A Queer Politics of the Democratic Miscount

Samuel Chambers
2009 unpublished
borderlands e-jo u rn a l w w w .b o rd e rla n d s.n e t.a u 1 This paper uses Jacques Rancière's thinking of politics-particularly his distinction between la police and la politique-in order to insist upon the difference between lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender identity politics, on the one hand, and a queer politics of relationality, on the other. I argue that Rancière's conception of the democratic 'miscount' can be understood as a queering of democracy precisely because Rancière's
more » ... usal to reduce le compte des incomptés to the marginalized or excluded produces a queer politics. The essay opens with a reading of the well-known Queer Nation chant, links this to Rancière's understanding of the wrong, and then combines both with a discussion of the parallels between Judith Butler's understanding of unintelligibility and Rancière's conception of the democratic miscount. I therefore conclude that Rancière's democratic miscount is a queer form of counting and a queer form of politics.
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