Έμφυλες επαναδιαπραγματεύσεις με τον χώρο στο Vagabond: Περιπλάνηση στο περιθώριο του θανάτου

Abstract

This paper investigates the dialectical relationship between gender and space, focusing on the ways in which gender identities are constituted and renegotiated within social and spatial contexts. Drawing on Judith Butler’s theory of performativity, gender is approached as a dynamic and socially constructed process, shaped through repeated practices and normative mechanisms of power. The theoretical approaches of Henri Lefebvre and Edward Soja are also examined in order to foreground space as a social product and as a field in which relations of power, exclusion, and resistance are inscribed. Particular emphasis is placed on marginality and the “abject,” as developed in the work of Julia Kristeva and reconsidered in relation to contemporary feminist theories of precarious life. Marginality is approached not only as a site of social exclusion, but also as a dynamic field of renegotiation and the reclamation of presence. This theoretical framework is explored through an analysis of Agnès Varda’s Vagabond, in which the figure of the wandering woman functions as a subject that challenges dominant gender norms and spatial prescriptions. Through the protagonist’s movement across urban, peri-urban, and rural spaces, the film reveals mechanisms of marginalization alongside possibilities of resistance and freedom embedded in lived space. Overall, the paper highlights space as an active factor in the constitution of gender identity and argues that practices of inhabiting and appropriating space may challenge normative structures and enable new forms of subjectivity.