The naked word

The trans-corporeal ethics of the protesting body

Bibliographic Data

ID4884778
AuthorsAlaimo (0000-0001-6891-1343, corresponding author), Stacy Alaimo (a University of Texas at Arlington , Arlington, TX, USA)
Year2010
Volume20
Issue1
Pages15-36
Publication date2010-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueWomen & Performance a journal of feminist theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0740-770X • E-ISSN: 1748-5819
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/07407701003589253
OpenAlexW1980097078
LanguageEN
Citations received25
References cited16

This essay brings feminist corporeal theories and material feminisms to bear upon the many naked protests occurring worldwide, asking how the naked body functions within these events. While most feminist corporeal theories remain within the demarcation of the Human, the naked protests considered here extend human corporeality into actual places, enacting nakedness as an ethical performance of vulnerability–the allied, mutual vulnerabilities of human/animal/environment. Taking up the concept of intercorporeality, as defined by Gail Weiss and others, I propose the term “trans-corporeality,” which emphasizes the imbrication of human bodies not only with each other, but with non-human creatures and physical landscapes. Feminist theories of performance, particularly those of Peggy Phelan (1993 Phelan, Peggy. 1993. Unmarked: The politics of performance, New York: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) and Rebecca Schneider (1997 Schneider, Rebecca. 1997. The explicit body in performance, New York: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), are crucial for understanding the possibilities for expressing this sense of trans-corporeality, which redefines the human as material, and thus requires a critique, subversion, or evasion of the dominant modes of representation and the gendered scenarios of visibility. The performance artist/activist La Tigresa, who strips for loggers to save old-growth forests, and the many Bare Witness activists who spell out words with their naked bodies perform vulnerability as a trans-corporeal condition in which the material interchanges between human corporeality, geographical places, and vast networks of power, provoke ethical and political actions. Paying attention to particular corporeal actions, activities, practices, and events can help feminist theory reconsider “the body” as more than a site of cultural inscription. Moreover, the naked protests considered here extend the parameters of the political domain by seeking an ethical recognition of vulnerable, interdependent, interwoven, human and non-human flesh. The naked protestors, significantly, carve out a space for their politics as much as they assert a voice. In doing so, they emphasize what is often occluded by discursive models–actual places, material bodies, and other matters. This emphasis on political space is not only crucial for an environmentalism that must insist upon the value of particular places, but–when recast as trans-corporeal space–also for a range of issues, including environmental justice, environmental health, and queer politics, that demand a recognition of the coextensiveness of material needs, pleasures, and dangers

Aesthetics · Art · Creatures · Environmental ethics · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Subversion · Art, Politics, and Modernism · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism · Theatre and Performance Studies · History · Law · Philosophy

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