ABSTRACT
Mouffe rejects essentialist views of women on the grounds that they are inimical to a political practice that is both feminist and radically democratic. Recognizing the need to address many different forms of oppression, she formulates an alternative conception of identity that is designed to sustain an emancipatory politics. For Mouffe, a social agent is an “ensemble of ‘subject positions’”—an intersection of many different, contingently related discourses. Through “articulatory practices”—discourses in which links are formed between diverse individuals and between different social groups—identities are partially and impermanently established.
