"(En)lutar: the claim of mourning and the art of voluntary servitude

a reivindicação do luto e a arte da inservidão voluntária

Abstract

This paper presents some reflections based on the theoretical approach of Judith Butler's political philosophy of mourning and Michel Foucault's concept of critical attitude. More specifically, the intention is to think about the claim for the right to public mourning as a form of inservitude to the regimes of power that govern the differential distribution of the status of human life. In the last section of this essay, the aim is to mobilize the theory articulated in the previous topics together with the interpellation provoked by reading the book K. relato de uma busca, by Bernardo Kucinski, and the article Les indigents de la mémoire, by Jeanne-Marie Gagnebin. The purpose is to explore how the character K. embodies the praxis of the critical attitude in his public mourning of his daughter, who was made disappear by the military dictatorship in Brazil.