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theothermatters

Feminist-sociological perspective on Othering

Tag Archives: abject

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Shit matters: a man’s* fecal ritual

Posted on 8th October 2015 by Pivec

*white, straight, middle-class, able-bodied, youngish, cis-gender, Western

However banal it may sound, shit, dung, faeces, poop, excrement, number two, shite, bowel movement, stool, discharge, defecation or crap matters. Without the regular defecation, our bodies die. Discharging waste from our bodies is literally a life-saver.

How to defecate is a matter of acculturation and socialisation we are exposed to. Most Western people use a sitting flush toilet and toilet paper to remove the traces of defecation and pee in an environment that is familiar, cosy and clean. It is quite a different experience to take a dump at the chemical toilet – they are not supposed to be a place where you should or could feel at home, despite engaging in very homely activity. Chemical toilets have no homelike atmosphere; they are a transitional place for masses to relief themselves as quickly as possible. When you must shit in public places (e.g. public toilet in a mall, workplace or a chemical toilet), you must do it so quickly that nobody even notices it. Yes, we are that uncomfortable with our own faeces.

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Posted in body, masculinity | Tagged abject, body, masculinity
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Credits: Julia Randall

Abjection – feeling appalled and appealed at the same time

Posted on 22nd June 2015 by Pivec

Julia Kristeva‘s concept of abjection includes everything that is identified as Other in a dominant western cultural context: unrepresentable, archaic, primary, pre-linguistic, semiotic, unclean, ambiguous, maternal. What is defined as abject, does not respect borders, positions, rules and by this, it disturbs system or order by making it unstable.

The abject can be experienced in three different ways: (1) as dirt (i.e. corporeal changes and their climax – death, (2) in sexual difference (i.e. the female/feminine body and incest) and (3) by food taboos or repulsion. All those pillars of abjection represent the border or ritualised beginning of culture (i.e. order, civilisation, system, logic, masculinity) from nature (i.e. chaos, darkness, devouring, maternal, emotions).

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Posted in theory | Tagged abject, body