Colonial Legacies in Times of 'Black Lives Matter'

CES Studies

"Um ser que não foi feito para sofrer": da diferença do humano e das diferenças dos humanos

João Arriscado Nunes

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Published as an integral chapter of the book O pluriverso dos Direitos Humanos: A diversidade das lutas pela dignidade, in this text João Arriscado Nunes analyses the precariousness of the "human" status. From a genealogy of humanitarianism, we can see how the Western matrix security and humanitarian policies are put into practice in "emergency humanitarian situations". This approach is a privileged entry point to investigate how the borders and attributes of the human are articulated by different conceptions of human dignity, as well as the differences between humans, including denial and conditioned assignment of humanity. Based on a dialogue between epistemologies of the South and the work of Frantz Fanon, the author proposes a look at suffering that is capable of perceiving it as a condition of existence, but also as a result of racial structures of violence that still today aspire to define the "abyssal lines" of humanity.

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Bibliographical Citation
João Arriscado Nunes, 'Um ser que não foi feito para sofrer': da diferença do humano e das diferenças dos humanos, in Boaventura de Sousa Santos e Bruno Sena Martins (orgs.), «O pluriverso dos Direitos Humanos: A diversidade das lutas pela dignidade». Lisboa: Edições 70, 2019, pp. 67-92.