One cannot not be an essentialist to some degree, even in critique.

Evidence

If one sets out to do a critique of metaphysics, there is no escape from the metaphysical enclosure. You cannot simply assert, “I will be anti-essentialist” and make that stick, for you cannot not be an essentialist to some degree. The critique of essentialism is predicated upon essentialism. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 55

Categorization

• DEFINE: Frames ‘inhabiting’ as the deconstructive stance, directly relevant to whether strategic essentialism can be wielded without genuine belief.
• XREF: Directly bears on Spivak’s own ‘strategic essentialism’ formulation and its tension with anti-essentialist critique; connects to Foucault’s race-struggle counter-history in Society Must Be Defended. — connects to: Essentializing is unavoidable even in anti-essentialist critique, so it should be deployed consciously. — Elizabeth Grosz, Criticism, Feminism and the…, 125; A critique of essentialism must remain internal to essentialism. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 55; Essentialism used strategically remains hostage to the irreducible essentializing moment it criticizes. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 1762 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: If one cannot not be an essentialist, is strategic essentialism ever genuinely ironic, or always already genuine residence? This is exactly the reader’s core question.

Broader Connections

• Essentialist-sounding definitions can be adopted provisionally without belief in essence #qualifies (0.85) — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 453
• The critic who denies his own subjectivity falls back into the serious #responds-to (0.80)