Symposium ON VIOLENCE: Vanessa Eileen Thompson - MUSEUM MMK FÜR MODERNE KUNST

3 March 2019 at MUSEUM MMK
Vanessa Eileen Thompson
The Policed of the Earth: On Conditions of Un-Breathing and the Possibilities of Abolitionist Horizons
Intensive policing, increased incarceration and mass criminalization are some of the most flagrant expressions of the current phase of racial capitalism. Through the regulation and illegalization of migration, anti-terror legislation and the war on crime and poverty, migrants, refugees, Black, Roma and people of color are rendered particularly vulnerable to the modalities of state-sanctioned violence and premature death. Racial profiling and other forms of racialized policing have also become a focus of public debate in various European contexts. Drawing from the works compiled in the exhibition Because I live here and from critical research conducted in cooperation with anti-racist initiatives and organizations in Germany, France and Switzerland, this lecture examines the constitutive relationship between racism and policing from a postcolonial feminist perspective. By delving into the politics of current efforts in opposition to racialized policing, I discuss the modalities of structural and mundane violence that are enacted through policing and criminalization. Finally, I show how such struggles reach beyond violence and foster the development of abolitionist geographies, horizons and possible futures.