sickwomantheory:the second chapter of Sick Woman Theory is now in GUTS IN DEFENCE OF DE-PERSONS Ma
sickwomantheory: the second chapter of Sick Woman Theory is now in GUTS IN DEFENCE OF DE-PERSONS May 10, 2016by Johanna Hedva “We must now collectively undertake a rewriting of knowledge as we know it.”—Sylvia Wynter I want to make a defence of “de-persons.” According to the American Psychiatric Association, I am one. That is, I have been diagnosed with depersonalization/derealization disorder (DP/DR for short), which means that I have “significant, persistent, or recurrent depersonalization (i.e., experiences of unreality or detachment from one’s mind, self, or body).” What that means is that, at various times, my body, self, environment, and the world itself do not feel real. There are many ways to talk about “personhood,” and many of them are discourses about what isn’t personhood, or more sinisterly, who does not qualify to be part of that category. DP/DR falls into this kind of discourse on personhood: the kind that defines who is not. The suffix “–hood” as it is attached to the word “person” is important here: “–hood” means “a state of condition or being.” So, when we’re talking about personhood, by definition, the state of the condition or the being of a person can be said to be different than the person. In other words, personhood is apart from the person, personhood is not the person. There is another way of looking at “–hood”: the Proto-Germanic etymology of “–hood” can literally be translated to mean “bright appearance.” I am moved by this at the same time that I’m antagonistic to what it arrogates—the implication that to “be” anything one must not only appear, but also be bright. Before I go further, I’d like to claim the soil that I stand on, so I can dig as deep as I can down into it. I am not a representative for a specific kind of experience; I am presentativeof it. That is, I’m doing it right now, in front of you, and in front of myself. I am a proponent of aporia: thinking with holes in it, thinking that contradicts itself, that circles back, that reveals the knotting and fraying and re-weaving of an argument so that it contains all of its mistakes, so that you can see them, and so that I won’t forget how I got here. My address is from an affirmation of messiness, a testimony of and to disorder, an honouring of incomplete-ness. Anne Boyer writes: “It’s not just our errors we become brave about, but our projects’—and our own—incompleteness.” So here I am, in transit. If I’m going to wander around personhood, I’ve got to reckon with universality, because universality is the foundation for how we construct “persons.” It’s the bedrock beneath the patches of soil upon which all of us stand. Sara Ahmed explains it: “The universal is a structure not an event. It is how those who are assembled are assembled. It is how an assembly becomes a universe… The universal is the promise of inclusion… Universalism is how some of us can enter the room. It is how that entry is narrated as magical; as progress.” I am guilty of hoping for such magic. I’ve played the game of universalism, as we all have: it’s the main game in town. So this is me trying to get out of town. The concept of the “person” that has been defined, deployed, policed, and immured by universality is one that promises self-determined completeness, wholeness, and power. In other words, that which can be both mastered and the master. A defence of a de-person could be said to be an embodiment of incompleteness, a demonstration of bad thinking, a performance of un-comprehension, a refusal of mastery at all. Again, I’m trying to get out of town—I’m headed for the wilds. — read the rest of the article here Image by Pamila Payne Nails by Merkel -- source link