Performative and Transformative Practices of Citizenship in Film: Radical Love and Acting towards the foreign “Other

Autor(en)

Milja Radovic

Abstrakt

Abstract: This paper focusses on performative and transformative practices of citizenship: I approach acts (of citizenship) through the work of Hannah Arendt, and as both political and ontological category. The aim of this paper is to explore how activist citizens are constituted by their transformative and political acts towards the foreign “Other” and how these acts redefine the notion of citizenship as belonging. In that sense I explore acts as “communion with Others” and how Self is "relational" and ontologically bound to Other(s). I argue that acts are ontological, and I explore how activism, as an actualization of act, has ontological orientation towards Other(s) and at the same time how acting towards Other(s) represent political act par excellence. I further deconstruct the contemporary perceptions and representations of the foreign "Other" and performative and transformative practices of activist citizens. I re-consider the concepts of "radicalism" proposing that only through radical love – which is the expression of ontological freedom when we act to protect "our neighbour “ – the full potentiality of Being is realized. I argue that such transformative practices of political acts construct activist citizens and redefine the ways of “being-with-others.” I consider the liturgical premise of "dependability of each and all" as a political category, and as crucial for further deconstruction of acts, activism and citizenship as belonging. I argue that radical love expressed through acts of citizenship represents radical political activism.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Systematische Theologie und Ethik

Publikationsdatum

2016

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

604011 Filmwissenschaft, 506013 Politische Theorie, 603113 Philosophie

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/performative-and-transformative-practices-of-citizenship-in-film-radical-love-and-acting-towards-the-foreign-other(4fb5e8cc-690e-49d9-8873-66ab8ae22e0c).html