Tactics of des-subjection: Disensus, subjectivity and desire in social movements. Gender relationships in the 'Process of Black Communities' network of the colombian pacific.

Abstract

This work examines power relationships inside social movements taking into account subjectivity. First of all, Chantal Mouffe's proposal of reconsidering political aspects in terms of disensus (polemos) as an inseparable dimension of consensus (polis) is considered in this study. Based on it, it is pointed out that conflicts inside social movements derive not from crisis to be annihilated through cognitive strategies, but from the daily and continuous acceptance of dissent practices as an exercise accompanying the pursuit of consensus of struggle principles. Secondly, following de Certeau's distinction between tactics and strategies and Butler's notion of subjection, the concept tactics of desubjection is proposed in order to explain that disensus management requires complex practices through which people involved in a movement as activists go beyond intelligibility boundaries that limit their identity. Life histories of activists involved in the Process of Black-Community network of Colombian-Pacific are taken in this study to show the way some activist women have developed desubjection tactics to go beyond boundaries that limit their black identity, making those tactics work at service of their experiences as women. An achievement of this process was that throughout its history, the movement goes from a 'radical position towards women topics' to an 'ambiguous position towards gender' and finally to a 'broader opening for analyzing gender relationships'.