dissolved as soon

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at the same time exposing its latent exclusions. While Farah’s performance worked to construct a British ‘us’ in the sporting arena, it also highlighted the tension between different boundaries of that ‘us’. Mo Farah’s achievements confronted, if only momentarily, ethnic assumptions of British collective identity and its ‘other’. These three dissimilar examples illustrate how bodies play a role in the reaffirmation, fomentation and confrontation of the various identifications, old and new, sedimented or fluid, that populate the political realm. These examples already hint at the way that their bodily performances delineate an ‘other’. The embodiment of collective identifications involves not only the construction of an ‘us’ but also the construction of a ‘them’, who is both constitutive and threatening, as discussed in the next section.

3.3

Bodies of Others

An ‘us’ cannot be imagined without a ‘them’, but it is important to notice that the specificity of ‘them’ relates to the particular constructions, contexts and crises of ‘us’; ‘otherness’ can be understood in different ways (Black 2016) and distinctions are made between different types of otherness (Billig 1995: 80). I consider here how the frontier between us and them is drawn on and with the body, and how the body of the other can be a subject with whom a world is shared or can become a threatening object for an ‘us’. It is helpful to turn to Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of the bodily coexistence here to understand how the other can be a fellow subject or a mysterious and troubling object. This discussion, according to Taylor Carman, is “one of the most original and important elements in his phenomenology” (2008: 149). Merleau-Ponty starts this discussion by posing the question “how can I speak of an I other than my own?” (2002: 406). For the other seems to be an object in-itself and yet at the same to exist as a subject for-herself (2002: 407). The problem of the existence of others, however, is not solved but rather dissolved as soon

Chapter 3. Embodied Disagreement: The Agony of Others

as we notice that as embodied subjects, we experience the world as a shared world (2002: 412). The bodies of others, Merleau-Ponty observes, are normally perceived as other subjects who participate in the creating of the ambiguous meaning of the world: “Our perspectives slip into each other and are brought together finally in the thing” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 411). My self and the other are therefore ‘collaborators’ (2002: 413). He points out that children are not concerned by the problem of the existence of others; they experience the world as a world that is directly accessible to those around them (2002: 413). This experience remains with us as adults; empathy, for example, involves an immediate pre-personal response to an other. And yet this understanding of the other as a ‘collaborator’ is not always salient or unambiguous, for I can only see the other asymmetrically, and therefore ultimately she must remain at least partially mysterious: “Others are not a problem but they are trouble” (Carman 2008: 146). There always exists, then, the threat that my body can become simply an object for the other and their body an object for me. The body of the other then appears in the foreground of perception as a foreign object; a threatening thing (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 413). The body object of the other is dressed with ‘curious’ clothes, ‘alien’ accents, strange gestures and ‘exotic’ cuisines. An identity commonly presents its other as irrational, abnormal, insane, sick, primitive, perverted, dangerous, evil and ugly (Connolly 1991: 65). This is perhaps most evident in practices of racism; ‘other’ bodies are constructed by what Ngo calls the ‘racist or racializing gaze’ (2017: 135) not as a lived body but as a strange object (Ngo 2017: 138) so that the other is rendered a stranger to herself (Ngo 2017: 95). Ahmed explains how racism works to orientate bodies in particular directions so that they “take up space” in particular ways (2006: 24) and so that racialised others “come to embody distance” (2006: 121). She further describes how emotions—which after all both move and attach us—play a role in (re)shaping the space between bodies: “emotional responses to others involve the alignment of subjects with and against other others” (Ahmed 2004: 32). Collective bodies, she notices, are ‘surfaced’ through

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the emotional encounter with others; the ‘skin’ of a collective body is formed through the touch of the other: “the collective takes shape through the impressions made by bodily others” (Ahmed, 2004: 27). But this, for Ahmed, doesn’t happen only cognitively and symbolically. Surfacing also occurs in physical space: “the white woman’s refusal to touch the Black child does not simply stand for the expulsion of Blackness from white social space, but actually reforms social space through reforming the apartness of the white body” (Ahmed 2004: 33). The other’s body is regarded as the very cause of hatred and fear and discomfort: “It is not just that feelings are ‘in tension’ but that the tension is located somewhere; in being felt by some bodies, it is attributed as caused by another body, who thus comes to be felt as apart from the groups, as getting in the way of its enjoyment and solidarity” (Ahmed 2009: 49). It is not only that the body of others are objectified by the racist gaze, but that this gaze is itself embodied (Ngo 2017). Ngo describes how racism unfolds in the habits of the body, in its insidious gestures and unconscious movements (2017: x). As she writes: “The flinches, the tensing, the moving away, the calling toward, the panic… they are responses that reside within the body schema, such that they become called upon readily and effortlessly in navigating encounters with the racialized ‘other’. They represent a certain bodily habituation” (2016: 54). These scholars show how bodies contribute to the construction of the other as ‘body object’, a hated foreign thing that is the source of discomfort and danger. History shows us numerous examples of how in this antagonistic relationship, the bodies of others are shunned and stigmatised and sometimes actually physically marked as ‘other’. One of the most abhorrent of these examples is the branding of human beings. This practice is associated with the trans-Atlantic slave trade, which frequently involved the burning of the names of companies and ships into the bodies of slaves. As Katrina Keefer describes, “categorically attempting to reduce humans to the same status as livestock was part of the trade, and the conscious dehumanisation of persons contributed to the legacy of trauma which is part of this history” (Keefer 2019; 676). In the 20th century the marking of human bodies was practiced by the Nazi

Chapter 3. Embodied Disagreement: The Agony of Others

regime, which tattooed serial numbers on the left arms of the inmates of the death camps (Rosenthal n.d.). It is hard to grasp the implications of these deeply degrading practices that reduced human beings to a number or piece of property, and were undertaken by regimes that saw their victims as less than human. The tattoos on the bodies of survivors have long been a painful reminder of the suffering, cruelty and deaths of the Holocaust (Almog 2003: 124). Yet recently, perhaps as a way of remembering and reclaiming the pain of their relatives, some descendants of Jewish Holocaust victims have taken to tattooing themselves with the same numbers imprinted on their older relatives as a gesture of recognition and appreciation (Rubin 2012). The practice of marking a symbol of brutality onto one’s own flesh works both to incorporate an identity and to recast otherness into a ‘us’. A young Israeli Jew who decided to have his grandfather’s number tattooed on his arm is quoted as saying “the person who tattooed my grandfather’s number… was educated to see Jews not as people but as objects” (cited in Rubin 2012). These tattoos literally marked out the Jewish ‘other’ as a dehumanised body-object but now become a living memorial, etched into the flesh.

3.4

Cultivating Agonistic Respect

Is it possible for collective identifications to exist without their condition being the antagonistic objectification and dehumanisation of others? Can virulent racism be excluded from democratic politics without jettisoning all forms of disagreement? Is disagreement not needed to challenge racist and excluding norms and practices? Can the body itself contribute to habits of respect for difference and empathy for others? A key concern that arises for agonists is how the institutions of democratic politics can be built and maintained to ensure that legitimate disagreements between ‘us’ and ‘them’ can be expressed to enrich and enliven democracy, while at the same time preventing violent disagreements that instead threaten the very functioning of democracy.

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regime, which tattooed serial numbers on the left arms of the inmates of the death camps (Rosenthal n.d.). It is hard to grasp the implications of these deeply degrading practices that reduced human beings to a number or piece of property, and were undertaken by regimes that saw their victims as less than human. The tattoos on the bodies of survivors have long been a painful reminder of the suffering, cruelty and deaths of the Holocaust (Almog 2003: 124). Yet recently, perhaps as a way of remembering and reclaiming the pain of their relatives, some descendants of Jewish Holocaust victims have taken to tattooing themselves with the same numbers imprinted on their older relatives as a gesture of recognition and appreciation (Rubin 2012). The practice of marking a symbol of brutality onto one’s own flesh works both to incorporate an identity and to recast otherness into a ‘us’. A young Israeli Jew who decided to have his grandfather’s number tattooed on his arm is quoted as saying “the person who tattooed my grandfather’s number… was educated to see Jews not as people but as objects” (cited in Rubin 2012). These tattoos literally marked out the Jewish ‘other’ as a dehumanised body-object but now become a living memorial, etched into the flesh.

3.4

Cultivating Agonistic Respect

Is it possible for collective identifications to exist without their condition being the antagonistic objectification and dehumanisation of others? Can virulent racism be excluded from democratic politics without jettisoning all forms of disagreement? Is disagreement not needed to challenge racist and excluding norms and practices? Can the body itself contribute to habits of respect for difference and empathy for others? A key concern that arises for agonists is how the institutions of democratic politics can be built and maintained to ensure that legitimate disagreements between ‘us’ and ‘them’ can be expressed to enrich and enliven democracy, while at the same time preventing violent disagreements that instead threaten the very functioning of democracy.

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Respectful expression of difference and disagreement is the start and the centre of the agonistic project. Connolly asserts the importance of the cultivation of “an ethos of agonistic respect”. As he reminds us, “the bearer of difference may be one open to your appreciation or worthy of your tolerance, or an other whose claim to identity you strive to invert” (1991: 65). He therefore asks his readers to “seek creative ways to forge relations of agonistic respect between different lived creeds, theologies, and cosmologies” (2013: 51). For agonism “affirms the indispensability of identity to life” while at the same time it “disturbs the dogmatization of identity, and folds care for the protean diversity of human life into the strife and interdependence of identity/difference” (Connolly 1991: x). Mouffe is particularly alert to the ever-present dangers of antagonism in politics. For her, it is simply not possible to completely eradicate all traces of antagonism and bring everybody into an inclusive agreement; antagonism constitutes the very ground of the political. For her, “the political” means “the dimension of antagonism which I take to be constitutive of human societies” (Mouffe 2005: 9). Expectations of rational consensus should therefore be treated with scepticism, since this would actually involve suppressing the us/them relation which would then simply emerge in other, possibly violent, ways. For Mouffe, instead of construing “a dangerous utopia of reconciliation”, contemporary liberal democracies need to face the irreducible dimension of antagonism (2000: 29). This is why she distinguishes between ‘antagonism’ and ‘agonism’. The potential of antagonism, we have seen, cannot be fully expunged and to try to eliminate the us/them relation would ultimately be a suppression of politics. But this does not mean that the antagonistic relation between ‘us’ and ‘them’ cannot be constructed in an alternative way. Instead of advocating the eradication of antagonism, Mouffe therefore promotes a transformation into ‘agonism’, where political opponents acknowledge each other as legitimate adversaries rather than hated enemies to be destroyed, yet are still not expected to agree: “agonism is a we/they relation where the conflicting parties, although acknowledging that there is no rational solution to their conflict, nevertheless recog-

Chapter 3. Embodied Disagreement: The Agony of Others

nise the legitimacy of their opponents” (Mouffe 2005: 20). Antagonism is not expunged but rather ‘sublimated’. In this way the inevitability of disagreement is acknowledged, but is transformed from violent antagonism into respectful agonism. While antagonism marks the limit of democracy, agonism constitutes its very possibility. I suggest the distinction between a relation with the other as an ‘embodied subject’ and as a ‘body object’ can be mapped onto Mouffe’s differentiation between antagonism and agonism; if we bring bodies into the agonistic account, its aim becomes the construction of the other as an embodied subject instead of the antagonistic construction of the other as an object. But if political disagreements are played out on and with the body, then it is worth asking questions about the capacity of the bodies themselves to heed or hamper the communication of respectful differences and the cultivation of agonistic respect. Can bodies themselves cultivate the agonistic regard for difference? In what way can agonistic respect be enfolded into our embodied habits so that the bodies of others are not objects to be destroyed by political subjects themselves? If racism persists through habituated perceptions of lived bodies, perhaps it is possible to re-habituate lived bodies? Might the lived experience of diversity foster empathy with other embodied subjects? What can we learn from children’s unquestioned grasp of the other? Emily Beausoleil suggests that embodied practices such as walking or dancing play a crucial role in fostering recognition of others (2020: 1060). Agonist theorists should not only attend to the embodiment of political disagreements but also the corporeal negotiation of differences and the various ways in which bodies can corporealise ‘us’ and ‘them’.

3.5

Democratic Disagreements

In a pluralistic society, characterised by manifold identifications that are never fully sutured, but always haunted by an antagonism with an ‘other’, political disagreement is inevitable and legitimate. It is this inevitability and legitimacy of disagreement that agonism acknowledges and celebrates as crucial for challenging hegemonic norms and offer-

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nise the legitimacy of their opponents” (Mouffe 2005: 20). Antagonism is not expunged but rather ‘sublimated’. In this way the inevitability of disagreement is acknowledged, but is transformed from violent antagonism into respectful agonism. While antagonism marks the limit of democracy, agonism constitutes its very possibility. I suggest the distinction between a relation with the other as an ‘embodied subject’ and as a ‘body object’ can be mapped onto Mouffe’s differentiation between antagonism and agonism; if we bring bodies into the agonistic account, its aim becomes the construction of the other as an embodied subject instead of the antagonistic construction of the other as an object. But if political disagreements are played out on and with the body, then it is worth asking questions about the capacity of the bodies themselves to heed or hamper the communication of respectful differences and the cultivation of agonistic respect. Can bodies themselves cultivate the agonistic regard for difference? In what way can agonistic respect be enfolded into our embodied habits so that the bodies of others are not objects to be destroyed by political subjects themselves? If racism persists through habituated perceptions of lived bodies, perhaps it is possible to re-habituate lived bodies? Might the lived experience of diversity foster empathy with other embodied subjects? What can we learn from children’s unquestioned grasp of the other? Emily Beausoleil suggests that embodied practices such as walking or dancing play a crucial role in fostering recognition of others (2020: 1060). Agonist theorists should not only attend to the embodiment of political disagreements but also the corporeal negotiation of differences and the various ways in which bodies can corporealise ‘us’ and ‘them’.

3.5

Democratic Disagreements

In a pluralistic society, characterised by manifold identifications that are never fully sutured, but always haunted by an antagonism with an ‘other’, political disagreement is inevitable and legitimate. It is this inevitability and legitimacy of disagreement that agonism acknowledges and celebrates as crucial for challenging hegemonic norms and offer-

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ing alternatives. As Diana Coole notices, Merleau-Ponty’s own notion of politics as critical engagement suggests that “all cultures are provisional expressions of co-existence whose lacunae will incite challenges from those they fail” (Coole 2003: 330). Instead of counselling the eradication of disagreement, agonists therefore encourage its occurrence within certain boundaries, which are themselves always subject to dissent. In this chapter I have considered how bodies play a role in democratic disagreements. I have focused particularly on the way in which disagreements arise from, and produce, a frontier between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and the way that this frontier is drawn with and on the body. Through their performances and perceptions, enculturated bodies incorporate collective identifications of ‘us’ and construct other bodies as ‘them’. But the bodies of ‘them’ can be othered in different ways; as the denigrated, stigmatised, dehumanised objects of hatred or as the respected bodies of adversaries. If democrats should cautiously celebrate the legitimate expression of disagreement between embodied subjects, they should also be wary of the fragility of the democratic bodies that can be emaciated through the pursuit of consensus or unravelled through antagonistic violence. For just as embodied disagreement can enliven and enrich democratic politics, it can undermine the very institutions that actually facilitate its expression.

References Ahmed, S. (2004) “Collective Feelings: Or, the Impression Left by Others”, Theory, Culture and Society, 21 (2), pp. 25 -42. Ahmed, S. (2006) Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Ahmed, S. (2009) “Embodying Diversity: Problems and Paradoxes for Black Feminists”, Race Ethnicity and Education, 12 (1), pp. 41-52. Alcoff, L.M. (1995) “Towards a Phenomenology of Racial Embodiment”, Radical Philosophy, 95, pp. 15-26.

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ing alternatives. As Diana Coole notices, Merleau-Ponty’s own notion of politics as critical engagement suggests that “all cultures are provisional expressions of co-existence whose lacunae will incite challenges from those they fail” (Coole 2003: 330). Instead of counselling the eradication of disagreement, agonists therefore encourage its occurrence within certain boundaries, which are themselves always subject to dissent. In this chapter I have considered how bodies play a role in democratic disagreements. I have focused particularly on the way in which disagreements arise from, and produce, a frontier between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and the way that this frontier is drawn with and on the body. Through their performances and perceptions, enculturated bodies incorporate collective identifications of ‘us’ and construct other bodies as ‘them’. But the bodies of ‘them’ can be othered in different ways; as the denigrated, stigmatised, dehumanised objects of hatred or as the respected bodies of adversaries. If democrats should cautiously celebrate the legitimate expression of disagreement between embodied subjects, they should also be wary of the fragility of the democratic bodies that can be emaciated through the pursuit of consensus or unravelled through antagonistic violence. For just as embodied disagreement can enliven and enrich democratic politics, it can undermine the very institutions that actually facilitate its expression.

References Ahmed, S. (2004) “Collective Feelings: Or, the Impression Left by Others”, Theory, Culture and Society, 21 (2), pp. 25 -42. Ahmed, S. (2006) Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Ahmed, S. (2009) “Embodying Diversity: Problems and Paradoxes for Black Feminists”, Race Ethnicity and Education, 12 (1), pp. 41-52. Alcoff, L.M. (1995) “Towards a Phenomenology of Racial Embodiment”, Radical Philosophy, 95, pp. 15-26.

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Alcoff, L.M. (2006) Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Almog, O. (2003) “Tattooing the Taboo: The Tattoo Trend in Israel”, Israel Studies Forum, 19 (1), pp. 123-135. BBC (2012) “Mo Farah wins 5,000m to claim second Olympic gold”. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/19223652#: :tex t=Britain’s%20Mo%20Farah%20claimed%20his,m%20earlier%20in %20the%20Games.&text=Britain%20claimed%20their%2028th%20 gold,beating%20Ireland’s%20John%20Joe%20Nevin (last accessed November 2021). Beausoleil, E. (2020) “The Recognizing Body: Physiological Dimensions of a Democratic Norm”, Politics, Groups and Identities, 8 (5), pp. 10551064. Bhambra, G.K. (2017) “Brexit, Trump, and ‘Methodological Whiteness’: on the Misrecognition of Race and Class”, British Journal of Sociology, 68 (S1), S214-S232. Billig, M. (1995) Banal Nationalism. London, Thousand Oaks: SAGE publications. Black, J. (2016) “‘As British as Fish and Chips’: British Newspaper Representations of Mo Farah During the 2012 London Olympic Games”, Media, Culture & Society, 38 (7), pp. 979-996. Boehmer, E. (2008) Nelson Mandela: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bowman, P. and Stamp, R. (2009) “Jacques Rancière: in Disagreement”, Parallax, 15 (3), pp. 1-2. Butler, J. (1999) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York and London: Routledge. Carman, T. (2008) Merleau-Ponty. London and New York: Routledge. Collins, M. (2010) “Conflict and Contact: The ‘Humane’ City, Agonistic Politics, and the Phenomenological Body”, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 28, pp. 913-930. Connolly, W. (1991) Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox. Expanded Edition. Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press.

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Connolly, W. (2005) Pluralism. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Connolly, W. (2013) The Fragility of Things: Self-Organizing Processes, Neoliberal Fantasies and Democratic Activism. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Coole, D. (2003) “Philosophy as Political Engagement: Revisiting Merleau-Ponty and Reopening the Communist Question”, Contemporary Political Theory, 2, pp. 327-350. Fournier, V. (2002) “Fleshing Out Gender: Crafting Gender Identity on Women’s Bodies”, Body and Society, 8 (2), pp. 55-77. Honig, B. (1993) Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Honig, B. (2009) Emergency Politics: Paradox, Law, Democracy. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Keefer, K.H.B. (2019) “Marked by Fire: Brands, Slavery, and Identity”, Slavery & Abolition, 40 (4), pp. 659-681. Jung, J., Petkanic, P., Nan, D. and Kim, J.H. (2020) “When a Girl Awakened the World: A User and Social Message Analysis of Greta Thunberg”, Sustainability, 12 (7), p. 2707. Laclau, E. and Mouffe, C. (2001) Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. 2nd Edition. London and New York. Verso. Machin, A. (2013) Negotiating Climate Change: Radical Democracy and the Illusion of Consensus. London: Zed Books. Machin, A. (2015) Nations and Democracy: New Theoretical Perspectives. London and New York: Routledge. Machin, A. (2019a) “Democracy in the Anthropocene: The Challenges of Knowledge, Time and Identity”, Environmental Values.,28 (3), pp. 347365. Machin, A. (2019b) “Nations and Nationalism”, in Stravrakakis, Y. (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Psychoanalytic Political Theory. New York: Routledge, pp. 285-295. Machin, A. (2020a) “Democracy, Disagreement, Disruption: Agonism and the Environmental State”, Environmental Politics, 29 (1), pp. 155172.

Chapter 3. Embodied Disagreement: The Agony of Others

Machin, A, (2020b) “The Agony of Nuclear: Sustaining Democratic Disagreement”, Sustainability: Science, Practice, Policy, 16 (1), pp. 335-352. Mandela, N. (1969) “Black Man in a White Court” Nelson Mandela’s First Court Statement. Transcript available at United Nations website: https://www.un.org/en/events/mandeladay/court_statement_ 1962.shtml (last accessed November 2021). Merleau-Ponty, M. (2002) Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by C. Smith. London and New York: Routledge. (Originally published in French 1945) Mouffe, C. (2000) The Democratic Paradox. London and New York: Verso. Mouffe, C. (2005) On the Political. London and New York: Routledge. Mouffe, C. (2013) Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically. London and New York: Verso. Ngo, H. (2016) “Racist Habits: A Phenomenological Analysis of Racism and the Habitual Body”, Philosophy and Social Criticism, 42 (9), pp. 847-872. Ngo, H. (2017) The Habits of Racism: A Phenomenology of Racism and Racialized Embodiment. Lanham, Boulder: Lexington Books. Ngwane, Z. (2014) “Mandela and Tradition”, in Barnard, R. (ed) The Cambridge Companion to Nelson Mandela. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 115-133. Norval, A. (2007) Aversive Democracy: Inheritance and Originality in The Democratic Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. NPR (2019) “Transcript: Greta Thunberg’s Speech At The U.N. Climate Action Summit” Available at: https://www.npr.org/2019/09/23/7634 52863/transcript-greta-thunbergs-speech-at-the-u-n-climate-acti on-summit (last accessed November 2021). Rancière, J. (1999) Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy. Translated by J. Rose. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press. Rosenthal, G. (n.d.) “Auschwitz-Birkenau: The Evolution of Tattooing in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp Complex” Available at the Jewish Virtual Library: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-e volution-of-tattooing-in-the-auschwitz-concentration-camp-com plex (last accessed November 2021).

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Rubin, E. (2012) “Passing on Holocaust tattoos” DW. 28 November. Available at: https://www.dw.com/en/passing-on-holocaust-tattoo s/a-16397305 (last accessed November 2021). Skey, M. (2010) “A Sense of Where You Belong in the World’: National Belonging, Ontological Security and the Status of the Ethnic Majority in England”, Nations and Nationalism, 16 (4), pp. 715-33. Sullivan, S. (2001) Living Across and Through Skins: Transaction Bodies, Pragmatism, and Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Tully, J. (1995) Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Tully, J, (2001) “An Ecological Ethics for the Present”, in Gleeson, B. and Low, N. (eds) Governing for the Environment: Global Problems, Ethics and Democracy. New York: Palgrave, pp. 147-164. Vaughan, A. (2019) “UN climate change summit”, New Scientist, 243 (3249), p. 6. Wenman, M. (2013) Agonistic Democracy: Constituent Power in the Era of Globalisation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Young, I.M. (2005) On Female Body Experience: ‘Throwing Like a Girl’ and Other Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zeiler, K. (2013) “A Phenomenology of Excorporation, Bodily Alienation, and Resistance: Rethinking Sexed and Racialized Embodiment”, Hypatia, 28 (1), pp. 69–84.

Chapter 4. Embodied Protest: The Politics of the Hunger-Strike

“Hunger strikes… are very much about power. It's the attempt of powerless people to exert some power over their circumstances, and states don't like -- governments don't like people contesting their power, particularly if they're prisoners who they want to have complete control over… Part of the point of imprisoning people is to have control over their bodies, and the last thing the administration wants is for the detainees to take that power back” (Fran Lisa Buntman, in Nnamdi 2013).   “Hunger felt like a bundle of washing hanging inside me” (Dan Zwelonke Mdluli 2013).   “It was a surreal game of poker, and the stakes were peoples lives” (Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, quoted in McKay 2008: 95) A hunger strike embodies numerous contradictions. A simple and sustained refusal of food, a spectacle of frailty, it yet wields devastating violence. The painful impact of the strike, however, is not pointed directly towards the enemy, but inverts itself towards the body of the one who is making the protest, necessarily weakening the very ground that sustains it. Often undertaken by those with a cherished goal, it can nevertheless appear pointless, a futile suffering only to be terminated by the death it beckons. And while it is undertaken for sharply pragmatic reasons, it is useful precisely for the emotional response it elic-

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its. It is unsurprising, then, that the hunger strike is a topic of fascination, attracting investigation from various angles; biological and psychological investigations (Fessler 2003), historical accounts (Sweeney 1993; Vernon 2007) anthropological, sociological, literary and cultural study (Andriolo 2006; Ellman 1993; Green 1993; Russell 2005; Siméant 1998) alongside political analyses (Anderson 2004; 2010; Dingley and Mollica 2007; Feldman 1991; Koçan and Öncü 2006; Yuill 2007). Academic discussion utilises, discusses and connects with participant and witness accounts (Doyle 2011; Pankhurst 1987; Morrison 2006; Naidoo 2003; O’Rawe 2005). This chapter considers the hunger strike in terms of the ambiguous yet powerful role it plays in political protest movements, the questions it poses for conventional notions of politics and the way in which it attests to the insights of work on embodiment. One does not have to advocate the use of hunger-striking to condemn its dismissal from analysis. Although hunger-striking is often portrayed as a form of protest to which certain cultures are particularly disposed, this depiction is contradicted by its ongoing appearance in contemporary protests across the world and the ‘normality’ of those who undertake it (Dingley and Mollica 2007: 460; Siméant 1998). It is important to understand what role this form of protest plays in numerous historical and contemporary political movements. And yet it is both difficult and problematic to draw any general claims about hunger-striking. Particular instances arise within specific historical, social and political contexts and hold a ‘multiplicity of truths’ (Feldman 1991: 220; Koçan and Öncü 2006). Its effects are contradictory, ambiguous and unpredictable. I do not, therefore, try to reveal the ‘truth’ of a specific case or to fix the meaning of the hunger strike in general. Instead I am interested in tracing the involvement of hungry and weakening bodies in protest and the implications for our understanding of politics. I consider how, through the suffering of their bodies, individuals experience themselves as political actors, while at the same time this suffering uses and constructs the body as political object. In describing the living/dying bodies in political protest, I use a phenomenologically informed approach. Phenomenologists aim to de-

4. Embodied Protest: The Politics of the Hunger Strike

scribe the lived experience of the body and its concrete situation. Simone de Beauvoir, for example, draws our attention to the “concrete condition” of human beings, and by doing so she reveals important aspects of the human condition that hold critical implications for the theories and practices of politics. Beauvoir, as we saw in the introduction, notices how embodied experience is conditioned by gender, but also by age, illness and mortality: “human life is inhabited by death” (Beauvoir 2010: 24). Particularly in her later work she closely attends to the frailty and finitude of the human body that inevitably circumscribes human existence and affects social interaction. In A Very Easy Death, for instance, she documents the dying of her mother. At the fore in this description is her mother’s body and she juxtaposes “the truth of her suffering body” against the “nonsense” she speaks (2013: 19). Beauvoir shows how the exposure of a vulnerable body can have a violent and devastating impact. It is not only neutral, strong, lively living bodies that hold political import, but weak, dying ones too. Drawing from Beauvoir’s approach by attending to the living/dying bodies that appear/disappear in political protest, I describe three distinct examples of the hunger strike with important differences as well as fascinating similarities—those undertaken by the British suffragettes, the Irish republican prisoners in Belfast and the anti-apartheid prisoners on Robben Island in South Africa. I will argue that there are three interconnected ways in which the body within the hunger strike can be politically significant. First, the hungry body in the highly visible performance becomes a spectacle that cannot be reduced to text or speech. This spectacular suffering body draws attention to a cause and demands an emotional response. In this way it becomes itself an object of identification. Second, then, the sacrifice galvanises a collective identity. The hunger strike of the identifying/identified body may well alienate the political adversary further, but it can strengthen the political ‘us’. As we will see for the suffragettes, for example, hunger-striking engendered a new collective identification as political women that challenged their exclusion from the political realm as well as dominant gender norms. Third, the hunger strike resists the dominant order and institutions by reclaiming the power of the regime and inverting it onto itself. In this

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way, the dissenting body is a site, instrument, weapon and an agent of protest.

4.1

Hunger as protest

One can go hungry for different reasons: health, illness, dieting, religion or famine as well as protest (Ellmann 1993: 4). The impact of lack of food intake upon the body is, biologically, fairly uniform: for the first few days your body uses its stores of glycogen, and then starts breaking down fats. After 20 days, your heart rate and your blood pressure drop rapidly. You feel faint, weak, cold and dizzy. You cannot get out of bed. You may lose your feelings of thirst and hunger and become dehydrated (Peel 1997). After 40 days, your body starts breaking down protein from unnecessary tissue, such as the muscles in your eyes: “First you have double vision. Then your sight dims. You vomit green bile. Your speech is slurred. You can’t hear very well. You have jaundice. You have scurvy from lack of Vitamin C. Your gums begin to bleed. You may be bleeding into your stomach and intestines” (Russell 2005: 89). Your body is now quite literally consuming itself. Healthy adults are given an estimated 60 days to live. Although the physiological effects of starvation are somewhat generalisable, the social impact of different types of starvation is not. The context, motives, status and gender of the person condition the meaning that their hunger is given, by themselves and others. Hunger can connote victimhood. It can also signify power. The extreme suffering and pain undertaken by a hunger-striker demonstrate their dedication to the cause as well as their obdurate will and agency. Their body becomes both a weapon and its target. The hunger strike can be a highly significant form of political protest and resistance for those who lack vote, voice and status. Just as hunger takes numerous forms (as a diet, a fast or famine for example), so does the hunger strike (as a political or ethical, individual or collective protest). The following sections offer a comparative overview of the political and collective hunger strikes used by three

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way, the dissenting body is a site, instrument, weapon and an agent of protest.

4.1

Hunger as protest

One can go hungry for different reasons: health, illness, dieting, religion or famine as well as protest (Ellmann 1993: 4). The impact of lack of food intake upon the body is, biologically, fairly uniform: for the first few days your body uses its stores of glycogen, and then starts breaking down fats. After 20 days, your heart rate and your blood pressure drop rapidly. You feel faint, weak, cold and dizzy. You cannot get out of bed. You may lose your feelings of thirst and hunger and become dehydrated (Peel 1997). After 40 days, your body starts breaking down protein from unnecessary tissue, such as the muscles in your eyes: “First you have double vision. Then your sight dims. You vomit green bile. Your speech is slurred. You can’t hear very well. You have jaundice. You have scurvy from lack of Vitamin C. Your gums begin to bleed. You may be bleeding into your stomach and intestines” (Russell 2005: 89). Your body is now quite literally consuming itself. Healthy adults are given an estimated 60 days to live. Although the physiological effects of starvation are somewhat generalisable, the social impact of different types of starvation is not. The context, motives, status and gender of the person condition the meaning that their hunger is given, by themselves and others. Hunger can connote victimhood. It can also signify power. The extreme suffering and pain undertaken by a hunger-striker demonstrate their dedication to the cause as well as their obdurate will and agency. Their body becomes both a weapon and its target. The hunger strike can be a highly significant form of political protest and resistance for those who lack vote, voice and status. Just as hunger takes numerous forms (as a diet, a fast or famine for example), so does the hunger strike (as a political or ethical, individual or collective protest). The following sections offer a comparative overview of the political and collective hunger strikes used by three

4. Embodied Protest: The Politics of the Hunger Strike

significant groups of political activists in the 20th century. All were protests undertaken by an imprisoned group who were part of a broader social movement to challenge and undermine the legitimacy of the state that they lived under. I offer a comparative, but nowhere near exhaustive, account of these hunger strikes, using content analysis of various sources: first-hand accounts, academic analysis and journalism that all reproduce both the hungry body and the embodied hunger. None of these texts present ‘the truth’. I approach them as offering particular perspectives informed by their own embodied position (as is my own). The analysis shows that the examples have important differences but share some commonalities. It is important to note one crucial commonality between these examples of hunger strikes is that their facts, meaning and interpretation are highly contested. The inevitability of contradiction, ambiguity and lacuna regarding hunger strikes must be acknowledged. Fran Lisa Buntman points out that contradictory accounts are inevitable in any attempt to reconstruct political events that took place, for example, behind prison walls (2003: 53). In her account of political imprisonment on Robben Island she explains that this is not just because of “problems of memory or differential experience”, but that “gaps and silences in accounts of the past also reflect strategies inherent in the nature of the political process” (Buntman 2003: 12). This is why writing an account of a hunger strike is an on-going process that is never complete. With this in mind, I attempt to describe these contested depictions before going on to consider what they might reveal about the role of the hungerstriking body in, and for, politics.

4.2

Irish republicans

One of the most well-known occurrences of hunger-striking is that of the Irish republican prisoners during the period of ‘the Troubles’. Long Kesh Prison (later officially renamed Her Majesties Prison Maze and colloquially known as ‘the Maze’) had been built on the site of an old RAF base south of Belfast, in eight separate ‘H’ shaped blocks and ac-

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significant groups of political activists in the 20th century. All were protests undertaken by an imprisoned group who were part of a broader social movement to challenge and undermine the legitimacy of the state that they lived under. I offer a comparative, but nowhere near exhaustive, account of these hunger strikes, using content analysis of various sources: first-hand accounts, academic analysis and journalism that all reproduce both the hungry body and the embodied hunger. None of these texts present ‘the truth’. I approach them as offering particular perspectives informed by their own embodied position (as is my own). The analysis shows that the examples have important differences but share some commonalities. It is important to note one crucial commonality between these examples of hunger strikes is that their facts, meaning and interpretation are highly contested. The inevitability of contradiction, ambiguity and lacuna regarding hunger strikes must be acknowledged. Fran Lisa Buntman points out that contradictory accounts are inevitable in any attempt to reconstruct political events that took place, for example, behind prison walls (2003: 53). In her account of political imprisonment on Robben Island she explains that this is not just because of “problems of memory or differential experience”, but that “gaps and silences in accounts of the past also reflect strategies inherent in the nature of the political process” (Buntman 2003: 12). This is why writing an account of a hunger strike is an on-going process that is never complete. With this in mind, I attempt to describe these contested depictions before going on to consider what they might reveal about the role of the hungerstriking body in, and for, politics.

4.2

Irish republicans

One of the most well-known occurrences of hunger-striking is that of the Irish republican prisoners during the period of ‘the Troubles’. Long Kesh Prison (later officially renamed Her Majesties Prison Maze and colloquially known as ‘the Maze’) had been built on the site of an old RAF base south of Belfast, in eight separate ‘H’ shaped blocks and ac-

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commodated over 10,000 men. The prisoners were nearly exclusively paramilitary prisoners, the majority of which were nationalist, or republican (McAtackney 2008). Armagh prison was the only female prison in Northern Ireland. Between 1972 and 1976 it housed more than 100 political prisoners.1 The Irish republicans held at these prisons complained that, as members of the paramilitary organisations the PIRA (Provisional Irish Republican Army) and INLA (Irish National Liberation Army), they were due certain rights as prisoners of war rather than as criminals (Findlay 1985). They demanded the political status that had been previously granted to them in 1972 following an earlier hunger strike, but then withdrawn in 1976 as part of a ‘criminalisation’ policy (Bobby Sands Trust 2008).2 Since then, republican prisoners in the H-Blocks had been on a ‘blanket’ protest in which they refused to wear prison uniforms and were given only blankets to cover themselves. The women prisoners in Armagh were allowed to wear their own clothes but had begun a ‘no-work’ protest (Aretxaga 1995). These protests were then intensified into a ‘dirty’ protest in which the prisoners refused to leave their cells to wash themselves and slop out. Instead they smeared the walls with their own faeces: “excrement and urine literally became weapons in the war between prisoners and prison officers” (McKittrick and McVea 2001: 140). In Armagh, an additional instrument was menstrual blood: ‘under the circumstances, the only weapons the Armagh women had at their disposal were their bodies…. Decorating the cells with menstrual blood was the ultimate act of disruption and empowerment, of women taking control of their bodies to challenge the prison system” (O’Keefe 2006: 546; Aretxaga 1995). In a place of documented violence and humiliation, the prisoners turned the suffering onto themselves. Stench, maggots, lice and infections filled the cells (Aretxaga 1995).

1 2

This data and other information is available at Prisoners Memory Archive. See their website at: http://prisonsmemoryarchive.com/ For a detailed draft chronology and more information see Melaugh (n.d.) and the CAIN (Conflict and Politics in Northern Ireland) webservice at: http://cain.u lst.ac.uk/

4. Embodied Protest: The Politics of the Hunger Strike

These protests drew publicity but did not win the prisoners the recognition and special status they demanded. On 27th October 1980 prisoners in both prisons started a hunger strike, which ended in December amid confusion (McKay, 2008). Suggestions had been made that there would be a concession towards special category status, but this did not occur (Bobby Sands Trust 2008). On 1st March 1981 a new hunger strike began. This time women did not take part, and it was staggered: Ten republican prisoners in the H-Blocks led by Bobby Sands refused food, one after the other,. The decision-making behind the strikes is contested. In his account (2005) ‘blanket man’ Richard O’Rawe, who was the IRA press officer in the H-Blocks, states that leaders of nationalist political party Sinn Féin took crucial decisions and overruled the H-Block leadership inside the prison. This contradicts the ‘official’ version. Nevertheless, in popular imagery at least, this was part of a unified struggle, as articulated in the statement released by the hunger strikers at the beginning of this second strike: “We the republican POWs in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh, and our comrades in Armagh Prison, are entitled to and hereby demand political status, and we reject today as we have consistently rejected every day since September 14th, 1976, when the blanket protest began, the British government’s attempted criminalisation of ourselves and our struggle… Only the loud voice of the Irish people and world opinion can bring them to their senses and only a hunger strike, where lives are laid down as proof of the strength of our political convictions, can rally such opinion and present the British with the problem that, far from criminalizing the cause of Ireland, their intransigence is actually bringing popular attention to that cause… We have asserted that we are political prisoners and everything about our country, our arrest, interrogations, trials and prison conditions, show that we are politically motivated and not motivated by selfish reasons or for selfish ends. As further demonstration of our selflessness and the justness of our cause a number of comrades, beginning today with Bobby Sands will hunger strike to the death unless the British government abandons

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its criminalisation policy and meets our demand for political status” (Bobby Sands Trust 2008). The strikers had five formal demands, which together would constitute the prisoners receiving a special or political status: 1. The right to wear their own clothes. 2. The right to abstain from prison work. 3. The right to free association. 4. The restoration of all lost remission as a result of the protest. 5. The right to educational and recreational facilities. (Morrison 2006:16.) The British government’s intransigence was epitomised in Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s statement in March 1981: “Crime is crime is crime: it is not political” (BBC 2006). The resulting standoff between the prisoners and Thatcher’s government, in which ten men starved themselves to death, captured the attention of the media and the public around the world. The strike eventually ended on 3rd October 1981 under pressure from relatives of the prisoners, without any of the demands being granted, and apparently without the prisoners being formally given the special political status they had sought. However, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland announced changes including granting prisoners the right to wear their own clothes (Melaugh n.d.). In terms of their specific demands, then, it may have appeared that the prisoners had been defeated, unable to shirk the criminal status that many regarded as entirely accurate (see Mulcahy 1995). Yet as Patrick Anderson notes in his work on hunger strikes in Turkey, weighing up the ‘success’ of hunger-striking demands attention to its wider implications (Anderson 2004: 821). In the long term the hunger strike seemed to have boosted the republican movement, increasing the number of recruits for Sinn Fein and the IRA (McKittrick and McVea 2001: 147; Aughey and McIlheney 1981) and provoking an “explosion of popular culture” (Rolston 1987). From inside the H-Blocks, Bobby Sands won the Fermanagh South Tyrone by-election, seemingly proving the political legitimacy of the hunger-strikers, illustrating their widespread support and undermining the policy of the British government (Beresford 1994: 114). His funeral was attended by an estimated 100,000 people. The hunger strikes were—and continue to be—the object of contradictory accounts. The national press was generally negative and dis-

4. Embodied Protest: The Politics of the Hunger Strike

missive, constructing the hunger strike as a republican PR stunt that might precipitate violence (Mulcahy 1995). The interpretation of the Loyalist/Protestant community appears to have been one of suspicion, cold detachment and disgust, in which the hunger strike was the attempt of criminals to legitimise themselves (Brown 2006: 119; Aughey and McIlheney 1981). Accounts from republican/Catholic activists, on the other hand, regard the prisoners with reverence and gratitude. Republicans asked to talk about the hunger strikes lowered their voices, “their gazes lost in distant space” (Aretxaga 1997: 83). Female bodies were involved in the hunger strike too, although their role is often neglected, if not entirely written out (Morgan 1995). Although the H-Block leadership opposed women joining the hunger strike, for the Irish republican women in Armagh it was seen as crucial that they played a role in the protests—partly in order to achieve equality with men (Power 2015). Mary Doyle explains that “the women were determined to participate as we felt we had an equal stake in achieving the five demands” (2011). On the one hand, these women joined the protests as a way of erasing gender difference (Aretxaga 1995). On the other, as noted by Theresa O’Keefe, both the oppression and the resistance of the prisoners were gendered (2006). Precisely because of their role in reproducing national identification “state forces targeted female bodies in a sexual manner as a means of intimidation and humiliation in the hopes of breaking the republican movement” (2006: 539). Their distinctive use of their own bodies, however, meant they “blurred the public/private divide and transgressed gender norms in the most scrupulous of ways” (O’Keefe 2006: 551). However the issue of gender oppression was seen by many republicans, including the women themselves, as secondary to the republican cause. One of the women hunger-strikers, Mairéad Farrell stated: “I am oppressed as a woman but I am also oppressed because I’m Irish. Everyone in this country is oppressed and we can’t successfully end our oppression as women until we first end the oppression of our country” (quoted in Power 2015).

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4.3

Suffragettes

For the British suffragettes of the early 20th century, as we will see, transgressing gender norms was a key feature of their protest. They used hunger-striking as part of a more radical and militant strategy than the constitutional and gradualist strategy of other suffragists.3 The suffrage movement, composed of many organisations with different strategies and ideologies, was one of flux and overlap, which assertions of clear-cut distinctions between groups tend to obfuscate (Stanley Holton 1986; Mayhall 2003).4 While some suffragist organisations worked within the parameters of the law, seeking gradual improvement and engaging with the government in order to achieve enfranchisement, others were focused beyond votes for women (Ryan 1995: 498). In Britain, one of the most militant and prominent groups (although not all members were militant) was the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), set up by the Pankhursts in 1903. The WSPU believed that change had to be sought forcefully with “hard fighting” (Mayhall 2003). For them, the government that they had not had any vote in whatsoever, was illegitimate and tyrannical, and they rejected its authority. Following their motto of ‘deeds not words’ they carried out a policy of “sensational public protest” (Kent 1990). The actions arising from their more radical stance ranged from civil disobedience to actual violence including arson, window-smashing and stone-throwing. For Emmeline Pankhurst: “The argument of the broken pane of glass is the most valuable argument in modern politics” (Crawford 2015).  

3 4

See more on the leader of the suffragist organisation the WSPU, Emmeline Pankhurst, in Chapter One. Such complexity was further complicated in other parts of the world, such as India and Ireland, in which suffrage movements intersected with—and sometimes contradicted—nationalist and anti-colonialist struggles (Ryan 1995). Feminism and nationalism may both have been emancipatory movements, but since women played a particular role within nationalism they were often “locked into traditional roles in the name of national liberation” (Ryan 1995: 489).

4. Embodied Protest: The Politics of the Hunger Strike

Many members of the WSPU were arrested for these activities and jailed. In 1909, Marion Wallace Dunlop was arrested for ‘wilful damage’ after stencilling on a wall in the British House of Commons the words: ‘It is the right of the subject to petition the King, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal”. In Holloway Prison she began a hunger strike (Pankhurst 1987: 130). This would have “immense consequences” (Pankhurst 1987: 133), marking the start of a hunger strike campaign that would go on until 1914. Imprisoned for the militant acts that they believed they had been forced into and having been denied constitutional means for getting redress for their grievance (Pankhurst 1913), the suffragette hunger-strikers continued their protest by turning it upon themselves. In response, the government authorised forcible feeding, a violent practice often described by those who experienced it as an extreme and barbaric violation of their bodies; a form of rape (Kent 1990: 207; Purvis 1995). The process was not only painful but dangerous, since food could enter the lungs causing pneumonia (Purvis 1995: 98). The government also introduced, in 1913, the Prisoners (Temporary Discharged for Ill-health) Act otherwise known as the ‘Cat and Mouse Act’ in which prisoners could be released on ill-health grounds and then re-admitted when they had recovered, although sometimes only partially (Purvis 1995: 97). What is strikingly different about the suffragette hunger campaign, compared to the later protests of the anti-apartheid and Irish republican movements, is the prolonged time over which hunger-striking was repeated in relatively short but painful bursts, in a tedious, torturous game of will with the British government. WSPU members arrested for demonstrating in Newcastle laid out their position in a letter: “We shall carry on our protest in Prison. We shall put before the Government by means of the hunger-strike these alternatives; To release us in a few days; to inflict violence on our bodies; to add death to the champions of our cause by leaving us to starve; or—the best and only wise alternative—to give women the vote” (cited in Pankhurst 1987: 143). They demanded that they were viewed as political, not criminal, prisoners (Kent 1990: 206) a claim was later echoed by the

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prisoners in Northern Ireland and on Robben Island.5 Their militancy and determination were encapsulated in the issuing of a medal by the WSPU to those who had gone on hunger strike, engraved with the words ‘for valour’ (Crawford 2012). The suffering of hunger and forced feeding were declared by Christabel Pankhurst to be “the price of the vote” (1987: 146). Yet it seems that it was not solely the vote that the suffragettes desired. Many of the more ‘constitutionalist’ suffragists were focused upon achieving the vote, but they attempted to achieve this precisely by showing themselves to be unthreatening to the status quo, conforming to female stereotypes, emphasising the ‘womanliness’ of women. More militant suffragettes, however, challenged the beliefs that suggested that women were too irrational and emotional, too prone to hysteria, to be politically enfranchised. Suffragettes sought to redefine ‘woman’. In the words of suffragette Mary Richardson: “Our suffragette campaign was for much more than ‘Votes for Women’. We were women in revolt, led and financed by women. We were inaugurating a new era for women and demonstrating for the first time in history that women were capable of fighting their battle for freedom’s sake. We were breaking down old senseless barriers…” (cited in Phillips 2003: 246). It was not the extension of the vote to all women that was the aim of the suffragettes at all, but rather the breaking down of the barrier to the vote. “In order…to be recognised as individuals qualified to participate in political life, suffragists had, necessarily, to challenge and overturn cultural constructions of femininity and female sexuality” (Kent 1990: 16). Barbara Green observes that it was important for the suffragettes that the crowd of women on the streets were not seen as an unruly

5

The suffragist movement was closely connected to that of the Irish nationalism (Mayhall 2003: 4) Some claim that it was the suffragette’s hunger strikes that inspired those of the Irish Republicans (Ellmann 1993: 11; Aretxaga 1997) Early twentieth century hunger strikes in Ireland were first carried out by Irish suffragettes (Sweeney 1993; 424).

4. Embodied Protest: The Politics of the Hunger Strike

mass but a “disciplined collective” which encompassed women across class lines (1994-5: 70). Susan Kingsley Kent notices that the dominant understanding of the public realm as the space for disembodied deliberation immediately excluded women, who were associated more closely with the body, and thus were confined to the private sphere: “The distinctions between the sexes imposed by society were purported to be those delineated by nature, that the private sphere belonged to woman and the public sphere to men, because of biological and physiological differences between the two” (Kent 1990: 197. See also Pateman 1989; Sasson-Levy and Rapoport 2003). It was this very distinction that the suffragettes challenged. As Louise Ryan notices, some parts of the suffrage movement in Ireland contested the separate sphere distinction by raising in public discussion “subjects which were deemed indecent and unsuitable for ‘polite’ conversation, challenging the taboos around topics like child abuse, incest, rape and marital violence” (1995: 495). Through their hunger-striking the suffragettes disrupted the public/private dichotomy in a different way. Wendy Parkins argues that the fact that women were repressed because of their bodies was precisely the reason that hunger strike as an embodied protest was so important to the suffragettes. Suffragist protest, she argues, was “based on the disjuncture between [a woman] as embodied, dissenting female subject and the liberal political subject, construed as rational, deliberative and, by implication, masculine” (2000: 70). So it is the very corporeality of hunger-striking that made it particularly useful for feminists. Their bodies were what hindered them, and yet they used their bodies to protest. Their statement was doubled up; it proclaimed the injustice of women’s exclusion from politics and it politicised the body inverting the very ground of exclusion. “The imprisoned suffragette’s refusal to eat announced her willingness to use her body as a political stake and so to contest the cultural construction of the middle-class feminine body as marginal to the realm of politics” (Corbett 1992: 163). Mary Jean Corbett considers the importance of “the ethic of personal renunciation” within the suffragette ideology. She explains that this ethic is oddly indebted to the very system it challenges: Victorian

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ideas of femininity demanded women to sacrifice themselves for others. “Victorian women’s claims to autonomy had always been rejected on the basis of their prescribed part as the servants of others needs and aims, and even independent women were used to defining themselves in terms of self-sacrifice and self-abnegation” (1992: 158). Was, she asks, feminine self-sacrifice a patriarchal imposition? Yet the sacrifice of the individual woman through this ethic enabled her to experience herself as a political actor. “While the suffragette ethic of renunciation represented a revision of Victorian ideology rather than a radical break within it, the opening of a specifically political space of women’s altruism and activism enabled women to experience themselves as political and public agents of social transformation” (1992: 159).

4.4

Anti-apartheid

Although numbers were important to the hunger strikes by the Irish republicans and the suffragettes, they were dwarfed by the numbers hunger-striking in South Africa’s Robben Island. In 1966 almost the entire prison population of more than 1,000 embarked on a hunger strike (Buntman 2003: 36). In 1989 a hunger strike involving hundreds of prisoners across South Africa was carried out in protest of indefinite detention without access to a court (Battersby 1989; Merrett 1990). In apartheid South Africa, most black male political prisoners who opposed the regime between 1962 and 1991 were incarcerated in the prison on Robben Island. The prison contained members of various anti-apartheid organisations: the African National Congress (ANC) together with its armed paramilitary wing (Umkhonto we Sizwe or MK) emerged as the largest (Naidoo 1995). From the 1960s the rise of legislation designed to suppress anti-apartheid protests and organisations produced a huge number of political prisoners who were sent to the Island. The prison was an institution of repression; a “brutal hell-hole”—but was regarded also as a “university”. In his letters from Robben Island, ANC member Ahmed Kathrada repeatedly mentions his studies, and writes that his mother should think of him as “not in

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ideas of femininity demanded women to sacrifice themselves for others. “Victorian women’s claims to autonomy had always been rejected on the basis of their prescribed part as the servants of others needs and aims, and even independent women were used to defining themselves in terms of self-sacrifice and self-abnegation” (1992: 158). Was, she asks, feminine self-sacrifice a patriarchal imposition? Yet the sacrifice of the individual woman through this ethic enabled her to experience herself as a political actor. “While the suffragette ethic of renunciation represented a revision of Victorian ideology rather than a radical break within it, the opening of a specifically political space of women’s altruism and activism enabled women to experience themselves as political and public agents of social transformation” (1992: 159).

4.4

Anti-apartheid

Although numbers were important to the hunger strikes by the Irish republicans and the suffragettes, they were dwarfed by the numbers hunger-striking in South Africa’s Robben Island. In 1966 almost the entire prison population of more than 1,000 embarked on a hunger strike (Buntman 2003: 36). In 1989 a hunger strike involving hundreds of prisoners across South Africa was carried out in protest of indefinite detention without access to a court (Battersby 1989; Merrett 1990). In apartheid South Africa, most black male political prisoners who opposed the regime between 1962 and 1991 were incarcerated in the prison on Robben Island. The prison contained members of various anti-apartheid organisations: the African National Congress (ANC) together with its armed paramilitary wing (Umkhonto we Sizwe or MK) emerged as the largest (Naidoo 1995). From the 1960s the rise of legislation designed to suppress anti-apartheid protests and organisations produced a huge number of political prisoners who were sent to the Island. The prison was an institution of repression; a “brutal hell-hole”—but was regarded also as a “university”. In his letters from Robben Island, ANC member Ahmed Kathrada repeatedly mentions his studies, and writes that his mother should think of him as “not in

4. Embodied Protest: The Politics of the Hunger Strike

jail but at university” (2000: 39). It was here that liberation politics were kept alive; paradoxically, then, the prison “was continually transformed by its political inmates into a site of resistance” (Buntman 2003: 5). As part of this resistance, hunger-striking, Fran Buntman explains, was a “critical weapon” (Buntman 2003: 58). Another difference to the other examples is that the hunger strikes on Robben Island seemed to be more successful in winning their specific demands. In response to the 1989 hunger strike, the Law and Order Minister Adriaan J. Vlok stated: “The hunger strike is an organized and coordinated attempt to cast the authorities in a bad light and to blackmail them… The state cannot allow itself to be threatened by means of hunger strikes”. The authorities stated that “it does happen from time to time that prisoners go on so-called hunger strikes” (Battersby 1989). And yet the hunger strike was regarded by campaigners as at least a partial success (Kraft 1989). In his account of his imprisonment in Robben Island, Indres Naidoo, a member of MK who was sent to the island in 1963 and was incarcerated there for ten years, describes the 1966 hunger strike. It began in reaction to a reduction in rations (already differentiated by race) but more generally reflected the inmates’ demand that they were acknowledged as political prisoners rather than criminals. There was no respite from manual labour during the hunger strike, although it was relatively short-lived; sustained for days rather than weeks. “During the hours of work, as we slowly raised our hammers and lolled over our stones, we discussed whether it was correct to continue the hunger strike and if so, for how long. Until death? And how would the world know?” (2003: 160). But the hunger strike stopped when conditions improved. The 1989 hunger strike, too, ended due to the authorities’ partial compliance with the demand for the immediate and unconditional release of prisoners who had been detained without trial for opposing apartheid. What is particularly noticeable about reports of the hunger strikes on Robben Island is how they connected to a sense of unity between the prisoners (Naidoo 1995). The attention captured by the Irish republican hunger strikes came, arguably, from outside the prison walls (Feldman

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1991: 230). International attention was indeed focused upon the prison on Robben Island in which many anti-apartheid movement leaders including Nelson Mandela were incarcerated (Buntman 2003: 54). However, it appears that hunger-striking in this case was particularly potent in utilising and galvanising solidarity within the prison. There were disagreements between different anti-apartheid groups, but despite this, there was a “high degree of cross-organizational solidarity and unity” (Buntman 2003: 87). Thus, while Kathrada writes “in general the prison institution is one replete with vulgarity, harshness, violence, filth, corruption, inhumanity” there were also “new friends and new relationships, about the need to curb one’s individualistic streaks in order to fit into the greater whole, about new responsibilities and new priorities” (2000: 263). He juxtaposes two realities of prison life: one of intolerable deprivation and one of learning, community and solidarity (270). “Most political prisoners realized… that the enemy was the state embodied in the prison authorities, and that tensions between and among prisoners needed to be resolved or managed to a point where the prisoners could challenge the state in a united front” (Buntman 2003: 87). On the other hand, as Kathrada notes, Robben Island was where “ordinary white South Africans” and black prisoners come most into contact; the warders and prisoners frequently conversed. ‘Ironically, it is in jail that we have closest fraternisation between the opponents and supporters of apartheid” (2000: 47). Yet the warders remain “verkramptes [supporters of apartheid] and rabid racialists” (48). The solidarity of the prisoners arises as an ‘us’ against the ‘enemy’ who have rigidly delineated and enforced the dividing line of race.

4.5

The spectacular body

If, following Beauvoir, we attend to the living/dying body itself in the hunger strike, what do we notice? How is the experience of self-inflicted suffering distinct from other types of political activity? First, it is clear that in all three examples that the hunger strikers, deprived not only of vote but also of voice, used their bodies to draw attention. From be-

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1991: 230). International attention was indeed focused upon the prison on Robben Island in which many anti-apartheid movement leaders including Nelson Mandela were incarcerated (Buntman 2003: 54). However, it appears that hunger-striking in this case was particularly potent in utilising and galvanising solidarity within the prison. There were disagreements between different anti-apartheid groups, but despite this, there was a “high degree of cross-organizational solidarity and unity” (Buntman 2003: 87). Thus, while Kathrada writes “in general the prison institution is one replete with vulgarity, harshness, violence, filth, corruption, inhumanity” there were also “new friends and new relationships, about the need to curb one’s individualistic streaks in order to fit into the greater whole, about new responsibilities and new priorities” (2000: 263). He juxtaposes two realities of prison life: one of intolerable deprivation and one of learning, community and solidarity (270). “Most political prisoners realized… that the enemy was the state embodied in the prison authorities, and that tensions between and among prisoners needed to be resolved or managed to a point where the prisoners could challenge the state in a united front” (Buntman 2003: 87). On the other hand, as Kathrada notes, Robben Island was where “ordinary white South Africans” and black prisoners come most into contact; the warders and prisoners frequently conversed. ‘Ironically, it is in jail that we have closest fraternisation between the opponents and supporters of apartheid” (2000: 47). Yet the warders remain “verkramptes [supporters of apartheid] and rabid racialists” (48). The solidarity of the prisoners arises as an ‘us’ against the ‘enemy’ who have rigidly delineated and enforced the dividing line of race.

4.5

The spectacular body

If, following Beauvoir, we attend to the living/dying body itself in the hunger strike, what do we notice? How is the experience of self-inflicted suffering distinct from other types of political activity? First, it is clear that in all three examples that the hunger strikers, deprived not only of vote but also of voice, used their bodies to draw attention. From be-

4. Embodied Protest: The Politics of the Hunger Strike

hind prison walls, communication can be difficult; words find it hard to make their way through bricks and mortar. The hunger-striking body, however, seems to be able to breach these walls. Theorists refer to the “textualization” of the body in the hunger strike (Ellmann 1993; Feldman 1991: 250). But the body here also works beneath and behind or beyond the text and the hunger strike as a “performative act” (Passmore 2009: 43). After all, the slogan of the WSPU was “deeds not words”. Indeed, the hunger strike seems to invite descriptions using visual terminology. As Sigal Gooldin points out in her discussion of different types of fasting, the fast has a spectacular presence: the ‘spectacle’ of fasting she defines as “the appeared, performed, visible, gazed-at phenomenon of fasting” (2003: 32. Italics in original). In his work on the Red Army Faction, Leith Passmore describes their hunger strike, too, as a “carefully choreographed spectacle” (Passmore 2009: 32). The depiction of hunger strike as spectacle is affirmed in various accounts of the Irish republican hunger strike: “No single event,” Paul Arthur writes, “invested as much spectacle as did the hunger strike” (1997: 270). Journalists McKittrick and McVea refer to “:the spectacle of ten men giving their lives in an awesome display of self-sacrifice and dedication” and they claim that “the hunger-strikers thus won political status in the eyes of the world” (2001: 147. My italics). In an analysis of the press coverage of the hunger strikes, Mulcahy says that they garnered “unprecedented levels of media coverage” (1995: 452) and were “the subject of much public speculation” (1995: 461). Similarly, the suffragettes are understood to have combined hunger and forcible feeding as a violence suffered by the body to create a spectacle. “The suffragettes produced themselves as spectacular,” writes Green, doing “all they could go maintain a public gaze” (Green 1993: 1). Mayhall carefully reminds us that this “spectacular politics” (2003: 46) was entwined with other forms of protest, but according to Green it was nevertheless a key part of their strategy: “The suffragettes cultivated an alternate form of spectacular politics that either assaulted the public eye, or exhibited imprisoned, starving, and (through the disciplinary ritual of forcible feeding), tortured bodies for public delectation” (Green 1994-5: 69).

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The hunger strike is a highly visual performative act that draws the attention of an audience, and also commonly commands their emotional response. For Karin Andriolo, a protest suicide such as a hunger strike is a radical form of “embodied minding”, since it demands a reaction that cannot be provoked in any other way. “Words,” she notices, “do not grip unless one gives them hands to do so, unless one embodies them” (2006: 102). The spectacle of the hunger strike draws diverse reactions, resonating differently depending upon its audiences’ gaze and situation. The competing and conflicting gazes on the hunger strike and the embodied situation of its audience prevent the suturing of its meaning.

4.6

The identifying/identified body

The hunger-striking body does not only draw an audience, it draws them together to strengthen a collective identification. In Chapter One I considered the way that representatives can perform for, and therefore help construct and galvanise, their constituencies and I suggest that hunger strike is also a performance that partly constructs its constituency. The body of the hunger striker is identified as part of a collective for whom its sacrifice is claimed: in its diminishing corporeality it embodies a collective identification. Yet such sacrifice, in turn, affects the meaning of identification. The linkage between the individual body and collective identification is not straightforward; the identification is fed by the hungry body it incorporates. Joseph Lowndes explains that the American President embodies a national identity, and therefore his body becomes a site of political contest (2013: 470). He explains: “Presidents act as signifiers not only through their policies, philosophies, or partisan alignments… Presidential authority is lodged in—and articulated through—bodies” (2013: 471-2). I suggest that bodies of hunger-strikers also ‘act as signifiers’, but these hunger-strikers are not presidents but, on the contrary, ordinary individuals. In the descriptions of hunger-striking, “the ordinary people” are commonly enlisted. For example, in the Irish republican

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The hunger strike is a highly visual performative act that draws the attention of an audience, and also commonly commands their emotional response. For Karin Andriolo, a protest suicide such as a hunger strike is a radical form of “embodied minding”, since it demands a reaction that cannot be provoked in any other way. “Words,” she notices, “do not grip unless one gives them hands to do so, unless one embodies them” (2006: 102). The spectacle of the hunger strike draws diverse reactions, resonating differently depending upon its audiences’ gaze and situation. The competing and conflicting gazes on the hunger strike and the embodied situation of its audience prevent the suturing of its meaning.

4.6

The identifying/identified body

The hunger-striking body does not only draw an audience, it draws them together to strengthen a collective identification. In Chapter One I considered the way that representatives can perform for, and therefore help construct and galvanise, their constituencies and I suggest that hunger strike is also a performance that partly constructs its constituency. The body of the hunger striker is identified as part of a collective for whom its sacrifice is claimed: in its diminishing corporeality it embodies a collective identification. Yet such sacrifice, in turn, affects the meaning of identification. The linkage between the individual body and collective identification is not straightforward; the identification is fed by the hungry body it incorporates. Joseph Lowndes explains that the American President embodies a national identity, and therefore his body becomes a site of political contest (2013: 470). He explains: “Presidents act as signifiers not only through their policies, philosophies, or partisan alignments… Presidential authority is lodged in—and articulated through—bodies” (2013: 471-2). I suggest that bodies of hunger-strikers also ‘act as signifiers’, but these hunger-strikers are not presidents but, on the contrary, ordinary individuals. In the descriptions of hunger-striking, “the ordinary people” are commonly enlisted. For example, in the Irish republican

4. Embodied Protest: The Politics of the Hunger Strike

hunger strike: “The ordinary people mourned Bobby Sands” (Nelis 2006: 54. My italics); “Ordinary Irish people manifested strong support for the prisoners” (Ballagh 2006: 113. My italics); “people who had been living quietly in their communities for many years suddenly came to life” (Kelleher, 2006: 108). In juxtaposition to the intention of the British government to depict the Irish republicans as “ordinary criminals” (Doyle 2011), the hunger-strikers themselves are described as “ten very ordinary men” (Beresford 1994. My italics). While the hunger strike involves an ordinary body, this perhaps is precisely why it can come to be identified with the collective; the hunger-striker is ‘one of us’ so that her suffering body performs for ‘us’. In this way, the hunger-striking body works as a site of identification. As Dingley and Mollica notice in the Irish hunger strikes: “Although the government was able to claim a victory in purely legal terms the strikes may well have been a triumph for Republicans in social and political terms, particularly by galvanizing a communal support previously only latent” (2007: 465). This leads them to conclude that while hungerstriking may seem to make little sense in terms of the effect on the government or the Protestant/loyalist community, it should instead be understood in terms of the effect it had on the hunger-strikers’ own Catholic/republican community. This impact is the engendering and galvanisation of an identity and collective community strength (Rolston 1987: 26). At the end of the hunger strike the prisoners published a statement in the Irish Times and “the appeal is to the whole nationalist community” (Arthur 1997: 278. Italics in original). Identity construction was a key part of the struggle for both republican and loyalist organisations. In his analysis, Goalwin writes: “Both sides struggled to construct and define their own collective identities and ideological aims” (2013: 190). Aretxaga explains that the hunger strike was understood as an act of redemption aimed at ending the suffering of both the prisoners and Ireland: “The prisoners perceived themselves as embodying the history of their country and as such, their actions effected as much the existence of the nation as individual lives” (1997: 81). The hunger strike was an act both by and for the nation.

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Hunger-striking did not seem to bring the suffragettes any nearer to their specified goal of political enfranchisement; it certainly did not immediately help them achieve their formal specified aims. At this point, the increasing militancy of the suffragettes was arguably actually alienating the general public, many of whom had initially been sympathetic to the suffrage movement. But what the suffragettes’ hunger strike did achieve was the establishment of a strong identification amongst themselves. As Green writes, in the context of forcible feeding: “shared experience takes you beyond the individual body toward community and activism” (2004-5: 87). Hunger-striking symbolised the unity of suffragettes; it asserted an identity that apparently could transcend other differences. At the same time, the hunger strike could be sustained because of “the feeling of sisterhood that united all women [and] offered a spiritual sustenance to the militants as they endured in prison the pain and torment of hunger-striking and forcible feeding” (Purvis 1995: 96). Parkins suggests that “the capacity of [a suffragette’s] body to communicate dissent, as well as courage and endurance, powerfully interpellated other suffragettes to identify with her commitment to the cause” (2000: 68). Corbett agrees that militant suffragettes fashioned a collective identity through hunger-striking: “The militant suffragettes forged a collective identity and established an intersubjective model for selfhood through the material practices of hunger striking and forcible feeding” (1992: 150). The hunger strikes on Robben Island also worked to galvanise the community within the prison—and to strengthen the position of the ANC. “The survival and indeed the very possibility of the body politics depended on the survival and strength of the individual body” (Buntman 2003: 256). “The hunger strikes… were critical to maintaining the literal and metaphorical survival of the social body that Robben Islanders had established” (Buntman 2003: 256). This comes across in Nelson Mandela’s account of the 1966 hunger strike: “Through a plastic-wrapped note hidden in our food drums, we learned in July of 1966 that the men in the general section had embarked on a hunger strike to protest poor conditions. The note was

4. Embodied Protest: The Politics of the Hunger Strike

imprecise, and we did not know exactly when the strike had started or exactly what it was about. But we would support any strike of prisoners for whatever reason they were striking. Word was passed among us, and we resolved to initiate a sympathetic strike beginning with our next meal” (Mandela 1994: 421). “Colonel Wessels… demanded to know why we were on a hunger strike. I explained that as political prisoners we saw protest to alter prison conditions as an extension of the anti-apartheid struggle. "But you don't even know why they are striking in F and G," he said. I said that did not matter, that the men in F and G were our brothers and that our struggle was indivisible. He snorted, and dismissed me” (Mandela 1994: 422). In his analysis of hunger strikes in Turkey, Patrick Anderson notices that they fomented the unification of an otherwise diverse community: “What is remarkable about the Turkish hunger strike is its development of a large base of strikers and supporters across several traditional divisions” (2004: 835). While, as Goalwin (2013) rightly points out, the assertion of a mythical unified identity has depoliticising effects, we might argue that at the same time it is only with the unity and solidity of identifications that political projects of resistance can be sustained. Hungerstriking coalesces a group who were perhaps previously dispersed or galvanises an already existing identification. The body of the hunger strike is both constructed by and contributes to a collective identity; the body is identified and the identity is embodied.

4.7

The dissenting body

Buntman explains that even an authoritarian state such as apartheid South Africa leaves certain spaces for resistance (Buntman 2003: 273). The body fills one of these spaces. The body becomes the site, weapon and the perpetrator of political resistance. The embodied protest of the

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imprecise, and we did not know exactly when the strike had started or exactly what it was about. But we would support any strike of prisoners for whatever reason they were striking. Word was passed among us, and we resolved to initiate a sympathetic strike beginning with our next meal” (Mandela 1994: 421). “Colonel Wessels… demanded to know why we were on a hunger strike. I explained that as political prisoners we saw protest to alter prison conditions as an extension of the anti-apartheid struggle. "But you don't even know why they are striking in F and G," he said. I said that did not matter, that the men in F and G were our brothers and that our struggle was indivisible. He snorted, and dismissed me” (Mandela 1994: 422). In his analysis of hunger strikes in Turkey, Patrick Anderson notices that they fomented the unification of an otherwise diverse community: “What is remarkable about the Turkish hunger strike is its development of a large base of strikers and supporters across several traditional divisions” (2004: 835). While, as Goalwin (2013) rightly points out, the assertion of a mythical unified identity has depoliticising effects, we might argue that at the same time it is only with the unity and solidity of identifications that political projects of resistance can be sustained. Hungerstriking coalesces a group who were perhaps previously dispersed or galvanises an already existing identification. The body of the hunger strike is both constructed by and contributes to a collective identity; the body is identified and the identity is embodied.

4.7

The dissenting body

Buntman explains that even an authoritarian state such as apartheid South Africa leaves certain spaces for resistance (Buntman 2003: 273). The body fills one of these spaces. The body becomes the site, weapon and the perpetrator of political resistance. The embodied protest of the

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hunger strike constitutes a powerful and violent performance of dissent. Not only does the body of the hunger striker reproduce the collective ‘us’, it also challenges the legitimacy of its opponents and seeks to undermine the status quo. The peculiar power of the hunger strike consists in the body’s interiorisation of the violence of the other. “The act of self-directed violence interiorised the Other, neutralised its potency, enclosed its defiling power and stored it in the corpse of the hunger striker for use by his support community” (Feldman 1991: 237; See also Anderson 2004: 830). In the next chapter I focus further on the way that political resistance and struggle is always interconnected with the power it is opposing, using the concept of ‘counter-conduct’. In the hunger strike we witness already the inversion of governmental power displayed with and on the body. The Irish republicans, antiapartheid campaigners and the suffragettes all rejected the state as an illegitimate authority. By dissenting through the hunger strike they not only rejected and undermined that authority but also regained a sense of their own power. Naidoo expresses a change in atmosphere after the hunger strike in Robben Island in 1966, created through the (re)claim of power: “How permanent would be the gains we did not know. But whatever the authorities did to us, they could never take away our sense of victory or our sense of power” (Naidoo 2003: 165; See also Merrett 1990). In Allen Feldman’s words: “The prison regime… would be exposed as a machine for degradation and abuse. The performance of the hunger strike would stage the abuse and violence of the Other in the eviscerated flesh of the dying protestor … the queue of corpses emerging from behind prison walls would shake the moral legitimacy of the British state” (Feldman 1991: 236). Here, then, it is the actual production of dead bodies that poses a challenge to the regime. For Joanna Siméant, the suffering body of the hunger-striker embodies pain, and this is just as important as the risk of death, but she too agrees that numbers count (Siméant 1998). On Robben Island, the sheer numbers of suffering bodies augmented the resistance and reinforced the specific demands of the prisoners.

4. Embodied Protest: The Politics of the Hunger Strike

4.8

Hunger and Paradox

The use of the hunger strike is not confined to a particular region, culture or historical era. The use of hunger-striking has been seen as a matter of a predisposition of certain groups to utilize this form of protest, but such a “culturalist hypothesis” needs careful qualification (Siméant 1998). Aretxaga strongly challenges the simplistic and erroneous stereotype or “colonial trope” of the Irish as violent and irrational myth followers: “The mythology of sacrifice, ancestral or Christological, as the alleged cause of the current political violence in Northern Ireland seems to me a new origin myth that conveniently permits commentators to ignore the field of sociological and political power relations at play” (1997: 94). Using the body to protest may be an entirely rational choice for those denied political voice. As Yuill points out, the Irish republican struggle involved meticulously calculated organisation (2007: 5.17). Thus, for him, the myths surrounding the historical use of hunger-striking in Ireland is a resource rather than a determinant. Feldman supports the claim that the republican hunger strikers were fully cognisant of the political benefits of the religious iconography (1991: 220). For him, the strike involved the conscious utilisation of the body as an instrument (1991: 233). Israel Waismel-Manor writes: “It is time to recognize the hunger strike as a common and legitimate form of collective action—not the act of a crazy individual, but a rational path that follows some deliberation and is based on individuals’ socialization and the political action alternatives open to them”: (2005: 282). At the same time, while the hunger strike may well have highly rational motives, these utilise and are partly engendered by non-rational bodily perceptions and pre-reflective communal understandings, producing its affective corporeal power. In hunger strikes, “emotions and rationality work in tandem” (Yuill 2007: 5.16)—they “combine passion, rage and self-sacrifice with reason and intellect” (Koçan and Öncü 2006: 359). This embodied protest is neither fully rational nor non-rational. Although the response it generates is often steeped in emotions, it can be utterly rational and strategic.

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Still, the hunger-striker cannot be sure of the degree or content of the impact of their protest. It may win in its short-term demands but aggravate a situation, it might heighten political antagonism, provoking more violence. In becoming part of a political protest, the hungry body takes on meaning and is constructed in different ways by competing socio-political gazes. The hunger strike incorporates its contradictions and deftly uses them to configure its protest. But these contradictions undermine any certainty for its outcomes; the spectacle of the hunger strike is ambiguous and contested in its on-going constructions. Whatever the outcome of the hunger strike, it attests to the political significance of bodies in social movements and political protests. It shows us that when studying politics we should carefully attend not only to the healthy capabilities of living bodies but to their display of frailty and suffering too. By engaging in protest, living/dying bodies can draw the attention of an audience, draw them together, and actively dissent – and in that way make a contribution to democratic politics. One final paradox of the hunger strike is that through denying herself food the embodied actor can enlarge her sense of political efficacy, and with her diminishing body she can amplify a call for political inclusion, potentially enriching democracy from outside the conventional political sphere. In the next chapter I consider another form of embodied protest, but one equally relevant for the practice and conception of democratic politics: embodied occupation.

References Anderson, P. (2004) “‘To lie down to death for days’: The Turkish hunger strike, 2000-2003”, Cultural Studies, 18 (6), pp. 816-846. Anderson, P. (2010) So Much Wasted: Hunger, Performance and the Morbidity of Resistance. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Andriolo, K. (2006) “The Twice-Killed: Imagining Protest Suicide”, American Anthropologist, 108 (1), pp. 100-113.

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Still, the hunger-striker cannot be sure of the degree or content of the impact of their protest. It may win in its short-term demands but aggravate a situation, it might heighten political antagonism, provoking more violence. In becoming part of a political protest, the hungry body takes on meaning and is constructed in different ways by competing socio-political gazes. The hunger strike incorporates its contradictions and deftly uses them to configure its protest. But these contradictions undermine any certainty for its outcomes; the spectacle of the hunger strike is ambiguous and contested in its on-going constructions. Whatever the outcome of the hunger strike, it attests to the political significance of bodies in social movements and political protests. It shows us that when studying politics we should carefully attend not only to the healthy capabilities of living bodies but to their display of frailty and suffering too. By engaging in protest, living/dying bodies can draw the attention of an audience, draw them together, and actively dissent – and in that way make a contribution to democratic politics. One final paradox of the hunger strike is that through denying herself food the embodied actor can enlarge her sense of political efficacy, and with her diminishing body she can amplify a call for political inclusion, potentially enriching democracy from outside the conventional political sphere. In the next chapter I consider another form of embodied protest, but one equally relevant for the practice and conception of democratic politics: embodied occupation.

References Anderson, P. (2004) “‘To lie down to death for days’: The Turkish hunger strike, 2000-2003”, Cultural Studies, 18 (6), pp. 816-846. Anderson, P. (2010) So Much Wasted: Hunger, Performance and the Morbidity of Resistance. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Andriolo, K. (2006) “The Twice-Killed: Imagining Protest Suicide”, American Anthropologist, 108 (1), pp. 100-113.

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Aretxaga, B. (1995) “Dirty Protest: Symbolic Overdetermination and Gender in Northern Ireland Ethnic Protest”, Ethos, 23 (2), pp. 123148. Aretxaga, B. (1997) Shattering Silence. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Arthur, P. (1997) “Reading Violence: Ireland”, in Apter, D.E. (ed) The Legitimization of Violence. New York: New York University Press. Aughey, A. and McIlheney, C. (1981) “The Ulster Defence Association: Paramilitaries and Politics”, The Journal of Conflict Studies, 2 (2), pp. 32-45. Ballagh, R. (2006) “A Profound and Historical Event”, in Morrison, D. (ed) Hunger Strike: Reflections on the 1981 Hunger Strike. Dingle: Brandon. Battersby, J. D. (1989) “Hunger Strikes grow in South Africa Prisons” New York Times, 2 February. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com /1989/02/10/world/hunger-strikes-grow-in-south-africa-prisons.ht ml (last accessed November 2021). BBC (2006) “What Happened on the Hunger Strike?” Last updated 5 May. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ir eland/4941866.stm (last accessed November 2021). Beresford, D. (1994) Ten Men Dead. London: HarperCollins. Beauvoir, S. de (2010) The Second Sex. Translated by C. Borde and S. Malovany-Chevallier. London: Vintage Books. (Original work published in French 1949) Beauvoir, S. de (2013) A Very Easy Death. Translated by P. O’Brian. New York: Pantheon Books. (Original work published in French 1964) Bobby Sands Trust (2008) “Background to the Hunger Strike”, available at: www.bobbysandstrust.com Brown, W. (2006) “In Deep Despair”, in Morrison, D. (ed) Hunger Strike: Reflections on the 1981 Hunger Strike. Dingle: Brandon. Buntman, F.L. (2003) Robben Island and Prison Resistance to Apartheid. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Coole, D. (2005) “Rethinking Agency: A Phenomenological Approach to Embodiment and Agentic Capacities”, Political Studies, 53.

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Corbett, M.J. (1992) Representing Femininity—Middle Class Subjectivity in Victorian and Edwardian Women’s Autobiographies. New York and London: Oxford University Press. Crawford, E. (2012) “Collecting Suffrage: The Hunger Strike Medal” [Blogpost] Available at: http://womanandhersphere.com/2012/0 8/11/collecting-suffrage-the-hunger-strike-medal/ (last accessed November 2021) Crawford, E. (2015) “Suffrage Stories: ‘Shooting Suffrage’: Films That Suffrage Activists Would Have Seen”. [Blogpost]. Available at: htt ps://womanandhersphere.com/2015/10/16/suffrage-stories-shooti ng-suffrage-films-that-suffrage-activists-would-have-seen/ (last accessed November 2021) Dingley, J. and Mollica, M. (2007) “The Human Body as a Terrorist Weapon: Hunger Strikes and Suicide Bombers”, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 30, pp. 459-492. Doyle, M. (2011) Interview. 1980 Hunger Strikes Mary Doyle. An Phoblacht. 27th January. Ellmann, M. (1993) The Hunger Artists. London: Virago. Feldman, A. (1991) Formations of Violence: The Narrative of the Body and Political Terror in Northern Ireland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fessler, D. (2003) “The Implications of Starvation Induced Psychological Changes for the Ethical Treatment of Hunger Strikers”, in Journal of Medical Ethics, 29 (4), pp. 243-247. Findlay, M. (1985) “‘Criminalization’ and the Detention of ‘Political Prisoners’—An Irish Perspective”, Contemporary Crises, 9, pp. 1-17. Goalwin, G. (2013) “The Art of War—Instability, Insecurity, and Ideological Imagery in Northern Ireland’s Political Murals 1979-1998”, International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 26, pp. 189-215. Gooldin, S. (2003) “Fasting Women, Living Skeletons and Hunger Artists: Spectacles of the Body and Miracles at the Turn of a Century”, Body and Society, 9 (2), pp. 27-53. Green, B. (1994-1995) “From Visible Flâneuse to Spectacular Suffragette? The Prison, the Street, and the Sites of Suffrage”. Discourse, 17 (2), pp. 67-97. Kathrada, A. (2000) Letters From Robben Island. Cape Town: Zebra Press.

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Kelleher, S. (2006) “Still Lives on in Minds and Hearts,” in Morrison, D. (ed) Hunger Strike: Reflections on the 1981 Hunger Strike. Dingle: Brandon. Kent, S.K. (1990) Sex and Suffrage in Britain 1860-1914. London: Routledge. Koçan, G. and  Öncü. (2006) “From the Morality of Living to the Morality of Dying: Hunger Strikes in Turkish Prisons”, Citizenship Studies, 10 (3), pp. 349-372. Kraft, S (1989) “Hunger Strike Ends; S. Africa Regime Yields: Government Pledges to Free a ’Substantial Number’ of Detainees,” LA Times. 17 February. Available at: http://articles.latimes.com/print/1989-0217/news/mn-2779_1_hunger-strike (last accessed December 2015) Lowndes, J. (2013) “Barack Obama’s Body: The Presidency, the Body Politics, and the Contest over American National Identity”, Polity, 45 (4), pp. 469-498. Mandela, N. (1994) Long Walk to Freedom. New York: Back Bay Books. Mayhall, L.E.N. (2003) The Militant Suffrage Movement: Citizenship and Resistance in Britain 1860-1930. New York: Oxford University Press. McAtackney, L. (2008) “Experiencing ‘the Maze’: Official and unofficial interactions with place in post-conflict Northern Ireland”, in Vanclay, F., Higgins M. and Blackshaw A. (eds) Making Sense of Place: Exploring Concepts and Expressions of Place Through Different Senses and Lenses. Canberra: National Museum of Australia Press. McKay, S. (2008) Bear in Mind These Dead. London: Faber and Faber. McKittrick, D. and McVea, D. (2001) Making Sense of the Troubles. London: Penguin. Melaugh, M. (n.d.) “The Hunger Strike of 1981 – A Chronology of Main Events” CAIN (Conflict and Politics in Northern Ireland) webservice. Available at: https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/hstrike/chronology.ht m (last accessed November 2021) Merrett, C. (1990) “Detention Without Trial in South Africa: The Abuse of Human Rights as State Strategy in the Late 1980s”, Africa Today, 37 (2), pp. 53-67. Morgan, V. (1995) Peacemakers? Peacekeepers? Women in Northern Ireland 1969-1995. Londonderry: INCORE. Available at: http://cain.ulster.a c.uk/issues/women/paper3.htm (last accessed November 2021)

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Morrison, D. (2006) “Introduction” in Morrison, D. (ed) Hunger Strike: Reflections on the 1981 Hunger Strike. Dingle: Brandon. Mulcahy, A. (1995) “Claims-Making and the Construction of Legitimacy: Press Coverage of the 1981 Northern Irish Hunger Strike”, Social Problems, 42 (4), pp. 450-467. Naidoo, I. (2003) Island in Chains: Ten Years on Robben Island. London: Penguin Books. Nelis, M. (2006) “Ordinary People in Morrison, D. (ed) Hunger Strike: Reflections on the 1981 Hunger Strike. Dingle: Brandon. Nnamdi, K. (2013) “Understanding Hunger Strikes: From Booby Sands to Guantanamo” [Radio broadcast transcript of discussion with F. Buntman and P. O’Malley] Available at: http://thekojonnamdishow. org/shows/2013-05-14/understanding-hunger-strikes-bobby-sands -guantanamo (last accessed November 2021) O’Keefe, T. (2006) “Menstrual Blood as a Weapon of Resistance”, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 8 (4), pp. 535-556. O’Rawe, R. (2005) Blanketmen: An Untold Story of the H-Block Hunger Strike. Dublin: New Island. Pankhurt, C. (1987) Unshackled. London: Cresset Women’s Voices. Pankhurst, E. (1913) Speech: “Freedom or Death”. Available at: http://w ww.womenspeecharchive.org/women/profile/speech/index.cfm?P rofileID=356&SpeechID=2253 Parkins, W. (2000) “Protesting Like a Girl: Embodiment, Dissent and Feminist Agency”, Feminist Theory, 1 (1), pp. 59-78. Passmore, L. (2009) “The Art of Hunger: Self-Starvation in the Red Army Faction”, in German History, 27 (1), pp. 32-59. Pateman, C. (1989) The Disorder of Women. Cambridge: Polity Press. Peel, M. (1997) “Hunger Strikes”, The BMJ, (515), pp. 829. Phillips, M. (2003) The Ascent of Women: A History of the Suffrage Movement. Little, Brown & Company. Power, M. (2015) “Second-class Republicans? Sinn Féin’s Feminism and the Women’s Hunger Strike”, Irish Times. 18th December Purvis, J. (1995) “‘Deeds, Not Words’ The Daily Lives of Militant Suffragettes in Edwardian Britain”, Women’s Studies International Forum, 18 (2), pp. 91-101.

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Rolston, B. (1987) “Politics, Painting and Popular Culture: The Political Wall Murals of Northern Ireland”. Media, Culture and Society, 9, pp. 5-28. Russell, S.A. (2005) Hunger: An Unnatural History. New York: Basic Books. Ryan, L. (1995) “Traditions and Double Moral Standards: The Irish Suffragists’ Critique of Nationalism”, Womens’s History Review, 4 (4), pp. 487-503. Sasson-Levy, O. and Rapoport, T. (2003) “Body, Gender and Knowledge in Protest Movements”, Gender and Society, 17 (3), pp. 379-403. Siméant, J. (1998) “Who Clamours for Attention – and Who Cares? Hunger Strikes in France from 1972 to 1992”, La Lettre de la Maison Francaise, 10, pp. 98-119. Stanley Holton, S. (1986) Feminism and Democracy: Women’s Suffrage and Reform Politics in Britain 1900-1928. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Sweeney, G. (1993) “Irish Hunger Strikes and the Cult of Self-Sacrifice”, Journal of Contemporary History, 28 (3) 421-437. Vernon, J. (2007) Hunger: A Modern History. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Waismel-Manor, I. (2005) “Striking Differences: Hunger Strikes in Israel and the US”, Social Movement Studies,4 (3), pp. 281–300. Yuill, C. (2007) “The Body as Weapon: Bobby Sands and the Republican Hunger Strike”, Sociological Research Online, 12 (2). Zwelonke Mdluli, D. (2013) Robben Island: The Memoirs of Dan Zwelonke Mdluli. Xlibris.

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Chapter 5. Embodied Occupation: Disciplined Bodies in Counter-Conduct “It is… the body that is on the line, exhibiting its value and its freedom in the demonstration itself, enacting, by the embodied form of the gathering, a claim to the political” (Butler 2015: 18).   “Though I still have many critical questions about Greenham, I see it as a source of fresh thinking about how to be joyously, effectively political in a conservative, dangerous time” (Snitow 2015: 169).

Waving banners, scaling walls, filling streets, climbing trees, blocking pipelines, stripping off, shouting out, standing up, sitting down—bodies are at their most visible in political protests. By gathering together on streets, in squares, outside parliaments or at symbolic sites, embodied subjects can bring a political message to life and demonstrate political frustration as well as the possibility for change. Assembled bodies are often feared and declaimed as undemocratic and primitive ‘mobs’ but, as Judith Butler shows, assemblies can also have an important and legitimate critical function; they are able to express a shared condition and challenge the legitimacy of a government as well as dominant conceptions of democracy (2015). As she writes, “acting in concert can be

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an embodied form of calling into question the inchoate and powerful dimensions of reigning notions of the political” (2015: 9). Quite apart from the words they chant or sing or paint, the interaction and co-operation between lived bodies has some sort of political impact that is as fascinating as it is irreducible. The starting point of this chapter, then, is that the gathering together of bodies is relevant for our theories and practices of democracy. I focus more specifically on the political implications and contributions of lived bodies in protest through occupation, and I define occupation as collective, coordinated, sustained, situated and embodied protest. There is a long history of political protest through occupation. In Greenham Common in the UK, for example, women camped outside a US cruise missile base for several years in the 1980s, in a display of “physical, visible endurance” (Snitow 2015: 163). More recently occupation was used by the Occupy Movement in 2011 (Shiffman et al. 2012). From its beginnings in Zuccotti Park near Wall Street in New York, Occupy spread around the world in protest against neoliberal capitalism (Rossdale and Stierl 2016; Bulley 2016; Shiffman et al. 2012). “Occupy,” write Chris Rossdale and Maurice Stierl, “has become emblematic of a politics that is inclusive, subversive and active in a manner that both challenges and goes beyond traditional conceptions of politics” (2016: 157). However, although an occupation might challenge the legitimacy of the state and resist a government policy or decision, this does not mean that those who undertake it have disentangled themselves entirely from the relations of power. It is a mistake to see such protest simplistically as an assertion of freedom (Death 2010: 239). To occupy, after all, is to situate oneselves very definitely within a struggle of power. This is why, when studying a political occupation, it is useful to consider Foucault’s notion of ‘counter conduct’, which he uses to discuss “resistance, refusal and revolt” (Foucault 2009: 200). This term allows us to consider the way that political resistance is always possible, but is also always ultimately connected with what it is resisting. Resistance is not exterior to power but rather inscribed within it (Foucault 1998: 96). As Carl Death explains in his account of the counter-conduct of protest, the concept “captures the close interrelationship between

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protests and the forms of government they oppose” (Death 2010: 236). As such, it can offer an important corrective to the assumption of binaries between power and resistance that frequently hinder analysis of social movements and political protest (Death 2010: 235). Various scholars have therefore used Foucault’s concept of ‘counter-conduct’ to examine protest movements (Death 2010; Rosol 2014; Bulley 2016; Odysseos et al. 2016; Rossdale and Stierl 2016). My aim is to follow the work of these researchers but to focus particularly upon the way that counter-conduct is embodied. In this chapter I will argue that political occupation involves engaging in an embodied counter-conduct that challenges, resists and undermines governmental power through a creative re-disciplining of and by bodies. Attending to bodies can therefore also extend conceptions of ‘counter-conduct’. After first briefly describing Foucault’s ‘counter-conduct’, I examine the collective, coordinated, sustained, situated and embodied political occupation at Twyford Down in the UK in 1992, an important example of protest which many see as the precursor and catalyst for the antiroads movement as well as other environmental campaigns. I suggest that, in this specific context, occupying bodies (1) produced an excess of meaning beyond verbal and written communication (2) reconstructed public space (3) performed and provoked emotion (4) encouraged cooperation and identification and finally, (5) contributed to their own disciplinary (re)ordering – illustrating the relevance of bodies to ‘counterconduct’. The specific character of this case study cannot be used to make extensive generalised claims. However, by tracing these five interconnected dimensions of the occupation I argue that the bodies of counter-conduct should be regarded not reductively as passive instruments but as creative agents that render political occupation powerful yet unpredictable and passionate yet disciplined.

5.1

Conducting and Countering

As noted in the introduction to the book, Foucault helps us to understand that bodies are frequently the objects of politics. Bodies are dis-

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protests and the forms of government they oppose” (Death 2010: 236). As such, it can offer an important corrective to the assumption of binaries between power and resistance that frequently hinder analysis of social movements and political protest (Death 2010: 235). Various scholars have therefore used Foucault’s concept of ‘counter-conduct’ to examine protest movements (Death 2010; Rosol 2014; Bulley 2016; Odysseos et al. 2016; Rossdale and Stierl 2016). My aim is to follow the work of these researchers but to focus particularly upon the way that counter-conduct is embodied. In this chapter I will argue that political occupation involves engaging in an embodied counter-conduct that challenges, resists and undermines governmental power through a creative re-disciplining of and by bodies. Attending to bodies can therefore also extend conceptions of ‘counter-conduct’. After first briefly describing Foucault’s ‘counter-conduct’, I examine the collective, coordinated, sustained, situated and embodied political occupation at Twyford Down in the UK in 1992, an important example of protest which many see as the precursor and catalyst for the antiroads movement as well as other environmental campaigns. I suggest that, in this specific context, occupying bodies (1) produced an excess of meaning beyond verbal and written communication (2) reconstructed public space (3) performed and provoked emotion (4) encouraged cooperation and identification and finally, (5) contributed to their own disciplinary (re)ordering – illustrating the relevance of bodies to ‘counterconduct’. The specific character of this case study cannot be used to make extensive generalised claims. However, by tracing these five interconnected dimensions of the occupation I argue that the bodies of counter-conduct should be regarded not reductively as passive instruments but as creative agents that render political occupation powerful yet unpredictable and passionate yet disciplined.

5.1

Conducting and Countering

As noted in the introduction to the book, Foucault helps us to understand that bodies are frequently the objects of politics. Bodies are dis-

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ciplined through powerful social norms; they are “inscribed with the prevailing relations of power” (Krause 2011: 305); they are “manipulated, shaped, trained… subjected, used, transformed and improved…” (Foucault 1977: 136). Foucault’s key insight is that power doesn’t work simply by forcing somebody to do something they would rather not do, but rather by changing what it is that they want to do. Power operates by governing everyday behaviour, by imposing conceptions of ‘truth’ and establishing and manipulating “the field of possibilities in which the behaviour or active subjects is able to inscribe itself” (1994: 341). In this way each individual becomes her “own overseer” (1980: 155). Government (or ‘governmentality’) as he understands it is the art of guiding a population to behave in a ‘productive’ way, by delineating what is rational, normal and healthy. Government is ultimately comprised by “the modes of action… that were designed to act upon the possibilities of action of other people” (1994: 341). Foucault uses the word ‘conduct’ to indicate the way that individual bodies are both conducted by power and also, at the same time, conduct themselves; ‘conduct’ is the activity of conducting, of directing, another, but ‘conduct’ is also behaviour or comportment (2009: 193). By directing the way that the population body comports itself, government can be understood as consisting of the “conduct of conducts” (1994: 341). Such “conduct of conducts”, explains Foucault, is directed towards economico-political ends and involves both the surveillance of bodies (1980: 149) as well as their regulative disciplining (1980: 138). But as we will see, bodies can conduct themselves in a way that struggles against this conduction. Struggle, however, cannot be directed against power, because there is no central actor who holds power, which is why no one can ultimately escape it: “one doesn’t have here a power which is wholly in the hands of one person who can exercise it alone and totally over others. It’s a machine in which everyone is caught” (1980: 156). Power, for Foucault, is “always already there” and there is no ‘outside’ (1980: 141). But to accuse him of leaving little space for resistance is, as Foucauldian scholars point out, to overlook an important aspect of his conception of power relations. For he emphasises that every relation of power necessarily

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comes with the potential for struggle (1994: 346). As he writes, “to say that one can never be outside power does not mean that one is trapped and condemned to defeat no matter what” (1980: 141), rather that “resistance… exists all the more by being in the same place as power” (Foucault 1980: 142). In short “where there is power, there is resistance” (1998: 95). Precisely because of this entanglement of power and resistance, resistance cannot be understood as being simply diametrically opposed to power: “there is no binary and all-encompassing opposition between rulers and ruled” (Foucault 1998: 94; Deacon 1998: 122-3; Death 2010; Rossdale and Stierl 2016: 158). As Roger Deacon puts it, “we do not struggle against power but within relations of power which always involve struggle” (1998: 128). Therefore “resistance is not an external struggle against power, but an internal and dyadic exercise of power relations” (Deacon 1998: 125). Foucault uses the term ‘counter-conduct’ to express the way in which resistance takes a form that is “not absolutely external” to what it is resisting (2009: 214). Counter-conduct involves “struggle against the processes implemented for conducting others” (2009: 201) and it “can “redistribute, reverse, nullify, and partially or totally discredit [government]” (2009: 204). It has “a productivity, forms of existence, organization, and a consistency and solidity” (2009: 200) and is “almost always linked to other conflicts and problems” (2009: 196). To engage in counter-conduct is to resist government but, warns Arnold Davidson, it should not be understood as a “purely negative act”: “if resistance were nothing more than the reverse image of power, it wouldn’t resist” (2011: 27). Counter-conduct, as I understand it here, rather disciplines in a different way. What drives counter-conduct is not the desire not to be governed but rather “the will not to be governed thusly, like that, by these people, at this price” (Foucault 2007: 73). Foucault’s counter-conduct is useful in comprehending contemporary forms of contestation (Rosal 2014: 80). More specifically, counterconduct can be used to analyse occupations and the way that these protests cannot fully liberate themselves from power relations and the regimes they are contesting. Dan Bulley explains that the Occupy movement targeted precisely the urban sites intended for the circulation of

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global capital and consumption in order to ‘repurpose’ them: “Occupy dwells in and seizes space in order to halt, to simply ‘be’, and thereby not circulate, not consume” (2016: 246). But these open public spaces, he points out, exist as a key feature of global cities, to attact businesses. Therefore, by utilising these spaces, the movement is in some ways shaped by and even compliant with the capitalist system that it also undermines (2016: 248). Furthermore, protest movements “generate their own rules, imperatives, exclusions, and, in turn, resistances” (Rossdale and Stierl 2016: 158). In his work on anti-roads protests, Andrew Barry suggests that political sociologists tend to understand political action as “an expression of something else which lies behind it” (2001: 176) which he says results in the neglect of the significance of political events themselves. He therefore attends instead to “the objects, technologies and practices of political action” (2001: 176). Likewise, in his exploration of the ‘counterconduct’ present at various international summits, Death explains he does not focus upon social movements or political ideologies that may inform protest, but rather on the actual practices and mentalities of resistance. I suggest supplementing this with a focus on lived bodies themselves. My aim is not, then, to locate the ideas ‘behind’ the occupation at Twyford Down but to look at the specific example of occupation itself as an embodied activity. Bodies, I argue, play a key role in counter-conduct. Embodied occupation has an impact that somehow goes beyond what can be put in a petition or voiced in a speech and in some ways escapes the initial expectations and explicit aims of the protest. I argue that by noticing how bodies engage in counter-conduct, we notice important aspects of protest. Bodies in counter-conduct do not conduct themselves freely: they rather conduct themselves differently. In order to examine this further I consider the sustained, situated, embodied occupation at Twyford Down in which bodies are the creative subjects of counterconduct.

5. Embodied Occupation: Disciplined Bodies in Counter-Conduct

5.2

Twyford Down

The occupation of the site of a proposed new road at Twyford Down in 1992 is an important example of bodily occupation in environmental politics. While the campaign started back in 1985, the focus of this case study is the shorter time period of the occupation, which took place between January and December 1992. The case study utilises a mixture of texts: books and chapters written by the campaigners involved – Barbara Bryant (1996), Jonathan Porritt (1996), Alexandra Plows (2005) and Helen Beynon (2020) – the speech of the local MP John Denham in the House of Commons, transcribed and published by Hansard (Denham 1994) and newspaper articles (from the Guardian and the Observer), a semi-structured expert interview with Helen Beynon, one of the protestors, which took place in October 2020, as well as academic analysis (Doherty 1999; Wall 1999). The narratives of these texts generally overlap, although I attend to their contradictions as well as their commonalities. According to these overlapping narratives, the context of the occupation was the proposed construction of a motorway bypass (which would later become the M3) through an area of chalk downland, southeast of Winchester in England. This area is described in the texts as not only a site of beauty but also of special scientific and archaeological interest (Denham 1994); it was a “magnificent”, one of “England’s most precious landscapes” (Bryant 1996: vii). Porritt describes, in contrast, the “grotesque photomontage” of the planned development (1996: 297). The plans for the bypass were made as part of the “Roads for Prosperity” scheme of the Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher (Doherty 1999). In January 1992, as construction work began, local residents, councillors and members of the Friends of the Earth organisation arranged a protest on the site (Bryant 1996: 188). From February onwards protestors occupied some of the bridges due to be demolished and chained themselves to machinery (Guardian 16 February 1992: 2). The occupation continued through the summer, with a small group of protestors who physically resisted the road-building, lying down in

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front of bulldozers and staging sit-downs (Observer 22 March 1992: 3). According to Beynon there were three main groups of protestors involved, although the boundaries between them were fluid: local residents concerned specifically about the Down, members of the Earth First! (EF!) ‘disorganisation’ who were radical green activists, and finally a group of protestors who called themselves the ‘Dongas Tribe’ (Wall 1999: 87). Dongas was a word for trackways in the Matabele language, and the protestors used it to express their self-identification with the land. According to Plows, nature was seen by the Dongas as sacred and something with which human life was interconnected (2005: 505). This more pragmatic form of protest was accompanied by singing, drumming, chanting and magic spells (Plows 2005). Their “daily ritual of protest and procedure” (Guardian 20 November 1992: 45) involved “everyday eco-magic”, celebrations of natural cycles (Plows 2005) alongside stand-offs with the police and contractors and frequent arrests. The protest was physically demanding; not only did the protest involve ‘spectacular’ direct action but also the various mundane tasks such as collecting water and building fires to cook with and keep warm. The camp was broken up violently by the Group 4 security company contracted by the government on 9 December 1992 (Guardian 10 December 1992: 4), a day known as “Yellow Wednesday” (Plows 2005: 505). The M3 was built as planned, and therefore a simple reading might see the campaign, only one facet of which was the occupation, as having failed. However the narratives suggest a different, more successful, picture: first, much of the government’s £12billion road programme was later abandoned as a direct result of the protests (Porritt 1996: 304). For example, the following year a plan to build a new road through Oxlear Wood was dropped (Doherty 1999: 284). Second, the political picture was transformed as a result: “What is clear is that our Twyford Down campaign has changed the political landscape” (Bryant 1996: 221). Porritt states that Twyford Down was the first battle and that “many campaigners now believe we are well on the way to winning the war” (1996: 299). More specifically, the Twyford Down occupation is understood by all of the sources as an important symbolic and practical example for future anti-roads protests (Doherty 1999: 284; McKay 1996; Plows 2005: 505). As

5. Embodied Occupation: Disciplined Bodies in Counter-Conduct

Porritt points out, it is the threat of protest that may result in the reversing of policy, rather than protest itself, which almost always comes too late. Therefore by threatening similar tactics, later protests could build upon Twyford Down. As I will argue below, in these anti-road protests, government policy is resisted through the bodily occupation of the very space that the government hoped to co-opt and the utilisation of the very machines with which it planned to do it. Situated exactly within the struggle, using bulldozers, lorries and diggers as tools of that struggle and disciplining bodies in a way that corporealised a new lifestyle, the Twyford Down protest is an example of counter-conduct in which the “the will not to be governed thusly, like that, by these people, at this price” was embodied. I consider the dimensions of the occupation, and conclude by suggesting that analysis and conceptions of ‘counter-conduct’ should attend closely to the bodies that undertake it.

5.3 5.3.1

Dimensions of Occupying Bodies at Twyford Down Surplus Meaning

All the literature analysed agrees that the Twyford Down protest was about ‘more than Twyford Down’. “More than any other road scheme, Twyford Down came to symbolise in the minds of many people all that was wrong with the Government’s roads policy” states Denham (1994). This wasn’t just a protest against the building of the motorway. It was a protest against the building of all motorways, and of the destruction of the environment and the landscape too. For Porritt: “Twyford Down continues to work its magic as a symbol of opposition to undemocratic, ecologically wanton road-building, wherever it is taking place” (1996: 299). Beynon observes that all participants were aware of the “bigger picture” of which this planned motorway was merely a symptom. This resonates with the words in Beynon’s book, for example she quotes a protestor, Indra, saying: “Twyford was the first place I heard conversations about climate change and the whole interconnectedness of ecosys-

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Porritt points out, it is the threat of protest that may result in the reversing of policy, rather than protest itself, which almost always comes too late. Therefore by threatening similar tactics, later protests could build upon Twyford Down. As I will argue below, in these anti-road protests, government policy is resisted through the bodily occupation of the very space that the government hoped to co-opt and the utilisation of the very machines with which it planned to do it. Situated exactly within the struggle, using bulldozers, lorries and diggers as tools of that struggle and disciplining bodies in a way that corporealised a new lifestyle, the Twyford Down protest is an example of counter-conduct in which the “the will not to be governed thusly, like that, by these people, at this price” was embodied. I consider the dimensions of the occupation, and conclude by suggesting that analysis and conceptions of ‘counter-conduct’ should attend closely to the bodies that undertake it.

5.3 5.3.1

Dimensions of Occupying Bodies at Twyford Down Surplus Meaning

All the literature analysed agrees that the Twyford Down protest was about ‘more than Twyford Down’. “More than any other road scheme, Twyford Down came to symbolise in the minds of many people all that was wrong with the Government’s roads policy” states Denham (1994). This wasn’t just a protest against the building of the motorway. It was a protest against the building of all motorways, and of the destruction of the environment and the landscape too. For Porritt: “Twyford Down continues to work its magic as a symbol of opposition to undemocratic, ecologically wanton road-building, wherever it is taking place” (1996: 299). Beynon observes that all participants were aware of the “bigger picture” of which this planned motorway was merely a symptom. This resonates with the words in Beynon’s book, for example she quotes a protestor, Indra, saying: “Twyford was the first place I heard conversations about climate change and the whole interconnectedness of ecosys-

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tems. It was there I first heard the term ‘capitalism’; we kept saying “it’s not about one road through one hill”. We are still saying that” (2020: 169). But, and this is my main point here, the ‘more than’ is not always easy to precisely and fully articulate in words. The embodied character of the protest allowed the meaning of the protest to overspill the words said about it. Protesting bodies offer a visible display of something new, a bit like art, in which we are provoked to engage with something disturbing or disruptive on a non-cognitive level. Theorists identify a ‘semiotic excess’ here; there is a surplus of meaning beyond the immediate goals (Szerszynski 2002: 54). “Silent gatherings, including vigils or funerals, often signify in excess of any particular written or vocalized account of what they are about” (Butler 2015: 8). It is this excess provided by bodies that escapes and resists the ‘conduction’ by government and the specific aims of the particular protest that they are participating in. In this way the embodied occupation went beyond a straightforward opposition to roadbuilding. The performances of occupying bodies do not simply replicate words of dissent but augment them; a statement that is offered in verbal or written form can be supported by a dissenting body that produces some additional meaning (Lilja 2017).

5.3.2

Politicisation of Place

One important transformation facilitated through bodily occupation is that the space is constructed as a site of protest. As Butler explains, occupying bodies reconfigure their material environments: “collective actions collect the space itself, gather the pavement, and animate and organize the architecture” (2015: 71). That which was not necessarily understood as ‘public space’ becomes (re)claimed through the protest, which does not move quickly through it but is necessarily sustained on that very site. An area, previously out of bounds, is not only a background but is itself therefore rendered political by the occupying bodies. Occupation unsettles and remakes territorial settings (Sassen 2012: 69).

5. Embodied Occupation: Disciplined Bodies in Counter-Conduct

Speaking in the House of Commons, MP John Denham objected to the government’s response to the direct-action protest at Twyford Down, which he believed was “neither measured nor appropriate”. He was clearly delineating the right of citizens to protest at and in the construction site and defended the protestors against the charge of trespass. This opens up the question of whether the site was a legitimate place of political participation or not. By occupying that sites, bodies enfleshed a challenge to the boundaries of the public sphere. Barry explains that the rural landscape became a ‘battleground’ for anti-road protestors in the 1990s (Barry 2001: 181). For sure, politics does not take place in empty spaces that have a fixed significance, but sites that with a meaning that is constructed and reconstructed (Barry 2001: 179). The site of this type of protest is occupied, however, precisely because of its significance to the regime or strategy that is being opposed. Foucault observes that conflicts of conduct often appear “on the borders and edge of the political institution” (1978: 198) – and by doing so they can reaffirm the significance of these institutions, while also disclosing and challenging that significance. It was highly relevant that the Occupy Wall Street protest was camped right on the doorstep of corporate power, in Zuccotti Park; by using this small green area to become a “miniature polis”, the occupation highlighted the “bankruptcy of what… has passed as public space” (Kimmelman 2012: xiv). Ann Snitow notes that the protest camp Greenham Common was located “in the stinking nowhere” although it was nevertheless renowned as “a shrine of the international peace movement” (2015: 167). It was also located right on the edge – outside the fence – of the cruise missile base it opposed. Likewise, the occupation at Twyford Down functioned to draw attention to the proposed motorway as a site of political dispute and ecological risk. The bodies of the protestors remained at the point at which government strategy came into contact with revered landscape, highlighting the clash between economic and ecological values. Barry suggests that through the anti-roads protests in general, particular places were (re)claimed as political and this enabled them to ‘demonstrate’ in

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the sense of ‘pointing out’ the environmental destruction that they were resisting (2001: 182).

5.3.3

Circulation of Emotions

As the quote above from Snitow highlights, protest can be highly emotional—she writes of her “intense conversion experience” (2015: 169) and of “women’s anger” (2015: 187). Emotions seem to operate more tangibly within a gathering of human bodies. As they circulate between participants, emotions can intensify. Emotions are a pervasive feature of social movements and political protest: “emotions are part of the ‘stuff’ connecting human beings to each other and the world around them” (Goodwin et al. 2001: 10). The overlapping narratives of the literature strongly emphasise the role and prevalence of emotion. This comes across unambiguously in the interview with Beynon, who describes Twyford Down as “astonishingly beautiful” and emphasises several times the “emotional investment” in the land as well as with the other protestors. As Bryant’s book makes clear, the bodily occupation took place alongside legal actions. But when she describes the actions of human bodies, emotions come to the fore. In her account of one of the protests on the site she writes: “we wanted people to come along and show the politicians the strength of feeling that existed in the local communities, as well as nationally…. We were staggered at the number of people who came down… many with banners, placards, dogs and children” (1996: 191). Bryant describes spontaneous acts as “remarkably evocative” and as leaving “a lasting impression” (1996: 191). Porritt, too, reports “the emotional maelstrom that such a campaign involves” and “the gut feelings that drive people beyond both reason and endurance” (1996: 298). He emphasises that such dissent against road-building is both rational and emotional (1996: 309). Finally, although Denham states that some of the protests “went further” than what he believes is “reasonable” and “damaged construction equipment” he nevertheless observes “the sincere and honest passions that motivated some people to participate in that action” (1994). We might agree

5. Embodied Occupation: Disciplined Bodies in Counter-Conduct

with Porritt, then, when he counsels against ignoring “the power of emotion” (1996: 302). Protests have often been regarded as expressing the primitive passions of “the mob” (Butler 2015: 1); something that should be greatly feared or simply disesteemed. But political participation cannot be seen as solely motivated by objective interests of rational actors. Emotions work alongside all social and political action (Goodwin et al. 2001: 9). Anger motivates protest, but protest can also be highly pleasurable (McKay 1996). As we see next, the emotions at Twyford are connected not only to bodies and the land but also to the emergence of collective identification and political community.

5.3.4

Identity Construction

One way in which emotions play an integral role in politics is in the formation and ongoing salience of collective identifications: emotions both arise from and precipitate new understandings of the participants and each other. “Emotions connect people” (Lilja 2017: 4). And as Bronislaw Szerszynski points out, protests already ‘mark out’ the community of protestors (Szerszynski 2002: 55). Assemblies of bodies perform a particular meaning and delimitation of ‘the people’ (Butler 2015: 6). Butler explains that assemblies of bodies suffering from a particular facet of social injustice—the precarious individualised bodies of neoliberalism—embody the shared nature of this situation and contest the burden that is placed upon the individual to be “self-sufficient” (Butler 2015: 10). Shared suffering during the protest can rally a sense of communality: “the stream of evictions” at Greenham “became a source of solidarity, resistance, and imagination” (Snitow 2015: 172). The terrifying and exhausting experiences of direct action as well as the humdrum physical tasks of camping on the site, such as walking a mile every morning to collect the water, drew the protestors together. Beynon speaks of sitting with the others around the fire in the evening, after going through harrowing experiences together, knowing that they would “do it all over again tomorrow”, and she says that this forged a strong sense of solidarity.

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This is not to say that the protest involved a homogeneous group of people. Denham, for example, explains that the protest at Twyford Down “attracted many different people from all parts of the country and all types of background” and that many of them described themselves as “never normally doing something like this” (Denham 1994). There were members of EF! alongside local campaigners, environmental pressure groups and New Age Travellers (Wall 1999: 87). Bryant describes the alliance of “Local councillors, a vicar, housewives… middle-class Conservative voters, retired military men, elected politicians and a younger, less conventional group…” (1996: 192). She continues: “It was the pearlsand-twinsets which surprised the media, not the more radical elements in the crowd” (1996: 192). The group of protestors accommodated “a surprising range of views and practices” (Barry 2001: 185). Yet despite the diversity within the broad alliance of protestors, there was also a strong identification emerging in the form of what Brian Doherty calls a new movement of British ‘eco-protestors’ (1999). These radical protestors were often full-time activists who opposed not only road-building and the political system in general, but were also dissatisfied with the existing environmental pressure groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth that were seen as failing to promote effective action and a sufficiently participatory democratic culture (Doherty 1999: 288). According to Foucault, the formation of communities is an element of counter-conduct and he explains that such communities of counterconduct refuse submission and reverse hierarchy, and can have a “carnival aspect” (2009: 212). Doherty describes the ‘eco-protestors’ as characterised by ‘counter-cultural ideas’ (1999: 276) and alternative lifestyles, which embraced earth-spirituality and opposed ‘modern instrumental rationality’ (1999: 277). As both Plows and Beynon explain, the Dongas tribe identified themselves explicitly with nature and the ‘sacred landscape’ (Plows 2005: 505) as well as with Bronze and Iron Age people who, the Dongas believed, would have shared their beliefs. They expressed and confirmed their connection with nature through rituals, “They would meet the advancing bulldozers with… goddess chants, faces smeared with chalk from the Down, sage sticks… and hazel penta-

5. Embodied Occupation: Disciplined Bodies in Counter-Conduct

cles….” Plows recalls how this “meld of ritual and direct action” worked to unite and empower the group and how “the guards huddled around their fires as the Dongas danced” (2005: 505). Here we see embodied rituals and actions as fostering a strong identification that was highly emotive and rooted in a rejection of mainstream contemporary culture, understood to be limited by “overconsumption and an anthropocentric alienation from nature” (2005: 506). An alternative mode of life is a “centre of counter-conduct” (Davidson 2011: 33). Indeed “counter-conduct points to the always already existing potentiality for the subject to be/come otherwise” (Rossdale and Stierl 2016: 161). Next, I consider the way in which the bodies of Twyford Down corporealised counterconduct through their resistance that was tightly interconnected to, as well as subversive of, the machinery of power.

5.3.5

(Re)Disciplining

An analysis informed by the concept of counter-conduct heeds the way that an occupation is shaped by the very policies and practices it is resisting: “The form protests take are closely linked to the regimes of power against which they are opposed—and simultaneously practices of government themselves are shaped by the manner in which they are resisted” (Death 2010: 240). The techniques used by the protestors at Twyford Down were influenced directly by the techniques of the government they were opposing. A key part of the occupation was the obstruction but also utilisation of the machinery that was actually reclaimed as part of the protest. The protestors D-locked themselves to lorries, clung to bulldozers, perched high in trees, and in this way their resistance was inseparable to the governmentality they resisted. Arnold Davidson writes that conduct and counter-conduct both “share a series of elements that can be utilized and reutilized, reimplanted, taken up in the direction of reinforcing a certain mode of conduct or creating or recreating a type of counter-conduct” (2011:26). The bulldozers of Tywford Down became part of the destruction and the resistance; tools for both the government and the protestors.

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If we attend to the bodies that took part in the protest, we see that those bodies were shaped by their resistance and also by what they were resisting. The bodies that rejected the old rules and the existing governance of ‘development’ were disciplined by new rules, techniques and practices. The rituals of the Dongas Tribe, involving music and ‘ecomagic’, were understood to be expressions of a communal and sustainable lifestyle seen as part of the solution to the overconsumption and alienation from nature that characterised the Western condition and that were what they were protesting against (Plows 2005: 506). The rituals served to unite and empower them (Plows 2005: 505). The community that was united and empowered nevertheless formed its own “schemas of obedience” (Foucault 2009: 211). The occupation at Twyford Down was sustained by bodies who lived and slept and ate and danced in distinctive new ways. Bodies were certainly not undisciplined, they were rather redisciplined. As Death points out, “protests, just as much as regimes of government, presume or reify certain regimes of knowledge” (2010: 241) and Barry notices that an analysis of a political demonstration “may demand careful attention to the technology and ethics of telling and witnessing the truth” (2001: 176). He also points to the array of particular knowledge and skills that were required in the anti-road protests: “of how to build a tree platform, a tunnel or a bendet, and of what to do if one is arrested”. He continues: “The body, as a bundle of different capacities, materials and propensities, had to become, if not highly disciplined, able to act in appropriate ways at the right time” (2001: 186). By undertaking certain tasks and actions and refraining from others, the bodies of the protestors shaped themselves as protestors. They equipped themselves with certain strengths, capacities and new forms of embodied knowledge, revealing the creative role of the body in counter-conduct.

5.4

Roads to Resistance

Resistance, says Foucault, may come in the form of a “great radical rupture” but more often it comes as “mobile and transitory points of re-

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If we attend to the bodies that took part in the protest, we see that those bodies were shaped by their resistance and also by what they were resisting. The bodies that rejected the old rules and the existing governance of ‘development’ were disciplined by new rules, techniques and practices. The rituals of the Dongas Tribe, involving music and ‘ecomagic’, were understood to be expressions of a communal and sustainable lifestyle seen as part of the solution to the overconsumption and alienation from nature that characterised the Western condition and that were what they were protesting against (Plows 2005: 506). The rituals served to unite and empower them (Plows 2005: 505). The community that was united and empowered nevertheless formed its own “schemas of obedience” (Foucault 2009: 211). The occupation at Twyford Down was sustained by bodies who lived and slept and ate and danced in distinctive new ways. Bodies were certainly not undisciplined, they were rather redisciplined. As Death points out, “protests, just as much as regimes of government, presume or reify certain regimes of knowledge” (2010: 241) and Barry notices that an analysis of a political demonstration “may demand careful attention to the technology and ethics of telling and witnessing the truth” (2001: 176). He also points to the array of particular knowledge and skills that were required in the anti-road protests: “of how to build a tree platform, a tunnel or a bendet, and of what to do if one is arrested”. He continues: “The body, as a bundle of different capacities, materials and propensities, had to become, if not highly disciplined, able to act in appropriate ways at the right time” (2001: 186). By undertaking certain tasks and actions and refraining from others, the bodies of the protestors shaped themselves as protestors. They equipped themselves with certain strengths, capacities and new forms of embodied knowledge, revealing the creative role of the body in counter-conduct.

5.4

Roads to Resistance

Resistance, says Foucault, may come in the form of a “great radical rupture” but more often it comes as “mobile and transitory points of re-

5. Embodied Occupation: Disciplined Bodies in Counter-Conduct

sistance, producing cleavages in a society that shifts about, fracturing unities and effecting regroupings… marking off irreducible regions in them, in their bodies and minds” (1998: 96). The Twyford Down occupation can be seen as a key part of a bigger picture of resistance—not only to the government’s ‘Roads for Prosperity’ scheme but to environmental destruction in general. It engendered the formation of new alliances and tactics and influenced the mainstream environmental movement in Britain as well as the more recent anti-globalisation and anti-capitalism protests. It was here that “the new-style, anti-roads protest was born” (Porritt 1996: 301). It is therefore a significant as well as a rich and revealing case, which can be approached and analysed from various perspectives. In this chapter, in which I have eschewed a more macro-analysis for a close focus on the interactions of living bodies, I have argued that the protest at Tywford Down can be understood as an example of ‘embodied counter-conduct’ that contributes to environmental politics, but should not be reduced to a display of ‘free resistance’ against a regime but rather as a disciplined and disciplining action. I have considered five interconnecting dimensions of disorderly occupying bodies, and shown how bodies engage in a lively ‘counter-conduct’. They (1) produce an excess of meaning beyond verbal and written communication (2) reconstruct public spaces (3) provoke and perform emotions (4) encourage cooperation and identification and (5) contribute to their own re-disciplining. More generally, in line with the overarching argument of this book, the embodied occupation at Twyford Down serves as a reminder that bodies play a role in democratic life. “It matters that bodies assemble”, writes Butler, “the political meanings enacted by demonstrations are not only those that are enacted by discourse whether written or vocalised” (Butler 2015: 7). Bodies are not then merely objects that can be dressed with political meaning, or tools that serve in political operations, but have an important agency that contributes to creative political resistance.

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References Barry, A. (2001) Political Machines. London: The Athlone Press. Beynon, H. (2020) Twyford Rising: Land and Resistance. with Chris Gillham. Sarsen Press. Bryant, B. (1996) Twyford Down: Roads, Campaigning and Environmental Law. London, Glasgow, Weinheim: Chapman & Hall. Bulley, D. (2016) “Occupy Differently: Space, Community and Urban Counter-Conduct”, Global Society, 30 (2), pp. 238-257. Butler, J. (2015) Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly. Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press. Davidson, A.I. (2011) “In praise of Counter-Conduct”, History of the Human Sciences, 24 (4), pp. 25-41. Deacon, R. (1998) “Strategies of Governance: Michel Foucault on Power”, Theoria, 45 (92), pp. 113-149. Death, C. (2010) “Counter-Conducts: A Foucauldian Analytics of Protest”, Social Movement Studies, 9 (3), pp. 235-251. Denham, J. (1994) “Twyford Down”, House of Commons Debate 02 December. Hansard. Vol. 250 cc1511-8. Doherty, B. (1999) “Paving the Way: The Rise of Direct Action Against Road-Building and the Changing Character of British Environmentalism”, Political Studies, 47 (2), pp. 275-291. Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by A. Sheridan. London and New York: Vintage Books. (Original work published in French 1975) Foucault, M. (1980) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977. New York: Vintage Books. Foucault, M. (1994) “The Subject and Power” in: Power: Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984. London: Penguin. Foucault, M. (1998) The History of Sexuality: 1. The Will To Knowledge. London: Penguin. Foucault, M. (2007) “What is Critique?”, in Lotringer, S. (ed) The Politics of Truth. Translated by L. Hochroth and C. Porter. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), pp. 41–81. (Lecture given at the Sorbonne 1978 and first published in French 1990)

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Foucault, M. (2009) Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College de France 1977-78. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Goodwin, J., Jasper, J.M. and Polletta, F. (2001) Passionate Politics: Emotions and Social Movements. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kimmelman, M. (2012) “Foreword” in Shiffman, R., Bell, R., Brown, L.J. and Elizabeth, L. (eds) Beyond Zuccotti Park: Freedom of Assembly and the Occupation of Public Space. Oakland, CA: New Village Press, pp. xiii-xviii. Krause, S.R. “Bodies in Action: Corporeal Agency and Democratic Politics”, Political Theory, 39 (3), pp. 299-324. Lilja, M. (2017) “Dangerous Bodies: Matter and Emotions: Public Assemblies and Embodied Resistance”, Journal of Political Power, 10 (3), pp. 342-352. McKay, G. (1996) Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance Since the Sixties. London: Verso. Odysseos, L., Death, C. and Malmvig, H. (2016) “Interrogating Michel Foucault’s Counter-Conduct: Theorising the Subjects and Practices of Resistance in Global Politics”, Global Society, 30 (2), pp. 151-156. Plows, A. (2005) “Donga Tribe” in Taylor, B. (ed) Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. London and New York: Continuum. Porritt, J. (1996) “Twyford Down: The Aftermath” in Bryant, B. Twyford Down: Roads, Campaigning and Environmental Law. London, Glasgow, Weinheim: Chapman & Hall. Rosol, M. (2014) “On resistance in the post-political city: conduct and counter-conduct in Vancouver”, Space and Polity, 18 (1), pp.70–84. Rossdale, C. and Stierl, M. (2016) “Everything is Dangerous: Conduct and Counter-Conduct in the Occupy Movement”, Global Society, 30 (2), pp. 157-178. Sassen, S. (2012) “To Occupy” in Shiffman, R., Bell, R., Brown, L.J. and Elizabeth, L. (eds) Beyond Zuccotti Park: Freedom of Assembly and the Occupation of Public Space. Oakland, CA: New Village Press, pp. 6769. Shiffman, R., Bell, R., Brown, L.J. and Elizabeth, L. (eds) Beyond Zuccotti Park: Freedom of Assembly and the Occupation of Public Space. Oakland, CA: New Village Press.

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Snitow, A. (2015) “Occupying Greenham Common” in The Feminism of Uncertainty: A Gender Diary. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp.163-190. Szerszynski, B. (2002) “Ecological Rites: Ritual Action in Environmental Protest Events”, Theory Culture Society, 19 (3), pp. 51-69. Wall, D. (1999) “Mobilising Earth First! In Britain”, Environmental Politics, 8 (1), pp. 81-100.

Chapter 6. Embodied Counsel: Bodies of Knowledge

“Our body is the ultimate instrument of all our external knowledge” (Polanyi, 1966: 15)   “All my knowledge of the world, even my scientific knowledge, is gained from my own particular point of view, or from some experience of the world without which the symbols of science would be meaningless” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: ix).   “But how will you look for something when you don’t in the least know what it is? How on earth are you going to set up something you don’t know as the object of your search? To put it another way, even if you come right up against it, how will you know that what you have found is the thing you didn’t know?” (Plato the Meno 80d) Policy-makers have long relied upon the expert knowledge of scientists. One doesn’t have to rally for the institution of Plato’s philosopher kings to agree that experts can play an important role in policy-making. Yet the acknowledgement of the place of experts in governance serves to raise numerous difficult questions: what exactly constitutes ‘scientific knowledge’? Is it supposed to be entirely objective? Who are the scientists who can generate such knowledge? Does this form of knowledge have an automatic and necessary authority over other forms of knowledge? These questions occupy philosophers of science and sociologists of knowledge (Ruser 2018) as well as theorists of democracy

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who are interested in the way that involvement by different types of experts in policy-making can limit, or expand, the political capacity and efficacy of citizens and emaciate, or enrich, the plurality of the public realm (Brown 2009). Democrats alternate between welcoming the informed contributions of scientists and worrying that powerful claims to ‘speak truth’ endanger the expression of alternative perspectives (Eckersley 2017: 986; Machin 2020). The unquestioned authority of scientific expertise might perhaps produce streamlined policy, but it can also render other forms of knowledge either trivial or invisible and subdue democratic procedures and debates. An especially suitable example for examining controversies over the authority of scientific knowledge is provided by the arena of environmental governance. Climate change and biodiversity loss are known as ‘wicked issues’ that are notoriously hard to govern with conventional policy-making tools, and demand sustained engagement with specialist knowledge (King 2011; Stehr and Machin 2019). These concerns pose unique challenges to policy-makers who must depend upon scientists to provide data on environmental hazards and risks, to monitor changes and recurrence, to present possible future scenarios and to outline potential solutions in the form of innovative technologies or special techniques. Scientific knowledge thus wields a clear authority in this policy area. As various scholars have noticed, however, non-scientists can make important contributions to environmental governance too; residents of a particular region may be able to offer important insights into how a policy or technology may or may not work in a specific context and what obstacles and opportunities it might face (Fischer 2000). While often dismissed as passive and interchangeable ignoramuses in need of educating, lay citizens can also be understood to be “full-blooded cognitive agents” capable of critiquing expert knowledge claims and of providing their own (Jasanoff 2005: 271). There have been widespread demands for the incorporation of different types of knowledge alongside scientific expertise into policy-making (Diver 2017). Local, indigenous or ‘lay’ knowledge and ‘know-how’ are asserted as important forms of know-

6. Embodied Counsel: Bodies of Knowledge

ing that may complement the contributions of scientists working at a global and abstract level (Irwin 1995: 6). In this chapter I aim to extend this critique by discussing how the knowledge of bodies relates to democratic environmental governance. Knowledge is often presupposed to be disembodied. Plato himself regarded knowledge as the enterprise of the soul that was bracketed off from bodily appetites. Epistemological theory is accused of remaining insufficiently attentive to the bodily processes and lived experience that are integral to the production of knowledge and yet are disavowed (Grosz 1993: 187). The concern is that the living, breathing, suffering, desiring, reproducing bodies of human beings, which constitute the very subjects of knowledge and the objects of environmental governance, are rendered invisible. Yet bodily knowledge, which I understand here as the ‘tacit’ or ‘habituated’ knowledge that exists below level of consciousness, can contribute to both governance and science. I argue that bodily knowledge is highly relevant, but I also challenge the idea that scientific knowledge is itself separable from the bodies of scientists. Using particularly the work of Michael Polanyi and feminist philosophers such as Elizabeth Grosz and Donna Haraway, I show that bodily knowledge functions tacitly, but crucially, in engendering and guiding scientific research. I engage, first, with critical accounts that challenge the assumption that scientific knowledge is universally applicable and demand the inclusion of different types of knowledge in environmental governance. Second, I argue that not only local, but also bodily knowledge is relevant in detecting, understanding and responding to environmental concerns and implementing, resisting and extending policy. Third, with reference to Polanyi I show that science itself is entangled with bodily knowledge. Finally, I suggest that far from undermining the value of scientific knowledge, acknowledging its corporeality may allow a reassessment of the role and responsibilities of scientists in a democracy. Polanyi’s ideas lead him to defend the authority of “the body of scientists”. I argue in contradistinction that his ideas rather compel an ongoing critical attentiveness to the constitution of this very body.

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What is at stake here is not only the formation of effective and legitimate environmental policy that necessarily calls on relevant experts from a variety of different backgrounds to proffer their distinct insights. The destabilisation of any easy assumption regarding what constitutes valid sources and forms of knowledge in environmental governance has implications for politics more generally. If, as asserted in the introductory chapter, democracy entails the recurring disturbance of sedimented institutions and the lively clash of alternatives, then it is worth considering whether the established bodies of experts who provide certified knowledge to politicians and citizens are able to enrich and inform the political realm rather than subdue it. The counsel of experts should not replace democratic decision-making but should be incorporated into it.

6.1

Scientific Knowledge

Science plays a crucial, albeit contested, role in environmental policymaking (Fischer 2000; Grundmann and Stehr 2012). This is most evident, perhaps, in the issue of climate change: a highly abstract phenomenon, unknowable without scientific data and scientific models (Fischer 2000; Stehr and Machin 2019; Machin and Ruser 2019; Ruser 2018: 768). The most authoritative scientific body in climate change politics is the widely cited Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organisation in 1988, the IPCC reviews and assesses the relevant scientific literature and data regarding climate change from thousands of researchers and has established a valuable knowledge base for environmental governance (Hulme, 2013: 3). A factsheet on its website states: “the IPCC embodies a unique opportunity to provide rigorous and balanced scientific information to decision-makers” (IPCC 2021). The fifth and latest IPCC assessment report explains that it is clear that anthropogenic climate change is occurring (2014: 40), and it confirms that even if greenhouse emissions are reduced today, climate change will persist for centuries (2014: 73). As has been long

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What is at stake here is not only the formation of effective and legitimate environmental policy that necessarily calls on relevant experts from a variety of different backgrounds to proffer their distinct insights. The destabilisation of any easy assumption regarding what constitutes valid sources and forms of knowledge in environmental governance has implications for politics more generally. If, as asserted in the introductory chapter, democracy entails the recurring disturbance of sedimented institutions and the lively clash of alternatives, then it is worth considering whether the established bodies of experts who provide certified knowledge to politicians and citizens are able to enrich and inform the political realm rather than subdue it. The counsel of experts should not replace democratic decision-making but should be incorporated into it.

6.1

Scientific Knowledge

Science plays a crucial, albeit contested, role in environmental policymaking (Fischer 2000; Grundmann and Stehr 2012). This is most evident, perhaps, in the issue of climate change: a highly abstract phenomenon, unknowable without scientific data and scientific models (Fischer 2000; Stehr and Machin 2019; Machin and Ruser 2019; Ruser 2018: 768). The most authoritative scientific body in climate change politics is the widely cited Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organisation in 1988, the IPCC reviews and assesses the relevant scientific literature and data regarding climate change from thousands of researchers and has established a valuable knowledge base for environmental governance (Hulme, 2013: 3). A factsheet on its website states: “the IPCC embodies a unique opportunity to provide rigorous and balanced scientific information to decision-makers” (IPCC 2021). The fifth and latest IPCC assessment report explains that it is clear that anthropogenic climate change is occurring (2014: 40), and it confirms that even if greenhouse emissions are reduced today, climate change will persist for centuries (2014: 73). As has been long

6. Embodied Counsel: Bodies of Knowledge

emphasised by numerous sources, the science is clear: “we have an enormous knowledge base…. If we use the knowledge of the problem at hand to guide our decisions, we might be able to cope with it” (King 2011: 1516). And yet, to the exasperation of environmental activists, these robust claims of such authoritative scientific reports have been met on the one hand with a generally anaemic governance response (Lorenzoni et al. 2007; Kejun and Masson-Delmotte 2018) and on the other with misleading campaigns of disinformation by climate sceptics, or what Justin Farrell calls the ‘contrarian movement’ (Farrell 2015). The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in the United States expresses its frustration: “the climate is spinning out of control... It doesn’t have to be that way. We have the solutions. We have the energy. And we have everything on the line to lose. So let’s go” (UCS n.d.). It seems clear, then, that there is no linear and straightforward transference of authoritative knowledge from dispassionate scientist to biased politician and ignorant citizen. The encouragement of increased scientific literacy and enhanced scientific communication to educate the public, policy-makers and the media is surely a salutary goal, but it is unlikely to automatically secure coherent, coordinated and consequential environmental policy. For one thing, the authority of scientists is not fixed and given, but is what Alexander Ruser calls “an expression of cultural, social, political, or economic standards” (2018: 769). Experts do not have automatic ‘cognitive authority’; as Ruser points out, different societies and cultures esteem and rely upon different forms of expertise, therefore the authority of any particular scientific institution or discipline is only contingently held and is often a matter of ongoing struggle (2018: 778). If the authority of experts is always contingently held, their advice does not offer one self-evidently correct way of tackling complex environmental issues: “climate science” according to Mike Hulme, “keeps on generating different forms of knowledge about climate… which are suggestive of different forms of political and institutional response to climate change” (2013: 10). Anders Blok thus repudiates the notion of an “undifferentiated Science with a capital S” (2019: 28). Scientific ad-

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vice only becomes meaningful within specific contexts, which give rise to different conceptions of particular problems as well as different conceptions the most appropriate, effective and legitimate solutions. Sheila Jasanoff notices that it has been conventionally assumed that science can be taken as “unproblematic, universal, and invariant, equally understandable in principle in all places and at all times” (Jasanoff 2005: 249, see also Jasanoff 2010). She challenges this suggestion, for it does not engage with or help explain the disparate ways in which societies connect scientific knowledge with “locally situated knowledges, values and preferences” (2005: 255). As she writes: “the process of making things impersonal eliminates not only subjectivity but also meaning” (2010: 234). Take the scientific knowledge on sea-level rise. Environmental scientists use satellite altimetry to find that average sea levels have been rising at a rate of around 3mm a year since 1993 (Nerem et al. 2018). In some parts of the world this might be an ethical concern that is completely disconnected from everyday life, perceived simultaneously as a global issue as well as one that geographically distant. For some it is a major and urgent hazard that confronts certain populations (for example in small island developing states) within a wider context of vulnerability (Kelman 2014). It is possible to argue that the difficulty in navigating the connection between science and policy should be viewed the other way around: it is not that the public is ignorant of scientific facts but rather that global science has become detached from the social contexts in which it is supposed to be relevant and meaningful (Jasanoff 2010: 249). This has led, then, to shifts in thinking about the connection between science, citizens and environmental politics, which destabilise the notion of a firm boundary between the knowledge of experts and the knowledge of citizens (Backstrand 2003: 25). Scholars have emphasised the potential contributions of local or ‘lay’ knowledge in environmental governance. For Frank Fischer, local knowledge is “knowledge about a local context or setting, including empirical knowledge of specific characteristics, circumstances, events, and relationships, as well as the normative understandings of their mean-

6. Embodied Counsel: Bodies of Knowledge

ing” that constitutes “a complex, valuable source of largely untapped knowledge that speaks directly to specific kinds of problems” (Fischer 2000: 146). Alan Irwin therefore promotes: “the role which lay groups can play not only in criticizing expert knowledge but also in generating forms of knowledge and understanding... citizen knowledges can be at least as robust and well-informed as those of experts” (Irwin 1995: 112). Irwin describes, for example, the knowledge that farmworkers have that could not be found in scientific papers: knowledge of the variety of conditions and the circumstances for the operation of spraying pesticides (Irwin 1995: 113). For Jasanoff “lay citizens may be better than experts at making room for the unknown along with the known” (Jasanoff 2005: 254). The relevance of local knowledge for environmental policy-making has been increasingly emphasised. As the IPCC report itself notes, the causes of greenhouse gas emissions and the capacity to respond to a changing climate vary widely (IPCC 2014: 17). In a section on adaptation strategies it states: “Recognition of diverse interests, circumstances, social-cultural contexts and expectations can benefit decision-making processes. Indigenous, local and traditional knowledge systems and practices, including indigenous peoples’ holistic view of community and environment, are a major resource for adapting to climate change…” (IPCC, 2014: 19). The aim here is not only to make environmental policy-making more effective, but more democratic. As Karin Bäckstrand writes, in this vision of ‘civic science’, “the citizen is not just the recipient of policy but an actor in the science-policy nexus” Backstrand 2003: 25). There are numerous obstacles, however, to bringing together different forms of knowledge: power asymmetries and cultural differences, for example (Diver 2017: 2; Machin 2020). Moreover, by challenging the conventional account of the universality and authority of scientific knowledge, the proponents of the role of local or indigenous knowledge do not simply wish to replace one simplified depiction with another. Just as we should be wary of a romanticised trust in ‘contextual understanding’ (Irwin 1995: 115) so should we reject a simplistic binary categorisation

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with ‘lay knowledge’ on the one side and ‘expertise’ on the other (Jasanoff 2005: 270). In other words, we should privilege neither ‘lay’ nor ‘scientific’ understandings, nor should we assume some clear-cut distinction between them. The point is rather “to note the diversity of knowledges which seem relevant to risk/environmental issues” (Irwin 1995: 115). My argument resonates with this emphasis on local knowledge by emphasising the role of bodily knowledge. As I go on to argue next, not only local but also scientific knowledge is embodied, and bodies contribute a valuable form of knowledge to environmental policy and democratic politics.

6.2

Knowledge of Bodies

The body has commonly been constructed as something distinct from, even opposed to, knowledge. Desires, appetites and emotions seem to detract from the cold, hard objective fact. The body has been ‘othered’ as an object that is necessary for the mind to exist, but which also threatens to overrun and overrule it (Alcoff 1996: 15). Consider Plato’s approach to the question what is knowledge? in the Theatetus. Socrates makes a revealing comparison between the skill of midwives and his own role in helping others give birth to ideas. He remarks that only women who themselves have given birth can become a midwife because “it is beyond the power of human nature to achieve skill without any experience” (149c). This would imply, then, a connection of bodily experience to knowledge. However, this sort of ‘skill’ is not considered by Plato to count as ‘knowledge’. Socrates, who is helping men labour with the definition of knowledge, firmly declares “my concern is not with the body but with the soul that is in travail of birth” (150b). Knowledge then, is bracketed off from the body and is a matter for the soul, which “piloted by intellect, rises up in intellectual assent to achieve true knowledge” (Buchan 1999: 8). Women, whose embodiment impedes the rational capacity of their souls, are incapable of attaining real knowledge (ibid.). Following Plato, conventional epistemology has construed knowledge as purely cognitive not inevitably embodied; disinterested not

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with ‘lay knowledge’ on the one side and ‘expertise’ on the other (Jasanoff 2005: 270). In other words, we should privilege neither ‘lay’ nor ‘scientific’ understandings, nor should we assume some clear-cut distinction between them. The point is rather “to note the diversity of knowledges which seem relevant to risk/environmental issues” (Irwin 1995: 115). My argument resonates with this emphasis on local knowledge by emphasising the role of bodily knowledge. As I go on to argue next, not only local but also scientific knowledge is embodied, and bodies contribute a valuable form of knowledge to environmental policy and democratic politics.

6.2

Knowledge of Bodies

The body has commonly been constructed as something distinct from, even opposed to, knowledge. Desires, appetites and emotions seem to detract from the cold, hard objective fact. The body has been ‘othered’ as an object that is necessary for the mind to exist, but which also threatens to overrun and overrule it (Alcoff 1996: 15). Consider Plato’s approach to the question what is knowledge? in the Theatetus. Socrates makes a revealing comparison between the skill of midwives and his own role in helping others give birth to ideas. He remarks that only women who themselves have given birth can become a midwife because “it is beyond the power of human nature to achieve skill without any experience” (149c). This would imply, then, a connection of bodily experience to knowledge. However, this sort of ‘skill’ is not considered by Plato to count as ‘knowledge’. Socrates, who is helping men labour with the definition of knowledge, firmly declares “my concern is not with the body but with the soul that is in travail of birth” (150b). Knowledge then, is bracketed off from the body and is a matter for the soul, which “piloted by intellect, rises up in intellectual assent to achieve true knowledge” (Buchan 1999: 8). Women, whose embodiment impedes the rational capacity of their souls, are incapable of attaining real knowledge (ibid.). Following Plato, conventional epistemology has construed knowledge as purely cognitive not inevitably embodied; disinterested not

6. Embodied Counsel: Bodies of Knowledge

committed; public not private. There has been a strong tendency towards somatophobia running throughout the history of Western Philosophy in which, as Linda Martin Alcoff observes, “the body was conceived as either an unsophisticated machine that took in data without interpreting it, or it was considered an obstacle to knowledge in throwing up emotions, feelings, needs, desires, all of which inferred with the attainment of truth” (1996: 15). Yet some thinkers have indicated that bodies should not be regarded as either containers or obstacles of knowledge, for they also have a knowledge of their own. For instance, Merleau-Ponty observes how our bodies are constantly carrying out everyday activities without conscious thought. Through ongoing interaction in the world, the body gains ‘habits’—a prereflective ‘know-how’. He gives the examples of typing and dancing as activities that involve ‘habitual knowledge’ of the world (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 95). Bodily knowledge helps us function smoothly in day to day existence, allowing us to ride a bike, turn a key, brush our teeth, without consciously attending to these everyday activities. Our bodies ‘incorporate’ familiar material objects—pens, paintbrushes, forks, saucepans, telescopes, microscopes—that we learn to use without conscious involvement. When we are learning to use these objects we have to focus intently upon them, but once we have acquired habitual knowledge it becomes part of our body: “Anyone using a probe for the first time will feel its impact against his fingers and palm. But as we learn to use a probe, or to use a stick for feeling our way, our awareness of its impact on our hand is transformed into a sense touching the objects we are exploring” (Polanyi 1966: 12). Echoing Merleau-Ponty in many ways in his work on science, knowledge and society, Polanyi describes how these objects help us attend from the tool to something else; in writing a note I do not consciously focus upon the pen I am using, but rather the words I am writing with that pen: “we incorporate it in our body—or extend our body to include it—so that we come to dwell in it” (1966: 16). And this, as Merleau-Ponty emphasises, is not simply a matter of robotic programming; each writing utensil is different, yet I can use any of them without conscious effort. Bodily

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knowledge is thus not passive conditioning but contains an “element of creative genius” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 50). As explained in Chapter Two, bodies ‘incorporate’ not only objects but social norms and cultural patterns (Zeiler 2013; Malmqvist and Zeiler 2010). Bodily knowledge allows us to behave in a socially acceptable way, and thus reproduce ‘common sense’, “the memory of the community of thinkers” (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 46). Our bodies learn what to do and what not to do. As we saw in Chapter Five, bodies can be conducted and empowered by ‘incorporating’ new techniques and propensities and learning to live in new ways. The implication for environmental governance is that living sustainably within a socio-ecological system is not only a matter of conscious thought but of embodying certain practices. Changing unsustainable behavioural patterns and social norms is not only a cognitive choice but also a matter of habitual bodily knowledge. We can, of course, consciously decide to alter our bodily habits; this might be difficult and frustrating, but usually our bodily knowledge eventually accommodates cognitive instruction (Peile 1998: 47). Living and working and sleeping without air-conditioning, for example, demands a change in bodily habits. Bodies may take time to adjust, may be unable to adjust or may do so in unpredictable ways. Through conscious, if unpredictable, bodily participation in different forms of life we can ‘recode’ our sensibilities and our bodily habits (Connolly 2002: 2). At the same time, bodily knowledge may not just be an object but a subject of environmental policy-making. As work on ‘environmentality’ has revealed, in contrast to the common assumption that actions always follow beliefs, this can work the other way around: knowledge and beliefs can rather emerge through processes of living within an environment, interacting with others and experiencing and resisting power relations (Agrawal 2005: 163). Bodies are continually reforming within their material environment as they shape and respond to that environment (Peile 1998: 49), and knowledge arises from that interaction: “knowledge is the product of cooperative human interaction with an environment… the nature of that interaction… will have a substantive impact on the knowledge produced” (Alcoff 1996: 23).

6. Embodied Counsel: Bodies of Knowledge

As Polanyi observes, new skills are not acquired through isolation and analysis of their component parts: in order to “catch the knack” we must grasp the integration of these parts, and no teacher can do this for us: “we must rely on discovering for ourselves the right feel of a skilful feat” (1961: 126). Knowledge of sustainable farming or fishing practices may be difficult to convey in words for policy discussions and governmental reports. Consider again the IPCC report, which presents a range of possible adaptation and mitigation measures (IPCC 2014). It suggests, for example that “emissions can be substantially lowered through changes in consumption patterns (e.g. mobility demand and mode, energy use in households, choice of longer lasting products, dietary change and reduction in food wastes” (IPCC 2014: 100. My italics). But these sorts of recommendations are entirely vacuous without a more substantive engagement regarding what, for example, ‘dietary change’ may actually entail; what food sources are being replaced and how; what repercussions this may have for health and labour; who this empowers and who it does not. Such recommendations have little meaning for real, live, human beings. They render invisible not only the local level, but also the human bodies that must eat, drink, work and sleep to survive. What are the corporeal implications of a switch to vegetarianism or veganism? What are the physical challenges and benefits of planting crops in different ways; of cycling to work; of using cloth nappies; of turning down the central heating? These questions come to our attention when we attend to the lived bodies which carry the burden of such policy recommendations. In her work on eco-villages, Karen Litfin notices the knowledge acquired by living in a small, cohesive and self-contained group with the aim of living more sustainably and changing their consumption patterns: “ecovillages share information about conflict resolution, consensus training, straw bale construction, wastewater treatment” (2014: 18). “Ecovillagers” she writes “are like applied scientists” (2014: 18). But it is striking that the knowledge acquired in these communities about sustainable living does not operate solely at a cognitive level but is enfolded into bodily habits. Litfin describes, for example, the way that ecovillages reduce their energy consumption by doing the laundry differently:

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“perhaps busy people don’t want to take the time to hang their clothes, or perhaps it’s a habit: throw the wet wash into the machine, push a button and return in an hour to that luxurious feeling of warm fluffy clothes” (2014: 50). “Doing the laundry differently” involves changing habits, which comes with positive, negative and ambiguous effects. Understanding the possibilities and implications of an energy, agricultural, water or transport policy cannot only involve scientific expertise. Nor is simply including the knowledge of ‘local experts’ into existing decision-making procedures enough. Local, indigenous or traditional knowledges are often difficult to communicate through conventional methods and contexts. Researchers and policy-makers have understood that traditional environmental knowledge is situated and embodied (Diver 2017: 9). But it is important to remember here that all knowledge is embodied. The danger in emphasising the embodied nature of indigenous knowledge is that this reproduces a binary: scientific fact on the one metaphorical hand, and local knowledge on the corporeal other. But, as I go on to consider in the next section, scientific knowledge is itself enfleshed in the bodies of scientists.

6.3

Bodies of Knowledge

As Robert K. Merton explains, the institutionalised ‘ethos of science’ internalised by the scientist includes imperatives of both ‘universalism’ and ‘disinterestedness’: “The acceptance or rejection of claims entering the lists of science is not to depend on the personal or social attributes of their protagonist” (1973: 270). When Merton refers to ‘disinterestedness’ here, he is contrasting it with the self-interestedness of scientists lacking in integrity, a self-interestedness that might be motivated by competition between scientists and the quest for a sort of academic glory. But, as philosophers of feminist epistemology emphasise, the biases and interests of a scientist are not necessarily always deliberate and self-indulgent. Feminist epistemology has drawn attention to the corporeal situation and social status of the knowers (Alcoff and Potter

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“perhaps busy people don’t want to take the time to hang their clothes, or perhaps it’s a habit: throw the wet wash into the machine, push a button and return in an hour to that luxurious feeling of warm fluffy clothes” (2014: 50). “Doing the laundry differently” involves changing habits, which comes with positive, negative and ambiguous effects. Understanding the possibilities and implications of an energy, agricultural, water or transport policy cannot only involve scientific expertise. Nor is simply including the knowledge of ‘local experts’ into existing decision-making procedures enough. Local, indigenous or traditional knowledges are often difficult to communicate through conventional methods and contexts. Researchers and policy-makers have understood that traditional environmental knowledge is situated and embodied (Diver 2017: 9). But it is important to remember here that all knowledge is embodied. The danger in emphasising the embodied nature of indigenous knowledge is that this reproduces a binary: scientific fact on the one metaphorical hand, and local knowledge on the corporeal other. But, as I go on to consider in the next section, scientific knowledge is itself enfleshed in the bodies of scientists.

6.3

Bodies of Knowledge

As Robert K. Merton explains, the institutionalised ‘ethos of science’ internalised by the scientist includes imperatives of both ‘universalism’ and ‘disinterestedness’: “The acceptance or rejection of claims entering the lists of science is not to depend on the personal or social attributes of their protagonist” (1973: 270). When Merton refers to ‘disinterestedness’ here, he is contrasting it with the self-interestedness of scientists lacking in integrity, a self-interestedness that might be motivated by competition between scientists and the quest for a sort of academic glory. But, as philosophers of feminist epistemology emphasise, the biases and interests of a scientist are not necessarily always deliberate and self-indulgent. Feminist epistemology has drawn attention to the corporeal situation and social status of the knowers (Alcoff and Potter

6. Embodied Counsel: Bodies of Knowledge

1993: 1; Grosz 1993; Haraway 1988; Parviainen 2002). The “conquering gaze from nowhere” is revealed as an illusion, or as Donna Haraway names it, “a god trick” (1988: 581). Where there is knowledge, there is somebody who knows. Scientific knowledge is indubitably valuable for environmental politics, but it cannot be disconnected from the social, historical, cultural, spatial position of the knower (Parviainen 2002: 12). This means that even when scientists are genuinely orientated towards the pursuit of facts, what counts as a fact, and what counts as pursuit, is conditioned by the scientific community and social structure in which the scientist lives and works (Grosz 1993; Haraway 1988; Machin 2017). As Stephen Turner puts it: “Scientists and experts have interests. Systems of expertise have biases... expertise itself is dependent on other people’s knowledge and on the systems that generate it” (2014: 4). This is what puts in doubt the presentation of science as “the disembodied report of value-free, context dependent facts” (Alcoff and Potter 2003: 5). Research always occurs in an institutional and cultural context. The subjects of knowledge are not disconnected individuals working autonomously in a sterile laboratory, but citizens, students, colleagues and neighbours who have habituated the objects and norms of their environment: the laboratory, the lecture theatre and the conference. The ideal of disinterestedness that Michael Polanyi deposes is the ideal that scientific research can be entirely removed from any personal commitment or desire of the individual scientist and the established norms of the scientific community. He challenges what he sees as “the declared aim of modern science” which, he explains, “is to establish a strictly detached, objective knowledge” (1966: 20). He says that since personal attachment is precisely what underpins science, attempting to make science entirely detached “would, in effect, aim at the destruction of all knowledge” (1966: 20). Polanyi explains that scientific discovery inevitably involves the functioning of ‘tacit knowledge’ that always exists alongside the operation of explicit knowledge: “all thought contains components of which we are subsidiarily aware in the focal content of our thinking” (1966: xviii). It is tacit knowledge that allows a scientist to identify a problem

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in the first place, and tacit knowledge that allows her to identify what a solution might look like. Polanyi refers to Plato’s paradox that Socrates grapples with in the Meno: “a man cannot try to discover either what he knows or what he does not know… He would not seek what he knows, for since he knows it there is no need of the inquiry, nor what he does not know, for in that case he does not even know what he is to look for” (80e). Socrates answer to this paradox depends upon the ability of the immortal soul to recollect knowledge. Polanyi turns, more convincingly, to the existence of tacit knowledge that is incorporated by the body. In seeking solutions to scientific problems, the scientist must already have an idea of what she is looking for: “we can have a tacit foreknowledge of yet undiscovered things” (1966: 23), which reveals that “we can know things, and important things, that we cannot tell” (1966: 22). Tacit knowledge cannot easily be formalised and put into words, for as soon as we try to do so, we risk disrupting its operation. Tacit knowledge is rather a form of bodily knowledge, allowing us to perceive the world in a particular way: “the way we see an object is determined by our awareness of certain efforts inside our bodies, efforts which we cannot feel in themselves” (Polanyi 1966: 13). Just as recognising a face, riding a bike and playing a violin are examples of skills involving tacit knowledge of our bodies, so is identifying a scientific problem and a valid solution. Polanyi draws attention to the role that our bodies play in allowing us to attend to the external world, both intellectually and practically: “Our own body is the only thing in the world which we normally never experience as an object, but experience always in terms of the world to which we are attending to our body” (1966: 16). The great advances in climate science, for example, have been entwined with deeply personal commitment, emotional thirst for knowledge as well as real physical exertion. In the 19th century, scientists undertook difficult expeditions with unwieldy equipment to take measurements from the tops of mountains and made spectacular manned balloon flights. For example, it was out of his passion for the Alps as much as his passion for furthering knowledge that in 1787 Horace Benedict de Saussure climbed the summit of Mont Blanc carrying a ther-

6. Embodied Counsel: Bodies of Knowledge

mometer, barometer, telescope, compass and other instruments to discover that the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere dropped with altitude (Freshfield 1920). Such passion and physicality bely the notion of wholly disinterested and cognitive scientific objectivity. Note that in its very name, the Union of Concerned Scientists marks emotional engagement and bodily orientation towards the issue of climate change. It states that, for 50 years, it has “worked to develop practical solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems… curiosity and passion drive us forward” (UCS 2018). The UCS does not relay dispassionate data but enlivened knowledge, secured and nurtured through personal and political convictions. Indeed, as Blok points out, “those very scientists who are supposed to talk dispassionately about the objective facts of climate change are also those most worried and passionate about them” (2019: 27). Underlining the existence of tacit knowledge does not, for Polanyi, make science the unanchored whim of the individual. Quite the opposite. For him, tacit knowledge of what counts as ‘science’ and ‘method’ is transmitted through participation within the scientific community, a ‘society of explorers’. A scientist cannot test each and every teaching she is taught, but rather has to rely on the authority of fellow scientists, which underpins the tacit knowledge of what is ‘the nature of things’ (1966: 64). Thus: “even in the shaping of his own anticipations the knower is controlled by impersonal requirements… This holds for all seeking and finding of external truth” (1966: 77). This resonates with the claims of feminist philosophers of epistemology, who agree that knowledge is situated and embodied. Unlike Polanyi, however, they do not necessarily condone the unquestioned authority wielded by the “body of scientists” which, Polanyi explains: “controls… the process by which young men are trained to become members of the scientific profession” (1962: 56. My italics). Feminist epistemology challenges the exclusion of the other(ed) bodies with different perspectives from the body of scientists. The aim here is not to undermine scientific authority but rather to legitimise it and enrich science with a broader array of different insights. Haraway, for example, calls for the replacement of “unlocatable, and so irresponsible, knowledge claims”,

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not with an equally problematic reversal of hierarchy and an insistence on the superiority of subjugated knowledges that are themselves never innocent, but rather with “partial, locatable, critical knowledges sustaining… shared conversations in epistemology” (Haraway 1988: 583-4). Scientific research, then, should not attempt to free itself from the knowledge of bodies, but rather recognise its “bodily roots” (Polanyi 1966: 15). The tacit and habitual knowledge of bodies plays a role in understanding environmental problems, underpinning environmental science and contributing to environmental policy-making. Identifying an environmental risk or hazard is not only a matter of measuring variables and analysing data; it also involves the tacit awareness that something is amiss, out of place, in the environment around us.

6.4

Expertise and Democracy

The dual argument of this chapter is that bodies have knowledge and that knowledge is always embodied. As Colin Peile writes: “knowledge not only exists in our minds but is also enfolded in peoples’ muscles and skeletons” (Peile 1998: 45). This has three important implications for thinking about the role of expertise in democracy. First, it undermines the idea of a universally applicable environmental policy. If bodies have a knowledge of their own, a knowledge that allows human individuals to interact in particular ways with human and non-human others, then environmental governance cannot be a matter of cutting and pasting policies from one place to another, nor of rescaling from the global to the local. Bodies can both exceed and resist the expectations of policy-makers. This suggests that there is no one universally valid policy or technology, and therefore democratic institutions at a local level remain crucial in engaging with different types of knowledge and deciding environmental policy. Scientific knowledge cannot somehow cut through social differences and political disagreements about climate change but should be seen as informing social differences and disagreements (Machin 2020: 158; Sandilands 2002).

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not with an equally problematic reversal of hierarchy and an insistence on the superiority of subjugated knowledges that are themselves never innocent, but rather with “partial, locatable, critical knowledges sustaining… shared conversations in epistemology” (Haraway 1988: 583-4). Scientific research, then, should not attempt to free itself from the knowledge of bodies, but rather recognise its “bodily roots” (Polanyi 1966: 15). The tacit and habitual knowledge of bodies plays a role in understanding environmental problems, underpinning environmental science and contributing to environmental policy-making. Identifying an environmental risk or hazard is not only a matter of measuring variables and analysing data; it also involves the tacit awareness that something is amiss, out of place, in the environment around us.

6.4

Expertise and Democracy

The dual argument of this chapter is that bodies have knowledge and that knowledge is always embodied. As Colin Peile writes: “knowledge not only exists in our minds but is also enfolded in peoples’ muscles and skeletons” (Peile 1998: 45). This has three important implications for thinking about the role of expertise in democracy. First, it undermines the idea of a universally applicable environmental policy. If bodies have a knowledge of their own, a knowledge that allows human individuals to interact in particular ways with human and non-human others, then environmental governance cannot be a matter of cutting and pasting policies from one place to another, nor of rescaling from the global to the local. Bodies can both exceed and resist the expectations of policy-makers. This suggests that there is no one universally valid policy or technology, and therefore democratic institutions at a local level remain crucial in engaging with different types of knowledge and deciding environmental policy. Scientific knowledge cannot somehow cut through social differences and political disagreements about climate change but should be seen as informing social differences and disagreements (Machin 2020: 158; Sandilands 2002).

6. Embodied Counsel: Bodies of Knowledge

Second, it suggests that attending to bodily knowledge may not only make environmental policy more effective but also more democratic. Bodies may be able to contribute to the understanding of environmental problems, or may see them as different sorts of problems, or not as problems at all. They may be able to expand conceptions of the most effective and legitimate solutions. Incorporating bodily knowledge into conceptions of environmental politics may open up new processes of resistance and change (Peile 1998: 55). Local and embodied knowledge therefore potentially enhances and enriches democratic politics by introducing alternative perspectives. Third, if the knowledge of a scientist is always embodied, then a body of scientists – however inclusive they intend to be – cannot presuppose that the knowledge they present incorporates all possible perspectives, let alone that it entirely transcends its situation to offer a “disembodied scientific objectivity” (Haraway 1988: 576). This means that the responsibility of embodied scientists is not simply to teach citizens ‘the facts’ about climate change but rather to consider the ways in which they might be meaningful from a different perspective and to ensure reflection on the composition and operation their own bodies of knowledge. A renewed reflection upon the situatedness of science is not expected to undermine the legitimacy of scientific knowledge or to contest its value in policy-making, but on the contrary to emphasise its ongoing importance in informing, though not replacing, democratic politics. The solutions to environmental problems are rarely simple, and the problems themselves are not uniformly understood. They require the interaction of multiple forms and disciplines of knowledge and the negotiation of differently situated perspectives that ensure both effective policy and democratic legitimacy. Heeding the knowledge of bodies might make both scientific knowledge and democratic governance more reflective, responsible and responsive.

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References Agrawal, A. (2005) “Environmentality”, Current Anthropology, 46 (2) pp. 161-190. Alcoff, L. (1996) “Feminist Theory and Social Science: New Knowledges, New Epistemologies”, in Duncan, N. (ed) BodySpace. London and NY: Routledge, pp.13-27. Alcoff, L. and Potter, E. (1993) “Introduction: When Feminisms Intersect Epistemology”, in Alcoff, L. and Potter, E. (eds) Feminist Epistemologies. New York and London: Routledge, pp.1-14. Bäckstrand, K. (2003) “Civic Science for Sustainability: Reframing the Role of Experts, Policy-Makers and Citizens in Environmental Governance”, Global Environmental Politics, 3 (4), pp. 24–41. Blok, A. (2019) “How to Deploy STS to Re-Imagine Sustainable Ways of Instituting Climate Expertise?”, Nordic Journal, 7 (2), pp. 27-30. Brown, M.B. (2009) Science in Democracy: Expertise, Institutions and Representation. Cambridge: MIT Press. Buchan, M. (1999) Women in Plato’s Political Theory. Hampshire and London: Macmillan. Connolly, W.E. (2002) Neuropolitics: Thinking, Culture, Speed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Diver, S. (2017) “Negotiating Indigenous Knowledge at the SciencePolicy Interface: Insights from the Xáxli’p Community Forest”, Environmental Science and Policy, 73, pp. 1-11. Eckersley, R. (2017) “Geopolitan Democracy in the Anthropocene”, Political Studies, 65 (4), pp. 983–999. Farrell, J. (2016) “Network Structure and Influence of the Climate Change Counter-Movement”, Nature Climate Change, 6, pp. 370-374. Fischer, F. (2000) Citizens, Experts, and the Environment: The Politics of Local Knowledge. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Freshfield, D.W. (1920) The Life of Horace Benedict de Saussure. London: Edward Arnold. Grosz, E. (1993) “Bodies and Knowledges: Feminism and the Crisis of Reason” in Alcoff, L. and Potter, E. (eds) Feminist Epistemologies. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 187-216.

6. Embodied Counsel: Bodies of Knowledge

Grundmann, R. and Stehr, N. (2012) The Power of Scientific Knowledge From Research to Public Policy. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Haraway, D. (1988) “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective”, Feminist Studies, 14 (3), pp. 575-599. Hulme, M. (2013) Exploring Climate Change through Science and in Society. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. IPCC (2014) “Synthesis Report Summary for Policy Makers. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change”. Geneva,: IPCC. IPCC (2021) “IPCC Factsheet: What is the IPCC?” IPCC Website. Available at https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2021/07/AR6_FS_What _is_IPCC.pdf (last accessed November 2021) Irwin, A. (1995) Citizen Science: A Study of People, Expertise and Sustainable Development. London and New York: Routledge. Jasanoff, S. (2005) Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the United States. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Jasanoff, S. (2010) “A New Climate for Society”, Theory, Culture & Society. 27 (2-3), pp. 233-253. Kejun, J. and Masson-Delmotte, V. (2018) “Climate change is a problem of politics, not science”, Euractiv.com. Available: https://www.euract iv.com/section/climate-environment/opinion/climate-change-is-a -problem-of-politics-not-science/ (last accessed November 2021). Kelman, I. (2014) “No Change From Climate Change: Vulnerability and Small Island Developing States”, The Geographical Journal, 180 (2), pp. 120–129, King, D. (2011) “The Challenge of Climate Change”, in Held, D., Hervey, A. and Theros, M. (eds) The Governance of Climate Change: Science, Economics, Politics and Ethics. Cambridge, Malden: Polity. Litfin, K.T. (2014) Ecovillages: Lessons for Sustainable Community. Cambridge, Malden: Polity. Lorenzoni, I., Nicholson-Coleb, S. and Whitmarsh, L. (2007) “Barriers Perceived to Engaging With Climate Change Among the UK Public

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And Their Policy Implications”, Global Environmental Change, 17, pp. 445-459. Machin, A. (2020) “Democracy, Disagreement, Disruption: Agonism and the Environmental State”, Environmental Politics, 29 (1), pp. 155172. Machin, A. (2017) “Sustaining Democracy: Science, Politics and Disagreement in the Anthropocene” in Pfister, T. (ed) Nachhaltigkeitswissenschaften und die Suche nach neuen Wissensregimen. Munich: Metropolis, pp. 169-186. Machin, A. and Ruser, A. (2019) “What Counts in the Politics of Climate Change? Science, Scepticism and Emblematic Numbers”, in Prutsch, M. (ed) Science, Numbers and Politics. London: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 203-225. Malmqvist, E, and Zeiler, K. (2010) “Cultural Norms, the Phenomenology of Incorporation, and the Experience of Having a Child Born with Ambiguous Sex”, Social Theory and Practice, 36 (1) pp. 133-156. Merleau-Ponty, M. (2002) Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by C. Smith. London and NY: Routledge. (Originally published in French 1945) Merton, R.K. (1973) The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Nerem, R.S., Beckley, B. D., Fasullo, J. T., Hamlington, B. D., Masters, D. and  Mitchum, G. T. (2018) “Climate-Change–Driven Accelerated Sea-Level Rise Detected in the Altimeter Era”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115 (9), pp. 2022-2025. Parvianinen, J. (2002) “Bodily Knowledge: Epistemological Reflections on Dance”, Dance Research Journal, 34 (1) , pp. 11-26. Peile, C. (1998) “Emotional and Embodied Knowledge: Implications for Critical Practice”, The Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, 25 (4), pp. 39-59. Plato (1961) The Collected Dialogues. Edited by Hamilton, E. and Cairns, H. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Polanyi, M. (1966) The Tacit Dimension. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1966.

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Polanyi, M. (1962) “The Republic of Science” in Grene, M. (ed) Knowing and Being. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Polanyi, M. (1961) “Knowing and Being” in Grene, M. (ed) Knowing and Being. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ruser, A. (2018) “Experts and Science and Politics” in Outwaith, W. and Turner, S. (eds) The SAGE Handbook of Political Sociology. London: SAGE, pp. 767-780. Sandilands, C (2002) “Opinionated Natures: Toward a Green Public Culture”, in Minteer, B. A. and Pepperman Taylor, B. (eds) Democracy and the Claims of Nature: Critical Perspectives for a New Century. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 117-132. Stehr, N. and Machin, A. (2019) Society and Climate: Transformations and Challenges. Singapore: World Scientific. Turner, S. (2014) The Politics of Expertise. New York, Abingdon: Routledge. UCS (2018) “50 Years of Science and Action”, Union of Concerned Scientists USA website. Available at: https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/50-yea rs-science-and-action (last accessed November 2021). UCS (n.d.) “Take Action: Climate Impacts”, Union of Concerned Scientists USA website. Available at https://www.ucsusa.org/take-action/clim ate-impacts (last accessed November 2021). Zeiler, K. (2013) “A Phenomenology of Excorporation: Bodily Alienation, and Resistance: Rethinking Sexed and Racialized Embodiment”, Hypatia, 28 (1), pp. 69-84.

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The difficulty in writing a book on bodies is that the bodies one is writing about tend to skip off the pages without leaving much of a trace of their material, messy and mysterious existence. The restlessness, fatigue and orientation of my own body is hardly discernible in the text I write, and the lively bodies of democracy that I want to analyse resist the threat of capture and calcification in a manuscript. How can the visceral responses running through a crowd of bodies be put into words? How can the lived experience of a hunger-striker be pinned onto a page? How might the nuances and ambiguities of body language in a deliberative forum be precisely transcribed? The aim of this book is to provoke a political remembering of bodies, and this cannot entail the total surrender of bodies into words. A political remembering of bodies might instead consist of recognising their animated existence and celebrating their irreducibility. The word remember comes from the Latin rememorari or ‘recall to mind’ and so we might aim to recall rather than reduce the embodied character of modes of politics. This conclusion is an attempt to reflect upon the challenges as well as the value of remembering bodies, of calling them back into political theory. I have tried to recall lively, living and lived bodies in these chapters by referring to numerous examples that I personally find intriguing and revealing: Emmeline Pankhurst who stood politely on stage and called herself a hooligan; Winnie Madikizela-Mandela who raised her fist in salute to defy expectations about women and mothers in politics; Nelson Mandela who wore a traditional Thembu royal costume at his trial in the “white man’s court” to scorn the apartheid regime; Mohammed

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Farah who ran for Olympic gold and disturbed the racialised boundaries of British national identity; Greta Thunberg who passionately expressed a message on behalf of a generation and mobilized and politicised many of them; the descendants of survivors of the Holocaust who tattooed replicas of the numbers imprinted on inmates of the death camps onto their own bodies in an act of appreciation and identification; the hunger strikers of the H-Blocks who lived within walls smeared with their own excrement and menstrual blood to proclaim their political status; the British suffragettes who were imprisoned and force-fed by the state that refused to accept their right to vote; the anti-apartheid campaigners who built unity whilst incarcerated in intolerable conditions on Robben Island; the anti-road protestors at Twyford Down who chained themselves to bulldozers and danced under the moon. These examples of embodied human beings cannot be reductively understood because their very relevance stems from their incorporation of contradictions, their performances of subversion and their capacity to bring politics to life in ways that exceed simplistic analytical categories and confound many conventional political approaches and ideals. In other words, bodies are difficult to analyse for the same reason they are politically, sociologically and philosophically interesting and important; because they defy, disrupt and distort conventional theories and practices of politics. And therefore, although they might sometimes capture our attention, they more often evade scrutiny and hide in plain sight. But this means that if, as I emphasised in the introductory chapter, we understand democracy as consisting of the recurrent questioning and unsettling of conventional ideas and identities, then bodies are highly relevant for democracy. Bodies can contradict stereotypes, communicate dissent and incorporate alternatives. Healthy bodies can demonstrate their vulnerability just as ostensibly weak bodies can engage in muscular protest. It is the bodies of children who poignantly protest against the risk to their future posed by political inaction on climate change. It is the bodies of white Americans riotously entering and freely exiting the Capitol building in Washington that epitomise the profound social inequalities in American society (Purnell 2021). The

Conclusion: Recalling Bodies

manifold embodied practices of political actors may reaffirm the prevailing social order and also challenge it. Bodies can serve the institutions of democracy, just as they can aid their dismantlement. As we have seen, democracy does not consist of one activity or institution, and bodies appear in the different modes of politics considered in the chapters of this book. Bodies are perhaps most overtly engaged in democratic politics in the mode of protest that I considered in both Chapters Four and Five. In Chapter Four I showed how the hunger strike is an embodied form of protest that can strengthen a political cause but also dissents from the dominant order. In Chapter Five I looked back at the occupation of the site of a proposed motorway, Twyford Down in 1992, which had an important impact on the roads policy of the UK government. By collectively occupying a space, bodies are able to encourage and enliven cooperation and reconstruct public space. But bodies are no less relevant in other modes of politics. Democratic theory is currently dominated by the model of deliberative democracy. As I described in Chapter Two, bodies matter because they provide conditions, excesses, disruptions and opportunities for deliberation. The same goes for representation, and in Chapter One I considered the way that individual bodies of representatives can challenge dominant constructions of identity. By considering two powerful examples of women representatives—Emmeline Pankhurst and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela—I suggested that the embodied performances of representatives do not simply ‘mirror’ their constituents but can construct them in new ways. Concepts and theories of political representation, then, can be augmented by attending to the human bodies that don’t passively stand for, but actively perform for the represented. However as I also showed in Chapter Three, just as bodies are relevant in the construction of ‘us’, they also are important in the construction of ‘others’ who may be antagonistically constructed as body objects or respected as embodied subjects. The frontier between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is drawn and can be redrawn with and on the body. Equally, bodies are relevant in the consultation of different types of experts. As discussed in Chapter Six, while bodies may contribute to environmental policymaking with incorporated knowledge, they also disorder any assump-

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tion of a universally applicable policy or disembodied science. Recalling the body troubles the false dualism that places unruly emotional bodies apart from disembodied reason and shows that perspectives are always embedded, and that rationality necessarily arises from a situated context. Our politics are not determined by our bodies, but our bodies are not incidental to our politics. I am finishing putting together this book in January 2021, an exceptional moment in which bodies are centre stage. As embodied creatures we are all susceptible to the coronavirus that is currently still spreading around the world, although not equally so. Our bodies are the foci of pandemic governance, but also its disciplined instruments; we are expected to wear masks, to socially distance, to limit travel, to stay home, to live in a bubble. As Foucault says, our “docile bodies” are organised, distributed, measured and categorised (1977: 136). But our masked or unmasked bodies are not only instruments or objects: they make a statement, they support a government or policy or actively impair it. Simply gathering together by itself carries new significance. So while bodies are disappearing from the public realm they are simultaneously moving into view, suddenly noticeable in their absence. If this ‘corona time’ poses an opportunity and a responsibility to reassess democracy (Afsahi et al. 2020) then it is also an opportune time to remember the bodies of democracy. This is a good moment to remember that it is as feeling, moving, ageing, suffering, desiring embodied human creatures that political participants select representatives, express demands, deliberate policies, construct identifications and perform protest. The body plays an active role in democracy, offering a fleshy reminder to those who are tempted to reduce the body to a docile site or passive weapon or strategic instrument or emotional vessel. If we want to comprehend the possibilities and problems of our democratic politics, then we have to recall the bodies that bring our democratic politics to life.

Conclusion: Recalling Bodies

References Afsoun, A., Beausoleil, E., Dean, R., Ercan, S.A. and Gagnon, J-P. (2020) “Democracy in a Global Emergency: Five Lessons from the COVID19 Pandemic”, Democratic Theory, 7 (2), pp. v–xix. Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by A. Sheridan. London and New York: Vintage Books. (Original work published in French 1975) Purnell, D. (2021) “Look at the Capitol Hill Rioters, Now imagine if they had been black” The Guardian. 7 January. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/07/capi tol-hill-trump-rioters-race-power (accessed October 2021).

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Social Sciences kollektiv orangotango+ (ed.)

This Is Not an Atlas A Global Collection of Counter-Cartographies 2018, 352 p., hardcover, col. ill. 34,99 € (DE), 978-3-8376-4519-4 E-Book: free available, ISBN 978-3-8394-4519-8

Gabriele Dietze, Julia Roth (eds.)

Right-Wing Populism and Gender European Perspectives and Beyond April 2020, 286 p., pb., ill. 35,00 € (DE), 978-3-8376-4980-2 E-Book: 34,99 € (DE), ISBN 978-3-8394-4980-6

Mozilla Foundation

Internet Health Report 2019 2019, 118 p., pb., ill. 19,99 € (DE), 978-3-8376-4946-8 E-Book: free available, ISBN 978-3-8394-4946-2

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Social Sciences James Martin

Psychopolitics of Speech Uncivil Discourse and the Excess of Desire 2019, 186 p., hardcover 79,99 € (DE), 978-3-8376-3919-3 E-Book: PDF: 79,99 € (DE), ISBN 978-3-8394-3919-7

Michael Bray

Powers of the Mind Mental and Manual Labor in the Contemporary Political Crisis 2019, 208 p., hardcover 99,99 € (DE), 978-3-8376-4147-9 E-Book: PDF: 99,99 € (DE), ISBN 978-3-8394-4147-3

Ernst Mohr

The Production of Consumer Society Cultural-Economic Principles of Distinction April 2021, 340 p., pb., ill. 39,00 € (DE), 978-3-8376-5703-6 E-Book: available as free open access publication PDF: ISBN 978-3-8394-5703-0

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