Towards a Critical Reconstruction of Modern Refugee Subjectivity: Overcoming the Threat–Victim Bipolarity with Judith Butler and Giorgio Agamben

Ariadni Polychroniou

doi:10.1515/opphil-2020-0185

Abstract

Abstract The accurate illustration of the contemporary refugee subject has presented an unprecedented theoretical, epistemological and methodological challenge to all fields of academic research. Seeking for alternative philosophical modalities capable of liberating refugee representation from the suffocating threat–victim bipolarity, this article critically investigates Giorgio Agamben and Judith Butler’s theoretical perspectives on refugee subjectivity. Section 1 systematises the dominant tropes of refugee representation either as dehumanised threats or depoliticised victims. Section 2 introduces the readers to Giorgio Agamben’s emblematic homo sacer as a potentially fertile reconceptualisation of refugee subjectivity. In this context, Judith Butler’s critique on the Agambenian bare life is presented in two core pillars. Following one Butlerian claim, we trace the Agambenian inadequacy to successfully overcome the contemporary threat–victim mode of refugee representation in the absence of an empowering theoretical account of the homo sacer’s agentic and resisting capacities. In Section 4, we explore Judith Butler’s main argument regarding the constitutively political character of vulnerable refugee existence. By designating the Butlerian constellation of vulnerability and agency as an invigorating alternative perspective on modern refugee representation, we finally argue that Butler’s epistemological framework provides a more agonistic and nuanced theorisation of refugee subjectivity than Agamben.

Highlights

In his thorough analysis of Hannah Arendt’s diachronic article “We refugees” (1943), Giorgio Agamben traces in the figure of the refugee, the radical emergence of an eminently inverted historical conscience
Trapped within the power mechanisms of the refugee camp as killable life at the mercy of an undisputed sovereignty, the modern refugee subject transforms into the ultimate resident of this historically contingent zone of indistinction, that is the exemplary homo sacer of late modernity: If this is true, if the essence of the camp consists in the materialization of the state of exception and in the subsequent creation of a space in which bare life and the juridical rule enter into a threshold of indistinction, we must admit that we find ourselves virtually in the presence of a camp every time such a structure is created, independent of the kinds of crime that are committed there and whatever its denomination and specific topography
Echoing the necessity for a revolutionary paradigm shift, this article attempted to contribute to the epistemological reinterpretations of the contemporary refugee crisis by associating Giorgio Agamben’s and Judith Butler’s philosophical thinking with the question of the refugee subject

Summary

Introduction

In his thorough analysis of Hannah Arendt’s diachronic article “We refugees” (1943), Giorgio Agamben traces in the figure of the refugee, the radical emergence of an eminently inverted historical conscience. Agamben’s sophisticated development of a theory of sovereignty is heavily criticised by Butler on the grounds that this very theory is not accompanied with an detailed philosophical perception of bare life’s modalities of agency, experience, will and resistance According to her, this line of theorising unintentionally validates the unassailable character of sovereignty via the epistemological and methodological elimination of the multi-layered actions, struggles and personalities of vulnerable subjectivities: The focus on the theoretical apparatus of sovereignty risks impoverishing our conceptual framework and vocabulary so that we become unable to take on the representional challenge of saying what life is like for the deported, what life is like for those who fear deportation, who are deported, what life is like for those who live as gastarbeiters in Germany, what life is like for Palestinians who are living under occupation.

The refugee subject in Judith Butler’s ethico-political theory

Conclusion