Resistance, Materiality and the Spectre of Cartesianism: A Contribution to the Critique of Feminist New Materialism

An important camp within the emerging field of resistance studies has
been characterised by a tendency to study and theorise matters of culture,
language, and discourse at the expense of matter itself. For researchers
interested in feminist resistance, feminist new materialism – with its focus
on the entanglements of ‘natureculture’, matter, the body, sexual differ-
ence, agency, and change – might appear to offer productive theoretical
tools that can help shift the focus towards materiality. Through a reading
of selected works of influential feminist new materialists, this article crit-
ically analyses how resistance can be articulated within the theoretical
scope of feminist new materialism. While the authors agree with the iden-
tified gains of a material turn within resistance studies and in relation to
feminist resistance, it is shown that new materialism is of little help in this
regard. In a first step, it is argued that the new materialist attempt to un-
dermine the modern and postmodern forms of Cartesian dualism ends up
reproducing its fundamental premise through the equation of difference
and independence on the one hand, and of identity and unity on the oth-
er. In a second step, the authors argue that the failed attempt to challenge
Cartesian dualism gives rise to two theoretical problems with important
implications for feminist resistance. On the one hand, in its efforts to tran-
scend older versions of materiality as unalterable and constant, feminist
new materialism comes to privilege change and the register of historical
specificity at the expense of limits and the register of the transhistorical, in
a way that disguises resistance rooted in the relatively stable condition of
vulnerability. On the other hand, in its attempt to supersede the difference between nature and humanity by granting agency to matter, feminist new
materialism is led to sacrifice intentional action in a way that undermines
core aspects of the emerging field of resistance studies.