Merely Cultural

Author(s): Judith Butler

Source: Social Text, No. 52/53, Queer Transexions of Race, Nation, and Gender (Autumn Winter, 1997), pp. 265-277
Published by: Duke University Press
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MerelyCultural

I propose to considertwo different

kindsof claims thathave circulated
a culminationof sentimentthathas been building
recently,representing
forsome time.One has to do withan explicitlyMarxistobjectionto the
reductionof Marxist scholarshipand activismto the studyof culture,
sometimesunderstoodas the reductionof Marxism to culturalstudies.
The second has to do withthe tendencyto relegatenew social movementsto the sphereof the cultural,indeed,to dismissthemas beingpreoccupied withwhatis called the "merely"cultural,and thento construe
thisculturalpoliticsas factionalizing,
If I
and particularistic.
identitarian,
failto givethenames of thoseI taketo hold theseviews,I hope thatI will
be forgiven.The activeculturalpresumptionof thisessayis thatwe utter
and hear such views,thattheyformsome part of the debatesthatpopulate theintellectual
landscapewithinprogressiveintellectualcircles.I presume as wellthatto linkindividualsto such viewsrunstheriskof deflecting attentionfromthe meaningand effectof such views to the pettier
politicsofwho said what,and who said whatback-a formof culturalpoliticsthat,forthe moment,I wantto resist.
These are some of the formsthatthiskindof argumenthas takenin
the last year:thatthe culturalfocus of leftistpoliticshas abandoned the
materialistprojectof Marxism,failingto address questionsof economic
and failingas wellto situateculturein termsof
equityand redistribution,
a systematic
understandingof social and economicmodes of production;
thattheculturalfocusofleftistpoliticshas splinteredtheLeftintoidentitariansects,and thatwe have thuslost a set of commonideals and goals,
a sense of a common history,a common set of values, a commonlanthatthe
guage, and even an objectiveand universalmode of rationality;
culturalfocusof leftistpoliticssubstitutes
a self-centered
and trivialform
of politicsthatfocuses on transientevents,practices,and objects fora
morerobust,serious,and comprehensive
visionofthe systematic
interrelatednessof social and economicconditions.
Clearly,one moreor less implicitpresumptionin some of theseargumentsis the notion that poststructuralism
has thwartedMarxism,and
thatanyabilityto offersystematic
accountsof sociallifeor to assertnorms
of rationality-whetherobjective,universal,or both-is now seriously
Social Text 52/53, Vol. 15, Nos. 3 and 4, Fall/Winter 1997. Copyright ? 1997 by Duke
University Press.

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Judith Butler

hamperedby a theorythathas enteredthefieldof culturalpolitics,where

is construedas destructive,
thatpoststructuralism
and politirelativistic,
callyparalyzing.
Perhapsyou are wonderingwhyI'm takingthetimeto rehearsethese
argumentsin thisway,givingthemairtime,as it were; and perhapsyou
are also wonderingwhetheror notI am alreadyparodyingthesepositions.
Do I thinkthattheyare worthless,or do I thinkthattheyare important,
deservingof a response?If I were parodyingthesepositions,thatmight
implythatI thinkthattheyare ridiculous,hollow,formulaic,thatthey
have a generalizability
and currencyas discoursethatallowsforthemto
be takenup by almostanyoneand sound convincing,evenifdeliveredby
the mostimprobableperson.But whatifmyrehearsalinvolvesa tempowiththem,even as I myselfparticipatein the cultural
raryidentification
Is thattemporaryidentification
under
attack?
thatI perform,
the
politics
one thatraisesthe questionofwhetherI am involvedin a parodyof these
positions,not preciselya momentin which,for betteror worse, they
become myposition?
It is, I would argue,impossibleto performa convincingparodyof an
intellectual
withwhatone paropositionwithouthavinga prioraffiliation
dies, withouthavingand wantingan intimacywiththepositionone takes
in or on as theobjectof parody.Parodyrequiresa certainabilityto identify,approximate,and drawnear;it engagesan intimacywiththeposition
of
it appropriatesthattroublesthe voice,the bearing,the performativity
the subject such that the audience or the reader does not quite know
where it is you stand, whetheryou have gone over to the otherside,
whetheryou remainon your side, whetheryou can rehearsethatother
positionwithoutfallingpreyto it in the midstof the performance.You
mightconclude: she is not being seriousat all-or you mightconclude
thatthisis some sortof deconstructive
playand resolveto look elsewhere
in thisissue to finda seriousdiscussion.But I inviteyou to enterintothis
apparentwaveringof mine, if you will,because I thinkthatit actually
servesthepurposesof overcomingunnecessarydivisionson theLeft,and
thatis partof mypurposehere.
I want to suggestthatthe recenteffortsto parodythe culturalLeft
and inticould not have happened if therewerenot thisprioraffiliation
of both
macy,and thatto enterintoparodyis to enterintoa relationship
desireand ambivalence.In thehoax oflastyear,we saw a peculiarformof
at work,in whichtheone who performstheparodyaspires,
identification
to occupytheplace oftheone parodied-not onlyto expose
quiteliterally,
that
the culturalicons of the culturalLeft,but to acquireand appropriate
and, hence,to open oneselfhappilyto publicexposureas the
veryiconicity
one who performedthe exposure,thus occupyingboth positionsin the

266

JudithButler

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thepositionof thatother,and acquiringtemporary

parody,territorializing
culturalfame.Thus, it cannotbe said thatthepurposeof theparodyis to
denounce the way in whichleftistpoliticshas become media-drivenor
media-centered,degraded by the popular and the cultural,but, rather,
preciselyto enterintoand drivethemedia,to become popular,and to triumph in the veryculturaltermsthathave been acquired by those one
seeks to demean,thus reconfirming
and embodyingthe values of popularityand media successthatgoad thecritiqueto beginwith.Considerthe
at the momentof
thrillingsadism-the release of pent-upressentiment
the
that
is
field
popular
apparentlydeplored as an object of
occupying
the
tribute
to
powerof one's opponent,thusreinvigoratanalysis-paying
ing theveryidealizationthatone soughtto dismantle.
The resultof parody is paradoxical: the gleefulsense of triumph
indulgedbytheavatarsof an ostensiblymoreseriousMarxismabout their
momentin theculturallimelight
and symptomatizes
exemplifies
precisely
the culturalobjectof critiquetheyoppose; the sense of triumphoverthis
enemy,whichcannottakeplace withoutin some eeriewaytakingthevery
place of the enemy,raisesthe questionof whetherthe aims and goals of
thismore seriousMarxismhave not become hopelesslydisplaced onto a
culturaldomain, producinga transient
object of media attentionin the
place of a moresystematic
analysisof economicand social relations.This
sense of triumphreinscribesa factionalization
withinthe Leftat the very
momentin whichwelfarerightsare beingabolishedin the UnitedStates,
class differentials
are intensifying
acrosstheglobe,and therightwinghas
successfullygained the ground of the "middle," effectively
makingthe
Left itselfinvisiblewithinthe media-except on that rare occasion in
whichone partof theLeftswipesat another,producinga spectacleof the
Leftformainstreamliberaland conservative
press consumption,whichis
all too happy to discounteveryand any factionof the Left withinthe
politicalprocess,and to denythe Left as a strongforcein the serviceof
radicalsocial change.
Is the attemptto separateMarxismfromthe studyof cultureand to
rescue criticalknowledgefromthe shoals of culturalspecificity
simplya
turfwar between leftistculturalstudies and more orthodoxformsof
Marxism?How is thisattemptedseparationrelatedto the claimthatnew
social movementshave splittheLeft,deprivedus of commonideals,factionalizedthefieldof knowledgeand politicalactivism,reducingpolitical
activismto the mere assertionand affirmation
of culturalidentity?The
chargethatnew social movementsare "merelycultural,"thata unifiedand
progressiveMarxismmustreturnto a materialismbased in an objective
betweenmaterialand
analysisof class,itselfpresumesthatthedistinction
culturallife is a stable one. And this recourseto an apparentlystable

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267

How does the

new orthodoxy
on the Leftwork
intandemwitha
socialand sexual
conservativism
thatseeksto
makequestionsof
raceand sexuality
secondaryto the
"real"business
ofpolitics,
producinga new
and eeriepolitical
formation
of
neoconservative
Marxisms?

distinctionbetweenmaterialand culturallifemarksthe resurgenceof a

theoreticalanachronism,one thatdiscountsthe contributions
to Marxist
modelas
theorysinceAlthusser'sdisplacementofthebase-superstructure
well as various formsof culturalmaterialism(e.g., RaymondWilliams,
Stuart Hall, GayatriChakravortySpivak). Indeed, the untimelyresurgence of thatdistinctionis in the serviceof a tacticthatseeksto identify
new social movementswiththemerelycultural,and the culturalwiththe
derivativeand secondary,thusembracingan anachronistic
materialism
as
thebannerfora new orthodoxy.
This resurgenceof leftistorthodoxycalls fora "unity"thatwould,
paradoxically,redividethe Leftin preciselythe waythatorthodoxypurportsto lament.Indeed,one wayof producingthisdivisionbecomesclear
whenwe ask whichmovements,
and forwhatreasons,getrelegatedto the
sphereof the "merelycultural,"and how thatverydivisionbetweenthe
materialand the culturalbecomes tacticallyinvokedforthe purposesof
certainformsof politicalactivism.How does thenew orthomarginalizing
on
the
Left
workin tandemwitha social and sexual conservativism
doxy
thatseeksto makequestionsofrace and sexualitysecondaryto the"real"
businessofpolitics,producinga new and eeriepoliticalformation
ofneoMarxisms?On whatprinciplesof exclusionor subordination
conservative
has thisostensibleunitybeen erected?How quicklywe forgetthatnew
social movementsbased on democraticprinciplesbecame articulated
againsta hegemonicLeft as well as againsta complicitousliberalcenter
and a trulythreatening
rightwing?Have the historicalreasons forthe
of
semiautonomous
social movementseverreallybeen
development new,
into
those
lament
theiremergenceand credit
taken
accountby
who now
interests?
Is thissituationnot simplyreprothemwithnarrowidentitarian
duced in the recenteffortsto restorethe universalthroughfiat,whether
or notionsofthe
throughtheimaginaryfinesseof Habermasianrationality
that
a
cleansed
common good
notionof class? Is the
prioritize racially
point of the new rhetoricsof unitynot simplyto "include" through
domesticationand subordination
preciselythosemovementsthatformed
in part in oppositionto such domesticationand subordination,
showing
thattheproponentsofthe"commongood" have failedto read thehistory
thathas made thisconflictpossible?
What the resurgentorthodoxymay resentabout new social movementsis preciselythe vitalitythatsuch movementsare enjoying.Paradoxically,the verymovementsthat continueto keep the Left alive are
identicreditedwithitsparalysis.AlthoughI would agreethata narrowly
tarianconstrualof such movementsleads to a narrowingof the political
field, thereis no reason to assume thatsuch social movementsare reducibleto
theiridentitarianformations.The problem of unity or, more modestly, of

of
solidaritycannotbe resolvedthroughthetranscendenceor obliteration

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a unity
thisfield,and certainlynot throughthevain promiseof retrieving
one
that
reinstitutes
subordination
as the
wroughtthroughexclusions,
own
of
its
The
condition
only possible unitywill not be the
possibility.
in
synthesisof a set of conflicts,but will be a modeofsustainingconflict
politicallyproductive
ways,a practiceof contestationthatdemands that
these movementsarticulatetheirgoals under the pressureof each other
withouttherefore
exactlybecomingeach other.
This is not quite the chain of equivalenceproposed by Laclau and
Mouffe,althoughit does sustainimportantrelationsto it.' New political
formationsdo not standin an analogicalrelationwithone another,as if
entities.They are overlapping,
mututheywerediscreteand differentiated
ally determining,and convergentfieldsof politicization.In fact,most
promisingare those momentsin which one social movementcomes to
findits conditionof possibilityin another.Here difference
is not simply
the externaldifferences
betweenmovements,understoodas thatwhich
differentiates
themfromone another,but,rather,theself-difference
ofmovea constitutive
mentitself,
rupturethatmakesmovementspossibleon nonidentitarian
grounds,thatinstallsa certainmobilizingconflictas thebasis
of politicization.Factionalization,
understoodas theprocesswherebyone
its own unityand coherence,
identityexcludesanotherin orderto fortify
makes the mistakeof locatingthe problemof differenceas thatwhich
one identityand another;but difference
is the condition
emergesbetween
of possibilityof identityor, rather,its constitutive
limit:whatmakes its
articulationpossible is at the same timewhatmakes any finalor closed
articulationimpossible.
Withintheacademy,theeffort
to separaterace studiesfromsexuality
studiesfromgenderstudiesmarksvariousneeds forautonomousarticulation,but it also invariablyproduces a set of important,painful,and
that expose the ultimatelimitsto any such
promisingconfrontations
the
of
autonomy: politics sexualitywithinAfricanAmericanstudies;the
politicsofrace withinqueer studies,withinthestudyof class,withinfeminism;the questionof misogynywithinany of the above; the questionof
homophobiawithinfeminism-toname a few.This may seem to be preciselythetediumof identitarian
strugglesthata new,moreinclusiveLeft
for
to
transcend.
And
hopes
yet, a politicsof "inclusion"to mean someand resubordination
of such differthingotherthanthe redomestication
ences, it will have to develop a sense of alliance in the course of a new
formof conflictualencounter.When new social movementsare cast as so
many "particularisms"in search of an overarchinguniversal,it will be
necessaryto ask how therubricof a universalitselfonlybecame possible
throughthe erasureof the priorworkingsof social power.This is not to
say thatuniversalsare impossible,but onlythatone abstractedfromits
locationin powerwillalwaysbe falsifying
and territorializing,
and calls to
MerelyCultural

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269

be resistedat everylevel. Whateveruniversalbecomes possible-and it

maybe thatuniversalsonlybecome possiblefora time,"flashingup" in
labor of translationin
Benjamin'ssense-will be the resultof a difficult
which social movementsofferup theirpoints of convergenceagainsta
backgroundof ongoingcontestation.
as somehave done,is
To faultnew social movementsfortheirvitality,
preciselyto refuseto understandthatany futurefortheLeftwillhave to
build on the basis of movementsthatcompel democraticparticipation,
and thatany effortto impose unityupon such movementsfromtheoutside willbe rejectedonce againas a formofvanguardismdedicatedto the
productionof hierarchyand dissension,producingthe veryfactionalizationthatit assertsis comingfromoutsideitself.
The nostalgiafora falseand exclusionaryunityis linkedto the disparagementof the cultural,and witha renewedsexual and social conservatismon theLeft.Sometimesthistakestheformof tryingto resubordinate race to class, failingto considerwhat Paul Gilroyand StuartHall
have argued,thatrace maybe one modalityin whichclass is lived.In this
way,race and class are rendereddistinctanalytically
onlyto realizethat
theanalysisoftheone cannotproceedwithouttheanalysisoftheother.A
and I proposeto condifferent
dynamicis at workin relationto sexuality,
centratetherestof thisessayto thatissue. Consideredinessentialto what
is most pressing in material life, queer politics is regularlyfigured by the
orthodoxyas theculturalextremeofpoliticization.

Whereasclass and race strugglesare understoodas pervasivelyeconomic,and feministstrugglesto be sometimeseconomicand sometimes

cultural,queer strugglesare understoodnot onlyto be culturalstruggles,
but to typify
the "merelycultural"formthatcontemporary
social movementshave assumed. Consider the recentworkof a colleague,Nancy
Fraser,whose views are in no way orthodox,and who has, on the conforunderframework
trary,soughtto findwaysto offera comprehensive
ofemancipatory
relationship
standingtheinterlocking
strugglesofvarious
kinds.I turnto herworkin partbecause the"merelycultural"assumption
I worryabout can be foundthere,and partlybecause she and I havea historyoffriendly
argumentation-onewhichI trustwillcontinuefromhere
a
as productiveexchange2(whichis also thereasonwhyshe remainsthe
onlypersonI agree to name in thisessay).
In Fraser'srecentbook JusticeInterruptus,
she rightlynotes that"in
the United Statestoday,the expression'identitypolitics'is increasingly
and anti-heterosexused as a derogatorytermforfeminism,
anti-racism,
have
She
insists
that
such
movements
to do withsocial
ism."3
everything
justiceand arguesthatany leftistmovementmustrespondto theirchallenges. Nevertheless,she reproduces the division that locates certain
oppressionsas partofpoliticaleconomyand relegatesothersto theexclu270

JudithButler

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sivelyculturalsphere.Positinga spectrumthatspans politicaleconomy

and culture,she situateslesbian and gay strugglesat the culturalend of
thispoliticalspectrum.Homophobia,she argues,has no rootsin political
economy,because homosexualsoccupyno distinctive
positionin thedivision of labor, are distributedthroughoutthe class structure,and do not
constitutean exploitedclass. "[T]he injusticetheysufferis quintessenlesbian
tiallya matterofrecognition"(17-18), she claims,thusconstruing
and gay strugglesas merelymattersof culturalrecognition,ratherthan
thepolitacknowledgingthemas struggleseitherforequalitythroughout
ical economicsphereor foran end to materialoppression.
Why would a movementconcernedto criticizeand transformthe
waysin whichsexualityis sociallyregulatednotbe understoodas central
to the functioningof politicaleconomy?Indeed, that this critiqueand
is centralto the projectof materialismwas the trenchant
transformation
socialist
feminists
and thoseinterestedin the convergence
made
point
by
in the 1970s and 1980s; and it was clearly
of Marxismand psychoanalysis
inauguratedby Engelsand Marx withtheirown insistencethatthe"mode
of production"needed to include formsof social associationas well. In
The German Ideology (1846), Marx famously wrote,

Whywould
a movement
concernedto
criticize
and
transform
the
waysinwhich
sexuality
issocially
regulatednot
be understood
as central

men,whodailyremaketheirownlife,beginto make othermen,to propagate theirkind:the relationbetweenman and woman,parentsand

children,thefamily.4
AlthoughMarx vacillatesbetweenregardingprocreationas a naturaland
he makesclearnotonlythata mode of productionis
a social relationship,
"a
always combinedwitha mode of cooperation,but that,importantly,
mode of productionis itselfa 'productiveforce"' (157). Engels clearly

to the
of
functioning
political
economy?

expands upon this argument in The Origin of theFamily,Private Property,

and theState(1884), and he offerstherea formulation

thatbecame,fora
scholtime,perhapsthe mostwidelycitedquotationin socialist-feminist
arship:

inhistory
tothematerialist
thedetermining
factor
is,
conception,
According
in thefinalinstance,theproduction
and reproduction
of immediate
life.
character:
on theoneside,theproduction
ofthe
This,again,is ofa twofold
meansofexistence,
offood,clothing,
andshelter
andthetoolsnecessary
for
thatproduction;
on theotherside,theproduction
ofhumanbeingsthemofthespecies.5
selves,thepropagation
Indeed, manyof the feministargumentsduringthattimesoughtnot
thefamilyas partofthemode of production,but to show
onlyto identify
how the veryproductionof genderhad to be understoodas part of the
"productionofhumanbeingsthemselves,"
accordingto normsthatreproMerelyCultural

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271

normativefamily.Thus, psychoanalysisentered
duced theheterosexually
as one way of showinghow kinshipoperatedto reproducepersons in
socialformsthatservedtheinterestof capital.Althoughsome participants
in thosedebatesceded theterritory
ofkinshipto Levi-Straussand to that
theorist'sLacanian successors,stillothersmaintainedthata specifically
social account of the familywas needed to explain the sexual division
of labor and the genderedreproductionof the worker.Essentialto the
socialist-feminist
positionof thetimewas preciselytheviewthatthefamnot
natural
of kin
is
a
ily
givenand that,as a specificsocial arrangement
functions,it remainedhistoricallycontingentand, in principle,transformable.The scholarshipin the 1970s and 1980s soughtto establishthe
sphereof sexual reproductionas part of the materialconditionsof life,a
proper and constitutivefeatureof politicaleconomy.It also soughtto
ofgenderedpersons,of "men" and "women,"
showhow thereproduction
dependedon thesocial regulationof thefamilyand, indeed,on thereproductionof the heterosexualfamilyas a site forthe reproductionof heterosexualpersonsfitforentryintothefamilyas social form.Indeed, the
became,in theworkofRubinand others,thatthenormative
presumption
reproductionof genderwas essentialto thereproductionofheterosexualityand thefamily.Thus, the sexual divisionof labor could notbe understood apart fromthe reproductionof genderedpersons, and psychothe psychictrace of
analysisusuallyenteredas a way of understanding
that social organizationas well as the ways in which that regulation
appearedin thesexual desiresof individuals.Thus, theregulationof sextiedto themodeofproduction
ualitywas systematically
properto thefunctioningof politicaleconomy.
Note thatbothgenderand sexualitybecome partof materiallife,not
onlybecause of the way in whichtheyservethe sexual divisionof labor,
but also because normativegenderservesthereproductionof thenormativefamily.The pointhere is that,contraFraser,strugglesto transform
the social fieldof sexualitydo notbecome centralto politicaleconomyto
the extentthat they can be directlytied to questions of unpaid and
exploitedlabor,but ratherbecause theycannotbe understoodwithoutan
expansionof the "economic" sphereitselfto includeboththe reproductionof goods as wellas thesocial reproductionof persons.
effort
to understandhowthereproduction
Giventhesocialist-feminist
of persons and the social regulationof sexualitywere part of the very
conception"of
processof productionand, hence,partof the"materialist
politicaleconomy,how is itthatsuddenlywhenthefocusof criticalanalysis turnsfromthe questionof how normativesexualityis reproducedto
is confoundedby the
the queer question of how thatverynormativity
sexualitiesit harborswithinitsown terms-not to mention
nonnormative
the sexualitiesthatthriveand sufferoutside those terms-thatthe link
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JudithButler

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between such an analysis and the mode of production is suddenly

whennonnormative
dropped?Is it onlya matterof "cultural"recognition
of a livelisexualitiesare marginalizedand debased,or does thepossibility
hood come intoplay?And is it possibleto distinguish,
even analytically,
betweena lack of culturalrecognitionand materialoppression,whenthe
very definitionof legal "personhood" is rigorouslycircumscribedby
culturalnormsthat are indissociablefromtheirmaterialeffects?Take,
for instance,those instancesin which lesbians and gays are rigorously
excludedfromstate-sanctioned
notionsof thefamily(whichis, according
to both tax and propertylaw, an economic unit); are stopped at the
deniedthe
border;are deemed inadmissableto citizenship;are selectively
status of freedomof speech and freedomof assembly;are denied the
to speak theirdesires;or are deauthoright,as membersof the military,
rizedby thelaw to makeemergencymedicaldecisionsabout dyinglovers,
or to receivethe propertyof dead lovers,or to receivefromthe hospital
the bodies of dead lovers-don't theseexamplesmarkthe "holy family"
once again constraining
the routesby whichpropertyinterestsare regulated and distributed?Is this simplythe circulationof vilifying
cultural
attitudesor do such disenfranchisements
marka specificoperationof the
sexual and gendereddistribution
of legal and economicentitlements?
If one continuesto takethemode of productionas thedefiningstructureof politicaleconomy,thensurelyitwouldmakeno sense forfeminists
to dismissthehard-woninsightthatsexualitymustbe understoodas part
of thatmode of production.But even ifone takesthe "redistribution"
of
rightsand goods as the definingmomentof politicaleconomy,as Fraser
does, how is it we mightfailto recognizehow the operationsof homoof politicaleconomy?Giventhedisphobia are centralto thefunctioning
tributionof healthcare in thiscountry,is it reallypossibleto say thatgay
"class," consideringhow theprofitpeople do not constitutea differential
drivenorganizationof healthcare and pharmaceuticals
imposedifferential
burdenson those who live withHIV and AIDS? How are we to understand the productionof the HIV population as a class of permanent
debtors?Do povertyratesamonglesbiansnot deserveto be thoughtof in
relationto thenormativeheterosexuality
of the economy?
In JusticeInterruptus,
Fraser
although
acknowledgesthat"gender"is
"a basic structuring
principleof the politicaleconomy"(19), the reason
she offersis thatit structuresunpaid reproductivework.Althoughshe
makesveryclearher supportforlesbianand gay emancipatorystruggles
and heroppositionto homophobia,she does not pursueradicallyenough
the implicationsof thissupportforthe conceptualizationshe offers.She
does not ask how the sphereof reproductionthatguaranteestheplace of
"gender"withinpoliticaleconomyis circumscribed
by sexual regulation;
thatis, she does notask throughwhatmandatoryexclusionsthesphereof
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273

Why,
then,considering
thisfundamental
place ofsexuality
inthethinking
ofproduction
and distribution,
would sexuality
emergeas the
exemplary
figure
forthe"cultural"
withinrecent
formsofMarxist
and neo-Marxist
argument?

274

reproductionbecomes delineatedand naturalized.Is thereany way to

and its "genders" are produced
analyze how normativeheterosexuality
withinthesphereof reproduction
withoutnotingthecompulsorywaysin
are produced
as wellas transgender,
and bisexuality,
whichhomosexuality
as thesexually"abject,"and withoutextendingthemode of productionto
account preciselyforthissocial mechanismof regulation?It would be a
mistaketo understandsuch productionsas "merelycultural"if theyare
of thesexual orderof politicaleconomy-that
essentialto thefunctioning
The ecoconstitute
a
fundamental
threatto itsveryworkability.
if
is, they
to
the
is
linked
nomic,tied to the reproductive, necessarily
reproduction
It is not thatnonheterosexualformsof sexualityare
of heterosexuality.
simplyleftout, but thattheirsuppressionis essentialto the operationof
This is not simplya questionof certainpeople sufthatpriornormativity.
of
a
cultural
recognitionby others,but, rather,is a specific
fering lack
mode ofsexualproductionand exchangethatworksto maintainthestabilof the
of desire,and the naturalization
ityof gender,the heterosexuality
family.6
Why,then,consideringthis fundamentalplace of sexualityin the
would sexualityemergeas the
thinkingof productionand distribution,
exemplaryfigureforthe "cultural"withinrecentformsof Marxistand
How quickly-and sometimesunwittingly-the
neo-Marxistargument?7
when
betweenthematerialand theculturalis remanufactured
distinction
it assistsin drawingthelinesthatjettisonsexualityfromthesphereof fundamentalpoliticalstructure!This suggeststhatthe distinctionis not a
conceptualfoundation,forit restson a selectiveamnesiaof thehistoryof
Marxismitself.Afterall, in additionto the structuralist
supplementation
of Marx, one finds the distinctionbetween culture and materiallife
enteredinto crisisfromany numberof different
quarters.Marx himself
not be fullyextricould
that
economic
formations
argued
precapitalist
cated fromthe culturaland symbolicworldsin whichtheywere embedded, and thisthesishas driventhe importantworkin economicanthropology(MarshallSahlins,Karl Polanyi,HenryPearson) thatexpandsand
EconomicFormations,
whichseeksto
refinesMarx's thesisin Precapitalist
established
the
economic
themselves
became
how
the
cultural
and
explain
of
how
institution
the
economic
as a
the
as separable spheres-indeed,
initiated
separatesphereis theconsequenceof an operationof abstraction
by capital itself.Marx himselfwas aware thatsuch distinctionsare the
be
effectand culminationof the divisionof labor and cannot,therefore,
excludedfromits structure.In The GermanIdeologyhe writes,forexample, that"thedivisionof labouronlybecomestrulysuchfromthemoment
whena divisionof materialand mentallabourappears" (51). This drives
in "Ideologyand IdeologicalStateApparatuses"
in partAlthusser'seffort
oflaborpower
to rethink
thedivisionof laborin termsofthereproduction
JudithButler

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"the formsof ideologicalsubjectionthat[provide]for

and, mostsaliently,
the reproductionof the skillsof labourpower."8This salienceof theideologicalin thereproductionof personsculminatesin Althusser'sgroundbreakingargumentthat"an ideologyalwaysexistsin an apparatus,and its
practice,or practices.This existenceis material"(166). Thus, even if
homophobiawere conceivedonly as a culturalattitude,it would stillbe
incumbentto locatethatattitudein theapparatusand practiceof itsinstithatis, in itsmaterialdimension.
tutionalization,
Withinfeminist
theory,theturnto Levi-Straussimportedtheanalysis
of the exchange of women into the Marxist critiqueof the familyand
assumed fora timea paradigmaticstatusforthe thinkingof both gender
and sexuality.Moreover,it was thisimportantand problematicmovethat
of thedistinction
betweenculturaland materiallife.
unsettledthestability
If womenwerea "gift,"accordingto Levi-Strauss,thentheyenteredinto
theprocessof exchangein waysthatcould be reducedto neithera cultural
nor a materialsphere.Accordingto Marcel Mauss, whose theoryof the
giftwas appropriatedby Levi-Strauss,the giftestablishesthe limitsof
materialism.For Mauss, the economic is only one part of an exchange
that assumes various culturalforms,and the distinctionbetween economic and culturalspheres is not as distinctas it has come to seem.
AlthoughMauss does not creditcapitalismwiththe distinctionbetween
culturaland materiallife,he does offeran analysisthat faultscurrent
formsof exchangeforformsof brutematerialism:
"originallytheresneed
not have been thecrude,merelytangiblething,the simple,passiveobject
of transactionthat it has become."9 On the contrary,the res is understood to be thesitefortheconvergenceof a set of relationships.
Similarly,
the "person" is not primarilyseparable from his or her "objects":
exchangeconsolidatesor threatenssocial bonds.
Levi-Straussnotonlyshowedthatthisrelationof exchangewas simultaneouslyculturaland economic,he also made thedistinction
inappropriate and unstable:exchangeproducesa set of social relations,communicates a culturalor symbolicvalue (the couplingof whichbecomes salient
forLacanian departuresfromLevi-Strauss),and securesroutesof distribof sexualexchangemakesthedisutionand consumption.
If theregulation
ifnotimpossible,
tinctionbetweentheculturaland theeconomicdifficult,
thenwhatare theconsequencesfora radicaltransformation
ofthelinesof
that exchange as theyexceed and confoundthe ostensiblyelementary
structures
ofkinship?Wouldthedistinction
betweentheeconomicand the
culturalbecome anyeasierto makeifnonnormative
and counternormative
sexual exchangecame to constitutethe excessivecircuitryof the giftin
relationto kinship?The questionis notwhethersexualpoliticsthusbelong
to the culturalor to the economic,but how the verypracticesof sexual
betweenthetwospheres.
exchangeconfoundthe distinction
MerelyCultural

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275

Indeed,queer studiesand lesbianand gaystudiesin theiroverlapping

effortshave soughtto challengethe presumedlinkbetweenkinshipand
sexual reproductionas well as the linkbetweensexual reproductionand
sexuality.Indeed, one mightsee in queer studiesan importantreturnto
the Marxistcritiqueof the family,based on a mobilizinginsightintoa
accountofkinship,
whichtakes
and sociallytransformable
sociallycontingent
its distance fromthe universalizingpathos of the Levi-Straussianand
Lacanian schemesthatbecome paradigmaticforsome formsof feminist
theorizing.AlthoughLevi-Strauss'stheoryhelped to show how heterosexual normativity
produced genderin the serviceof its own self-augmentation,it could not providethe criticaltoolsnecessaryto showa way
out of its impasses. The compulsorymodel of sexual exchangereprobut a naturalized
duces not onlya sexualityconstrainedby reproduction,
in
the
role
of
for
which
relevant
notion "sex"
reproductionis central.To
theextentthatnaturalizedsexes functionto securetheheterosexualdyad
as the holy structureof sexuality,theycontinueto underwritekinship,
and thosepracticesthatdelimitwhatwill
legal and economicentitlement,
be a sociallyrecognizableperson.To insistthatthe social formsof sexuas
alitynot onlyexceed but confoundheterosexualkinshiparrangements
wellas reproductionis also to arguethatwhatqualifiesas a personand a
sex willbe radicallyaltered-an argumentthatis not merelycultural,but
whichconfirmstheplace of sexual regulationas a mode of producingthe
subject.
to amelioratethepolitical
a scholarlyeffort
Arewe perhapswitnessing
forceof queer strugglesby refusingto see the fundamentalshiftin the
of socialrelationsthattheydemand?
and institutionalizing
conceptualizing
Are the associationof the sexual withthe culturaland the concomitant
to renderautonomousand degradetheculturalspheretheunthinkeffort
ing responsesto a sexual degradationperceivedto be happeningwithin
in and
to colonizeand containhomosexuality
theculturalsphere,an effort
as the culturalitself?.
withintheLeftthatseeksto discounttheculThe neoconservativism
whateverelse it is.
turalcan onlyalwaysbe anotherculturalintervention,
to
distinction
And yet,thetacticalmanipulationof the cultural/economic
will
of
thediscreditednotion secondaryoppression
reinstitute
onlyreprothesuspicion
voketheresistanceto theimpositionof unity,strengthening
thatunityis onlypurchasedthroughviolentexcisionor resubordination.
ofthisviolencehas
Indeed,I wouldadd bythewaythattheunderstanding
with poststructuralism,
been what has compelled the Left's affiliation
whichis a way of readingthatlets us understandwhatmustbe cut out
froma conceptof unityin orderforit to gain theappearanceof necessity
and coherence and to permitdifferenceto remain constitutiveof any
struggle.This refusalto become resubordinatedto a unitythatcarica276

JudithButler

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becomes thebasis fora more

tures,demeans,and domesticatesdifference
and
This
resistanceto "unity"may
expansive
dynamicpoliticalimpulse.
it
the
with
of
democratic
on
carry
cipher
promise theLeft.

Notes
This paper was originallygivenas a lectureforthe plenarypanel on "Locations
of Power" at the RethinkingMarxismconferencein Amherst,Massachusetts,in
December 1996. It has been revisedforpublicationhere.
1. See mydialogue on equalitywithErnestoLaclau in Diacritics27 (spring
1997): 3-12.
A PhilosophicalExchange,ed. Seyla Benhabib,
2. See FeministContentions:
JudithButler,Drucilla Cornell,and Nancy Fraser (New York:Routledge,1994).
3. Nancy Fraser,JusticeInterruptus:
on the 'Postsocialist'
CriticalReflections
Condition(New York:Routledge,1997), 17.
4. The Marx-EngelsReader, ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: Norton,
1978), 157.
5. FrederickEngels, The OriginsoftheFamily,PrivateProperty,
and theState,
ed. Eleanor BurkeLeacock (New York:InternationalPublishers,1972), 71-72.
Engels continuesin thisparagraphto note how societiesdevelop froma stagein
whichtheyare dominatedby kinshipto ones in whichtheyare dominatedby the
state;and in thislatterdevelopment,
kinshipbecomes subsumedby thestate.It is
to note the convergenceof thisargumentwithFoucault's remarksin
interesting
volume 1 of TheHistoryofSexuality(trans.RobertHurley [New York:Norton,
1978]), wherehe arguesthefollowing:"Particularlyfromthe eighteenthcentury
onwards,Westernsocieties created and deployed a new apparatus which was
superimposedupon the previous one" (106). Kinship determinessexualityin
the ostensiblyearlierform,whichFoucaultcharacterizesas "a systemof alliance"
(107), and continuesto supporta newerorganizationof "sexuality"even as the
lattermaintainssome autonomyfromthatearlierone. For an extendeddiscussion
I conductedwithGayle Rubin,"Sexual Traffic,"
ofthisrelation,see theinterview
in differences
6 (summer-fall1994): 62-97.
6. Moreover, although Fraser distinguishesbetween mattersof cultural
recognitionand political economy,it is importantto rememberthat only by
enteringinto exchange does one become "recognizable" and that recognition
itselfis a formand preconditionof exchange.
7. The place of sexualityin "exchange" has been the focus of much of the
workthatsoughtto reconcileLevi-Strauss'snotionof kinship,based on normative accounts of heterosexualexchange withinexogamic social structure,with
Marxistnotionsof exchange.
8. Louis Althusser,"Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,"in Lenin
and Philosophy,and OtherEssays, trans. Ben Brewster(New York: Monthly
Review,1971), 133.
9. Marcel Mauss, An Essay on theGift,trans.W. D. Halls (New York:Norton, 1990), 50.

MerelyCultural

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277