The penitent state : exposure, mourning and the biopolitics of national healing /
"This book asks a deceptively simple question: what are states actually doing when they do penance for past injustices? Why are these penitential gestures—especially the gesture of apology—becoming so ubiquitous and what implications do they carry for the way power is exercised? Drawing on the...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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New York, NY :
Oxford University Press,
[2023]
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| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | "This book asks a deceptively simple question: what are states actually doing when they do penance for past injustices? Why are these penitential gestures—especially the gesture of apology—becoming so ubiquitous and what implications do they carry for the way power is exercised? Drawing on the work of Schmitt, Foucault, and Agamben, the book argues that there is more at stake in sovereign acts of repentance and redress than either the recognition of the victims or the legitimacy of the state. Driven, it suggests, by an interest in ‘healing', such acts testify to a new biopolitical raison d'état in which the management of trauma emerges as a critical expression of attempts to regulate the life of the population. The book seeks to show that the key issue created by the ‘age of apology' is not whether sovereign acts of repentance and redress are sincere or insincere but whether the political measures licensed in the name of healing deserve to be regarded as either restorative or just"--Publisher's description. |
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| Item Description: | Also issued in print: 2023. |
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource |
| Audience: | Specialized. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780191869501 0191869503 9780192567413 0192567411 9780192567406 0192567403 |