Discursive Agency and Collective Action among Lubavitch Hasidic Women

Abstract

Analysis of discursive agency in the writings of Lubavitch Hasidic women reflects complex collectivities that are simultaneously group and “serial” (the latter a concept created by Jean-Paul Sartre and further developed by Iris Marion Young). Agency and identity negotiation, as inherently communal, complicate collective action and thus complicate the nature of collective discursive action. I present a theoretical intervention that enables discourse theorists to place collective action in more than two categories and that offers alternate ways to read collective action—particularly action related to religious rituals and religious discourse.