Exposed Flesh: Illness, Metamorphosis, and Politics

Abstract

This study posits the need to analyze how diverse corporealities navigate situations of confrontation between the normal and the abnormal based on a cartographic analysis of documents that meet the following requirements: 1) a theoretical and personal reflection on illness; 2) a connection between the vital dimension of the illness experience and political condition; and 3) a reference to bodily intervention and identity reconstruction. In these confrontations, the ill body, through its exposed and open state, opposes the idea of a normalized and determined identity. This work is structured in two sections. First, we analyze how the abnormal penetrates the normal through a traumatic process that cannot be understood via traditional causal models. Catherine Malabou’s concept of negative plasticity allows us to approach this initial aspect. In the second part, we confront Malabou’s concepts with the autobiographical work of anthropologist Nastassja Martin. From this vantage point, we examine the interconnections between the terms trauma and negative plasticity to enrich the comprehension of identity metamorphosis. Furthermore, we demonstrate the link between sick, disabled, or maimed bodies and the configuration of a political form that is fundamentally traversed by the imaginary.