Sex, Power and Ontology

Exploring the Performativity of Hormones

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8103903
AutoresSari Irni (Åbo Akademi University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2013
Volumen21
Número1
Páginas41-56
Fecha de publicación2013-02-19
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaNORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0803-8740 • E-ISSN: 1502-394X
EditorialRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/08038740.2012.757249
OpenAlexW2027351804
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas16
Referencias citadas31

This paper contributes to the recent discussions about new materialism. It has been claimed that feminists should bring biology and the physiology of bodies into their analyses. Here, however, an ontological question is asked about these objects of study. The paper focuses on sex hormones. In feminist studies, the “sexing” of the so-called sex hormones is questioned (Fausto-Sterling 2000), and in the spirit of new materialism they are also rethought as provocations and global fluids that question any previously perceived constancy of individual bodies (Birke 2003; Roberts 2007). This paper draws upon these previous studies in order to propose a posthumanist performative approach to sex hormones, and continues by arguing for a further radicalization of their ontology. Karen Barad's notion of indeterminacy—meaning that the nature of an “entity” can be determined only within a specific research apparatus—is utilized. This paper thus explores whether sex hormones can, in some apparatuses, “enact” not only chemical processes, but also material-discursive processes, even affects

Aesthetics · Epistemology · Materialism · Materiality (auditing · Meaning (existential · Ontology · Performative utterance · Performativity · Power (physics · Sociology · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Philosophy · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism