Sara Ahmed

Independent feminist scholar (formerly Goldsmiths, University of London; Lancaster University), working at the intersections of feminist theory, queer theory, critical race theory, postcolonialism, and phenomenology. Author of Queer Phenomenology (2006), Living a Feminist Life (2017), and What's the Use (2019).

Key Points

  • In "Institutional Habits" (ch. 10 of Merleau-Ponty and Contemporary Philosophy, 2019), extends Merleau-Ponty's habitual body to theorize how institutions become habits and how certain bodies come to be assumed as the "right" bodies for an institution
  • Argues that whiteness functions as an institutional habit: institutions acquire the shape of bodies that tend to inhabit them, and those who "fit" don't feel the stress of inhabiting — whiteness recedes into the background like MP's comet that "trails behind"
  • Diversity work reveals "brick walls" invisible to those who fit: "So much of the time it is a banging your head on the brick wall job"
  • Draws on William James's habituation (loss of plasticity) alongside MP's body schema to show that institutional "fitting" works as an energy-saving device — less effort for bodies that already fit
  • Defines institutions as "dwelling spaces" inhabited and "haunted" by bodies — institutionalization as "becoming background"

Connections

  • applies institution to racial/institutional politics — extends MP's concept into diversity work and institutional whiteness
  • applies body-schema to institutional theory — the habitual body as model for the institutional body

Sources