JÉSSICA OMENA VALMORBIDA

The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate how Seyla Benhabib’s narrative model of self-constitution in action is fruitful for addressing the feminist claim of the self's situatedness without undermining the possibility of agency. The shift from a conception of an abstract self to a self that is situated and intersubjectively formed requires a change in the notion of agency, which, in Benhabib’s view, is understood as the ability to distance oneself from one’s contexts and create new combinations from existing codes and the unique narrative of one’s life story – rather than an autonomous individual choice. Narrativity provides a model of agency without losing sight of the self's situatedness and heteronomy. By preserving the resistance capacity of a situated and heteronomous self, Benhabib expands agency, making it possible even in contexts where gender subjugation persists. I argue that by safeguarding the resistance capacity of a situated and heteronomous self, Benhabib expands agency, enabling it in contexts where gender subjugation still exists. To this end, I analyze the problem of agency in feminist theory through Seyla Benhabib’s engagement with the issues of her time, in the late 1980s and early 1990s