Contributions of queer theory to a political approach to corporeality in cultural psychology

Abstract

Since the end of the 20th century, the Cartesian paradigm of identity has been the object of criticism, raised by different epistemological perspectives, including post-structuralism, feminism, constructionism, and philosophy of language studies. A common aspect of these new theoretical-epistemological perspectives is the search to overcome an idealistic, immaterial, vision of the psychological subject, emphasizing the concrete character of its subjective construction, and the anchoring of the whole process in corporeality. These new trends rediscover the body as a concept within the human and social sciences, especially, inspired by Michel Foucault’s work. In Psychology, although the body has recently become an object of increasing interest for different perspectives, a theoretical gap concerning its political dimension, the power forces that cross through corporeity is still observed. This article draws, then, on Queer Theory’s epistemological contributions to critical psychology and the construction of such a notion of embodied subjectivity within Cultural Semiotic Psychology, considering the sociocultural processes that operate in the construction of subjects. Additionally, we seek to provide arguments to refuse the understanding that social markers such as sex, gender, and race are mere variables associated with the human, and reinforce that subjects are constitutively sexed, gendered, and racialized.