Bodies in alliance and the politics of the streets

An essential book for understanding the strength and meaning of demonstrations as resistance to the neoliberal system. In this book, Judith Butler analyzes the dynamics of public assemblies in the current economic and political context. Understanding that assemblies are plural forms of performative action, the philosopher relates performance to orchestrated bodily actions. Drawing on Hannah Arendt's notion of "collective actions" and updating her assertions about the role of the body in politics, Butler posits that embodied meetings, whether in person or not, imply the redefinition of public political space. The body thus appears as a transitory political expression. Faced with the precariousness of life, with an increasingly savage, predatory, and barbaric system, bodies that reject this imposed pain gather in assemblies, in public demonstrations, and engage in struggle. They become visible amidst a political field that conceals suffering and hides the bodies that suffer. Gathered, they performatively fight against the neoliberal rationality that destroys and degrades, against individualizing morality, against the discourse of meritocracy, against pain that is neither collectivized nor politicized.