if a conversation is difficult, it’s probably worth having it

reading and conversation group coordinated by Belén Soto

Group to accompany and converse around the reading of the book Conflict is not abuse (2016), by Sarah Schulman (translated into Spanish and published in Argentina by Paidós in 2023 as El conflicto no es abuso. Contra la sobredimensión del daño). Accompanying an individual reading by fragments, the group will meet on 6 occasions to share and address impressions, reflections and questions, as well as to review together some other related materials.

Conflict is not abuse is a cuir perspective essay that exposes how we repeat the same tactics of avoidance, overflow and over-dimensioning of harm in conflicts that occur in both a micro context – such as an intimate relationship – and in a geopolitical context – such as the extremely violent situation of the Palestinian genocide. He speaks of the need to identify more clearly what abuse is, who is abusing and treating violently (such as Israel, such as the abuser we have in mind), and to differentiate it from other types of conflicts that are also uncomfortable but which require other tools and resources to be dealt with collectively. For Schulman, “at many levels of human interaction there is the opportunity to confuse discomfort with threat, internal anxiety with external danger and, in turn, escalate rather than resolve”. Aim: personal healing and repair for a life together.

This programme aims to generate a respectful space for learning through dialogue – for which attentive listening is essential – and ethical speculations. It will not be conducted by professionals of any kind of therapy or conflict accompaniment, nor does it have the objective of resolving any specific conflict. Therefore, the group and its members will have to take individual and collective responsibility for managing and sustaining different emotions and/or memories invoked autonomously and in an accompanied way.

programme

7 February from 16:30 to 18:30h
Session 1: The overdimension of damage

• Introduction of the reading group, presentation of the fanzine Conflict is not the same as abuse and the book Conflict is not abuse by Sarah Schulman. Introductions of the participants. Proposed methodology for the conversation.
• Summary of recommended reading. Group discussion.
• Screening of Failure is my style (2023), by House of Tupamaras.

28 February from 16:30 to 18:30h
Session 2: Couple Scale, State Scale

• Summary of recommended reading and group discussion.
• Exercise of analysis of an interpersonal conflict not well handled in an individual and introspective way. Example: “putting myself in positions of vulnerability that are not to be taken care of because I am the one to be protected easily leads me to situations in which I take no responsibility for the consequences of my actions”.

20 March from 16:30 to 18:30h
Session 3: Police and the Politics of Over-dimensioning Harm

• Summary of recommended reading and group discussion.
• Live reading of the article El identitarismo convierte al feminismo en una disputa por el poder en lugar de una lucha por la transformación and conversation with Laura Macaya, on the relation between punitive logics and identity politics.

10 April from 16:30 to 18:30h
Session 4: Loyalty

• Summary of recommended reading and group discussion.
• Readings by Clementine Morrigan together with Paula Pérez-Roda addressing the question of how we import mainly Yankee theory and referents; how the culture of cancellation has been uncritically imported from the USA and how Sarah Schulmann and Clementine Morrigan confront it from a critique of American society and its ways of constructing instances of power.

8 May from 16:30 to 18:30h
Session 5: Delay and Responsible Community

• Summary of recommended reading and group discussion.
• Group reading of the fanzine (Ecco li nostri) A critical look by Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio at the housing movement in Barcelona in the 2018-2023 arc. Conversation with Ricardo Pérez-Hita on how punitivist and identity-based tactics destroy and paralyse collective articulation.

29 May from 16:30 to 18:30h
Session 6: Supremacy/trauma and the justification of injustice

• Summary of recommended reading and group discussion.
• Group reading of Twelve Theses on Attention, conversation around the reading and closing meditation/body exercise guided by Beatriz Regueira.

notes for participants

1. Participating in this workshop means being able to attend all the sessions, so we ask for dissonance and commitment from those who register.
2. The group will be as mixed as the number of people interested and committed to go through this programme with attention and care.
3. In each session there will be an update of the recommended fragment for those who have not been able to complete the reading. Even so, we ask for a commitment to reading, because if we all show up without having read the texts, the group loses its ability to converse from a critical awareness of what has been read and, therefore, much of its meaning.
4. The reading group sessions will take place in a space where it is cold. We will have heaters but we recommend that you come with a good coat.

access

Conflict is not abuse audiobook link.