Verlustspur

The philosopher Judith Butler has coined the term Verlustspur (“traces of loss”). It points out that in the course of their identity formation, individuals adopt various identity categories for themselves. The conscious or unconscious decision for such a category is at the same time always a decision against another. Accordingly, what the subject is not always defines and conditions what it is. In this context, the category that the subject does not claim for itself is sometimes made invisible: a man is at the same time a non-woman; if we are white, it means that we are non-black, etc. Thus, the subject’s identities are formed from the trace of loss, which includes the negation of other possible identities as well as the demarcation from them.