Re-membering the politics of affective-empathic approaches towards the Holocaust: from identification to (mis)appropriation

  1. María Jesús Fernández Gil 1
  1. 1 Universidad de Alcalá
    info

    Universidad de Alcalá

    Alcalá de Henares, España

    ROR https://ror.org/04pmn0e78

Journal:
Oceánide

ISSN: 1989-6328

Year of publication: 2018

Issue: 10

Type: Article

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More publications in: Oceánide

Abstract

Utilizando como referente la aritmética narrativa de la que se vale el United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, este artículo se centra en los procesos de re-articulación a los que ha estado sujeta la memoria del Holocausto, para lo cual se incide en el papel que ha desempeñado la americanización del Holocausto, pero también otros procesos más recientes de (re)escritura. Se prestará especial atención a los usos que alientan, por medio de la analogía, un acercamiento afectivo y empático al sufrimiento del Otro. Estas (re)escrituras, promovidas por las interacciones que caracterizan diversos aspectos de la vida contemporánea, evocan el recuerdo del genocidio nazi como pretexto para que los grupos victimizados reclamen reconocimiento por el sufrimiento al que han estado expuestos e interpretan, con una maniobra a la que William F. S. Miles se ha referido como “nativización intelectual”, el pasado a la luz de la experiencia histórica del Holocausto. Ese es precisamente el proceso al que recurre Caryl Philipps en The Nature of Blood, donde propone una respuesta al Holocausto mediada por los tropos y las figuras que definen la época postcolonial. Al hilo de las acusaciones de apropiación del Holocausto surgidas con motivo de estos enfoques basados en la identificación, el artículo reflexiona también sobre las cuestiones que suscita la transformación del Holocausto en un paradigma de moralidad abierto.

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