Sara C. Motta - Liminal Subjects: Weaving (Our) Liberation

Radical Subjects in International Politics

Series editor: Ruth Kinna

This series uses the idea of political subjection to promote the discussion and analysis of individual, communal and civic participation and activism. Radical subjects refers both to the character of the topics and issues tacked in the series and to the ethic guiding the research. The series has a radical focus in that it provides a springboard for the discussion of activism that sits outside or on the fringes of institutional politics, yet which, insofar as it reflects a commitment to social change, is far from marginal. It provides a platform for scholarship that interrogates modern political movements, probes the local, regional, and global dimensions of activist networking and the principles that drive them, and develops innovative frames to analyze issues of exclusion and empowerment. The scope of the series is defined by engagement with the concept of the radical in contemporary politics but includes research that is multi- or interdisciplinary, working at the boundaries of art and politics, political utopianism, feminism, sociology and radical geography.

Titles in Series:

Taking the Square: Mediated Dissent and Occupations of Public Space , edited by Maria Rovisco and Jonathan Corpus Ong

The Politics of Transnational Peasant Struggle: Resistance, Rights and Democracy , Robin Dunford

Sustainable Urbanism and Direct Action: Case Studies in Dialectical Activism , Benjamin Heim Shepard

Participation and Non-Participation in Student Activism: Paths and Barriers to Mobilizing Young People for Political Action , Alexander Hensby

The Crisis of Liberal Democracy and the Path Ahead , Bernd Reiter

Becoming a Movement: Identity and Narratives in the European Global Justice Movement , Priska Daphi

Liminal Subjects: Weaving (Our) Liberations , Sara C. Motta

Liminal Subjects

Weaving (Our) Liberations

Sara C. Motta

London New York

Published by Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd.

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Copyright 2018 by Sara C. Motta

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: HB 978-1-78660-810-9

ISBN: PB 978-1-78660-811-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Motta, Sara C., 1973 author.

Title: Liminal subjects : weaving (our) liberation / Sara C. Motta.

Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield International, 2018. | Series: Radical subjects in international politics | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018015303 (print) | LCCN 2018030030 (ebook) | ISBN 9781786608123 (Electronic) | ISBN 9781786608109 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781786608116 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Feminism. | Feminists. | Social change.

Classification: LCC HQ1101 (ebook) | LCC HQ1101 .M68 2018 (print) | DDC 305.42dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018015303

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

In honor and loving memory of our fallen sister,

Karen Louise Blake

(August 27, 1974May 10, 2015)

It is (un)believable that I have arrived at this point. This book has a magic that is intent on taking me/us to our edges, opening unforeseen portals of possibility and nurturing deeply transformatory experiences. She is a testament to my survival. She is known lovingly to me and my soul family as Baby Lilith. Like Lilith, she and the subjects of this book refuse to submit. They/we refuse our confinement, assimilation and/or annihilation. We are untamable. Our greatest rebellion is that we have not only survived, but also that we are co-creating our joyful, multiple, and flourishing liberations.

I bow down in gratitude and humility to the many subjects and beings who seed(ed) the possibility, tend(ed) the growth, and nurture(d) the birth of Baby Lilith.

I give thanks to the women and men of the Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados (MTD) Solano, Argentina, particularly Neka and her family who reignited my hope, so long ago, that there were other pathways of autonomous liberation.

I give thanks to the women and men of the Comits de Tierra Urbana (CTUs), Venezuela, particularly Mercedes, Nora, Marcela, and Andres, who taught me so much about what it meant to enflesh these other pathways and helped me to know myself.

I give thanks to Nottingham, people, place, autonomous desire, particularly Camille, Andy, Jennifer, Laiz, Kate, Becky, Jon, Maria, Heather, Deidre, Dom, Ben, and Gulshan who held me as I descended to the Bone Woman, believed that I/we could piece my(our)self(ves) back together, and who co-create other beautiful, tender, and heartfelt prefigurative possibilities despite and with the trauma.

I give thanks to my sister Priestesses of Rhiannon, in particular Camille, Jo, Jennifer, and Angie for our/their courage to put down the sword and pick up the lantern, to embody Her, and to walk the path of the Sacred Sexual Priestess.

I give thanks to the sacred womb of the earth, Australia, and the soul-family we found there, in particular Margo, Stephen, Lara, Phoebe, Phil, Sharlene, Jim, Andrew, Ishtar, Ybiskay, and Jacquie and the mermaids of the School of Shamanic Womanhood, particularly Talulah, Fern, Akua, and Jyoti, who held out their arms in loving embrace and accept(ed) me/us for all that we are.

I give thanks to the sacred Womb-Shamans and Shamankas, particularly Seren, Ulrike, Jacqui, Nat, Louise, Elias Antara-Ma, and Karen beyond borders, with whom I have found my inner homecoming and tender grace.

I give thanks to my Colombian sisters and brothers, particularly Elizabeth, Connie, Sandra, Aldagiza, and Gustavo for your infinite faith and courage in our liberation, for your will to co-create, and keep co-creating, even when everything collapses, again and again, and to never lose your joy.

To Yia, Azra and Katinka, three humble and magnificent teachers, trailblazers of the new ways(s), I am speechless, feel my gratitude, feel my grace, and feel my commitment to walk in and as decolonizing love. Thank you.

There is still work for me/us to do, in this lifelong piecing ourselves back to-gether, in this enfleshed and urgent commitment to weaving our liberation. There have been many who have opened doors of initiation for me in this spiraling path. Sometimes these initiations have been so excruciatingly painful that I thought I wouldnt survive, and others have been encounters of and through ecstatic joy of touching love, loving and being loved. I would like to honor you, all my past partner-lovers, and my mother and my auntie for the gifts that you have brought to my life, gifts that have shaped the contours, textures, and rhythms of my path.