Democratic Impertinence? Feminist and Crip Perspectives on Democracy in Times of Crisis

From the perspective of radical democratic theory, absolute certainty and freedom from contradictions against and within the political order are not desirable: They are suspected of expressing a lack of plurality and heterogeneity, as well as engendering risks of naturalising hierarchical or even totalitarian orders (Honig 1994; Arendt 202; Balibar 2012, Young 2010). Consequently, uncertainty, irritation, and conflict are justifiably regarded as central topoi of the “democratic adventure” (Lefort 1990, 291, transl. CZ) on both an individual and a collective level. Thus, Radical Democracy is emancipatory and impertinent at the same time. As such, it presents the democratic subject with a double challenge: It must be able to endure uncertainty and contradiction (tolerance of ambiguity) while displaying the willingness and ability to contradict anti-democratic oppression, movements, and structures. Such a democratic subject proves so-called ‘natural orders’ to be contingent, it irritates hegemonic social norms, and provides the grounds for emancipatory change. While the importance of such practices of contradiction is widely discussed in the literature, for example, as a protection against totalitarian excesses (Lefort 1990) or for the democratisation of democracy (Celikates 2010) in the sense of „caring for the agon“ (Honig 2019), less attention is paid to the question of the underlying, dis/enabling politics of care. Drawing on feminist conceptions of care, I problematise this omission: Being able to endure uncertainty and contradiction is demanding and, therefore, cannot be assumed as an equally distributed ability, especially in contemporary contexts of ongoing precarization, disabling infrastructures, and cruel necropolitics. Rather than gesturing towards precarity as grounds and apology for reactionary politics, I draw on feminist, Black, migrant, queer, and crip community organising which shows an alternative way out instead of ‘simply’ demanding for radical democratic impertinence to be endured. Instead, their practices of care and contradiction reflect differentially distributed precarity and act in acknowledgment of the ensuing vulnerability (Govrin 2022). Thereby introducing the ever-materialising body to radical democratic perspectives, I fill a gap in radical democratic understandings of agency and subjectivity – a question usually underexposed (Sörensen 2023) – while strengthening the ties between feminist endeavours and radical democratic aspirations.