UNREST - Remembering and Social Cohesion in Transnational Europe

1. UNRESTUnsettling Remembering and Social Cohesion in Transnational EuropeA Horizon 2020 project2016-2019 Hans Lauge HansenAarhus University

2. UNREST • The EU has fostered the foundational myth of the union itself as a story of transnational reconciliation and peace and relies upon a consensual approach to the traumatic memories of the conflicts of the past (especially the two World Wars and the Holocaust) as the basis of social cohesion.

3. UNREST • The EU has fostered the foundational myth of the union itself as a story of transnational reconciliation and peace and relies upon a consensual approach to the traumatic memories of the conflicts of the past (especially the two World Wars and the Holocaust) as the basis of social cohesion. • On the other hand, populist and nationalist movements use the heritage of war and violent conflicts in opposition to the official narrative of the united Europe, in ways which risk fuelling tension both within and across nation-states.

4. UNREST • UNREST pursues a third memory way, which acknowledges and engages with wide spread memory discontent without losing sight of fundamental EU ideals. • We call this third way agonistic memory. It designates a new mode of remembrance which embraces political conflict as an opportunity for emotional and ethical growth.

5. Work Package structure

6. Chantal Mouffe: The post-political society

7. AGONISM The threat of an antagonistic social developmentcanbekept in check if the antagonistic relation is transformedintowhatMouffecalls‘agonism’. Agonismrefers to the relationshipbetweenpoliticaladversarieswhorespectoneanother as adversaries, share the same symbolicspace, and respect the democraticrulesestablished as conditions for the struggle for hegemony. (The UNREST application, part B p. 10-11).

8. AGONISM, different strands. • Hanna Arendt in The Human Condition, 1958: self-realization in rhetorical contest • Bonnie Honig, Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics, 1993: “Agonistic cosmopolitanism´” • James Tully, “The Agonic Freedom of Citizens”, Economy and Society, Vol.28, No.2, 1999. • William E. Connolly, Identity / Difference, 1991: Pluralization of pluralism through respect. Othering = fundamentalism. • Stephen King White, The Ethos of a Late Modern Citizen, 2009

9. AGONISM • For Mouffe, antagonism as an ontological condition, society is conflictual and characterized by the struggle for hegemony • “The political” is the contingent relation to “the other” (“Constitutive outside”), i.e. a collective relation. • Politics in Arendt, Honig and Connolly is undestood as the individual subject’s expression in a pluralistic forum. It is “agonism without antagonism” (Agonistics p. 10) • Agonisminvolves, in their version, individual participation, multi-perspectivism and the possibility for social consensus

10. Agonistic space/discourse • Agonistic space and “conflictual consensus”. Consensus about the forum / dissent concerning values and points of view • For the agonistic approach,…, the public space is where conflicting points of view are confronted without any possibility of a final reconciliation • Agonistic discourse: counter-hegemonic • The agonistic approach sees critical art as constituted by a manifold of artistic practices, bringing to the fore the existence of alternatives to the current post-political order (Agonistics p.92-93)

11. II. Appearance in memory discourse? • Agonistic memory discourse is a second order deconstruction of hegemonic narrative templates of conflict • Understanding what makes perpetration possible • As counterhegemonic it must deconstruct the “other” of hegemonic discourse: e.g. the fundamentalist Muslim migrant or refugee

12. Modes of rememberingpastconflicts

13. Modes of rememberingpastconflicts

14. Modes of rememberingpastconflicts

15. Modes of rememberingpastconflicts

16. Modes of rememberingpastconflicts

17. WP3: Exhumations of mass graves in Spain, Polen and Bosnia

18. WP3: findings • The Spanish case shows thatcosmopolitan and agonisticdiscoursescoexist, overlap and merge. • Cosmopolitanmemory (ARMH) canbeanti-hegemonic and open up agonisticspaces of politicaldebate. • The Polish case shows that the cosmopolitan mode (hegemonicuntil 2004) allows for agonism to appear, while the antagonistic mode (after 2004) does not. • The Bosnian case shows that in an environmentheavilypredominated by the antagonistic mode (local and national discourses) the depolitizedcosmopolitandiscourse of international organizations provides theseorganizations with solid legitimacy.

19. WorkPackage 4: war museums Selection criteria: Museums… • specialising in both the First and the Second World War • established after 1990 or with newly remade permanent exhibitions, thus allowing for meaningful comparisons • located in both western and eastern Europe • comprising smaller, locally-based and larger, national/international institutions

20. Kobarid Museum, Slovenia Historial de la Grande Guerre, France Karlshorst Museum, Berlin Military History Museum, Dresden Schindler’s Factory, Krakow

21. Findings: Constraints on agonism • All 5 museums play complex and multi-layered roles: educational, socio-economic, tourist, political/diplomatic, negotiating difficult and divisive memories as well as entertaining the public. • Political influence in establishing these institutions and diplomatic role were especially significant. • These complex roles act as major constraints for agonism. • Hence: either cosmopolitan approach to history and memory or a mix of cosmopolitanism and antagonism.

22. Conclusions WP4 • Politico-diplomatic factors at national and international levels tend to work against agonism. • At times they can also provide opportunities for curators and historians to develop agonistic and dissonant elements in exhibitions. • However, without at least some degree of mobilisation of, and engagement with grassroots social movements, the impact of the museums in countering hegemonic representations remains limited.

23. WP6.1. Micomicon’stheater performance • Micomicón in FB: https://www.facebook.com/micomicon.teatro • Youtube video with englishsubtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtJg2jZmdHg&feature=youtu.be • Diana González’ blog on reception analysis: https://h2020unrest.blogspot.dk/2018/02/agonism-as-transformative-experience.html

24. WP 6.2: Museum exhibition • Ruhr Museum, Essen: https://www.ruhrmuseum.de/startseite/ • Exhibition: Warmakessense,opening November 11, 2018.