Introduction. Freaktions: Impolitic bodies as contemporary monsters
This introduction proposes the concepts of freaktions and monsterization as a framework for understanding the dynamic relationship between official norms and the bodies rendered marginal, deviant, or illegible within contemporary social and political orders. Building on Michael Herzfeld’s notion of...
Enregistré dans:
| Dans: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/anuac, |
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| Auteurs principaux: | , |
| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Langue: | Anglais |
| Publié: |
Anuac
2026
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| Sujets: | |
| Accès en ligne: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Résumé: | This introduction proposes the concepts of freaktions and monsterization as a framework for understanding the dynamic relationship between official norms and the bodies rendered marginal, deviant, or illegible within contemporary social and political orders. Building on Michael Herzfeld’s notion of the body impolitic, we examine some processes through which normative institutions produce and sustain forms of exclusion. We argue that marginalized subjects are frequently transformed into contemporary “freaks”: figures whose perceived difference becomes the basis for stigma, surveillance, and control. Drawing on ethnographic contributions from diverse contexts, including Roma settlements, LGBTQI+ communities, Indigenous and minority populations, and border zones, the Thematic Section explores how processes of monsterization operate across multiple scales. We conceptualize freaktion as the friction produced when embodied lives encounter regulatory frameworks that seek to classify, domesticate, or erase difference. Rather than treating bodies solely as objects of biopolitical control or as agents of overt resistance, we emphasize their ethical and political significance as exposed forms of presence that challenge the limits of state power, thus demanding recognition beyond dominant categories of citizenship and legality. |
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