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Citizenship as Performativity: is citizenship democratic or disciplined?
Unformatted Document Text:  Heather Pool Western Political Science Association Agnostic Democracy March 17, 2006 Citizenship as Peformativity: is citizenship democratic or disciplined? Three of Judith Butler’s works—Gender Trouble, Bodies That Matter, and Undoing Gender—develop a concept of gender as performativity. For Butler, gender (and “sex”) are constructed categories that attempt to make the world a simpler place by dividing persons into women and men. These categories then handily inform how each of us understands the world and our place within it. As such, these ideas act as unifying concepts that consolidate identity: that is, being born a man or a woman gives us tools to determine who we are in a way that, for example, being left-handed does not. Furthermore, gender operates as a norm that allows a person to be intelligible or recognizable as humans to others within society. For Butler, performativity occurs upon entering discourse (which coincides with coming into the social world). This paper will argue that citizenship 1 is a similar, fundamental basis of identity that shares many of the characteristics of performativity that Butler discusses in reference to gender. First, I will briefly describe what I see as the hallmarks of gender performativity in Butler’s three works. Then, I will attempt to show that citizenship may be a marker of identity comparable to gender, using Otto Santa Ana and Rogers Smith’s discussions of the varied meanings of citizenship in the United States. I will then apply examples of discourse about citizenship provided by law and society scholars and scholars of race in the United States to argue that citizenship shares many of the characteristics of gender as performativity, specifically in its power of regulation and production. Gender Performativity in Butler 1 Although I have chosen to use “citizenship” as the key concept, I am not sure that “citizenship” (which sounds like something you teach to fifth graders rather than something you ingest with the very air you breathe) adequately captures what I am arguing is a fundamental part of identity. Thus, I would greatly appreciate comments as to whether “national identity” might be a better name for the concept I’m trying to capture. Stychin (discussed later in this paper) uses national identity as his overarching theme, and I think he might be onto something.

Authors: Pool, Heather.
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Heather Pool
Western Political Science Association
Agnostic Democracy
March 17, 2006
Citizenship as Peformativity:
is citizenship democratic or disciplined?
Three of Judith Butler’s works—Gender Trouble, Bodies That Matter, and Undoing
Gender—develop a concept of gender as performativity. For Butler, gender (and “sex”) are
constructed categories that attempt to make the world a simpler place by dividing persons into
women and men. These categories then handily inform how each of us understands the world
and our place within it. As such, these ideas act as unifying concepts that consolidate identity:
that is, being born a man or a woman gives us tools to determine who we are in a way that, for
example, being left-handed does not. Furthermore, gender operates as a norm that allows a
person to be intelligible or recognizable as humans to others within society. For Butler,
performativity occurs upon entering discourse (which coincides with coming into the social
world). This paper will argue that citizenship
is a similar, fundamental basis of identity that
shares many of the characteristics of performativity that Butler discusses in reference to gender.
First, I will briefly describe what I see as the hallmarks of gender performativity in
Butler’s three works. Then, I will attempt to show that citizenship may be a marker of identity
comparable to gender, using Otto Santa Ana and Rogers Smith’s discussions of the varied
meanings of citizenship in the United States. I will then apply examples of discourse about
citizenship provided by law and society scholars and scholars of race in the United States to
argue that citizenship shares many of the characteristics of gender as performativity, specifically
in its power of regulation and production.
Gender Performativity in Butler
1
Although I have chosen to use “citizenship” as the key concept, I am not sure that “citizenship” (which sounds like
something you teach to fifth graders rather than something you ingest with the very air you breathe) adequately
captures what I am arguing is a fundamental part of identity. Thus, I would greatly appreciate comments as to
whether “national identity” might be a better name for the concept I’m trying to capture. Stychin (discussed later in
this paper) uses national identity as his overarching theme, and I think he might be onto something.


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