Aesthetics, politics, identity: diasporic problematisations

Abstract

In this article I examine the role of the aesthetic in the process of the reconfiguration of subjectivity and identity arising from displacement. I argue that the artwork in its various forms occupies a key place in that process, pointing out that it is the object both for expressing the dislocation of identity and for re-orienting affective energies towards new becomings. The wider analytical framework for this exploration of subjective change is the recognition that subjectivity is relational, embodied and metastable by reference to the material, discursive and psychological conditions that constitute it. I draw from postcolonial art and the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Bracha Ettinger and Bernard Stiegler to outline this approach, and develop arguments that establish the linkages between aesthetic practice, affective economy and the politics of change.

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