Thursday, 30th of May from 5 to 7 pm CET via Zoom.
“Learning to Live with Ghosts”: Somatic Activism and the Nanopolitics of Cultural Repair
by Mahé Ben Hamed from PACTE Social Science Lab and the French National Center for Scientific Researc
This work in progress delves into the realm of somatic activism, where social (and environmental) justice collectives combine a politicized trauma-informed lens, a somatic theory of social change, and an array of somatic practices to confront the spectral legacies of historical trauma and oppression. It looks at how practitioners in US and EU-based somatic activist groups employ embodied practices to grapple with these hauntings, engaging in what they alternatively term presencing, somatic abolitionism, generative/politicized somatics as forms of cultural repair work; but also navigate tensions ranging from societal discomfort with corporeality, trauma as both a reality and a ‘public feeling’, competitions of memory, and the appropriation of non-Western spiritual and healing traditions. It also explores the emergence of somatic activism as a form of ‘nanopolitics’, operating at the molecular level of sensation and affect to usher in new cultural narratives and possibilities for individual, collective, and structural transformation.
The ENPA Works-in-Progress Seminar is a venue for researchers, faculty and postgraduate students to present ongoing work, receive feedback and share ideas about their research in psychological anthropology and allied fields.
The seminar meets monthly via Zoom.
To join ENPA WiPS and receive the link for the seminar, please register here.
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