How to Know a Citizen When You See One? The Sex of a Citizen

Authors

  • Adriana Zaharijević University of Belgrade, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51151/identities.v10i1-2.282

Keywords:

women, sex, naturalization, human, citizenship, science, regimes of veridiction

Abstract

The paper explores how the 19th century scientific discourses naturalized sex. Those highest ranking forms of public knowledge are situated within a broader context of knowledge production on what it is to be human and how the gradation of humanity has been made possible. The paper concentrates on the sexed ‘humans’ in order to show how sex worked as the political and epistemic tool which foreclosed the domains of citizenship for women. I argue that epistemic incomprehensibility is fundamentally related to the politically liminal or impossible lives. Thus, by using examples from the Victorian sciences, the paper shows how the scientific naturalization of sex actively limited the space of citizenship for women.

Author(s): Adriana Zaharijević

Title (English): How to Know a Citizen When You See One? The Sex of a Citizen

Journal Reference: Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Vol. 10, No. 1-2 (Summer-Winter 2013)

Publisher: Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities – Skopje 

Page Range: 71-82

Page Count: 11

Citation (English): Adriana Zaharijević, “How to Know a Citizen When You See One? The Sex of a Citizen,” Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Vol. 10, No. 1-2 (Summer-Winter 2013): 71-82.

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Published

2013-01-01

How to Cite

Zaharijević, A. (2013). How to Know a Citizen When You See One? The Sex of a Citizen. Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, 10(1-2), 71-82. https://doi.org/10.51151/identities.v10i1-2.282

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 1-2 (2013): Vol. 10, No. 1-2 (Summer - Winter 2013) - Issues No. 20-21 | Vol. 10, No. 1, Topic: Science, Media, Necropolitics and Bastard Trans-feminism(s), edited by Marina Gržinić | Vol. 10, No. 2, Topic: The Post-Human, the Non-Human and its Political Revolt

Section

Articles

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