Welcome to “At Home with Arendt,” a special series that explores questions of home and belonging.
I welcome my collaborators in sharing this digital space:
- Dr. Rita A. Gardiner, an Assistant Professor in Critical Policy, Equity, and Leadership Studies (CPELS) in the Faculty of Education at Western University
- Harshita Jaiprakash, a PhD student in CPELS at Western
- Janet Jones, a PhD student in Applied Philosophy at the University of Waterloo
Together, the four of us will critically examine complexities around inclusion and exclusion. We will ask questions about what it means to be at home, to have a home, and to make a home. We will consider how people experience being uprooted, and how they forge roots in new communities.
Thinking with Arendt
We do our thinking in conversation with the work of the twentieth-century political theorist Hannah Arendt. Being “at home” with Arendt means that we take her as a partner in our thinking and our dialogue. Her work both provokes and helps us, so at times we will think with her, and at other times against her. Regardless, her influence will be a thread throughout this series.
In the next “Arendt at Home” installment, each of us will introduce ourselves in our own words. For the rest of this post, I want to share the genesis of this series.
Stories, not just statistics
According to the United Nations, 70.8 million people have been forcibly displaced. This statistic is staggering. Yet, large numbers did not prompt me to think about refugees and forced displacement. A story did, sent to me by my friend, and contributor here, Rita.
The story was about the little boy Alan Kurdi who drowned in 2015 as his family fled Syria for the Greek island of Kos. Alan’s mother and brother also died, yet it was the figure of Alan–and his image, in death–that galvanized people. In Canada, the story sparked calls from Canadians for the government to do more. Alan’s family had put in a bid to immigrate to Canada, which was rejected. His aunt Tima lives in British Columbia.
Rootlessness
With Alan’s story in mind, Rita and I turned to Arendt’s work to help us make sense of what was happening in the world. In reading her 1943 essay “We Refugees” and the Origins of Totalitarianism, we were drawn to her conception of rootlessness. This term describes the condition of persons who have been rendered stateless through being forced from their homes, not just physically and geographically, but also existentially and culturally.
The Family
In 2017, Rita and I published an article on Arendt’s critique of the family as a model and metaphor for promoting diversity and inclusion within organizations (see this post for the main ideas). Arendt’s critique highlights how “family” metaphors depend on singular, hierarchical structures. Organizations want to promote dialogue and diversity, and yet using “family” as a model for institutional structure ends up undermining goals of inclusiveness and belonging.
From Rootlessness to Belonging
Further, I keep encountering “family” metaphors in Canadian discourse around immigration and refugee resettlement. For example, in her 2014 Massey Lectures, Adrienne Clarkson used “adoption” and “family” as metaphors for immigration, despite her expressed admiration for Arendt.
For other examples, see my previous blog posts about the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, Citizenship Week 2018, the Private Sponsorship of Refugees program, and controversies around anti-immigration billboards.
What we will explore in future posts
Our project brings together Arendtian themes of rootlessness and her critique of the family as an ill-suited model for belonging. One of our goals is to show why family metaphors might be unhelpful, or obscure important concerns. Another goal is to rethink the ways in which Arendt talks about identity formation in situations of rootlessness.
Some posts will relate directly to these goals, whereas others will take up themes, questions, or adjacent concerns inspired by our thinking through these issues. We will examine events where Arendt’s thinking about the family is a crucial conversation point, on topics such as education, violence, and Central American migrant caravans.
Follow our work here on this blog. You can search for the “At Home with Arendt” category or visit the series’ archive page. We welcome your contributions in this developing conversation. Comment on posts, or get in touch through the contact form.
Credits
We are grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for supporting this research.
The feature photo is by Markus Spiske on Unsplash