222, BODIES THAT MATTER, i necessary to learn a double movement: to invoke the catey contingency of the political signifier ina culture of democrat ITICALLY QUEER ies and the Study of Discourse” tisk of offering a final chapter on “queer” is that the term will be as the summary moment, but I want to make a case that it is perhaps the most recent. Infact, the temporality of the term is precisely what «a term that signaled degradation has been ify anew and f valuations such or future aflir~ ion; the occasion the boundaries of sexual ough the performative force of the term. If the is now subject to @ reap, sre the conditions and reiterate the logic i€ was spawned? Can the term overcome its jury? Does it present the discursive occasion for a igwer” despite some recent efforts at reclama- appears capable of only reinscribing jury such thatthe various efforts to recontextuaize resignify a given term meet their limit inthis othes, more brotal, and224 BODIES THAT MATTER, Nietzsche writes, “the entire history of a ‘thing’ custom ‘a continuous sign-chain of ever new interpretations and adaprations an org ‘causes do not even have to be related to one another but, on che contrary, cone another in a purely ies of resignification are derived Investing power wi refers to power as “ceaseless struggles and confrontations...produced ‘one moment to the next, at every point, or rather in every relation fi ply. And yet how are we to understand their convergent force od effect of usage that both constrains and enabll reworking? How is it that the apparend ous effects of di become the painful resources by which a resignifying practice is w Here it is not only a question of how discourse injures bodies, b bodies at the limies And further, how ‘who are abjected come to make their claim through and agai ‘courses that have sought their repudiation? PERFORMATIVE POWER ve Sedgwick’s recent reflections on queer performativity ask us not to consider how a certain theory of speech acts applies to queer pracl chat *queering” persists as a defi is the paradigmatic form for those speech acts whi pronounce you...” GRMCALLY QUEER 225 fand what happens to the performative when its purpose is precisely to “undo the presumptive force of the heterosexual ceremoni Performative acts are f ization and punishm« prism: only perform an action, formed. If the power of di ed ain in which power acts ar discourse. ly, however, there is no power, construed as a subj in the mal leyacy by which a contemporary “act” emerges in the context of of bi there is an “I” wl luters oF speaks and hereby produces an there is first a discourse which precedes and enables trajectory of us is no “I” who stands bebind discourse and executes its volition or the “I” only comes into being led, named, interpellated, to use the Althusserian term, discursive constitution takes place prior to the ation of the can only say “I” to the extent that first been addressed, and that address has mobilized my place +; paradoxically, the discursive condition of soci th the question of performativity, then the performative is one226 BODIES THAT MATTER CRMCALLY QUEER 227 (precedes and conditions the formation of the subject: recognition is not ‘conferred on a subject, but forms that subject. Further, the impossibi echoes prior actions, and accumulates the force of authority through the iow or citation of a prion, autbritative set of practice. What this means, is that a perfors the constitutive conventions by which it is mol “works” to the extent that it draws on and covers ized. In this sense, no or statement can function performatively without the accumu dissimulating historicity of force. ‘This view of performativity implies that discourse has a hi only precedes but conditions its contemporary usages, tory effectively decenters the presentist view of the subject as ¢ sive origin or owner of what is said* Whi to which we do, nevertheless, lay wf identity and desi incompleteness of subject-format place of the “I” in speech, where that place has a ces anonymity able possi which I cannot speak. of a name that precedes and exceeds me, but without he terms through which often demand a turn against icity. Those of us who have questioned the presen- (QUEER TROUBLE “The term “queer” emerges as an interpellation that raises the question of 1d opposition, of stability and variability, within pers formativity. The term “queer” has operated as one ‘whose purpose has been the shaming of the subject it m producing of a subject through through the repeated invocation by which it hay jon, insu. This is an invocation the status of force in contemporary identity categor ms of power through which contemporary discursive ‘med, then it follows that the critique of the queer subject ing democratization of queer politics. As much identity terms must be used, as much as “outness” is to be affirmed, jonary erations of their own production: For whom is outness a historically lable and affordable option? Is there an unmarked class character to ‘demand for universal “outness"? Who is represented by wbich use of term, and who is excluded? For whom does the term present an by which a soci ‘through time. ‘The interpe the speakers a if they spoke in unison across time. In this sense, iti allays an imaginary chorus that taunts “queer!” To what extent, chen, has the performative “queer” operated alongside, as a deformation of, the “t pronovnce you...” of the marriage ceremony? ates asthe sanction that performs the hete same notions must become subject to a critique of the « nflice between racial, ethnic, or religious affiliation and sex- bond, pethaps it also comes into play precisely as the shaming t which “queers” those who resist or oppose that social form as well ay those who occupy it without hegemonic social sanction. ‘On that note, let us remember that reiterations are never simply ‘eas of the same. And t 1 set of social or sexual relations is, of necessity, a repetition “Could a performative succeed,” asks Derrida, “if its formulation did noe repeat ‘coded’ riterablewterance.ift were no identifiable in vome way as If a performative provisionally succeeds (and I will suggest ique ofthe queer subject the extent that it constitutes a self-cit sistent reminder to take the time to consider the ex 1¢ofactvism’s most treasured contemporary premis [As much as it is necessary to assert political deman ‘density categories, and to ay claim to the power to name oneself and act” by which a name authorizes or deau ible vo sustain tat kindof mastery over the trajectory of those categories intention successfully governs the action of speech, but only because that argument aguinst using identity categories,