Trumpism and being in worlds that fall between worlds

Moncrieff, L. (2017) Trumpism and being in worlds that fall between worlds. Law and Critique, 28(2), pp. 127-133. (doi: 10.1007/s10978-017-9205-8)

Abstract

In response to Kyle McGee’s Heathen Earth, this paper says something about the place of toxic legacies in the rise and sustenance of ‘Trumpism’. It takes an interest in rusting factories, melting ice, etc., but as assemblages that are tricky because they concern a build up of externalities and relational factors for which there is a deficit of known co-ordinates. The term ‘sludge’ is sometimes affixed to these unexplained accumulations, which attend the (productive) neglect of externalities in overlapping schemas of relationality. The paper relates this ‘sludge’ to the emergence of a void, somewhere below the legal thresholds of accountability, into which words and actions can be thrown ‘at will’. This void is muddy, and makes politics unbearable to watch; and, yet, we are caught in a loop of reproducing the void through our own charting and supervision of action and, then, being shocked by the filth that comes out. The comment ends with a brief reflection on attending to the situation of forgotten existences and living with the ruins of past and present worlds.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Moncrieff, Dr Lilian
• Authors: Moncrieff, L.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Law
• Journal Name: Law and Critique
• Publisher: Springer
• ISSN: 0957-8536
• ISSN (Online): 1572-8617
• Published Online: 02 June 2017
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrech
• First Published: First published in Law and Critique 28(2):127-133
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher