I. The problem with identity politicsIII. The Shift from Identity Politics to Radical DemocracyFrom Identity Politics to Radical Democracy: The Future of FeminismConsider the following passage from Judith Butler in Gender Trouble. Reflecting at the end of the book on the difficulties of basing feminism on the identity “woman,” she writes:If identities were no longer fixed as the premise of a political syllogism, and politics no longer understood as a set of practices derived from the alleged interests that belong to a set of ready-made subjects, a new configuration of politics would surely emerge from the ruins of the old (149). In her work after Gender Trouble, most notably in Bodies that Matter, Excitable Speech and Contingency, Hegemony, Universality, Butler has given some attention to clarifying and elaborating on this passage and its implications for feminism. For her, a new configuration of feminist politics must involve a turn away from a feminism which relies on the identity “woman”as its unproblematic subject and source of unity and stability and a turn towards a feminism which looks to the questioning of its key terms and claims, and the critical debate that this questioning produces, as the source of its vitality/energy. This turn represents a shift from identity politics (the old) to radical democracy (new). But, what would this new configuration of politics look like and what are the implications of this shift for feminism? Moreover, what kind of shift is it, that is, what is the resulting relationship between identity politics and radical democracy? And, what happens to identity in this shift? In my dissertation project, entitled “What Happens After Identity Politics? Radical Democracy and the Future of Feminism,” I take up these questions by exploring the possibilities for a feminist radical democracy and tracing the various shifts that occur within feminism when feminism as identity politics is replaced by feminism as radical democracy. Although my project is not limited to Butler’s work or her particular (and sometimes limited) vision of feminism, her passage at the end of Gender Trouble on the future of feminism does play a central role in my thinking about and critical exploration of the viability of feminist radical democracy. It seems 1fitting then, to focus this presentation on an examination of Butler’s words in Gender Trouble and their meaning for feminism. In doing this, I am not so much concerned with drawing any conclusions about Butler’s project, as I am with trying to make sense of her words in order to be clear about her project and its implications for feminism.I. The problem with identity politicsIn order to understand better Butler’s words in Gender Trouble, we need to understand what is being critiqued, that is, what is this politics of the old? What is feminist identity politics? In her essay, “Who’s Afraid of Identity Politics,” Linda Alcoff defines it as a politics in which “one’s identity is taken (and defined) [1] as a political point of departure, [2] as a motivation for action and [3] as a delineation of one’s politics” (347-348). For her, all three of these aspects reflect “a belief in the relevance of identity to politics” (313); identity serves as a starting point from which to act, as a reason for acting and as a way in which to organize those acts into a movement. Central to the practice of identity politics is a desire for recognition—to be recognized as “inherently valuable” (65)—and a need for autonomy—to not be subsumed under or co-opted by other movements, but to be to able to express one’s own unique political voice. More often than not, this is a voice as opposed to voices. An identity politics is based on a singular identity that all members of the group share. Not only does this identity motivate and determine the politics of a group, it creates and shapes that group. Within different politics of identity, the idea that identity matters for politics is crucial. But, how it is understood and how it is practiced differs widely. In their own various critiques of identity politics, radically democratic feminists are not rejecting the practice altogether nor are they condemning all identity claims. Instead, they are responding to a dangerous tendency withinidentity politics, a tendency for uncritically accepting and asserting the identity “woman/women”2as the foundation and organizing principle of feminism and failing to see the complex and politicized nature of the identity process. First, this failure to see the complexity of identity claims results in the fixing of women into very rigid and narrow definitions of woman, definitions that do not account for the dynamic,unpredictable or sometimes harmful ways in which identities gain meaning within cultural and political discourses. According to Butler, feminist identity politics is frequently based on the assumption that identities are given and uncomplicated terms that feminists can simply take up todescribe themselves. But, as Butler and others point out, identities are not merely willed into existence by feminist subjects who claim them. These identities have their own history of meanings apart from us, a history that suggests that we can “never fully own” the identities that we claim and that we can never fully predict the effects that a certain claim will have on our political and theoretical projects. And, because identity is situated within an historical process, one that is constantly taking on new meanings, identity is never fixed or fully complete, it is always in process. In this way, identity can never completely capture the complexity of women’s lives or exhaust the possibilities for news ways of configuring identity claims on behalf of or by women. Second, the inability to understand the politicized nature of identity results in the failure of many feminists to explore and interrogate the regulatory practices that dictate which types of individuals are recognized and represented under the identity woman and which individuals are denied that recognition and representation. This inability also results in the failure of feminists tounderstand how their uncritical approach to identity politics and the assertion of identity claims could result in the reproduction of some of the very structures that they wish to dismantle. Feminists who practice identity politics have frequently left many important questions