Speaking as the Other : A polyvocal account of precarity and performativity

My aim in this article, simply put, is to put you in the shoes of the Other. It is by definition an impossible exercise, but that is what I am trying to do in any case. Put you in my shoes, and that of another Other, Saima. Our life trajectories are very different but what joins them is our struggle and strife to cross real or metaphorical borders in the hope of overcoming our precarious conditions of existence. In these new lands, we must reconstitute ourselves to fit with norms that do not otherwise recognize our embodied modes of being. I speak of this performative demand to translate ourselves into the dominant language to qualify for recognizability, legitimacy, and intelligibility. A translation that is always susceptible to failure. But I can also make subversive use of my acquired language: I speak it to render you vulnerable to my plea.