Citation

Cvejić B. Perform. Res. 2022; 27(1): 55-63.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/13528165.2022.2091853

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Recognized in the 20th- and 21st-century history of political suicides as a radical act of protest and a spectacular expression of an intense experience of suffering, self-burning has returned since 2010 when Mohamed Bouazizi's act sparked protests in Tunisia. Its last wave in Europe includes those cases of self-incinerations in which the conditions for their political performativity are only partly fulfilled: the acts are public and communicate with the antagonist in the symbolic places of power, but their motivations aren't explicitly formulated as political. When self-annihilation is triggered by the basic needs and rights to maintain life - such as unemployment, housing crises, conflicts at work and other forms of precarity - means and ends with respect to life become indistinguishable. How can life be weaponized as a transindividual form of dissent if self-destruction also brings an end to desperation and suffering of the person? How are we to attend to irreperable acts of self-annihilation, which stand in dire contrast to contemporary practices of self-care, vitalist intensity and self-enhancement?. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Language: en