Dispossession and Neutrality

In the beginning of Butler and Athanasiou's book on dispossession, the two authors note that they are attempting to think of dispossession "outside the logic of possession," or in other words not as a physical event that is inflicted on an individual or a group but rather as a theoretical trope in which one must call into question the "exclusionary calculus of proprietarianess in late liberal forms of power" (7). I am drawn to this particular passage because it establishes the ultimate goal of Butler and Athanasiou's book, and it calls into question the modes of normalization behind the physical dispossession. In chapter 2, The Logic of Dispossession, Athanasiou determines that the "metaphysics of presence" is mapped onto particular bodies, which results in their objectification and "perenially non-human" status (19).

Though she notes that there are certain"dispossessed subjectivities" of race, gender, sexuality, able-bodiedness, economy, and citizenship that are socially constructed to be less valuable than others, Athanasiou does not explicitly state which of these particular identities are not as frequently demoted to the 'non-human' status. Rather, the reader can infer that just as certain forms of violence are normalized, so are certain identities. Honig's piece, "Difference, Dilemmas, and the Politics," she notes that there are certain identities that considered to be more "neutral" than the rest, which institutionalizes a certain standard without taking into account the varying histories and backgrounds of the population as a whole. I think that in this respect, Athanasiou and Honig would agree that the valorization of particular identities has hazardous effects, but they have their own take on what these effects are.