Guest Talk Gerhild Perl

30 January 2023, 18:15
Room L 155
Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology
Oettingenstraße 67
80538 München

Prof. Dr. Gerhild Perl (University of Trier):

Affective Politics: Loss, grief, and solidarity in the aftermath of a shipwreck

In recent years, the politics of grief have become a major concern in the interdisciplinary scholarship on violent death during migration. In addition to public commemorations, attempts to share grief between activists and bereaved families are considered politics of grief. Based on my fieldwork on a solidarity movement in the aftermath of a deadly boat sinking in the Spanish-Moroccan sea, I take a critical stance on grief as a transformative political practice. Departing from the premise that grief and loss are inextricably linked, I pose the question of whether it is possible to mourn the loss of an unknown person.

Rather than trying to collectivize grief, I argue to nuance the different affects that death at and due to the border evokes in different people. Own entanglements in the border regime maneuver Western scholars and activists into an ambivalent position of consternation and guilt since we indirectly contribute to and benefit from inequalities and oppression against certain populations. I thus plead to humble oneself and to take seriously but not center one’s own role and feelings. I argue that acknowledging the grief of others bears much greater political potential, opening a path to join hands in the fight against the ongoing violence on the borders to the Global North.

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