Dr Chloë Allison and Dr Anna-Luise Wagner present their PhD research, carried out at the University of Cambridge, and their work with Marginalia at the interdisciplinary and international seminar ‘Invisible Lives, Silent Voices’, which examines the various forms of social invisibility and the silencing of individuals and/or groups of populations.
Invisibility is the result of power dynamics wherein dominant ideologies, groups or individuals silence precarious and vulnerable ones to political, economic or social ends. The voices of the precarious, who remain ‘outside of power’ (Le Blanc 2009) are undermined by that of the majority, and sink into deeper and deeper silence, resulting in social, political and even psychological dispossession or dehumanisation. Normative discourses and practices thus give way to asymmetrical relationships which deny vulnerable populations the ability to speak up and fully exist. Figures of non-conformity such as minorities, immigrants, women, along with the disabled and the poor are all in dissonance with oppressive and normative dynamics, raising the question of political and social representation in our contemporary societies.
This monthly seminar is spearheaded by three main research units in the humanities (EMMA in Montpellier, IRHIM in Lyon and LCSP in Paris), with the collaboration of the Department für Anglistik und Amerikanistik of the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität in Münich, the Representing Migration Humanities research unit at Duke University, as well as the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis.