Toward a relational politics of representation

Abstract

Rhetorical theories of representation, caught in the logics of transcendence/immanence, have struggled to reconcile the need to move beyond representation with the political importance of critiquing representational effects. I argue that this tension can—and must—be addressed through a relational politics of representation that draws from antiracist and decolonial theory. Tracing poststructural critiques of representational ontology, epistemology, and politics, I demonstrate their dependence on racializing and colonial processes. I then describe how rethinking our theories of representation relationally figures both ontology and epistemology as inherently political, and opens the possibility for theorizing the human beyond Man. I argue that a relational politics of representation is an impossible necessity that must be continually (re)attempted though it will never be fully achieved.