Refusals of Tolerance: Hunger, Mercy, and the Ethics of Immediacy in Bosnia and Herzegovina

David Henig

doi:10.1080/00664677.2021.1964066

Refusals of Tolerance: Hunger, Mercy, and the Ethics of Immediacy in Bosnia and Herzegovina

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Abstract

The discourse on tolerance has become axiomatic for political and cultural life in the era of (post-)liberal modernity. In the event of any form of violence, the discourse is invoked as a ‘solution’ to ‘intolerance’. But what if we considered the tolerance discourse itself as an axiom of violence? Its discursive labour creates configurations of power relations that transform the existing human affairs and relations into fixed conditions and categories of difference. Instead of taking tolerance as an analytical proxy, this paper ethnographically elucidates how the tolerance discourse is refused and resisted with the social grammars, practices and ethical vernaculars of care, mercy and solidarity. By focusing on the spaces of public kitchens in postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina and the ethics of immediacy they engender, I explore the actually existing forms of living with difference beyond the threshold of tolerance discourses.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	241-255
Number of pages	15
Journal	Anthropological Forum
Volume	31
Issue number	3
Early online date	15 Aug 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/00664677.2021.1964066
Publication status	Published - 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (under grant number 19-11397S) The author is grateful to Andreas Bandak, Isa Blumi, Thomas Brudholm, Rebecca Bryant, Jaroslav Klepal, Magnus Marsden, Stavroula Pipyrou, Antonio Sorge, Jeremy Walton, and Ond?ej ??la for their comments. Seminar, conference panel, and workshop audiences in Berlin, Copenhagen, London, Oxford, and San Jose provided critical insights and suggestions. The author is also grateful to Ghassan Hage for pointing me to the much-needed references. Special thanks go to the three anonymous reviewers for their very helpful feedback, and to the editorial team of Anthropological Forum who offered helpful editorial assistance. All shortcomings, of course, are mine.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

Bosnia and Herzegovina
ethics of immediacy
mercy
refusal
tolerance

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1080/00664677.2021.1964066Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

00664677.2021Final published version, 1.43 MBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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Refusals of Tolerance: Hunger, Mercy, and the Ethics of Immediacy in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

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