Genealogia e teoria de gênero em Judith Butler: subversões teórico-políticas

Abstract

The gender theory developed by Judith Butler has consolidated itself as a milestone in feminist, gender and sexuality studies. In her theoretical constructions, the philosopher dialogues with the thoughts of several authors, such as Hegel, Austin, Derrida, Nietzsche, Kristeva and Foucault. This dissertation focus on the relations of gender theory in Butler with the theorization about power and resistance in the latter author. Initially, a general overview of the main repercussions of different authors in the work of the philosopher is carried out, evidencing the influences that the theory of performativity in Austin and subsequent Deredian reinterpretations; the discussions around recognition in Hegel; deontologization in Nietzsche; and the abjection in Kristeva exert on Judith Butler's theoretical construct about genders, bodies and sexualities. Subsequently, it focuses on the dialogues that Butler conducts with the discussions around power and resistance in Foucault, in the sense of realizing a genealogy of the gender as an analytical category of a given distribution of powers in the social and political field. In this sense, it is possible to infer that the Foucaultian conception of power permeates the discussions carried out by Butler in the field of genders, so that the philosopher sees the normative character of the gender category, as well as finds on it the possibilities of subversion operated from the struggles and resistances exercised by the subjects who, from their differences in the sex-gender sphere, allow the questioning and the modification of the symbolic places that support the relations of domination. Finally, it is made clear how, in order to arrive at these findings, what Butler operated was a genealogy of the gender from his Foucautian conception plus dialogues with psychoanalytic thinking, in order to constitute a critical theory with a high potential for epistemological and politics transformation.