How do we Live and Lose Together?

Abstract

Exclusion from the category of full humanity constructs certain populations as ‘ungrievable’ or ‘unworthy of grief’ after death in a way that creates and reinforces radical vulnerability in the conditions they experience. This argument from Judith Butler resonates clearly with what decolonial thinkers have described as a fundamental feature of how racism emerges and operates in the modern world system. Building on these understandings, this article considers the potential and limitations of working with grief as a conceptual framework for tackling the apathy of whiteness as part of anti-racist work.