Saturday, June 4th, 9.30 – 11.15, at Università di Verona, Room 2.2
Abstract:
This paper develops a study of the hermeneutics of violent and non-violent resistance. Non-violence as a mode of thought is defined to be potentially fostering, in post-colonial contexts, of a kind of nativism or primitivism; a back-to-nature approach to life along the lines of which nationalist and religious sentiments are revivified. Closely reading Mahatma Gandhi's writings on non-violence, such "nativism" appears to parallel the concept of nationhood, whereby the discourse of non-violence draws the bounds of the nation-state. In essence, to be truly non-violent is to be authentically nationalist; authenticism here connotes shared common "sacred" histories of conflict with the non-nationalist Other. On the other hand, violent resistance in the context of the nation-state necessitates a dichotomy between nativism and terrorism, whereby the former is non-violent, and the latter violent resistance. Being "inside" the nation-state must come with ongoing non-violence, and those professing any form of resistence are necessarily "outsiders", non-nationalists, others even if it is for a national struggle. In this logic, conceptualizations of non-conflict tend to imply complete absence of resistance in all forms. Thus, as much as conflict analysis is necessary, this paper attempts to show that resistance analysis should be placed at an equal level of importance.
