Binarised Bodies: Towards a Politics of Inarticulacy, Instability, and Anonymity

A great deal of attention has recently been given to the naming of the person to whom violence has been done, and in spite of all the theoretical and activist perspectives, the woman to whom violence has been done continues to find herself stuck between binaries, having to choose between being either a ‘victim’ or a ‘survivor’. The mapping of the act of violence itself in the context of time often determines whether the person to whom violence has been done is positioned as subject or object: if the event of violence is recent or immediate, the person to whom the violence is done is seen as object, or acted upon, and labelled ‘victim’, whereas after the lapse of a certain amount of time, that same person is seen as acting, acquiring subjectivity, and labelled ‘survivor’. Emphasis on notions of agency is most influential in this debate, privileging individual control, independence, and choice as dominant markers of selfhood. Thus, researchers and commentators are urged - often by funding organisations - to use the term ‘survivor’ rather than ‘victim’, which is thereby associated with ideas of a loss of self and, therefore, personhood. In other words, the term extends itself beyond the context of the event of violence to a judgement of the individual herself as a person, an entity that continues after the event. What is the status of the body to which violence has been done in this discussion and in which ways can it allow us to mediate between the invisibilisation of the violence and the physical body and the more esoteric but all-important category of selfhood? In what ways can we understand the position of the body to which violence has been done that will help us to extend the terms of this debate beyond this binary? By replacing such grammatical imperatives and chronological mapping with the body to which violence has been done, I will argue that it is possible to reconfigure the debate and release the individual from such reductive polarities. This chapter will look at the various issues that feed into this debate and attempt to reformulate them by placing the body at the centre in order to focus ideas of violence, witness, testimony, self-hood, and the need for anonymity. I will use theories taken from trauma studies, the violenced body, and notions of representations of self and personhood in order to construct a feminist politics of inarticulacy, instability, and anonymity.