Liberating Practice : A Critique of the Expressivist Turn in Lesbian-Feminist and Queer Practice

This article reassesses the shift from lesbian-feminism to queer in light of the expressivist turn in feminist thought. The article follows Charles Taylor's theory of expressivism as a modernist, Romantic paradigm of identity and practice. Expressivism defines the self and freedom as a process of self-creation, a poeisis. An expressivist paradigm underlies aspects of contemporary feminist praxis, redefining politics as practices of transforming the subject, self, and/or language. I argue that this paradigm of praxis ultimately works to depoliticize feminism. I criticize two forms of expressivism, namely, lesbian-feminist normative expressivism (based on ethical ideals of liberation) and queer performative expressivism (based on aesthetic ideals of subversion, i.e., "arts of the self"). I argue that feminism needs to break out of the expressivist paradigm and to reconceptualize a praxis that interrelates practices of self-transformation with concrete, political practices aimed at transforming the social order.