Abstract:
This paper will make an original contribution to current understandings of incidents of transphobia in secondary school settings through its Butlerian inspired analysis of accountability, responsibility and virtue. Annika Thiem (2008), in Unbecoming Subjects, draws on the work of Judith Butler and Jean Laplanche (1999) to rethink the relationship between responsibility and accountability, in a context where the subject is not a self-conscious and self-knowing agent. Such an approach is taken by Thiem (2008: 145) as a means to ‘disarticulate accountability as the basis for responsibility'. Butler (2012) also seeks to disarticulate virtue, ethics and responsibility, with a view to arguing against the idea of responsibility as a moral duty [or virtue], rather conceptualising responsibility as always conditioned by pre-existing corporeal and linguistic resources. This reading of responsibility helps us better apprehend gender based teasing of peers at a time when increasing numbers of young people are presenting at high school with non-normative gender identities. It thus makes a significant contribution to understanding how young people conceive of and imagine themselves responding to incidences of gender based teasing at school.
The paper draws on research conducted as part of an ARC Discovery grant investigating cultural and religious difference in sexuality education in Australian and New Zealand public high schools (2011-2012). Part of the study involved interviews (with students in years 8 and 9) where a range of scenarios were read out. In this paper we analyse one of the scenarios that revolved around a new boy, Jo, who presents as a "sissy" at school and is experiencing teasing related to his gender identity; his family environment is supportive. The last line of the scenario reads "What advice would you give to Jo about being teased at school?". The scenario could be [and was] read by participants as situating them as somehow accountable for Jo; they felt it called upon them to advise him on how to deal with the teasing of his peers. This paper critically interrogates the structure of the scenario posed to students in relation to a Butlerian reading of accountability. Student responses are interrogated through a frame which endeavours to disarticulate responsibility and accountability; rather attention is given to how corporeal and linguistic resources condition how it may be possible to respond when young people witness gender based teasing at school.
References:
Butler, J. (2012) Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism. Columbia University Press.Theim, A. (2008) Unbecoming Subjects: Judith Butler, Moral Philosophy, and Critical Responsibility. Fordham University Press.Laplanche, J. (1999) Essays on Otherness. Trans. Luke Thorston, Leslie Hull, Philip Slotkin. London: Routledge.
The paper draws on research conducted as part of an ARC Discovery grant investigating cultural and religious difference in sexuality education in Australian and New Zealand public high schools (2011-2012). Part of the study involved interviews (with students in years 8 and 9) where a range of scenarios were read out. In this paper we analyse one of the scenarios that revolved around a new boy, Jo, who presents as a "sissy" at school and is experiencing teasing related to his gender identity; his family environment is supportive. The last line of the scenario reads "What advice would you give to Jo about being teased at school?". The scenario could be [and was] read by participants as situating them as somehow accountable for Jo; they felt it called upon them to advise him on how to deal with the teasing of his peers. This paper critically interrogates the structure of the scenario posed to students in relation to a Butlerian reading of accountability. Student responses are interrogated through a frame which endeavours to disarticulate responsibility and accountability; rather attention is given to how corporeal and linguistic resources condition how it may be possible to respond when young people witness gender based teasing at school.
References:
Butler, J. (2012) Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism. Columbia University Press.Theim, A. (2008) Unbecoming Subjects: Judith Butler, Moral Philosophy, and Critical Responsibility. Fordham University Press.Laplanche, J. (1999) Essays on Otherness. Trans. Luke Thorston, Leslie Hull, Philip Slotkin. London: Routledge.