The Yogyakarta Principles for the application of human rights to sexual orientation and gender identity define gender identity as “each person’s deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth, including the personal sense of the body and other expressions of gender, including dress, speech, and mannerisms.” This definition and its acknowledgment within human rights politics is a key step in the fight of trans people for legal protection. Our (...) aim is to analyze this definition both historically and systematically to find out how the Western liberal conception of rights fosters specific trans politics and limits the options for others. Specifically, we claim that political liberalism and the form of subjective rights that it brings about influence concepts of identity and political strategies. While we analyze the limits of the liberal framework, our aim is to think about how it is possible that even within this framework, non-normative bodies and queer identities can be acknowledged and supported through law. (shrink)

In dominant discourses, migrants are mostly perceived as either victims or villains but rarely as political subjects and democratic constituents. Challenging this view, the aim of the article is to rethink democracy with respect to migration struggles. I argue that movements of migration are not only consistent with democracy but also provide a decisive impetus for actualizing democratic principles in the context of debates about the crisis of representation and post-democracy. Drawing on the work of Jacques Rancière, Étienne Balibar and (...) Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, I develop a theory of radical democracy as practice, which, starting from the proposed notion of ‘democratic difference’, goes beyond the fixation on democratic regimes and focuses on contentious practices of enacting democratic principles. I articulate these theoretical concepts by analysing how refugees in Germany have managed to break out of a marginalized position and have challenged their denial of rights through a protest march. (shrink)

In response to an impasse, articulated in the late 1980s, the cognitive capacities of ordinary people assumed central place in contemporary critical social theory. The participants’ perspective gained precedence over scientific standards branded as external. The notion of cognition, however, went unchallenged. This article continues the move away from external standards, and discusses two models of critique, which differ based on their underlying notions of cognition. The representational model builds on cognitive content, misrecognition and normativity; three features which are illustrated (...) with positions adopted by prominent exponents of critical social theory. An alternative understanding relies on action-oriented disclosure and the participants’ basic familiarity with the social world. On this reading, what clashes with unequal structures is skilful coping, rather than representations and normative standards. The action-oriented approach may overcome the dilemma of understanding both the impact and the possible transcendence of unequal structures, although it cannot ultimately replace representational critique. (shrink)

Algorithmen und Filterblasen werden oft dafür kritisiert, zu epistemischen Schließungen zu führen, die wiederum identitätspolitische Spaltungen verstärken und damit die Demokratie gefährden. Der Artikel argumentiert für die gegenteilige These: Epistemische Schließungen durch digitale Kommunikation sind förderlich für die Konstruktion von identitätspolitischen Gegenöffentlichkeiten, von denen ausgehend hegemoniale Diskurse kritisiert werden können, um die Demokratie zu demokratisieren. Digitale Kommunikation ist identitätspolitischer Demokratisierung zuträglich, weil sie Gegenöffentlichkeiten sowohl epistemische Schließungen als auch diskursive Offenheit ermöglicht, durch die ein identitätspolitischer Standpunkt gebildet und effektiv in (...) die hegemoniale Öffentlichkeit eingebracht werden kann. (shrink)

Gay men have been severely affected by the AIDS crisis, and gay subjectivity, sexual ethics, and politics continue to be deeply influenced by HIV to this day. PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) is a new, drug-based HIV prevention technique, that allows disentangling gay sex from its widespread, 40 yearlong association with illness and death. This article explores PrEP's fundamental impact on gay subjectivity, sexual ethics, and politics. It traces the genealogy of gay politics regarding homophobia and HIV stigma, suggesting a new biopolitical (...) and body political framework that accounts for the agency of activists as well as pharmapower, and proposing that PrEP is an example of democratic biopolitics. Highlighting the entanglement of medical technology, sexual ethics, and politics, the article shows how conservative and homonormative gay politics developed as a reaction to HIV stigma and how, by overcoming this stigma, PrEP enables a new era of intersectional queer politics and solidarities. It thereby develops a Foucauldian account of sexual liberation beyond the repression hypothesis that accounts for the ambivalence of sexual subjectification and the political potential of sexuality. (shrink)

Die Debatte um die politische Differenz stellt Kontingenz und Konfliktualität als fundamentale Eigenschaften des Politischen heraus. Dies birgt ein Problem für die postfundamentalistische Demokratietheorie, die auf Augenhöhe mit dieser Debatte argumentieren will: Durch die Kontingentsetzung aller normativen Begründungen ist zunächst unklar, welche Art von demokratischen Institutionen wie begründet werden kann, und sogar, ob es überhaupt eine von der postfundamentalistischen Sozialontologie ausgehend argumentierende normative Begründung für demokratische Institutionen geben kann. Meine These ist, dass Freiheit, verstanden als kontinuierliche selbstreflexive Kritik, derjenige normative (...) Begriff ist, der sich aus der Sozialontologie von Konflikt und Kontingenz herleiten lässt. Anders gesagt: Freiheit als Kritik ist derjenige Universalismus, der sich aus der Ontologie des Partikularismus ableitet. Freiheit als Kritik kann dabei einerseits das Operieren einiger Institutionen in liberal-pluralistischen Demokratien beschreiben, und andererseits als radikaldemokratisch-normativer Kritikbegriff für die Analyse ihrer Dysfunktionalität dienen. Um diese These zu begründen, gehe ich zurück zu einem Theoretiker, der eine Grundlage der aktuellen Debatte um das Politische bildet: Foucault, dessen Machttheorie als Ansatz einer Sozialontologie der Kontingenz und Konfliktualität gelten kann. Gleichzeitig hat Foucault den Begriff der Freiheit als den zu dieser Ontologie passenden normativen Begriff herausgestellt. (shrink)