<論文>後期近代における性的政治の条件としての複数性 --ジュディス・バトラーの法制度に関する記述の変遷から--

Abstract

Michel Foucault said that sexuality, which was intermingled with various different aspects of life, is produced in modernity as an independent event. In this context, sexual politics can be regarded as being directed toward modern regimes that objectify and project sexuality into the private sphere on the basis of the public/ private distinctions that produce sexuality. Moreover, current sexual politics, which is compatible with social network theory, tends to view the modern regime it faces as an early modern regime whose mechanism is a reflexive circulation about identification with identity and remaking of normative regulation. However, current sexual politics does not provide a good understanding of the new neoliberal regime of sexuality that has emerged in the late modern society where these mechanisms of reflexive circulation are now becoming dysfunctional. The lack of understanding of this late modern regime may be the result of the inability of current sexual politics to articulate the condition required to confront the neoliberal regime. This article identifies the mechanism of this neoliberal regime of sexuality and then describes the characteristics needed for sexual politics in order to confront that neoliberal regime. To that end, this article focuses on Judith Butler’s theoretical development about legal systems from the early modern frame of the 1990s to the late modern frame of the 2000s and beyond. In the 1990s, Butler noted that legal systems were tied to performative reflexive circulation. In the 2000s, on the other hand, Butler noted that the legal system has been divorced from reflexive circulation and has become tacticalized by sovereign power. By clarifying the changes involved, I show how the inherent mechanisms of the late modern regime of sexuality are different from the early modern regime of sexuality. Furthermore, this paper will also show that Butler identifies the characteristics of current sexual politics as being necessary in order to confront late modern regimes of sexuality as part of the “politics of plurality” posited by Hannah Arendt.