Why is Understanding Personhood Necessary for Resistance Against Oppression?

Why Is Understanding Personhood Necessary for Resistance Against Oppression?
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Why is understanding personhood necessary for resistance against oppression?
Personhood is the quality or state of being a person. The concept of personhood has been essential in philosophical and legal discussions throughout history and is often used in debates about abortion, euthanasia, and animal rights. This concept is also relevant to discussions of racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression (Roversi, 2022). When one person or group utilizes its power and authority to dominate or control another person or group of people, either one of those parties might be considered to be oppressing the other party or parties (Klatskin, 2018). Understanding personhood is necessary for resistance against oppression because it is the foundation of our rights and freedoms. When we are denied our personhood, we are denied our humanity.
Understanding personhood is essential for resistance against oppression because it affirms our humanity. Alva Noë, Azar Nafisi, and Saidiya Hartman all address this point in their work, albeit from different perspectives. In both Saidiya Hartman's "The Anarchy of Colored Girls Assembled in a Riotous Manner" and Azar Nafisi's "Selections from Reading Lolita in Tehran," the authors assert that reclaiming personhood is crucial for resistance against oppressive systems. While Hartman discusses black women's resistance to Jim Crow-era constraints in the United States, Nafisi describes how women in Tehran used literature to navigate a repressive theocratic regime. Both authors posit that acts of imagination, creativity, and resistance are essential to asserting individual personhood and challenging structures of power (Hartman, 2019: Azar, 2015). For Noë, personhood is the key to understanding art and human nature (Noë, 2015). Taken together, these three writers suggest that understanding and asserting personhood is a critical step in challenging and resisting systems of power.
A person's personhood is often used to define the one-of-a-kind qualities and experiences of a person's life that come together to make the individual. It is frequently used to emphasize how important it is to respect and protect the individual and define how a person is unique compared to others (Roversi, 2022). Noë discusses the importance of personhood in relation to art and human nature. He argues that we don't simply look at art, we "engage" with it, and that "this engagement is an exercise of our personhood" (Noë, 2015). In other words, we bring our own experiences, thoughts, and feelings to our interactions with art, and in turn, it reflects aspects of ourselves. This process can be crucial for resisting systems of power because it helps us understand ourselves as individuals, separate from societal expectations and constraints. This self-understanding is essential for forming a sense of identity that is not shaped solely by outside forces.
Because it places such a significant focus on the significance of the individual, the concept of personhood can be used to one's benefit in the battle against injustice. It expresses that everyone on the earth is unique and should be acknowledged for the qualities that set them apart from others and make them who they are as individuals (Klatskin, 2018). Every single person has the inherent ability to free themselves from all forms of tyranny and oppression. The individual may experience both physical and mental suffering as a direct result of the situation, and the repercussions may be a direct consequence of the individual's experience of both types of anguish. Kalatskin (2018) further posits that the power to be free from oppression is naturally present in every human and that this right must be maintained at all costs. In "The Anarchy of Colored Girls Assembled in a Riotous Manner," Hartman argues that black women in the early 20th century were able to resist societal constraints by living wayward lives. For example, Hartman describes how the women of the "New Negro" movement refused to adhere to middle-class norms of respectability. They often engaged in "riotous" behavior, such as drinking, dancing, and engaging in sexual relationships outside of marriage. Hartman argues that this waywardness was not simply deviance b...