What can it mean to come from a certain place and from certain people? Reflections on around the question.

Abstract

This text collects the reflections that I have found the most important and/or best articulated at this point in time when thinking about the question that is also the title of the thesis: what can it mean to come from a certain place and from certain people?

On the whole it deals with forms of domination and subjugation realized on social and individual levels that are not separate but in mutual relation of exchange. It proposes that through their analysis and application of critical tools it would be possible to take more informed decisions in personal and public spheres. Possibly it would also help to deconstruct the dominating narratives and look beyond them for solutions for better life as to its ecological and social consequences.

Among the themes that I am touching on are: loss of language and loss of culture and its possible consequences; internalizing inferiority and internalizing superiority in the context of historical narratives; nostalgia as a tool for creating alternative to status quo; proposition of countering pride and prejudice with humility and penance; problematics of forgiveness and apology; empathy as necessary element in getting to know histories; considering nonalignment as a possibility and impossibility; reviewing national myths and history in accordance with fact based research and using new theoretical tools; consideration of what could be the new myths that could nourish emergence of more ethical relations between people, and people and the natural world.

The text of the thesis is supplemented by documentation of works done around these themes. I see them as tests and experiments and would like them to be considered as elements that might throw additional light on the text rather than on equal terms.