Grammars of Liberation

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

Liberation was and is a central metaphor for major social movements. Movements calling for decolonization (ranging from those calling to end neo-imperial wars such as Russia’s on Ukraine over others demanding to end police brutality to those campaigning for the renaming of streets), but also the queer/feminist movements and activists rallying for a more just economic order rely on specific “grammars of liberation.”
Even though the above mentioned movements all fight for liberation, they rely on distinct grammars. As a sensitizing concept, we conceive of a grammar as encompassing both a critique that identifies injustices and can create political awareness and a repertoire of action that is to bring about the envisioned change.
These grammars of liberation, which can be entailed in and communicated through art and music, overlap in central aspects. This overlap stems from their anchoring in basic and shared Enlightenment ideals of self-determination. Yet, as we witness again in the current political moment, grammars of liberation might also contradict each other. For instance, critique of Russia’s war on Ukraine was uttered only reluctantly in leftist circles in Europe and the so-called Global South who traditionally oppose all forms of colonialism and imperialist endeavors. Moreover, the (male) heroism widely associated with struggles for national liberation appears difficult to be reconciled with feminist and queer fights for freedom.
The panel seeks to engender an interdisciplinary discussion on the limits and prospects of bridging between grammars of liberation, of finding a common language to envision a more hospitable world.

Sub Unit

• Sociology, Public Health, Education

Chair

• Olga Zaitseva-Herz, U of Alberta (Canada)

Papers

• Liberation and Protection: LGBTQI* Presences in Russia’s War in Ukraine - Andreas Langenohl, Justus Liebig U Giessen (Germany)

• Navigating Buryat Decolonial Liberation Discourse: Self-Determination, Sovereignty, and Failing Federalization - N. N., U of Giessen (Germany)

• For Our Freedom and Yours?: Grammars of Solidarity and Difference in the Encounter of Polish Refugees with British Colonial Rule in Africa - Jochen Lingelbach, U of Bayreuth (Germany)

Discussant

• Anna Schwenck, Freie Universität Berlin (Germany)