understood in shorthand as the affective ability oneself in the other’s shoes’ - can ‘put easily become a kind of end-point. Precisely because it is so widely and unquestioningly viewed as its naming can represent a conceptual stoppage in ‘good,’ conversation or analysis. Thus, the most pressing questions tend less to be is ‘what empathy?’, does it do?’, are its risks?,’ and happens after ‘what ‘what ‘what empathy’, but rather the more automatic refrain of can we cultivate it?’ It is also ‘how evident that, although a number of commentators in the global North insist that empathy can play an important role in mediating relations between different social and cultural groups and across national and geo-political boundaries, relatively scant attention has been paid specifically to the transnational politics of empathy. As such, we have little insight into how empathy emerges and flows through global circuits of power, and the complex ways in which it transforms and translates as it travels between diverse contexts. In the face of these dynamics, my work has grappled with two central questions: firstly, how can we think about the contemporary political workings of more critically empathy? and secondly, how might we understand the complex links between empathy and I understand as transnational relations of power? ‘transnationality’ constituted by inter-related and shifting processes of colonialism, slavery, diaspora, migration, development, globalisation, neoliberalism and global media, among other phenomena (Grewal, 2005; Ong, 2006). I am interested in how empathy which I – conceptualise as a social and political relation involving the imbrication of cognitive, perceptual and affective processes is generated within, circulated through, and – productive of transnational politics. Through analysis of political communication, international development literatures, popular business and science books,
understood in shorthand as the affective ability ‘put oneself in the other’s shoes’ - can easily become a kind of end-point. Precisely because it is so widely and unquestioningly viewed as ‘good,’ its naming can represent a conceptual stoppage in conversation or analysis. Thus, the most pressing questions tend less to be ‘what is empathy?’, ‘what does it do?’, ‘what are its risks?,’ and ‘what happens after empathy’, but rather the more automatic refrain of ‘how can we cultivate it?’ It is also evident that, although a number of commentators in the global North insist that empathy can play an important role in mediating relations between different social and cultural groups and across national and geo-political boundaries, relatively scant attention has been paid specifically to the transnational politics of empathy. As such, we have little insight into how empathy emerges and flows through global circuits of power, and the complex ways in which it transforms and translates as it travels between diverse contexts. In the face of these dynamics, my work has grappled with two central questions: firstly, how can we think more critically about the contemporary political workings of empathy? and secondly, how might we understand the complex links between empathy and transnational relations of power? I understand ‘transnationality’ as constituted by inter-related and shifting processes of colonialism, slavery, diaspora, migration, development, globalisation, neoliberalism and global media, among other phenomena (Grewal, 2005; Ong, 2006). I am interested in how empathy – which I conceptualise as a social and political relation involving the imbrication of cognitive, perceptual and affective processes – is generated within, circulated through, and productive of transnational politics. Through analysis of political communication, international development literatures, popular business and science books,
Pedwell_Decolonising%20Empathy%20Samyukta%20Jan%202016.docx