Peer Illner | University of Groningen (original) (raw)
Articles by Peer Illner
Culture Unbound, 2015
This article intervenes in a debate in cultural disaster studies that interprets disasters as obj... more This article intervenes in a debate in cultural disaster studies that interprets disasters as objects, whose study opens up an understanding of societies’ fears, anxieties and vulnerabilities. Widening the scope of disaster studies, it proposes to view
disaster not as an object but as an optics, a matrix that frames elements of social life as an emergency. Presenting the case of the American Black Panther Party for Self- Defense through a framework of security studies, the article explores the Black
Panthers’ politics as a process of societal securitisation that allowed African Americans to mobilise politically by proclaiming an emergency. It traces a political trajectory that ranged from an early endorsement of revolutionary violence to the promotion of
community services and casts this journey as a negotiation of the question of identity and ontological security in times of crisis. Drawing on Black studies and on stigma theory, it suggests finally, that the Panthers’ abandonment of violence represented a
shift from identity-politics to an engagement with structural positionality.
Book Chapters by Peer Illner
American Urban Politics in a Global Age, 2024
Eco Culture: Disaster, Narrative, Discourse, 2017
Disaster Research: Multidisciplinary and International Perspectives, 2016
Anderes Wissen: Kunstformen der Theorie, 2016
Real Estates: Life without Debt, 2014
Edited by Peer Illner
Unworking, 2021
Désœuvrement, variously translated as unworking or inoperativity is a notion that haunts contempo... more Désœuvrement, variously translated as unworking or inoperativity is a notion that haunts contemporary political theory and practice. Unworking overturns the typical valuation of work and action and opens an avenue to think radical passivity and inactivity as aesthetic and political practices that question the modernist mantra of purposeful production and ceaseless activity. At its most basic, unworking is the critique of work in all its variations: Not only wage labour, as Marxism would have it, but also the work of art, the work of community-building, and even psychoanalysis imagined as ‘working through’. This collection of essays is dedicated to unworking in its various political, aesthetic and philosophical guises – exploring its potentiality as well as its dead ends and dangers. It unites a range of contemporary thinkers that embrace negation, negativity and withdrawal as political strategies, turning unworking into a “paradigm of the coming politics.” (Giorgio Agamben)
Books by Peer Illner
Pluto Press, Mapping Social Reproduction Theory Series, 2020
Many communities in the United States have been abandoned by the state. What happens when natur... more Many communities in the United States have been abandoned by the state. What happens when natural disasters add to their misery? This book looks at the broken relationship between the federal government and civil society in times of crises.
Mutual aid has gained renewed importance in providing relief when hurricanes, floods and pandemics hit, as cuts to state spending put significant strain on communities struggling to survive. Harking back to the self-organised welfare programmes of the Black Panther Party, radical social movements from Occupy to Black Lives Matter are building autonomous aid networks within and against the state. However, as the federal responsibility for relief is lifted, mutual aid faces a profound dilemma: do ordinary people become complicit in their own exploitation?
Reframing disaster relief through the lens of social reproduction, Peer Illner tracks the shifts in American emergency aid, from the economic crises of the 1970s to the Covid-19 pandemic, raising difficult questions about mutual aid's double-edged role in cuts to social spending. As sea levels rise, climate change worsens and new pandemics sweep the globe, Illner's analysis of the interrelations between the state, the market and grassroots initiatives will prove indispensable.
Papers by Peer Illner
Book Reviews by Peer Illner
Culture Unbound, 2015
This article intervenes in a debate in cultural disaster studies that interprets disasters as obj... more This article intervenes in a debate in cultural disaster studies that interprets disasters as objects, whose study opens up an understanding of societies’ fears, anxieties and vulnerabilities. Widening the scope of disaster studies, it proposes to view
disaster not as an object but as an optics, a matrix that frames elements of social life as an emergency. Presenting the case of the American Black Panther Party for Self- Defense through a framework of security studies, the article explores the Black
Panthers’ politics as a process of societal securitisation that allowed African Americans to mobilise politically by proclaiming an emergency. It traces a political trajectory that ranged from an early endorsement of revolutionary violence to the promotion of
community services and casts this journey as a negotiation of the question of identity and ontological security in times of crisis. Drawing on Black studies and on stigma theory, it suggests finally, that the Panthers’ abandonment of violence represented a
shift from identity-politics to an engagement with structural positionality.
American Urban Politics in a Global Age, 2024
Eco Culture: Disaster, Narrative, Discourse, 2017
Disaster Research: Multidisciplinary and International Perspectives, 2016
Anderes Wissen: Kunstformen der Theorie, 2016
Real Estates: Life without Debt, 2014
Unworking, 2021
Désœuvrement, variously translated as unworking or inoperativity is a notion that haunts contempo... more Désœuvrement, variously translated as unworking or inoperativity is a notion that haunts contemporary political theory and practice. Unworking overturns the typical valuation of work and action and opens an avenue to think radical passivity and inactivity as aesthetic and political practices that question the modernist mantra of purposeful production and ceaseless activity. At its most basic, unworking is the critique of work in all its variations: Not only wage labour, as Marxism would have it, but also the work of art, the work of community-building, and even psychoanalysis imagined as ‘working through’. This collection of essays is dedicated to unworking in its various political, aesthetic and philosophical guises – exploring its potentiality as well as its dead ends and dangers. It unites a range of contemporary thinkers that embrace negation, negativity and withdrawal as political strategies, turning unworking into a “paradigm of the coming politics.” (Giorgio Agamben)
Pluto Press, Mapping Social Reproduction Theory Series, 2020
Many communities in the United States have been abandoned by the state. What happens when natur... more Many communities in the United States have been abandoned by the state. What happens when natural disasters add to their misery? This book looks at the broken relationship between the federal government and civil society in times of crises.
Mutual aid has gained renewed importance in providing relief when hurricanes, floods and pandemics hit, as cuts to state spending put significant strain on communities struggling to survive. Harking back to the self-organised welfare programmes of the Black Panther Party, radical social movements from Occupy to Black Lives Matter are building autonomous aid networks within and against the state. However, as the federal responsibility for relief is lifted, mutual aid faces a profound dilemma: do ordinary people become complicit in their own exploitation?
Reframing disaster relief through the lens of social reproduction, Peer Illner tracks the shifts in American emergency aid, from the economic crises of the 1970s to the Covid-19 pandemic, raising difficult questions about mutual aid's double-edged role in cuts to social spending. As sea levels rise, climate change worsens and new pandemics sweep the globe, Illner's analysis of the interrelations between the state, the market and grassroots initiatives will prove indispensable.