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constitucionAlismo perFormAtivo:
críticA, perFormAtividAde e precAriedAde
enquAnto elementos pArA umA teoriA
constitucionAl rAdicAlmente democráticA
Igor Campos Viana
RESUMO: O presente artigo apresenta uma proposta de diálogo entre a teoria política de Judith
Butler e o campo da filosofia constitucional. A travessia desse diálogo é materializada através da
compreensão da autora acerca da crítica, da performatividade e da precariedade. Esses conceitos
são articulados de forma a desafiarem a lógica da estabilidade do constitucionalismo moderno e
afirmarem as linhas iniciais do que nomeamos constitucionalismo performativo.
PALAVRAS-CHAVE: constitucionalismo; performatividade; Judith Butler; crítica; precariedade.
ABSTRACT: This article presents a proposal of dialogue between Judith Butler’s political theory and the
field of constitutional philosophy. The crossing of this dialogue is materialized through the Butler’s understan-
ding of critique, performativity and precarity. These concepts are articulated in order to challenge the logic
of the stability of modern constitutionalism and to affirm the initial lines of what we call performative
constitutionalism.
KEY-WORDS: constitutionalism; performativity; Judith Butler; critique; precarity.
After all, the cameras never stopped; bodies were there and here; they
never stopped speaking, not even in sleep, and so could not be silenced,
sequestered, or denied – revolution sometimes happens because everyone
refuses to go home, cleaving to the pavement as the site of their conver-
gent and temporary cohabitation
(Judith Butler em Notes Toward Notes toward a Performative
Theory of Assembly)
INTRODUÇÃO
the transferability of a gender ideal or gender norm calls into question the
abjecting power that it sustains. For an occupation or reterritorialization of
a term that has been used to abject a population can become the site of resis-
tance, the possibility of an enabling social and political resignification. And
this has happened to a certain extent with the notion of “queer.” The contem-
porary redeployment enacts a prohibition and a degradation against itself,
spawning a different order of values, a political affirmation from and through
the very term which in a prior usage had as its final aim the eradication of
precisely such an affirmation. (BUTLER 2011 [1993], pp. 473-474)
in other words, they have to be made evident, which means that they are not self-
-evident. This circularity seems to risk contradiction or tautology, but perhaps
the truths only become evident in the manner in which they are declared. In
other words, the performative enactment of the truth is the way of making
evident that very truth, since the truth in question is not pre-given or static but
enacted or exercised through a particular kind of plural action. If it is the very
capacity for plural action that is at stake in claiming popular sovereignty, then
there is no way to “show” this truth outside of the plural and invariably conflic-
tual enactment we call self-constitution. (BUTLER, 2016b, p. 55).
there is an indexical force of the body that arrives with others bodies in a
zone visible to media coverage: it is this body, and these bodies, that require
employment, shelter, health care and food, as well as some of a future that is
not the future of unpayable debt, it is this body, or these bodies, or body like
these bodies, that live in the condition of an impelled livelihood, decimated
infrastructure, accelerating precarity. (BUTLER, 2015, pp. 9-10)
Destacamos que para a autora nem todos os atos de conhecer são atos de
reconhecimento, uma vez que para reconhecer se pressupõe que uma vida seja
inteligível como uma vida, ou seja, se conformar a determinadas concepções
sociais do que é a vida. Dessa forma existiriam condições para o reconheci-
mento que se baseiam em esquemas de inteligibilidade da vida, entretanto
estes esquemas podem ser ameaçados pelas figuras vivas fora da norma de vida,
ou seja, pelos seres que desafiam a normatividade com sua própria existência,
ainda que precária. Assim, concluímos que os enquadramentos são necessa-
riamente falhos, não são de fato capazes de proporcionar na plenitude o que
prometem, não mantêm nada integralmente em seu lugar, mas eles mesmos se
tornam uma espécie de rompimento perpétuo (BUTLER, 2016a, [2009], p. 26).
Intrigada com as vidas perdidas na guerra, diariamente apresentadas enquan-
to números, Butler indaga sobre o que seria necessário para apreender o caráter
precário das vidas perdidas, mas também que essa apreensão corresponda a uma
postura ética e política contrária a essas perdas. A primeira condição avistada por
Butler é que a vida precária seja considerada viva e que a precariedade seja um
aspecto apreendido do que está vivo. A segunda condição é a compreensão da
responsabilidade para com o outro, precariedade implica viver socialmente, a vida
de alguém sempre estará nas mãos do outro, o que implica estarmos expostos não
somente aos que conhecemos, mas também aqueles que não conhecemos. Reci-
procamente, isso implica estarmos impingidos por relações de interpendência que
anDRé DemetRio alexanDRe / gustaVo Dalpupo De laRa / Katya KoziCKi /
198 maRCelo anDRaDe Cattoni De oliVeiRa / thomas Bustamante / VeRa KaRam De ChueiRi (oRgs.)
podem ou não gerar uma relação de cuidado com a vida (BUTLER, 2016a, [2009],
pp. 29-31). Nas palavras da autora:
only under conditions in which the loss would matter does the value of the
life appear. Thus, grievability is a presupposition for the life that matters.
For the most part, we imagine that an infant comes into the world, is sus-
tained in and by that world through to adulthood and old age, and finally
dies. We imagine that when the child is wanted, there is celebration at the
beginning of life. But there can be no celebration without an implicit un-
derstanding that the life is grievable, that it would be grieved if it were lost,
and that this future anterior is installed as the condition of its life. (...) The
future anterior, “a life has been lived,” is presupposed at the beginning of a
life that has only begun to be lived. In other words, “this will be a life that
will have been lived” is the presupposition of a grievable life, which means
that this will be a life that can be regarded as a life, and be sustained by that
regard. Without grievability, there is no life, or, rather, there is something
living that is other than life. Instead, “there is a life that will never have
been lived,” sustained by no regard, no testimony, and ungrieved when lost.
(BUTLER, 2009, pp. 14-15).
in both of these cases, the subjects in question invoked rights to which they were
not entitled by existing law, though in both cases “existing law” had internatio-
nal and local versions that were not fully compatible with one another. Those
who opposed apartheid were not restricted to existing convention (although
they were, clearly, invoking and citing international convention against local
convention in this case). The emergence of fascism in Germany, as well as the
subsequent emergence of constitutional government in postwar Germany, was
also not limited to existing convention. So both of those political phenomena
involved innovation. But that does not answer the question: which action is
right to pursue, which innovation has value, and which does not? The norms
that we would consult to answer this question cannot themselves be derived
from resignification. They have to be derived from a radical democratic theory
and practice; thus, resignification has to be contextualized in that way. One
must make substantive decisions about what will be a less violent future, what
will be a more inclusive population, what will help to fulfill, in substantive
Coleção DesigualDaDe e a ReConstRução Da DemoCRaCia soCial - Volume iii 201
terms, the claims of universality and justice that we seek to understand in their
cultural specificity and social meaning. (BUTLER, 2004a, pp. 224-225)
CONCLUSÃO
REFERÊNCIAS
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Continental Philosophy, London: Basil Blackwell, 2002.
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2004a.
BUTLER, Judith. Precarious Life. New York: Verso, 2004b.
BUTLER, Judith. Frames of War: When is Life Grievable. New York: Verso, 2009.
BUTLER, Judith. Critically Queer. In: Bodies that matter, on the discursive limits of “sex” - Judith Butler. New
York: Routledge Classics, 2011 [1993].
BUTLER, Judith. O que é a crítica? Um ensaio sobre a virtude de Foucault. Trad.: Gustavo Hessmann Dalaqua. São
Paulo: Cadernos de Ética e Filosofia Política USP, 2013.
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CANOTILHO, J. J. Gomes. Direito Constitucional e Teoria da Constituição. – 7a ed. Coimbra: Almedina, 2003.
CHUEIRI, Vera Karam de. Constituição radical: uma ideia e uma prática. Revista da Faculdade de Direito UFPR,
Curitiba, n. 58, p. 25-36, 2013.
VIANA, Igor Campos. Uma estranha tensão entre constituição e democracia: a necessidade de um constitucionalismo para
além da modernidade. Revista do Centro Acadêmico Afonso Pena, v. 21, no1 de 2015.