Representation and political struggle: from the multiple to its transcendental unity and vice versa

Abstract

The purpose of the text is to explore the political struggles of the multitudes and their possible representation, regarding the issues of subjectivation, organization, their relationship with authority and their claims to transform the prevailing order, all of this as a function of their events and the types of violence to which they are exposed. In order to do so, the approaches of Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Slavoj Žižek, Hannah Arendt and Alain Badiou are confronted in a discussion where the following is speculated: that the struggle is an expression of pure multiplicity; that multiplicity needs to be linked in the transcendental unity of a representation; that representation does not end up reducing the multiple character of the group; and, finally, that the existence and presentation of multiplicity requires as a condition the unity of an order of representation, even if it cannot be consistent.