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Rolnik: ¿Cómo hacernos un cuerpo? — Transcript · YTtoTranscript

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Rolnik: ¿Cómo hacernos un cuerpo?

Heterocronías Feminismos y Epistemologías del Sur · 2,176 words · 11 min read · EN

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Below is the complete, readable transcript of Rolnik: ¿Cómo hacernos un cuerpo? by Heterocronías Feminismos y Epistemologías del Sur on YouTube. Read the full text, copy any part you need, or generate a transcript for any video with our free tool.

Good evening. This video is about a text written by Mari, which is based on an interview with Suely Rolnik. We've already worked on an article from this text called "8 of My Feminist Constellation." This time, we're going to work on this text by Barrett, based on this interview with Suely Rolnik. What does

Rolnik deal with? She deals with micropolitics, and what does her proposal consist of? Well, she proposes an ethical compass, a compass, a north star, a guide that will actually be a south star. This ethical guide is based on the knowledge of the body, and it is precisely this knowledge of the body that

will guide the micropolitics of all the reconfigurations of women's selves. So, basically, what this ethical compass will consist of is a lecture that Running gives on the capitalist colonial unconscious, and in which she talks about the knowledge of the body and invites us to create a body. She recounts a personal experience in

which she perceives how dissociated she is from her So, let's start introducing some concepts, some terms that have already been used in other contexts, but which here are given a completely different meaning. One of them is the term "spirit," which has a strong, sometimes religious, connotation—a term that has been appropriated by colonialism and

the Church. But she gives it another meaning: spirit as knowledge of the body. Yes, the body gives the spirit rhythm, pulse. Yes, this would be the relationship between body and spirit, that is, the spirit as knowledge of the body. The forces of the bodies are related, and these relationships produce effects in each body. Rolnik will say, "

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How are we going to decipher these forces?" Precisely with the knowledge of the body. So, the other concept that is of interest here is that of affect. Yes, affect, not in the sense of fondness, but affect as precisely in the body, the forces of the biosphere. Yes, affect is being affected, being disturbed, being touched. And the biosphere

is precisely the great living body that includes humans and all the other elements of the cosmos. And precisely from this great living body come forces that affect the body, our bodies. So, based on these concepts, she will talk about the knowledge of the body. As a basic compass, as a basic orientation, based on this idea, she will talk

about resistance. What is understood by resistance today is precisely reconnecting with our condition as living beings. That is, what will resistance be today? Reconnecting with our condition as living beings. And for that, we need precisely the knowledge of the body, and for that knowledge to guide us. So, she distinguishes between what would be the

ethical compass and the moral compass. The moral compass, which has this orientation, the moral compass has as its north values, images, words, etc., and these are what allow us to situate ourselves precisely in society. The ethical compass, on the other hand, has a north that is already empty; in reality, it is a south

in the sense of Sousa Santos. They are totally different, and why does n't it have images, gestures, or words? In contrast, the north of the moral compass is well-defined. And she takes something she tells a Brazilian indigenous intellectual activist who belongs to the Cree Nac community called It on Cree Al, and she tells her the following: there is an

Amazonian river called Rio 12, and on one of its banks lives an indigenous community, and one day a A mining operation called Valle de Río Dulce pollutes the river so much that it not only contaminates its waters but also dries up the river itself. When one sees it, it appears dry, as if the river is

dead, as if it has died. Two years later, the indigenous community living on one of its banks discovers that the river has found a way to remain strong and clean underground. From this story, which she uses to reflect on feminist struggles, she says that when life is threatened, when the river feels the

effects of these destructive forces on its vitality, it invents a way to continue, a different form; it is transfigured. And in this way, through this transfiguration, the river fulfills its destiny. She relates this to what is called conatus, the force of perseverance that defines life. Her proposal is to consider this transfiguration within the world of

human subjectivity, to bring this idea of the river into human subjectivity. And that is where... She returns to this idea of bodily knowledge, which is precisely what allows us to continue when there is tension in our subjectivity. The tension arises between a subject who deciphers through perception and two subjects who know through

perception, and in opposition to the living being that we are. If the relationship between that subject and the living being that we are—that is, we are both things—the subject who knows through perception and the living being that we are, that relationship is paradoxical, then what does this tension produce? What consequences does it

have on subjectivity? She says that it deterritorializes it, and what happens when subjectivity becomes deterritorialized? Does a void of meaning occur? And why does this void of meaning occur? Because the moral compass doesn't work. That is to say, everything we had as values, as references, as ways of life, no longer works. So what happens there?

Two things can happen: one is that subjectivity is reduced to the ego and tries to interpret the situation from its references, which no longer make much sense. So what will happen? It will see the situation as dangerous. If 20 Evans interprets this as dangerous, it will cause him anguish, and all his actions from this place

will be reactive. Yes, and everything reactive is actually related to the micropolitics of the capitalist colonial regime. Yes, then this way of reacting is unethical because it prevents any process of germination. It would be like the river being unable to transform itself to achieve precisely that: transfiguration, that new self, and fulfill its life's destiny. I know

why: because it remains trapped in these references that no longer make sense. On the other hand, if subjectivity endures this void and allows the ethical destiny of the drive to appear, it uses two drives of Freudian meaning, but specifically, it is referring to the vital force that exists in the human being. When

this transformation is allowed, subjectivity follows the vital force and can give shape, can create another way of living, just as the river did. So, the other way, the reactive one, can never be creative, can never give rise to a transformation. On the other hand, this way of following the vital force is creative. Yes, so we have to see

what the difference is. Between this subject who learns through perception and the body that learns through affects—if we had already seen what the term affect meant, how the world, let's say the biosphere, acts upon the body—then the subject, when learning through perception, communicates, let's say, the bond that it establishes with others through communication, that is, through

language. This subject, although learning through perception, can only connect through communication. In contrast, the body, which learns through affects, can—and here she uses a term that she takes from Saint Teresa of Avila, of course, and gives it a new context, which is the term transverberation—that is, it is said that when the body learns through

affects, precisely here the difference lies in what is called reverberating, translucent, or disseminating, although it has nothing to do with the linguistic. So, the ethics of a life consists precisely in inhabiting our condition as living beings more and more fully; it is there that this ethics of life finds its basis, its foundation, and honoring

life, she will say, is precisely inhabiting it as fully as possible, and from that inhabiting... Life, let's say, is precisely what takes the strength of this term, transfer, Berber, transverberation, the trans, which is also in trans versatility, in transsexuality, yes, in transcendence, and then there is this, which is what gives a resonance between

affects. So, thinking about the resistance of the women's movement, what she does is propose thinking about it from this place, which is from these knowledges of the body. So, feminism will present itself as a transfiguration of women, that is, in the same sense that the river was transfigured to fulfill its destiny of

life at this moment. If the forces—she refers to the brute forces—if they are confined in the colonial, capitalist unconscious, and those forces threaten life, however, in their reactions in different parts of the world, they are erupting. So what we have to see is what kind of result, what kind of struggles, are these reactions?

For a long time, macro- political struggles were opposed to micro-political struggles. So, that opposition was, let's say, a border between these types of struggles. In the case of micro- political struggles, she realizes that Life is precisely a constant struggle between active and reactive forces. This is what's new in these micro-political struggles, and the great novelty is that

micro-politics is no longer opposed to macro-politics. Instead, we begin to see the need for both types of struggle to complement each other. The reactive forces, which we've already discussed, are those that want to destroy life; they are the brute forces we were talking about a while ago. Meanwhile, the active forces are precisely those that

want this attempt at life to fulfill its destiny. If the active forces are the ones that want this transverberation, this light, we're going to compare the two types of struggle. The macro-political struggle is a struggle by opposition, and in that sense, it's dialectical because there are opposing interests. On the other hand, the micro-political struggle, what does it do?

How does it work? It takes on a character, yes, and what this struggle does is undo our character in the scene of power relations. We all play a role; if we perform a role, we act out a character in the scene of power relations. So, the micro-political struggle... What does it consist of to

undo that character, and how will it be undone by creating a new character? Then the characters that uphold power relations will be dissolved, and a new character will be created. What characteristics will this new character have? It will be connected to the knowledge of the body, guided by the ethical compass that directs its practices of

healing, nutrition, etc. This is very similar to a character that already existed in relation to women, a female character, the witch, who was precisely demonized. So I want to read here what the author says: "When they call me a witch, I respond, 'I am what the colonial capitalist West called a witch in order to demonize

it and justify the imprisonment of a horrifying number of women, torturing them, and burning them alive at the stake in the public square.'" That is to say, this character, this character who is so connected to the knowledge of the body and who, from that knowledge, guides its practices of healing, nutrition, etc., we have to understand that a character is

a mode of existence, and what What it tries to do with the creation of a new character is to transfigure and, after valuing the values—that is, to modify all that set of values that the people who were already fulfilling the roles in the scenes of power had— then change it for this new

character guided by the knowledge of the body and thus produce new values in the macro-political sphere. The strategy of the struggle is programmatic, yes, because the objective that one wants to reach in that struggle is clearly defined in the micro-political sphere. In contrast, there is no defined result, but rather it will be

defined as something of a process of creation, of germination. To be, it only occurs in a relational field because it is not an individual struggle either. Although it has to do with the orientation of the knowledge of the body, it is not something that can occur in an individual space, but rather it will

require a relational field, and what it will sustain is that there is no effective decolonization, but a transformation of the politics of subjectivation. It depends on its articulation precisely with decolonization in the macro-political sphere. That is why the two struggles are no longer opposed. From micropolitics to macropolitics, because macropolitics is the struggle to achieve

decolonization, but the micropolitical struggle will no longer position itself against macropolitics, but rather expand and complicate it by introducing this ethics of life, which will function as an orientation based on the knowledge of bodies. Well, see you in future videos. I hope you liked this article, which is truly beautiful.