Abstract

This article explores a productive union between the political thought of Johann Baptist Metz and Judith Butler to address the current refugee crisis. In positing Christian discipleship as “poverty of spirit,” Metz proposes a subject constituted by praxis oriented toward the “Other.” This subject embodies solidarity with past and future suffering. Butler’s work provides philosophical tools useful to make livable the lives of society’s marginalized “Other.” The subject, for her, is constituted in relation to a given social context while also being circumscribed by the formation of an ego. Bringing Freud into conversation with Foucault, Butler discerns the contours of power through different levels of literal subjection. Subject formation then occurs within networks of power. Like with Metz, subjects exist within social and discursive networks of power while also using narratives to “give an account of the self,” achieving political recognition. Butler’s work also highlights the significance of how media narratives “frame” the norms and sites of political activism. Both Metz and Butler are drawn to the suffering of marginalized groups and share a similar goal of achieving political recognition through a performed political praxis. Amid this convergence of their thought, Metz’s apocalyptic subject can be usefully integrated into the sophisticated networks of power within the Foucauldian discursive and psychoanalytic regime described by Butler. Her analysis of subject formation, especially in relation to media consumption, helps to expand Metz’s project of enacting a “poverty of spirit” to address marginalized communities, suggesting that one’s choice of media becomes a component of Christian discipleship.