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Abstract
Exploring Judith Butler’s question on whose lives are not publicly mourned and Édouard Glissant’s critique on the “duality of self-perception,” this paper focuses on why the mass deaths in the Mediterranean have not caused a public outcry in Western Europe like the one that followed the terrorist attacks in Paris 2015. The article proposes transversal mourning as a point of departure from which to think about an anti-racist political subjectivity which strives for a caring common and transformative justice. Drawing on the theoretical work of Diego Sztulwark and Amador Fernández-Savater on political subjectivity and engaging with Gillian Rose’s work on the materiality of mourning through her engagement with representation and labour, this paper develops an analysis of transversal mourning on four levels. First, it engages with Judith Butler’s metrics of grievability by exploring mourning as an ethical condition. Secondly, it discusses the logic of the duality of self-perception by examining national mourning and the coloniality of representation. Thirdly, it relates political subjectivity to the mourning for All by engaging with the ontological dimension of the political. Lastly, it focuses on the labour of mourning as the material grounds for forging a caring common. The article concludes with some observations on transversal mourning’s potential for transformative justice.
S’appuyant sur la question de Judith Butler sur les vies qui ne font pas l’objet d’un deuil public et sur la critique d’Édouard Glissant sur la « dualité de l’auto-perception », cet article se concentre sur la raison pour laquelle les mortalités massives en Méditerranée n’ont pas provoqué d’indignation publique en Europe occidentale similaire à celle qui a suivi les attaques terroristes à Paris en 2015. L’article propose le deuil transversal comme point de départ à une réflexion sur la subjectivité politique antiraciste qui aspire à un commun empathique et à une justice transformatrice. En s’appuyant sur le travail théorique de Diego Sztulwark et d’Amador Fernández-Savater sur la subjectivité politique et en discutant du travail de Gillian Rose sur la matérialité du deuil à travers ce qu’elle dit de la représentation et du travail de deuil, cet article développe, sur quatre niveaux, une analyse du deuil transversal. En premier lieu, il aborde la notion de mesure de l’objet de deuil de Judith Butler en explorant le deuil en tant que condition éthique. En deuxième lieu, il aborde la logique de la dualité de l’auto-perception en examinant le deuil national et le caractère colonial de la représentation. En troisième lieu, il rapporte la subjectivité politique au deuil pour Tous en abordant la dimension ontologique du politique. Enfin, il se concentre sur le travail de deuil comme terrain matériels pour forger un commun empathique. L’article conclut avec des observations sur le potentiel du deuil transversal pour une justice transformative.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the guest editors, Katharina Schramm and Kristina Krause, for their insightful comments and thorough reading. Also, my thanks go to Shirley Anne Tate for her continuous support.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 On: http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article36394: Verso. 16 November 2015:
http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2337-mourning-becomes-the-law-judith-butler-from-paris (accessed 16.11.2016).
2 In the year 2016 the IOM listed 5143 dead or missed; in 2017 the figure was 3116; and from January until July 2018, the IOM counted 1524 people dead or missing. As Butler discusses in Frames of War, the use of numbers in media representation suggests the idea of an inevitable truth. Yet, as she notes, numbers are used strategically and some numbers are omitted in media representation. In this regard, the question ‘when does a life count?’ appears. For further information, see International Organization for Migration: http://migration.iom.int/europe/ (accessed 18.08.2018).
3 Since I started to write this paper, first presented in the Point Sud workshop on “Political Subjectivity in Times of Transformation”, organized by Katharina Schramm and Lindsey Reynolds in October 2016, the discussion on public mourning for the victims of the EU migration and border regime has continued.
4 In particular, international sea rescue organizations such as Aquarius (https://sosmediterranee.org/); Lifeline (https://mission-lifeline.de/) and Open Arms (https://www.proactivaopenarms.org/en) are becoming targets of criminalization campaigns by right-wing politicians and their media outlets, with the aim to restrict their rescue missions in the Mediterranean (accessed 18.08.2018).
5 See, for example, the political work organized by Women in Exile e.V., https://www.women-in-exile.net/#; or The Voice Refugee Forum Germany, http://www.thevoiceforum.org/ (accessed 18.08.2018).
6 Contrasting the Occidental project of politics of sovereignty striving towards autonomy, Mbembe (Citation2003, 14) defines necropolitics as a systemic project based on “the generalized instrumentalization of human existence and the material destruction of human bodies and populations.”
7 See for further information Watch the Mediterranean Sea Alarm Phone, an online mapping platform to monitor the deaths and violations of migrants’ rights at the maritime borders of the EU. See http://watchthemed.net/ (accessed 18.08.2018).
8 Paris attacks: Francoise Hollande declares state of emergency – video: The Guardian. 14 November 2015: https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/nov/14/paris-attacks-francois-hollande-declares-state-emergency-france-video (accessed 14. November 2015).
9 Mullen, Jethro and Margot Haddad, CNN: “France is at war”, President Françoise Hollande says’ after ISIS attack. Updated 0124 GMT (0924 HKT) November 17, 2015 http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/16/world/paris-attacks/ (accessed 15.08.2016).
10 Spinoza’s “affectus,” departs from the interdependency between body and mind. As Michael Hardt, in reference to Spinoza, notes, the “mind’s power to think corresponds to its receptivity to external ideas; and the body’s power to act corresponds to its sensitivity to other bodies.” (Hardt Citation2007, x).
11 See “Françoise Hollande faces political backlash after Nice attacks.” The Guardian, 15.07.2016. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/15/francois-hollande-faces-political-backlash-nice-attack (accessed 15.07.2016).
12 Also, the right-wing forces in Germany are using public mourning as moments for political mobilization as the neo-nazi and AfD march in Chemnitz on the 1st of September 2018 evidences (see, for example, Connolly Citation2018).
13 For further information, see https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/01/photo-of-my-dead-son-has-changed-nothing-says-father-of-drowned/ (accessed 18.08.2018).
14 Ibid.
15 For further discussion, see Jacques Derrida on responsibility for the Other, The Gift of Death (Citation1995) and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Responsibility” (Citation1994).
16 Glissant refers in this regard to the cyclical time of Mayans and Aztecs (Glissant Citation1997, 47).
17 Spinoza’s “affectus,” departs from the interdependency between body and mind. As Michael Hardt, in reference to Spinoza, notes, the “mind’s power to think corresponds to its receptivity to external ideas; and the body’s power to act corresponds to its sensitivity to other bodies.” (Hardt Citation2007, x).
18 See: Pro Asyl: Europas Flüchtlingspolitik: Keine Humanität, keine Solidarität, https://www.proasyl.de/news/europas-fluechtlingspolitik-keine-humanitaet-keine-solidaritaet/
19 See: Vom Aufnahmeland zum Abschiebeland: “Hau-Ab-Gesetz”: https://www.proasyl.de/news/vom-aufnahmeland-zum-abschiebeland-hau-ab-gesetz-tritt-in-kraft/
20 See for example, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/09/mexico-ayotzinapa-student-s-enforced-disappearance-timeline/ (accessed 18.08.2018).
21 http://www.iep.utm.edu/care-eth/ (retrieved 5.9.2016).
22 As Honig argues the relationship of humans to life, but also death is “suffused with hybrid combinations of virtue, pleasure, use. But these combinations are obscured in contemporary theory by a kind of purity in relation to death, (…)” (Honig Citation2013, 23). Honig critiques this humanist perspective as rooted in an understanding of drama, tragedy and suffering based on the interpretation of the Greek mythology of Antigone as a maternal or suicidal force.