Reconciliation through Estrangement

Bibliographic Data

ID6402991
AuthorsMathias Thaler (0000-0001-7045-6159, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume80
Issue4
Pages649-673
Publication date2018-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Review of Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0034-6705 • E-ISSN: 1748-6858
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0034670518000505
OpenAlexW2889808472
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited72

While it is often assumed that reconciliation culminates in the comprehensive resolution of conflict between deeply alienated parties, the article argues that reconciliation can only be achieved through complex mechanisms of estrangement that reveal alternative vistas or collective renewal. Art performs an important role in this process. The article theorizes estrangement as both an artistic and a political technique that can have world-disclosing, rather than alienating, effects on its audience: what Svetlana Boym calls estrangement for, rather than from, the world. I tease out the implications of this insight by examining the South African theater pieceUbu and the Truth Commission, which employs a number of estrangements devices in order to problematize the ambiguities and uncertainties of the post-Apartheid transition period. By subverting audience identification, yet triggering emotional contagion, the play imaginatively opens up the possibility of a common world in which agonistic relations are productively negotiated, rather than fully suppressed

Aesthetics · Commission · Epistemology · Identification (biology · Order (exchange · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Law · Philosophy · South African History and Culture