RETHINKING GENDER, RETHINKING MIGRATION: Wherever One Wants to Go. Rosi Braidotti’s Concept of a ‘Nomadic Subject’ and Its Philosophical Possibilities

The ideas embedded in Enlightenment concepts of subjectivity, understood as a coherentand rational identity, have established a universal perspective for a long time. Today,this outlook is being questioned by the experience of difference. The voices of minoritiesdemanding acceptance and representation, both in social practice and in theory, have becomemore audible. But while theory allows for radical mental conclusions, the social andexistential practices require positive theoretical solutions. A postmodern deconstructedsubject does not constitute a sufficient basis for social activity or political identification.Therefore, a significant challenge for the feminist theory today is to find a form for thesocial subjectivity and, at the same time, avoid an oppressive and reductive category. RosiBraidotti employed the Deleuzian figure of a nomad, and proposed a concept of a subjectbeing resistant to postmodern fragmentation. She made a distinction between identityand subjectivity: identity is rooted in the unconscious, while subjectivity is conscious anda source of political resistance. The resistance is not due to stronger foundations, in comparisonto the Cartesian subject, but results from mobility and openness to the Other. Attemptingto construct a clearly positive conception of a subject, Braidotti proposes ‘a nomadicpolitical project’. The question is: is it possible to put this idea into a social reality ordo we have just another sophisticated theoretical concept?