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Journal of Language and Politics: Online-First Articles

“A massive field of action”

Feminist anti-essentialism and political discourse theory

ORCID logo | Södertörn University
Since the publication of Laclau’s and Mouffe’s Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, issues related to gender and discourse have been a recurring yet not central theme in discourse theory (DT). Not only are the authors’ formulation of an anti-essentialist theory of hegemony explicitly influenced by feminist theoretical debates, but also much subsequent work has engaged with feminist theory. In Mouffe’s more recent work on left populism, however, references to feminist theory and politics are almost entirely absent — while at the same time issues of gender, reproduction and sexuality have become increasingly central to politics both in many national contexts and geopolitically. Against this background, this article argues that it is today urgent for DT to re-engage with feminist theory — not least in relation to issues of anti-essentialism — and to revive the exchange between the two theoretical fields, focusing especially on issues related to the specificities of bodily materiality.
Keywords: discourse theory, populism, anti-gender, sex/gender, bodily materiality
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Discourse, gender, ideology: Conceptual clarifications
  • 3.Discourse, gender, and the emergence of neoliberal hegemony
  • 4.From progressive neoliberalism to anti-gender politics — gender and the populist moment
  • 5.Gender, discourse and contemporary boundary struggles
  • 6.An anti-essentialism for our times — understanding the articulation of a ‘people’
  • 7.Concluding discussion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 7 January 2025
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.24195.gun
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