112. remembering and embracing loss: crafting solidarities in grief
Mudita Singh; Clément Dréano, University of Amsterdam - AISSR;
In current worlds infused with colonial and capitalistic relations, a widely imposed and accepted concept of loss pervades everywhere. The loss that is the result of harms ongoingly generated by extractive economies and colonial violence, in the form of degraded health, livelihoods and ecologies (e.g. Gálvez/Carney/Yates-Doerr 2020, Anker 2001) is trapped and abandoned in the bodies and environments as a sole way of dealing with it. This dominant understanding of loss and losing tends to conceal and villainize the possibilities to sit with un/acknowledged loss and grief, neglecting an essential part and process of human life (Wall Kimmerer 2015). For example, capitalistic notions of 'loss vs gain' reward 'resilient' individuals by nudging them to continuously strive to avoid facing the grief that comes with the inevitability of loss, often resulting in disconnect with their own bodies and communities. The only aspect of loss that may be narrowly and covertly acknowledged by the dominant is romanticized as the colonial nostalgia of attained harmony through the past of exploitation and oppression (Gupta 2018). In this panel, we welcome contributions that unravel the ongoing impacts of un/acknowledged and trapped (in bodies) loss and grief in the current timelines. How may loss be approached as a way of embodying the knowledge that loss is an inevitable and vital part of life? What could be the possible social and research infrastructures that deal with it collectively? How may they make room for grieving in solidarity?
