Abstract
In the chapter I explore the implications of Butler’s thinking for social transformation and change. Butler’s work has been critiqued both for not having a clear framework for social transformation, and for not focussing explicitly on equal rights. However, I argue that her theory of social transformation redirects the notion of resistance away from individual acts and recognising specific identities and groups, and instead interrogates whose lives are valued and what conditions are needed for all lives to be valued, intelligible and liveable. Transformatory work in education informed by Butler might involve unsettling race as an ontological category, challenging hegemonic norms and essentialising notions of fixed racial difference, and interrogating the way educational practices and discourses produce raced subjects.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Atkinson, Elizabeth, and Renee DePalma. 2008. Imagining the homonormative: Performative subversion in education for social justice. British Journal of Sociology of Education 29 (1): 25–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425690701737333.
———. 2009. Un-believing the matrix: Queering consensual heteronormativity. Gender and Education 21 (1): 17–29. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800409332763.
Bell, Vikki. 1999c. Performativity and belonging: An introduction. In Performativity and belonging, ed. Vikki Bell, 1–10. London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage.
Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The location of culture. London: Routledge.
Boucher, Geoff. 2006. The politics of performativity: A critique of Judith Butler. Parrhesia 1: 112–141. https://www.parrhesiajournal.org/parrhesia01/parrhesia01_boucher.pdf.
Butler, Judith. 1990. Performative acts and gender constitution: An essay in phenomenology and feminist theory. In Performing feminisms: Feminist critical theory and theatre, ed. Sue-Ellen Case, 270–282. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
———. 1993. “Endangered/endangering: Schematic racism and white paranoia.” In Reading Rodney King/reading urban uprising Robert Gooding-Williams, 15–22. New York/London: Routledge.
———. 1997. Excitable speech. A politics of the performative. New York/London: Routledge.
———. 2004. Undoing gender. New York/Abingdon: Routledge.
———. 2007. Sexual politics: The limits of secularism, the time of coalition. British Journal of Sociology, Public lecture. LSE London.
———. 2008a. Gender trouble. 2nd ed. New York/Abingdon: Routledge.
———. 2008b. Sexual politics, torture and secular time. The British Journal of Sociology 59 (1): 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2007.00176.x.
———. 2010. Performative agency. Journal of Cultural Economy 3 (2): 147–161. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2010.494117.
———. 2011. Bodies that matter. Abingdon/New York: Routledge.
———. 2014. Epilogue. In (Re-)Produktion von Ungleichheiten im Schulalltag. Judith Butlers Konzept der Subjektivation in der erziehungswissenschaftlichen Forschung, ed. Bettina Kleiner and Nadine Rose, 175–180. Opladen/Berlin/Toronto: Verlag Barbara Budrich.
Butler, J., and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. 2007. Who sings the nation state? Calcutta: Seagull Books.
Byrne, Bridget. 2011. Post-race? Nation, inheritance and the contradictory performativity of race in Barack Obama’s ‘a more perfect union’ speech. Third Space 10 (1). http://journals.sfu.ca/thirdspace/index.php/journal/article/viewArticle/byrne
Davies, Bronwyn, and Susanne Gannon. 2005. Feminism/poststructuralism. In Research methods in the social sciences, ed. Bridget Somekh and Cathy Lewin, 318–325. London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Giroux, Henry. 2000. Public pedagogy as cultural politics: Stuart Hall and the crisis of culture. Cultural Studies 4 (2): 341–360. https://doi.org/10.1080/095023800334913.
———. 2004. Public pedagogy and the politics of Neo-liberalism: making the political more pedagogical. Policy Futures in Education 2 (3 & 4): 494–503. http://www.cws.illinois.edu/iprhdigitalliteracies/GirouxPublicPFinE2004.pdf
Ignatiev, Noel, and John Garvey. 1996. Race traitor. New York/London: Routledge.
Kitching, Karl. 2011. Taking responsibility for race inequality and the limitless acts required: Beyond ‘good/bad whites’ to the immeasurably whitened self. Power and Education 3 (2): 164–178. https://doi.org/10.2304/power.2011.3.2.164.
Kondo, Dorinne. 1997. About face. Performing race in fashion and theatre. New York/Abingdon: Routledge.
Lloyd, Moya. 2007. Judith Butler. Cambridge/Malden MA: Polity Press.
Nayak, Anoop. 2006. After race: Ethnography, race and post-race theory. Ethnic and Racial Studies 29 (3): 411–430. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870600597818.
Ruitenberg, Claudia W. 2010. Queer politics in schools: A Rancièrean reading. Educational Philosophy and Theory 42 (5–6): 618–634. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-5812.2010.00689.x.
Salih, Sarah. 2002. Judith Butler. London/New York: Routledge.
Thiem, Annika. 2008. Unbecoming subjects. Judith Butler, moral philosophy and critical responsibility. New York: Fordham University Press.
Warren, John T., and Deanna L. Fassett. 2004. Subverting whiteness: Pedagogy at the crossroads of performance, culture, and politics. Theatre Topics 14 (2): 411–430. https://doi.org/10.1353/tt.2004.0026.
Yancy, George, and Butler, Judith. 2015. What’s wrong with ‘all lives matter?’ The New York Times https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/12/whats-wrong-with-all-lives-matter/?_r=0
Youdell, Deborah. 2006a. Impossible bodies, impossible selves: Exclusions and students subjectivities. Dordrecht: Springer.
———. 2006b. Subjectivation and performative politics – Butler thinking Althusser and Foucault: Intelligibility, agency and the raced-nationed-religioned subjects of education. British Journal of Sociology of Education 27 (4): 511–528. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425690600803160.
———. 2011. School trouble. Identity, power and politics in education. London/New York: Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Chadderton, C. (2018). Conclusion: A Butlerian Approach to Social Transformation in Education. In: Judith Butler, Race and Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73365-4_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73365-4_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-73364-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-73365-4
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)