Self practices – mental and bodily activities through which individuals try to give a shape to their existence – have been a topic of interest in the social science literature for over a century now. These studies bring into focus that such activities play important roles in our relationship to our social environment. But beyond this general insight we still do not have a framework for elucidating what kind of roles/uses have been attributed to self practices by social theorists historically. (...) Through an analysis of the works of 5 major contributors to the literature (Durkheim, Mauss, Simmel, Giddens and Foucault), the article highlights three distinct conceptualizations, which draw attention to the adaptive, defensive and transformative uses of self practices. Adaptive uses allow individuals to adjust their conduct to collective norms; defensive uses serve the maintenance and protection of self-identity despite de-individualizing pressures; and transformative self practices target the development of alternative ways of living. It is further suggested that the framework developed in the article can provide important clues about the different ‘practical’ solutions offered by social theorists to the problems that modern individuals face in constituting themselves as autonomous subjects. (shrink)

Public discussion of sexual victimization has intensified within the US context and globally. One noteworthy feature of recent public discourse in the US is that it calls for a broadening of responsibility with respect to both the parties involved and the forms of sexual victimization for which people are held to account. Yet often the narratives about responsibility and practices of responsibility-taking that dominate in this discussion remain individualizing and penalizing. This essay takes stock of the myriad failures of responsibility (...) for sexual injustices in these existing practices and narratives. The first section outlines four philosophical objections to common ways of thinking about responsibility. The second section extends these objections by analyzing the dominant neoliberal narrative framework for responsibility so as then to critique how responsibility is thought about and practiced in relation to sexuality. Finally, given the failures of these narratives and practices, the third section elaborates an alternative that can redress them: an intersectional feminist account of responsibility for sexual injustices that is nonpunitive and takes responsibility to be an intentional practice of altering social relations. (shrink)

In the last few years, it has become a commonplace to state that domination takes place through a multiplicity of axes, where gender, class, race, and sexuality intersect with one another. While a lot of insightful empirical work is being done under the heading of intersectionality, it is very rarely linked to the anarchist tradition that preceded it. In this article, I would like to articulate this point by showing the usefulness but also the limits of the notion of intersectionality (...) to understand mechanisms of domination and then move on to argue for the need of an anarcha-feminist research program. Secondly, I will try to provide the philosophical framework for such an enterprise by arguing that it is in a Spinozist ontology of the transindividual that we can best find the conceptual resources for thinking about the plural nature of women’s bodies and thus of their oppression. This will allow me to attempt to articulate the question of ‘what it means to be a woman’ in pluralistic terms and thus also to defend a specifically feminist form of anarchism. In conclusion, I will go back to the anarcha-feminist tradition and will show why today it is the best possible ally of feminism in the pursuit of a critical theory of society. (shrink)

Conceiving sexuality as a sociohistorical construction, in this paper I reflect upon possible reconfigurations that neoliberalism allows, bearing in mind that it is a specific governmentality displaying a particular mode of subjectivization. The hypothesis I develop stresses that neoliberal governmentality provides new forms of living and experiencing sexuality, resignifying sexual practices to be either accepted or dismissed. Consequently, there are pleasures and sexual acts that become more tolerated, and that originate new rules. Departing from the premise that sexuality is determined (...) by pleasure and danger logics within which neoliberalism foregrounds new discourses, I aim to show the impact such new rules have on women. In these terms, the antivictim conception that some feminist sectors demand regarding sexuality, can orbit around the neoliberal discourse and hide the vindications of women who cannot choose the rejection of their victim position. Even if feminism is widely claiming for women’s reappropriation of their sexual pleasure, these demands are resignified by discourses that urge women to be responsible of themselves, leaving them defenseless in the face of the numerous hardships crossing sexuality as a whole. (shrink)