<b>The critique of identity in the feminist and lgbt movements: Michel Foucault’s resonances in education

Abstract

By proposing a critique of the identity notion, I reflect on the recents alliances between feminist and LGBT (Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transvestites and Transexuals) social movements and the State, as well as its resonances in education. My aim is to think the governing processes of those social movements and of education by means of their specific relation with the State, constituted around a set of demands aiming at the acquisition of rights whose bearers are the new subjects or new social identities: gays, lesbians, transexuals, transvestites, transgenders, intersexs, etc. My hypothesis is that the governing processes of that specific population, in spite of all social and anti-discriminatorily advances that it has purported, has as its side-effect the imprisoning of those movements in a normalizing identity logics, pacifying their demands and taming their critical capacities. Against that specific danger, I consider some Foucauldien notions such as aesthetics of existence and the creation of new forms of social relations amongst those social agents. I believe they constitute an important theoretical contribution to think new forms of counter-identity resistance and counter-conducts, which tend to manifest themselves in the new feminist and LGBT movements as well as its resonances in the education field. This article was originated from a theoretical research which considers some aspects of the post-structuralist work of authors such as Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, as well as certain interrogations originating from the feminist and LGBT’s movement and the education field.