ABSTRACT
This chapter, like the rest of this volume, takes issue with the reductive conceptualisation of the phenomenon of silence in political life as violence and with the phenomenon’s under-theorisation, which we partly attribute to the logocentric conceptualisation of legitimacy in much of modern political theory. We specifically take issue with the misidentification as violence (or as a reaction to violence) of performances by which marginal-to-power agents exit political processes, retreating to the private realm, thus becoming politically/publicly silent. These performances of silence-as-exit from politics, we argue, are neither violences to be excised nor performances of agency which are of little consequence and that political theorists should ignore. Instead, we show that some such silences are expressions of agency, defined here as ‘the pursuit of what is good in a particular concrete case by agents with limited powers and resources’ (Geuss 2008, pp. 30–1), that can only be understood from within the structures and discourses that condition its enactment (Mahmood 2012, p.15). The chapter focuses on the silence-as-exit entailed in the performance of piety particularly undertaken by Muslim women. Their particular exit from politics does not necessarily share the characteristics of the politics of exit-as-resistance examined elsewhere (Kirkpatrick 2017). This is because, as we show, their exit signifies acquiescence, submission and docility to received moral/religious norms. Therefore, their silence does not speak directly to politics via resistance. At the same time, these silences are politically significant because they are indicative of the plurality of our world thus illuminating the limits of our understanding. Recognising them as such is crucial since misrecognition by reading them through a logocentric and Eurocentric frame begets violence. It is thus imperative that we theoretically engage with these silences if political theory is to reflect the plurality and complexity of our world and the inherent difficulty of political and ethical judgement.
