On productive shame, reconciliation, and agency

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On Productive Shame, Reconciliation, and Agency prompts a cross-disciplinary inquiry into the productive potential of shame. It challenges traditional views of shame as merely linked to personal trauma, lack, and loss, instead addressing complex issues related to confronting a grim colonial and imperial past, as initially proposed by Paul Gilroy. The book explores how to navigate personal and collective memories of "paralyzing guilt" following atrocities and genocides, and how these negative experiences can be transformed into "productive shame" for both perpetrators and victims. This collection features essays, discussions, and interviews that examine the intersections of history, materiality, and culturally constructed concepts of race, racism, anti-Semitism, anti-Romaism, and queer shame across various disciplines, including philosophy, art, visual culture, and gender studies. It analyzes case studies and artistic projects that utilize collaborative research methods to empower the transformation of shame into agency. Ultimately, the role of productive shame is framed as a means to prevent the recurrence of institutional structures and events that perpetuate racism, contextualized within current debates on political responsibility and reconciliation in Europe and Africa.