Mind the Gap: Mimicry and Subjectivation in Racialised Discourses
Abstract
Published in the collective volume Adaptive Subjekte. Linking Collaboration and Contradiction (eds. F. Brodersen, D. Pokitsch, S. Röhrer and N. Trucco, Wiesbaden, Springer VS, 2026), this chapter by Noemi Trucco and Doris Pokitsch addresses the making of otherness in racialised discourses.
In racialised discourses, a gap opens between a constructed ‘we’ and a constructed ‘Other’, continuously maintained through processes of Othering. This chapter discusses how othered subjects, caught within this power relation, challenge the gap through mimicry (in Homi Bhabha’s sense). Tracing the historical (dis)continuities of racialised discourses and drawing on two empirical studies, the authors show the extent to which religiously and linguistically othered subjects gain agency within these discourses. Through the entanglement of subjectivation and Othering via mimicry, they ask how discursive subject positions can be fragilised and how, over time, cracks appear in these discourses.
Résumé
Paru sous le titre Mind the Gap. Mimicry and Subjectivation in Racialised Discourses, ce chapitre de Noemi Trucco et Doris Pokitsch figure dans l’ouvrage collectif Adaptive Subjekte. Linking Collaboration and Contradiction (dir. F. Brodersen, D. Pokitsch, S. Röhrer et N. Trucco, Wiesbaden, Springer VS, 2026).
Dans les discours racialisés se creuse un écart entre un « nous » construit et un « Autre » construit, sans cesse entretenu par des processus d’altérisation. Ce chapitre examine comment les sujets ainsi altérisés, pris dans ce rapport de pouvoir, mettent cet écart à l’épreuve par le mimétisme (au sens de Homi Bhabha). En retraçant les (dis)continuités historiques des discours racialisés et en s’appuyant sur deux enquêtes empiriques, les auteures montrent dans quelle mesure des sujets altérisés sur le plan religieux et linguistique gagnent en capacité d’agir. Elles interrogent ainsi la manière dont les positions de sujet peuvent être fragilisées et dont, avec le temps, des fissures apparaissent dans ces discours.
الملخّص
هذا الفصل بقلم نويمي تروكو ودوريس بوكيتش، وقد صدر ضمن الكتاب الجماعيّ الآتي:
Adaptive Subjekte. Linking Collaboration and Contradiction (dir. F. Brodersen, D. Pokitsch, S. Röhrer, N. Trucco), Wiesbaden, Springer VS, 2026.
في الخطابات المُعرقَنة تنفتح فجوةٌ بين «نحنُ» مُتخيّلةٍ و«آخَرَ» مُتخيّل، تُصان على الدوام عبر عمليّات صناعة الغيرية. ويتناول هذا الفصل الكيفيّة التي تتحدّى بها الذواتُ المُغيّرة، ضمن علاقة السلطة هذه، تلك الفجوةَ عن طريق المحاكاة (بمعناها عند هومي بابا). ولهذه الغاية، تتتبّع الباحثتان الاتّصالات والانقطاعات التاريخيّة في الخطابات المُعرقَنة، وتستندان إلى دراستَين ميدانيّتَين لتُبيّنا إلى أيّ مدًى تكتسب الذواتُ المُغيّرة دينيًّا ولغويًّا قدرةً على الفعل ضمن هذه الخطابات. ومن خلال تشابك التذويت وصناعة الغيرية عبر المحاكاة، تتساءل الباحثتان كيف يمكن أن تتزعزع مواقعُ الذات الخطابيّة، وكيف تنشأ مع مرور الزمن شقوقٌ في تلك الخطابات.
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