Willful subjects

302 Pages·2014·1.31 MB·English

by  Ahmed

Willful Subjects

sara ahmed
Willful Subjects
duke university press
Durham and London
2014
© 2014 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States
of America on acid- free paper ∞
Typeset in Chaparral Pro by
Westchester Book Group
Library of Congress Cataloging-
in- Publication Data
Ahmed, Sara, 1969–
Willful subjects / Sara Ahmed.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978- 0- 8223- 5767- 4 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn 978- 0- 8223- 5783- 4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Will. 2. Will— Philosophy.
3. Will— Social aspects. I. Title.
bf611.a294 2014
153.8—dc23 2014007340
Cover art: Fred Tomaselli, Bouquet, 2002.
Mixed media, resin on wood. 28 × 22 in.
© Fred Tomaselli. Courtesy James Cohan Gallery,
New York / Shanghai.
On page 293: Rhiannon Williams, Wall of Arms, 2014.
Contents
Ac know ledgm ents vii
Introduction: A Willfulness Archive 1
One: Willing Subjects 23
Two: Th e Good Will 59
Three: Th e General Will 97
Four: Willfulness as a Style of Politics 133
Conclusion: A Call to Arms 173
Notes 205
References 257
Index 277

Ac know ledg ments
I have written this book with many women behind me, including my
aunties, mother, and sisters. My heartfelt appreciation to my partner
Sarah Franklin, who traveled with me on this willful journey, and in-
spired me to pick up many of the trails. I am grateful for feminist friend-
ships and queer collegiality: thanks especially to Lauren Berlant, Sienna
Bilge, Lisa Blackman, Ulrika Dahl, Natalie Fenton, Yasmin Gunaratnam,
Jonathan Keane, Sarah Kember, Elena Loizidou, Angela McRobbie, Heidi
Mirza, Nirmal Puwar, Sarah Schulman, Beverley Skeggs, Elaine Swan,
Isabel Waidner, and Joanna Zylinska. Th anks to Judith Butler and Audre
Lorde for your words and wisdoms. My appreciation to my department,
Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, for providing a home for
waifs and strays, and to Women and Gender Studies at Rutgers, and Gen-
der Studies at Cambridge for proving me with alternative intellectual
homes while I started this project in 2009 and completed it in 2013.
Th anks to my publisher Duke University Press, especially Ken Wissoker,
for supporting this willful work, whichever way it went. I also want to
acknowledge members of audiences for my talks on will and willfulness,
who helped me in the project of causing trouble by sharing anecdotes
and stories of willful subjects of various kinds. It is the best kind of help!
Th is book is dedicated to the many willful women fi ghting to keep
feminist hopes alive.

Introduction
A WILLFULNESS ARCHIVE
Th ere is a story called “Th e Willful Child.”
O
nce upon a time there was a child who was willful, and would
not do as her mother wished. For this reason God had no plea-
sure in her, and let her become ill, and no doctor could do her
any good, and in a short time she lay on her death-b ed. When she had
been lowered into her grave, and the earth was spread over her, all at
once her arm came out again, and stretched upwards, and when they
had put it in and spread fresh earth over it, it was all to no purpose, for
the arm always came out again. Th en the mother herself was obliged
to go to the grave, and strike the arm with a rod, and when she had
done that, it was drawn in, and then at last the child had rest beneath
the ground. (Grimm and Grimm 1884, 125)1
What a story. Th e willful child: she has a story to tell. In this Grimm story,
which is certainly a grim story, the willful child is the one who is disobedi-
ent, who will not do as her mother wishes. If authority assumes the right
to turn a wish into a command, then willfulness is a diagnosis of the
failure to comply with those whose authority is given. Th e costs of such
a diagnosis are high: through a chain of command (the mother, God, the
doctors) the child’s fate is sealed. It is ill will that responds to willfulness;
the child is allowed to become ill in such a way that no one can “do her
any good.” Willfulness is thus compromising; it compromises the capac-
ity of a subject to survive, let alone fl ourish. Th e punishment for willful-
ness is a passive willing of death, an allowing of death. Note that willful-
ness is also that which persists even after death: displaced onto an arm,
from a body onto a body part. Th e arm inherits the willfulness of the
child insofar as it will not be kept down, insofar as it keeps coming up,