Abjection
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The term Abjection literally means "the state of being cast out." In contemporary critical theory, it is often used to describe the state of often-marginalized groups, such as women or homosexuals. This term originated in the works of Julia Kristeva. Often, the term space of abjection is also used, referring to a space that abjected things or beings inhabit.
Following Kristeva's formulation of abjection in Powers of Horror - An Essay on Abjection, abjection can be seen as letting go of something we would still like to keep. The abject is taken out of our system while bits of it remain in our selves. In a way, we exist in abjection: the process of creating our self (identity) is never-ending. The act of "selfing" ("identitying") ourselves is the only common feature of all people.
According to Kristeva, since the abject is situated outside the symbolic order, being forced to face it is an inherently traumatic experience. For example, upon being faced with a corpse, a person would be most likely repulsed because he or she is forced to face an object which is violently cast out of the cultural world. This repulsion from death, excrement and rot constitutes the subject as a living being in the symbolic order.
This act is done in the light of the parts of ourselves that we exclude: un-namely – the mother. We must abject the maternal, the object which have created us, in order to construct an identity. This is done on the micro level of the speaking being, through her subjective dynamics, as well as on the macro level of society, through "language as a common and universal law." We use rituals, specifically those of defilement, in order to keep our boundaries clear between nature and society, the semiotic and the symbolic. This line of thought begins with Mary Douglas' seminal book, Purity and Danger.
