Distance, Surface, Elsewhere: A Feminist Critique of the Space of Phallocentric Self/Knowledge

Abstract

In this paper I focus on a particular subjectivity and a particular spatiality. The subjectivity is that of dominant Western masculinities. The spatiality is the specific organisation of space through which that subjectivity is constituted and through which it sees the world, a problematic described here as a space of self/knowledge. The importance of a particular organisation of space to this particular subjectivity is introduced through the work of Irigaray, and elaborated with reference to Mulvey's account of the Lacanian mirror stage. Both Mulvey and Irigaray emphasise the importance of a distancing, visualised space to dominant masculinities. However, Mulvey and Irigaray have both been criticised for conceptualising this dominant subjectivity and his visual space in ways which leave little possibility for feminist disruption. These criticisms have been made from a diverse range of theoretical-political positions. In this paper, however, I engage specifically with the visual space of phallocentric space/knowledge, and therefore only explore the critical possibilities offered by other, more recent feminist appropriations of Lacan because these have centred precisely on questions of visuality, spatiality, and subjectivity. In particular, interpretations of Lacan's distinction between a certain organisation of space and what Lacan calls ‘the gaze’ arc drawn upon here in order to theorise both the fragilities of dominant masculinities and the existence of other visualised spaces of self/knowledge. It is thus argued that certain psychoanalytic feminisms can offer a critical account of phallocentric self/knowledge, which is also a critical account of the production of visual spatialities.

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