Sarah Kember defines a figuration as

an alternative verbal or visual image which embodies a transformation in the terms of knowledge, power and subjectivity. It strategically resists and competes with the structures of Patriarchy and the Enlightenment - specifically a gendered and hierarchical dualism which privileges culture over nature, mind over body, male over female. Its usual mode of operation is parody.

(Kember, Sarah, handout given at the conference "Wired Women: Virtual Worlds/Real Lives", University of Portsmouth, 8/3/1997)