Queering self-defense: the notion of the self and the belonging beyond identity in communities constructed through violence

Abstract

In this paper, I draw from findings of my ethnographic research in feminst and queer self-defense, in which the notios of the self, identity and community are central, with the aim to reclaim these notions, as they are brought about by a genealogy of exclusion and separation. By outlining key aspects of this genealogy, I aim to show how the construction of the notion of the self is inextricably linked with the construction of the nation state, and therefore it is a concept that is embedded in nationalist and racist discourses: it is a specifc self, that of the sovereign, dominant subject of liberalism, who is male, white and a property owner (Dorlin 2022). Against this construction, I consider that feminist and queer self-defense is a privileged field from which to propose an alternative, queer understanding of the self, that is based on relationality and vulnerabiltiy and makes use of the "privilege of the partial perspective" (Hawaray 2014), of the writing from a position away from that of the sovereign subject. In searching for an answer to the question "which self does self-defense seek to defend?", I find that this self is part of a community constructed by a shared embodied vulnerability to violence. Through these questions, I aim to understand how belonging in a community is constructed beyond the rigid limits of identity, by placing the subjects that historically are excluded from the category of the human at the centre of my research, in order to make part of a productive discussion that brings feminist critical thought close to anthropological praxis.