Strategic essentialism meant reusing hegemonic universals, not repudiating them.
Evidence
I spoke of universality because universality was in the air on the other side in the talk of female discourse. What was happening was a universal solution was being looked for and since I believe that one shouldn’t throw away things but use them, strategically I suggested that perhaps rather than woman inhabiting the spaces of absence, perhaps here was an item which could be used as a universal signifier. I was asking myself the question … how can the unexamined universalising discourse of a certain sort of feminism become useful for us since this is the hegemonic space of feminist discourse. I chose that one and tried to scrupulously work it through in terms not just of actual clitoridectomies but symbolic ones. — Elizabeth Grosz, Criticism, Feminism and the Institution, 120
Categorization
- DEFINE: Captures the original, narrower sense of ‘strategic essentialism’ — reworking the hegemonic universal into universal signifier rather than plainly asserting essence — before its later popularization flattened it.
- XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s throughline from Foucault’s counter-history to Spivak — this shows the term’s actual conceptual work at the moment of its birth. — connects to: Strategic essentialism was historically necessary but may no longer suffice — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 288; A strategic essentialist identity can silence the very groups it unites — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 248; Strategic essentialism is politically valid but antiracist politics cannot be guaranteed by racial origins — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 900 (+3 more)
- SEED: Angle: tracing how ‘strategic essentialism’ got flattened in transit — the original was about wielding an unexamined universal against itself within the hegemonic space, a far sharper move than later readings of ‘tactical identity.‘
Related
- Essentializing is unavoidable even in anti-essentialist critique, so it should be deployed consciously. (similarity 0.87)
- Strategic essentialism is only ever a temporary, situation-specific deployment, never a settled stance. (similarity 0.84)
- Essentialism used strategically remains hostage to the irreducible essentializing moment it criticizes. (similarity 0.83)
- Essentialist-sounding definitions can be adopted provisionally without belief in essence (similarity 0.83)
- Universalization is an irreducible moment in any discourse. (similarity 0.83)
- Strategic essentialism was historically necessary but may no longer suffice (similarity 0.82)
- Elizabeth Grosz — Criticism, Feminism and the Institution An Interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (similarity 0.82)
- Strategic essentialism collapses when applied to consciousness-in-general rather than class. (similarity 0.81)
- Strategic essentialism is politically valid but antiracist politics cannot be guaranteed by racial origins (similarity 0.81)
- A critique of essentialism must remain internal to essentialism. (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Strategic essentialism was historically necessary but may no longer suffice
#complicates(0.85) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 288 - Essentialist-sounding definitions can be adopted provisionally without belief in essence
#corroborates(0.82) — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 453 - A strategic essentialist identity can silence the very groups it unites
#complicates(0.78) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 248 - Strategic essentialism is politically valid but antiracist politics cannot be guaranteed by racial origins
#expands(0.75) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 900 - Replacing one essentialist subject with another leaves inverted essentialism intact
#qualifies(0.75) - A critique of essentialism must remain internal to essentialism.
#expands(0.72) — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 55