薛倪．穆圖《夜花仙人掌》中的危脆性、互依倫理與後人類主義

Precarity, the Ethics of Interdependency, and Posthumanism in Shani Mootoo's Cereus Blooms at Night

許甄倚(Jen-Yi HSU)

《英美文學評論》 35期 (2019/12) Pp. 31-57

https://doi.org/10.6711/REAL.201912_(35).0002

摘要

本論文援用酷兒理論家巴特勒（Judith Butler）晚近提出的「危脆生命」（precarious life）、「危脆性」（precarity）、「易傷性」（injurability）或「脆弱性」（vulnerability）等概念來閱讀愛爾蘭－印度裔－千里達－加拿大女同志小說家薛倪．穆圖（Shani Mootoo）1996年出版的《夜花仙人掌》（Cereus Blooms at Night）。書中遭受父親亂倫與家暴的女主角瑪拉（Mala Ramchandin），改寫了脆弱性與能動性的常模意義，脆弱性不再是能動性的相反對立面，她的故事讓我們看見脆弱性的另類潛能與多元樣態。危脆處境讓她跨越了個人主義式的主體，與絕對他異性的動植物、昆蟲、大自然產生倫理的關係性，啟動了後人類及解殖的視野，也讓她跨越認同政治、異性戀婚家親密、基督教殖民價值體系，與同屬危脆處境的跨性別他者形成非血緣、新形態的親屬關係或差異共群，建立起互相關懷、悅納異己的共棲倫理。瑪拉創傷生命所展現的創造性，對各種形態的他異性臉孔的尊重，賦予了我們新自由主義當代生命政治的危脆日常極具價值的思考意義。

關鍵字

薛倪．穆圖 ； 加勒比海 ； 危脆性 ； 互依 ； 後人類

並列摘要

The paper employs Judith Butler's recent reflections on ＂precarious life,＂ ＂precarity,＂ ＂injurability,＂ and ＂vulnerability＂ to read the Irish-Indo-Trinidadian-Canadian lesbian novelist Shani Mootoo's Cereus Blooms at Night (1996). The protagonist, Mala Ramchandin, suffers violent abuse and rape inflicted by her father; however, her story revises the normative definitions of vulnerability as passive and agency as active and invites us to imagine vulnerability otherwise. Precarity enables Mala to move beyond the individualist model of subjectivity and to identify across non-human species such as insects, animals, and plants. A posthumanist and decolonizing vision thus emerges from ethical relationships that Mala develops with the non-human. Vulnerability also allows her to break with identitarian category, heteropatriarchal intimacy, and the Christian system of colonial domination, made manifest by queer forms of intimacy and modes of alliance that are characterized by interdependency and the ethics of care, generosity, and cohabitation. Mala's story shows us that vulnerability is not just a condition that limits us but one that can enable us. This reimagining offers us invaluable lessons about interconnectedness, empathy, and ethics, especially in the age of neoliberalism in which new forms of thinking are needed to understand the biopolitics of precarity.

並列關鍵字

Shani Mootoo ； the Caribbean ； precarity ； interdependency ； posthumanism

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