Relational, Political, Exposed: A Reflection on Embodied Subjectivities and Public Space

This paper focuses on the link between bodies and public space, proposing a reflection on embodied subjectivities and embodied practices of performing in public space. It takes into account bodies as political means and sites of resistance, revolt, reinvention, and creation, following an embodied and feminist approach. This paper aims to underline the fact that bodies are political and that an embodied approach to public space is fundamental in order to re-think contemporary democracies. It will show how the embodied and feminist approach can provide essential tools to undo the modern idea of an absolute individual subject that lies at the heart of the neoliberal vision, pinpointing dependency, relationship, and vulnerability as defining attributes of being human. This approach has been giving life to new visions of politics, such as those we have seen embodied in a number of protests and political practices of dissent marking the latest years, here investigated in their political potential for a reshaping of the democratic public space.