The International Research Group DRAINE (Hate and Social Disruption: Discourse and Performativity) recently hosted a seminar in Pisa, Italy. This recent seminar, the sixth organised by DRAINE, took place in January and was attended by about 30 participants from universities and countries across Europe. Attendees included 8 members of the ARENAS project consortium.
The focus of the seminar was on the relationship between hatred, discursive corporealities and subversive practices of the body. To further build on the work of the fifth seminar, which was held in Brussels in 2023 the seminar considered reparative discourses, between discursive corporeality and institutional speech-making. The topics explored were as follows
Topic 1 – Making bodies visible and audible
This first topic was conceived as a link with the 5th Draine seminar (“J’ai la haine au corps”, des corps dominés aux corps rebelles. Histoire, discours, pratiques; Brussels, Jan. 2023).
Because it is fundamentally political, the expressiveness of the body can itself be a reparative discourse. This theme also explored how discourse can repair abused bodies.
Topic 2 – Institutional reparative discourse
This section examines the role of institutions in reparative discourse. It begins by examining the discourse of peace. At a time when wars are multiplying across the globe, discourses of peace seem cruelly lacking. The construction of a collective and shared memory, the recognition of historical (mis-)facts, is a guarantee of reparation. That’s why this theme also looks at the construction of collective memory through testimony, through the construction of a common identity as a victim, with institutions (NGOs, associations, but also governments) acting as vectors.
Topic 3 – Hate as Resistance and Empowerment
Is it possible to think of hate speech as a form of resistance? It could be seen as a reaction to processes of domination and to symbolic or material violence. Because social struggles are regularly dismissed as violence by certain media and political doxa, it is also possible to question the use that is made of the notion of ‘hate speech’ when it is brandished by a dominant social and political group – in particular the performative use that is made of it when it is used by a dominant social and political group – in particular the performative use made of it to silence legitimate social struggles. The notion of ‘hate speech’ carries with it a negative connotation, which this line of thought proposes to reverse by examining the possibility of the political legitimacy of hate speech as a means of resistance, empowerment and, ultimately, reparation for individuals.
For more information visit the DRAINE website.
