TY - JOUR

T1 - Introduction: Birth

AU - Tyler, Imogen

N1 - “This is a pre-print of an article published in Feminist Review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version Tyler, Imogen, On birth, Feminist Review 93 (1-7), 2009. is available online at: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/fr/journal/v93/n1/abs/fr200929a.html”

PY - 2009

Y1 - 2009

N2 - We are all born. Hannah Arendt suggests that the absence of this primary factfrom histories of thought represents a significant lacuna in political andphilosophical traditions. For Arendt natality, the capacity to begin, is thefoundational fact of all thought, all politics and all action. Without somefundmental understanding of the place of birth, there can, she suggests, beno social change, no human future. Arendt’s insistence on thinking birth asthe basis for politics is radical in the context of a European tradition sooverwhelmingly preoccupied with death, terror and mourning. Perhaps inArendt’s natal thinking lie the seeds of an alternative, future-orientatedpolitics that might challenge the predominant neo-liberalism – an ideologythat Lauren Berlant eloquently describes as ‘the capitalist destruction of lifein the project of making value’ (2007: 282).[...]This special issue emerged out of a workshop, Maternal Bodies (2005) and aconference Birth (2007), organized by Caroline Gatrell and myself at LancasterUniversity. The articles and shorter papers introduce a selection of currentfeminist work on the maternal and birth. Important and established scholars,such as the art theorist Rosemary Betterton and geographer Robyn Longhurst,appear alongside early career scholars and artists. All of the contributions in thisissue are concerned, in different ways, with the representation of birth andquestions of maternal agency. How can birth be thought and visualizeddifferently? As the (problematic) cyclical stucture of feminist work in this fieldmight suggest, these questions have been explored in some depth in feministtheory and art practices from the 1970s onwards. However, I want to imagine thata shift is taking place; a movement from an abject aesthetics towards thecreation of a ‘life-full’ natal aesthetics that cannot be subsumed back withindeathly abject paradigms (see Tyler, 2009).

AB - We are all born. Hannah Arendt suggests that the absence of this primary factfrom histories of thought represents a significant lacuna in political andphilosophical traditions. For Arendt natality, the capacity to begin, is thefoundational fact of all thought, all politics and all action. Without somefundmental understanding of the place of birth, there can, she suggests, beno social change, no human future. Arendt’s insistence on thinking birth asthe basis for politics is radical in the context of a European tradition sooverwhelmingly preoccupied with death, terror and mourning. Perhaps inArendt’s natal thinking lie the seeds of an alternative, future-orientatedpolitics that might challenge the predominant neo-liberalism – an ideologythat Lauren Berlant eloquently describes as ‘the capitalist destruction of lifein the project of making value’ (2007: 282).[...]This special issue emerged out of a workshop, Maternal Bodies (2005) and aconference Birth (2007), organized by Caroline Gatrell and myself at LancasterUniversity. The articles and shorter papers introduce a selection of currentfeminist work on the maternal and birth. Important and established scholars,such as the art theorist Rosemary Betterton and geographer Robyn Longhurst,appear alongside early career scholars and artists. All of the contributions in thisissue are concerned, in different ways, with the representation of birth andquestions of maternal agency. How can birth be thought and visualizeddifferently? As the (problematic) cyclical stucture of feminist work in this fieldmight suggest, these questions have been explored in some depth in feministtheory and art practices from the 1970s onwards. However, I want to imagine thata shift is taking place; a movement from an abject aesthetics towards thecreation of a ‘life-full’ natal aesthetics that cannot be subsumed back withindeathly abject paradigms (see Tyler, 2009).

U2 - 10.1057/fr.2009.29

DO - 10.1057/fr.2009.29

M3 - Editorial

VL - 93

SP - 1

EP - 7

JO - Feminist Review

JF - Feminist Review

SN - 1466-4380

ER -