From Contested Suffering to Vulnerable Listening. Exploring Recognition, Encounters and Memory in the Basque Case

Abstract

This article explores the narrative frames of memory configuration after ETA ceasefire in the context of the Basque armed conflict. At the institutional level, the public representation of suffering configures the category of victimhood in this context, creating hierarchies of experiences of violence and establishing a specific emotional landscape in the “post-conflict” scenario. The limitations of the representations of suffering and the problematic use of the concept of empathy in the elimination of different forms of violence lead me to suggest “vulnerable listening” as an analytical and political proposal. This proposal aims to broaden narrow reconciliation paradigms, stresses the importance of placing vulnerability at the core of relationships and delves into the multiple ways that encounters can happen, where listening is pregnant with conflicting emotions, contradictions, the entanglement of suffering and pleasure, uncertainties and openness to the acknowledgement of different forms of violence.