A world where wounded selves, crisis-ridden social relations and damaged environments abound calls for the study of ways of fixing and healing. The main academic works in this regard centre on governmental policy, institutionalised forms of reconciliation, state negotiated reparations and international peace initiatives. Notwithstanding the importance of the above, this study starts with the premise that there is a large pool of practices is interested in what it refers to as everyday reparative practices: in the way not using a plastic bag coming out of a supermarket is an everyday reparative act towards the environment. The research starts with the premise that everyday life abounds with practices that aim to repair toxic social relations and injured social selves. It aims to rescue reparative practices from the clutches of a radical tradition that sees them as inherently conservative modes of preserving existing social orders. While it is not the role of anthropology to produce normative politics, it can nonetheless highlight a pool of eclipsed practices that offer both intellectuals and policy makers a rich ground for thinking up a reparative politics for our time.
Ghassan Hage is Professor In Anthropology and Social Theory at the University of Melbourne, and is one of the most significant scholars on the anthropology of race and racism, multiculturalism, refugee politics and diaspora politics. He is a particular specialist on Australian multiculturalism and the Lebanese diaspora.
Please register your participation by 14 May 2024 using the following link: https://elomake.helsinki.fi/lomakkeet/129932/lomake.html
Date & Time: 17 May 2024, 14.15–15.45
Location: TBC
The organiser will send send information on the location of this event shortly before the seminar.