Unsettling Empathy: Working with Groups in Conflict

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This book is an in-depth reflection and analysis on why and how unsettling empathy is a crucial component in reconciliatory processes. Located at the intersection of memory studies, reconciliation studies, and trauma studies, the book is at its core transdisciplinary, presenting a fresh perspective on how to conceive of concepts and practices when working with groups in conflict. The book Unsettling Empathy has come into being during a period of increasing cultural pessimism, where we witness the spread of populism and the rise of illiberal democracies that hark back to nationalist and ethnocentric narratives of the past. Because of this changed landscape, this book makes an important contribution to seeking fresh pathways toward an ethical practice of living together in light of past agonies and current conflicts. Within the specific context of working with groups in conflict, this book urges for an (ethical) posture of unsettling empathy. Empathy, which plays a vital role in these processes, is a complex and complicated phenomenon that is not without its critics who occasionally alert us to its dark side. The term empathy needs a qualifier to distinguish it from related phenomena such as pity, compassion, sympathy, benign paternalism, idealized identification, or voyeuristic appropriation. The word "unsettling" is just this crucial ingredient without which I would hesitate to bring empathy into our conversation.

Reviews

Krondorfer . . . offers nuanced and powerful insights that reinforce and extend his earlier work. . . . Krondorfer's work, including Unsettling Empathy, makes an important contribution to the realms of history and the sociology of science - areas themselves not immune to the aftermaths of intergroup violence. . . . Unsettling Empathy offers much food for thought, and inspiration for application by its readership. It is to Krondorfer's credit that he neither limits himself by academic disciplines, nor by restricting his important work to one single audience.

Author Bio

Bjrn Krondorfer is Director of the Martin-Springer Institute at Northern Arizona University and Endowed Professor of Religious Studies in the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies.