Adriana Cavarero’s “Inclinations” and the problem of dispossession

Many feminist scholars agree that feminist theory must always remain oppositional and never lose its critical edge. Yet within the confines of university life, this can be difficult to sustain since to achieve recognition within academic institutions brings with it a certain amount of intellectual conformity and adherence to disciplinary boundaries. This chapter argues that Adriana Cavarero’s feminist theory of non-violence may well offer a reading of human subjectivity that significantly challenges the Western tradition and so allows feminism to retain its oppositional stance. But can feminist scholars truly claim to espouse a theory of non-violence when they themselves inhabit territory wrongly appropriated from Indigenous Peoples? The university’s complicity in dispossession makes trouble for Cavarero’s theory of non-violence, and this disturbing reality demands that we reevaluate the critical edge we claim to value.