Joyful Insurrection as Feminist Methodology; or The Joys of Being a Feminist Killjoy

• Main Author: Libe García Zarranz
• Format: Article
• Language: Catalan
• Published: Asociación Cultural 452ºF; Universitat de Barcelona 2016-01-01
• Series: 452ºF
• Subjects: Joy; Dissent; Feminism; Ethics; KC Adams
• Online Access: http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/452f/article/view/15197

Drawing on Benedict de Spinoza’s vitalist philosophy, together with Sara Ahmed’s feminist anti-racist theories, this essay proposes an examination of the affect of joy as an ethics of dissent in relation to feminist practice. How could we devise an ethics of joyful insurrection; of passionate disobedience; of pleasurable dissent? Mapping the potential transversal connections and diffractions (Barad, 2007) between these seemingly contradictory terms can provide us with some interesting tools for the development of new feminist methodologies. In the second part of this paper, I look at KC Adams’ photo series Perception (2014) as a complex affective space that can allow us to think about a political and ethical version of joyful dissent that is decolonial and feminist.