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A Cultural History of Abjection

Any account of abjection involves discussion of the precarious nature

of the boundary and the disruptive effects that abjection has on it.
In the previous chapter we saw that the maternal body was made
abject by the infant, not because the maternal body was unclean
(although it may have been) but because it challenged boundaries
and threatened identity. The boundary outlines the structure or sys-
tem, which may refer to something particular and concrete such as
one’s body or self, or to an organization, institution or society. Iden-
tity is constituted through a process of abjection resulting in clearly
delineated boundaries between different states: inside and outside,
life and death, and so on. Abjection occurs when the boundary of
the self, to give an example, is under the threat of invasion by, for
instance, ‘things that are decaying and putrefying, that are contami-
nated and contaminating, and are thus associated with impurity and
death – such as corpses; open wounds; crawling, pulsating maggots’
(Korsmeyer and Smith, 2004, p. 2). Identity is established through
the process of negation and rejection, where what lies outside the
boundary is as significant (in its exclusion) as what is contained
within it. Abjection necessitates the erection of the boundaries in the
first place through ‘[t]he logic of prohibition’ (Kristeva, 1982, p. 64).
It is through the abjection of the not-me that the boundaries of the
body/self/system in question can be instated.
Threats to the boundary come in different forms and are divided
into those that come from outside (external) and those that are issued
from within (internal). External threats include physical or other
types of violence, that disrupt the equilibrium of the system, causing

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R. Arya, Abjection and Representation

© Rina Arya 2014
 A Cultural History of Abjection 41

the boundaries to falter through erosion or disintegration. Internal

threats (such as a tumour in the body) come from within and push
outwards, weakening the boundary. External and internal threats can
each bring about a state of abjection, which results in a confusion
of boundaries – we are turned inside out. As the danger increases
in magnitude or draws nearer, fear mounts as the possibility of dis-
solution or collapse becomes more pressing. For this reason ‘[t]hat
which threatens identity must be jettisoned from the borders and
placed outside’ (Oliver, 2003, p. 47). As with disgust, proximity is an
important component of abjection because it requires sensory stimu-
lation to activate perceptual awareness. There is a positive correlation
between the proximity and intensity of disgust. An awareness of a
corpse lying behind a closed door in an adjoining room may cause
anxiety, but it does not compare with the increase in fear caused if
the offending object was in front of our very eyes. That would convey
a very different experience.
Kristeva informs us that the abject ‘does not respect borders, posi-
tions, rules’ and ‘disturbs identity, system, order’ (Kristeva, 1982,
p. 4). But while it does not respect the border, it does not cut itself
off from it: ‘We may call it a border; abjection is above all ambigu-
ity. Because, while releasing a hold, it does not radically cut off the
subject from what [threatens] it – on the contrary, abjection acknowl-
edges it to be in perpetual danger’ (Kristeva, 1982, p. 9). The abject
then is that which traverses and transgresses; that which endangers
a structure and finds itself on the wrong side of the boundary, often
giving rise to the prohibitions specified by the taboo. The bound-
ary is in place to safeguard systems and functions and to separate
and demarcate different states, such as life and death, and the sacred
and the profane. Without the boundary we risk the threat of slippage
between order and disorder and its corollaries – form/formlessness
and life/death. Slippage from the first to the second term in each pair
causes disruption to the system and the only way of rectifying this
is if the object that causes the disruption is withdrawn completely.
Laws and restrictions are in place in order to protect the boundaries
by using a variety of different means and sanctions, while recogniz-
ing that abjection remains a continual threat that may overpower the
system.
In crossing the boundary, the abject highlights the significance of
its function, but also simultaneously draws attention to its fragility.