Abstract
Today, both politicians and the media echo the refrain that the world has changed fundamentally since 9/11. This shift involves the tacit sense that the world is more violent, as 9/11 is conceived as an act of pure violence. This article works against the grain of such received wisdom, but not by trying to refute it empirically. Instead, the article articulates and elucidates the latent concept of “normative violence” lodged within the writings of Judith Butler. Normative violence names not a type of violence that is somehow “normative,” but the violence of norms. Further, normative violence should be understood as a primary form of violence, because it both facilitates typical, physical violence and simultaneously renders such violence invisible. The article puts the concept of normative violence to work for two purposes: it rereads the politics of Butler’s Gender Trouble and it rethinks our notion of violence after 9/11. The article thereby makes a case for Butler’s contribution to political theory while it seeks to make sense of our post-9/11 predicament.
Author notes
My thanks to Rebecca Brown, Anne Caldwell, Terrell Carver, Lisa Disch, Joseph Peschek, Charles Phillips, Elizabeth Wingrove, and two anonymous reviewers for comments, queries, and criticisms on earlier drafts of this essay. This paper was originally given at the Association for Political Theory conference in Colorado Springs, Colorado, October 2004; I am grateful to my fellow panelists as well as to the audience members (particularly John Nelson) for the productive exchange. This essay was also read in the spring of 2005 by a wonderful group of political theory graduate students at Penn State University; their passion, support, and professionalism are all deeply appreciated, and will not be forgotten. Finally, I thank my colleagues at Swansea University for providing such a supportive and productive environment for intellectual work.
