Králová, Jana ORCID: 0000-0002-7377-4723 (2018) Politics of Human Value: Death Suggested by Collectivity. In: Centre for Death and Society Annual Conference 2018: The Politics of Death, 8th-9th June 2018, University of Bath, Centre for Death and Society, Bath, UK. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

In his essay The Physical Effect on the Individual of the Idea of Death Suggested by the Collectivity Marcel Mauss (1979) reported that it is possible for a person to die simply because they know or believe (which is the same thing), that their social group wishes them to be dead. He suggests that that it is the fact that a person’s death is wanted by their community and that the excluded person is fully aware of this desire, that may lead to their physical death. At the time he was referring to witchcraft, prohibitions, and taboos which he believed to have disappeared.

Following the introduction of relevant conceptual framework/s, I will present up to 3 empirical examples of identity politics of race, citizenship, gender, class and/or their intersections threatening life of an individual, groups or populations. That is those who routinely find themselves having their life chances profoundly restricted, compromised or down right diminished due to the reduction of their human value ‘by collectivity’. I will also discuss the social dynamics employed in the process of this devaluation and expose collectively perpetuated structural violence which in its most extreme circumstances leads to physical death.

In the concluding part of the paper, I will consider various forms of resistance and agency which may mitigate some of these devaluations. Equally, I will also expose circumstances under which agency as well as resistance cease to be theoretically and practically operative. Thus, leaving those concerned dying in the ‘onto-epistemic non-space’: that is outside of structure-agency nexus.

Item Type:	Conference or Conference Paper (Paper)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	social exclusion, human rights, human value, social death
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences > School of Human Sciences (HUM)
Related URLs:	Organisation
Last Modified:	26 Apr 2020 19:34
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/26429

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