Performative Blame Avoidance

Résumé fourni par la source

ABSTRACT Sometimes we avoid or minimize criticism for our failings by performing a merely symbolic act aimed at addressing a real or perceived blame allegation. Consider individuals or institutions performing land acknowledgements as a means of box‐ticking inclusion without committing to any significant change. Or consider corporations forming advisory committees that lack authoritative power on issues they advise on. Call this performative blame avoidance . How does performatively avoiding blame fall short of appropriately engaging in genuine reparations? And how does this differ from other ways in which we can inadequately engage in reparative work? Drawing on cases from land acknowledgements to governmental reconciliation policies, I show how performative blame avoidance operates as a distinctive mechanism of reparative failure that aims to foreclose accountability by appearing to address it, all the while instrumentalizing the very reparative practices meant to remedy wrongdoing. The framework reveals subtle operations of performative blame avoidance in complex institutional cases and articulates its relations to settler moves to innocence and epistemic exclusion.

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