Butler’s agonistic frame cannot see norms doing anything but suppress or be subverted

Evidence

An important consequence of these aspects of Butler’s work ( and its reception) is that her analysis of the power of norms remains grounded in an agonistic framework, one in which norms suppress and/or are subverted, are reiterated and/or resignified-so that one gets little sense of the work norms perform beyond this register of suppression and subversion within the consti.. tution of the subject. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 168

Categorization

• XREF: This is the crux Mahmood’s whole book builds against — the gap in Butler’s framework that pietist women’s agency exposes. Connects to the reader’s interests in religious agency and feminist theory.
• SEED: A possible essay angle: what other domains besides piety require a non-agonistic theory of norm embodiment — e.g. craft apprenticeship, musical training, monastic discipline.