Academic literature on the topic 'Zizek'

En este artículo nos proponemos reflexionar sobre el concepto de pandemia, íntimamente ligado al de virus, en estrecha relación con los planteamientos que Slavoj Zizek esboza en su libro Pandemia. La covid-19 estremece al mundo (2020). Para ello discutiremos las implicancias no solo económicas sino subjetivantes de los procesos que han abierto el aislamiento, las intervenciones políticas y farmacológicas en las comunidades. Desde un punto de vista ecocrítico, discutiremos las hipótesis de Zizek a partir de las columnas de Rosa Montero en El país durante los años 2020/2022 y las reflexiones de Byung-Chul Han. La hipótesis central es que el dilema económico político que enmarca la pandemia no puede dejar de lado las nuevas formas en que se construyen las subjetividades. Las formas en las que lo monstruoso se nombra bajo la metáfora del Covid-19 nos lleva a reflexionar sobre el fenómeno de lo que se silencia, se metaforiza o se utiliza para invisibilizar sujetos políticos como las mujeres y las infancias.

The article discusses the relation between the paradigmatic status of film and use of film analogies in the psychoanalytic discourse on society and culture by Slavoj Zizek, which represents the very ground of his philosophical discourse in general. In the first part, starting with a recent discussion by different English and American scholars on controversial aspects of Slavoj Zizek?s activity in academia and on a broader public scene, the paper discusses on some parallel examples and inherent motivators of the form-content controversy in philosophy and pop-culture as well as Zizek?s interpretation of his position. In the second part, the article discusses Zizek?s sporadic meta-reflection on exemplification and provides arguments for the thesis that, in Zizek, on the ground of his ontology of the virtual, one encounters a double conception of ?inherence? (paradigmatic and analogical) between instance and principle, its consequence is a shift in the use of film examples from analogy of objects to analogy of analyses, which invents a typical conflict between the metonymic and metaphorical evasion of discourse. On this background, the article reexamines the general contention against Zizek of a ?virtual totalitarianism? without contingency of meaning and sense, and points to the position of the subject without discourse as another ground for the condition of analysis of truth. In the third part, the paper analyses and evaluates Zizek?s own understanding of his cinematographic illustrations and his peculiar, performing and self-referential, method of resolving the epistemological problem of film interpretation through imaginary identification or ?empathy? with film objects. In the fourth part, the paper discusses the apparent asymmetry between Zizek?s application of psychoanalytic doctrines onto film criticism, on one side, and, on the other, his little elaborated apotheosis of so-called ?cinematic materialism?. It is argued that this asymmetry ultimately causes what Zizek rejects in principle: a substitution of materialism and contingency of truth-search for a holism of sense. Consequently this seems to turn the psychoanalytic discourse on cinematography into a hermeneutic one.

En el contexto del imperio de los sofistas posmodernos, el siguiente artículo intenta sistematizar un punto en el debate de autores que resisten dicha supremacía. En particular se presenta la lectura que realiza Zizek en su Espinoso Sujeto de las posiciones teóricas de Badiou y Laclau (para lo cual utiliza como matriz su lectura del esfuerzo infinito kantiano). Luego de ello se discute la utilización del concepto de negatividad que le permite a este autor realizar dicho ejercicio crítico. In the context of the empire of the postmodern sophists, the article tries to systematize a point in the debate of authors who resist such supremacy. In particular, the text presents Zizek’s reading in his Ticklish Subject, of the theoretical positions of Badiou and Laclau (for which he uses as his matrix his reading of the Kantian infinite effort). After that, we discuss the use of the concept of negativity that allows this author to perform this critical exercise.

En el contexto del imperio de los sofistas posmodernos, el siguiente artículo intenta sistematizar un punto en el debate de autores que resisten dicha supremacía. En particular se presenta la lectura que realiza Zizek en su Espinoso Sujeto de las posiciones teóricas de Badiou y Laclau (para lo cual utiliza como matriz su lectura del esfuerzo infinito kantiano). Luego de ello se discute la utilización del concepto de negatividad que le permite a este autor realizar dicho ejercicio crítico. In the context of the empire of the postmodern sophists, the article tries to systematize a point in the debate of authors who resist such supremacy. In particular, the text presents Zizek’s reading in his Ticklish Subject, of the theoretical positions of Badiou and Laclau (for which he uses as his matrix his reading of the Kantian infinite effort). After that, we discuss the use of the concept of negativity that allows this author to perform this critical exercise.

This dissertation traces the post-Marxist and materialist positions of two leading contemporary European thinkers: Slavoj Zizek and Alain Badiou. These thinkers, I argue, collectively offer a way between the traditional Hegelian Marxist's overarching meta-narrative of a necessary evolution from worse to better, and the post-modern pessimism of a lack of possibility for such a social evolution. It is this middle path, offered by these two thinkers, that this dissertation seeks to explore and further explain. The focal point of this dissertation is the type of philosophical materialism that is collectively offered by Badiou and Zizek, what I call the "New Materialism." I first explain the origins of this materialist position as it emerges in the thought of Louis Althusser, then I discuss how Badiou and Zizek, each in their own way, seek to correct the remaining problems that exist for the Althusserian position, while refusing to reject its core materialist insights. Finally, I assess the ways in which both Badiou and Zizek attempt to overcome the Althusserian problems, arguing that ultimately Zizek's corrective succeeds in remaining within the materialist paradigm laid out by Althusser, whereas Badiou's method brings him dangerously close to a kind of philosophical idealism that he wishes to avoid.

Face à une politique libérale centriste qui fait de plus en plus figure d'unique option politique, la gauche semble pour plusieurs signifier un projet du passé. Nous nous sommes donné pour objectif d'explorer les travaux de Slavoj Zizek afin de voir si le projet marxiste pouvait bénéficier des acquis de la post-modernité et ainsi se présenter comme un projet politique viable aujourd'hui. Slavoj Zizek, philosophe et psychanalyste slovène est en effet mieux connu pour ses efforts de renouvellement du marxisme, un marxisme qui se passe des fondations traditionnellement associées à cette école de pensée. En parcourant l'oeuvre de Zizek, nous avons pu juger des tensions existants dans ce mariage difficile entre marxisme et postmodernité. Bien qu'à la suite de notre étude il nous apparaisse que le marxisme, entendu comme projet politique visant un changement radical de la société, ne s'accommode pas facilement de l'anti-fondationalisme qui caractérise la pensée post-moderne, nous croyons que le projet reste néanmoins valable et porteur d'espoir pour le renouvellement de la pensée marxiste.

This work seeks to address the major texts of Slavoj Zizek using a reading methodology which treats political philosophy as a practice, rather than a series of logical propositions or claims of truth or falsity. Philosophy is herein understood as a field of relations among authors who occupy precise theoretical and political coordinates. Writing produces and reproduces an author's position within this field via the way in which an author communicates with his/her peers, draws on past concepts, and designs new ones. This paper argues that Zizek cannot usefully be grasped as a theorist attempting to provide positive political solutions or analyses, but rather as a 'negative' force who occupies an impossible position by attempting to negate his peers and popular contemporary theoretical concepts - Zizek wishes to create a new intellectual space where political possibilities can be rethought and rediscovered, and he does this in his texts by ephemerally occupying multiple positions only to displace them.

This critique of technology takes up the thought of Slavoj Žižek to engage in a psychoanalytic and philosophical exploration, critique, and redemption of the human subject under the sway of post-modernity’s politic of technophilia. By first establishing the persistence of the subject as an aporia in the discourse of knowledge-production, this discussion unravels the philosophical, political, and psychoanalytic difficulties hidden by the fetishisation of technology and the globalised lie of its vulgar materialism that entraps the subject in a technological phantasia coordinated by the ‘metaphysics’ of technology: technicity. Interrogating this phantasia of technology, we will intervene in the overdetermination of the ontology of the subject by the perverse social order of a mystical deadlock between the ‘treatment’ of the subject’s existence by the perverse order of technical rationalisation through its annihilation and fabrication of the embodiment of the subject. This intervention aims to reveal the dark contingency at the core of the subject, and to develop this Cause as the site of a rupture and reordering of the symbolic universe maintained by the ideology of technological over-determination. This Cause will be shown through techne, the jettisoned ontological element of technology, and herein this demonstration will unveil the possibility for redeeming the subject from the overdetermination of the technological through the ideology-critique of the phantasia of knowledge-production that covers over the importance of ontology to the self-conception of the human subject. The moment of redemption will be shown to begin from the subject who emerges in and through the university discourse of knowledge-production that Žižek has criticised as the epochal mode of post-modernity. In attending to this thesis the dissertation engages with Žižek’s critique against the tide of post-modern critique that paralyses the critical gaze of the subject, especially in the consideration of the critical role fantasy plays in maintaining the perverse psychosocial order of knowledge-production that leads to the structuring of the phantasmagoria of technicity. Here the critique with which this dissertation is engaged demonstrates that the fetishisation of knowledge maintaining the ‘lie’ of this phantasmagoria betrays its overdetermination of the subject through the vulgar materialism and the repressed metaphysical mania of annihilation and fabrication that allows technicity to substitute its raison d’étre for the Cause at the core of the subject. By attending to the return of the repressed techne alongside the subject who has been substituted by technicity and excluded from the Symbolic and exiled to the Abyss of the Real, this dissertation will propose the rupture and rearrangement of the authorial order maintained through technicity’s binary of annihilation and fabrication. And to this end the dissertation aims to show how the ontological emergence of the subject at the heart of the dialectical materialist tussle with philosophical idealism can serve to be given a voice in a techne phantasmagoria of open possibility that is not reduced to mere ‘virtuality’ by technicity’s spurious presentism and anti-metaphysical prejudice.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Arts
Faculty of Arts
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The writings of controversial ???underground??? figure Iceberg Slim feature identities and sub-cultures either antagonistic to, or otherwise not commensurable with, mainstream American Orders of Discourse. Within the ex-pimp???s narrative dystopia, a provocative and unreservedly profane idiom is employed not only to champion normatively marginalized or demonized subjectivities (such as African-Americans, the underclass, pimps and ???hustlers???), but also to identify and condemn the policies and praxes hegemonizing the Social domain. Moreover, although Slim is one of the most widely-read African-American authors, there has been to date almost no critical engagement with his work. The two primary objectives of this Thesis were: firstly, to evaluate and elucidate the transgressive potential posed by the Slimian narrative universe; and secondly, to demonstrate that the genus of Lacanian, post-Marxian and other dialectical heuristics developed by Slavoj ??i??ek offered the most expedient means of achieving the first objective. More specifically, via investigating the discursive and trans-discursive coordinates of marginal identity as dramatized in four of Slim???s most popular novellas (Pimp, Trick Baby, Mama Black Widow, and Death Wish), we sought to ascertain the degree to which Slim???s particular representational negotiations of identity and identification operate to undermine, or (inadvertently) support, dominant ideological formulations. Further, this investigation adopted a ??i??ekian approach to develop a framework through which the (social, ethical, ideological, aesthetic, psychical and libidinal) issues surrounding Power that are at stake could be meaningfully evaluated. Our cardinal hypotheses concerned the basic dialectical postulation that the key to understanding hegemonic operations lies not in the content of those operations, but rather in the form(s) through which they are brought to bear. The results obtained in this Thesis were consistent with the fundamental hypotheses posed and served also to achieve our primary objectives. Namely, our ??i??ekian approach identified and explained various structural and psychical features which were crucial in determining not only the antagonisms between (and inherent to) the vicissitudes of Power and the metastases of Its transgression (or not) within the Slimian universe, but also our apprehension of those antagonisms. In our enumeration of at least three discreet modalities of transgression, we finally concluded that the most radical dimension of the Slimian universe was to be located in the inherent undecidability between its affiliations with incommensurable ideological domains.

This thesis traces the ‘New Moment’ in Pauline reception in the writings of Alain Badiou, Terry Eagleton and Slavoj Žižek. It explores how the Pauline epistles are read and feature in their thought. An answer to the question, 'why Paul?' prompts reflection on what it is to read and understand the Apostle. An introduction sets out the writers of this ‘New Moment’ [Jacob Taubes, Giorgio Agamben, Stanislas Breton, as well as Badiou, Eagleton and Žižek] before isolating the figures of this study. The reception of this ‘moment’ by mainstream New Testament studies is considered, and with it the charge of ‘appropriation’. The concept of ‘appropriation’ is explored, and a definition arrived at, for the purpose of evaluating the readings we will go on to discover. As part of this notion of ‘appropriation’, the turn to Gadamer in recent New Testament study is surveyed. We suggest another potential hermeneutical approach that derives from Gadamer is possible. Thus, the object of this study is both an instance of, and means by which to critique the understanding of, New Testament Wirkungsgeschichte. Each of our thinkers is then considered in turn. The outline for each chapter is the same. A brief introduction to the figure with bibliographical background salient to his Pauline reading precedes some textual examples indicative of that reading. We then move to analyse the manner of that reading and certain conceptual problems which are revealed in the course of the engagement with Paul. The conclusion analyses the approaches, and reasons for turning, to Paul on the part of these thinkers. Salient differences between each thinker's reading are noted and the charge of appropriation is evaluated afresh. The implications of such readings for conventional biblical criticism are considered, and the success of an approach which explores a Gadamerean-inspired interest in reception in the manner adopted by this thesis is judged.

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O presente trabalho tematiza a ideia de emancipaÃÃo e liberdade para Zizek, um conceito de liberdade estritamente materialista e pÃs-metafÃsico. Se a Ãnfase, hoje, nos ideais do Esclarecimento (AufklÃrung) fornecidos pela modernidade à considerada um retrocesso diante de nossa realidade pÃs-moderna, Zizek encara o desafio de reintegrar tais princÃpios no cenÃrio filosÃfico atual de maneira muito singular. Seu mÃrito consiste fundamentalmente em abordar o cerne da questÃo contemporÃnea (no que tange à ciÃncia, ontologia, subjetividade e polÃtica) a partir dos ideais modernos que abrem a perspectiva de emancipaÃÃo e liberdade humana. Nosso trabalho tem, portanto, como tarefa explorar esse tema da liberdade nos tempos atuais, radicalizando, assim, o que Kant compreendia com o princÃpio da AufklÃrung, a saber, a saÃda do homem da minoridade, da qual ele mesmo à culpado. Nesse sentido, o tema serà dividido em quatro linhas temÃticas principais: i) ciÃncia e epistemologia, ii) ontologia, iii) subjetividade e iv) polÃtica emancipatÃria. No primeiro ponto à discutido o ideal de AufklÃrung para Zizek e como este se contrapÃe diretamente com a perspectiva de Habermas e seu projeto de uma modernidade inacabada. Para isso, tomamos como fio condutor a polÃmica sobre o tema da biogenÃtica, e, a partir daÃ, procuramos demonstrar como que a concepÃÃo de modernidade para Zizek à ainda mais radical do que a de Habermas. No segundo capÃtulo, procuramos desenvolver o modo como Zizek fundamenta a base ontolÃgica da liberdade a partir da passagem de Kant a Hegel. O foco à depositado na mudanÃa paralÃctica do obstÃculo epistemolÃgico, em Kant, para a sua condiÃÃo ontolÃgica positiva, em Hegel. Ou seja, o modo como Hegel radicaliza o pensamento kantiano a partir de uma torÃÃo dialÃtica puramente formal. No terceiro capÃtulo, a perspectiva da liberdade à deslocada agora para o campo da subjetividade, na relaÃÃo dialÃtica entre a Lei moral kantiana e o gozo sÃdico. Nesse sentido, procuro mostrar primeiramente como que Lacan articula Kant com Sade, para, em seguida, pensar como que o psicanalista procura uma saÃda para o princÃpio de liberdade kantiana a partir da Lei do desejo, o que nos permite pensar um Kant sem Sade. No quarto e Ãltimo capÃtulo, passo para uma discussÃo propriamente polÃtica, onde questiono como à possÃvel uma polÃtica verdadeiramente emancipatÃria, vinculada à ideia de luta de classe e ato polÃtico. Em cada ponto tratado, esforÃamo-nos por radicalizar o princÃpio de liberdade humana em sua base materialista. O interessante na abordagem do materialismo dialÃtico de Zizek à que, em momento algum, cabe substituir nossa realidade por outra melhor, mas apenas â e isso à o fundamental â radicalizar o que permanece in potentia na nossa.
The present work discusses the idea of emancipation and freedom for Zizek, a concept of freedom strictly materialist and post-metaphysical. If the emphasis today on the ideals of the Enlightenment (AufklÃrung) supplied by modernity is considered a step backwards before our reality post-modern, Zizek sees the challenge of reintegrating such principles in philosophical scenario today in a very special way. His merit consists basically to approach the kernel of the contemporary question (in terms of science, ontology, subjectivity and politics) from the ideal modern that opens up the prospect of emancipation and human freedom. Our work has, therefore, as task to explore this theme of freedom in current times, in what Kant understood with the principle of AufklÃrung, namely, the leaving of man of minority, of which he himself is guilty. In this sense, the theme will be divided into four main thematic areas: (i) science and epistemology, (ii) ontology, (iii) subjectivity and (iv) emancipatory politics. On the first point it is discussed the ideal of AufklÃrung for Zizek and how it contrasts directly with the perspective of Habermas and his project of a unfinished modernity. For this, we take as a guide the controversy on the subject of biogenetic, and, from then on, we look for to demonstrate as that the conception of modernity for Zizek is still more radical than that of Habermas. In the second chapter, we are seeking to develop how Zizek justifies the ontological basis of freedom from the passage from Kant to Hegel. The focus is deposited in the parallax shift of epistemological obstacle in Kant, for his positive ontological condition, in Hegel. That is, the way as Hegel radicalizes the Kantian thought from a twist purely formal dialectic. In the third chapter, the prospect of freedom is now shifted to the field of subjectivity, the dialectical relation between the Kantian moral Law and the sadistic enjoyment. In this direction, I look for to show first as that Lacan articulates Kant with Sade, then think about how that the psychoanalyst seeks an outlet for the principle of Kantian freedom from the Law of desire, which allows us to think a Kant without Sade. In the room and last chapter, step for a discussion properly politics, where I question as one truly emancipatory politics is possible, linked to the idea of class struggle and political act. In each treated point, we strive to radicalize the principle of human freedom in its materialistic basis. The interesting approach in the dialectical materialism of Zizek is that, at any time, it is replace our reality by another better, but only - and this is crucial - radicalize what remains in potentia in ours.

FONSECA, Fernando Facó de Assis. Pensar a liberdade em Slavoj Zizek: uma reflexão sobre ciência, ontologia, subjetividade e política emancipatória. 2015. 230f. – Tese (Doutorado) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação Brasileira, Fortaleza (CE), 2015.
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The present work discusses the idea of emancipation and freedom for Zizek, a concept of freedom strictly materialist and post-metaphysical. If the emphasis today on the ideals of the Enlightenment (Aufklärung) supplied by modernity is considered a step backwards before our reality post-modern, Zizek sees the challenge of reintegrating such principles in philosophical scenario today in a very special way. His merit consists basically to approach the kernel of the contemporary question (in terms of science, ontology, subjectivity and politics) from the ideal modern that opens up the prospect of emancipation and human freedom. Our work has, therefore, as task to explore this theme of freedom in current times, in what Kant understood with the principle of Aufklärung, namely, the leaving of man of minority, of which he himself is guilty. In this sense, the theme will be divided into four main thematic areas: (i) science and epistemology, (ii) ontology, (iii) subjectivity and (iv) emancipatory politics. On the first point it is discussed the ideal of Aufklärung for Zizek and how it contrasts directly with the perspective of Habermas and his project of a unfinished modernity. For this, we take as a guide the controversy on the subject of biogenetic, and, from then on, we look for to demonstrate as that the conception of modernity for Zizek is still more radical than that of Habermas. In the second chapter, we are seeking to develop how Zizek justifies the ontological basis of freedom from the passage from Kant to Hegel. The focus is deposited in the parallax shift of epistemological obstacle in Kant, for his positive ontological condition, in Hegel. That is, the way as Hegel radicalizes the Kantian thought from a twist purely formal dialectic. In the third chapter, the prospect of freedom is now shifted to the field of subjectivity, the dialectical relation between the Kantian moral Law and the sadistic enjoyment. In this direction, I look for to show first as that Lacan articulates Kant with Sade, then think about how that the psychoanalyst seeks an outlet for the principle of Kantian freedom from the Law of desire, which allows us to think a Kant without Sade. In the room and last chapter, step for a discussion properly politics, where I question as one truly emancipatory politics is possible, linked to the idea of class struggle and political act. In each treated point, we strive to radicalize the principle of human freedom in its materialistic basis. The interesting approach in the dialectical materialism of Zizek is that, at any time, it is replace our reality by another better, but only - and this is crucial - radicalize what remains in potentia in ours.
O presente trabalho tematiza a ideia de emancipação e liberdade para Zizek, um conceito de liberdade estritamente materialista e pós-metafísico. Se a ênfase, hoje, nos ideais do Esclarecimento (Aufklärung) fornecidos pela modernidade é considerada um retrocesso diante de nossa realidade pós-moderna, Zizek encara o desafio de reintegrar tais princípios no cenário filosófico atual de maneira muito singular. Seu mérito consiste fundamentalmente em abordar o cerne da questão contemporânea (no que tange à ciência, ontologia, subjetividade e política) a partir dos ideais modernos que abrem a perspectiva de emancipação e liberdade humana. Nosso trabalho tem, portanto, como tarefa explorar esse tema da liberdade nos tempos atuais, radicalizando, assim, o que Kant compreendia com o princípio da Aufklärung, a saber, a saída do homem da minoridade, da qual ele mesmo é culpado. Nesse sentido, o tema será dividido em quatro linhas temáticas principais: i) ciência e epistemologia, ii) ontologia, iii) subjetividade e iv) política emancipatória. No primeiro ponto é discutido o ideal de Aufklärung para Zizek e como este se contrapõe diretamente com a perspectiva de Habermas e seu projeto de uma modernidade inacabada. Para isso, tomamos como fio condutor a polêmica sobre o tema da biogenética, e, a partir daí, procuramos demonstrar como que a concepção de modernidade para Zizek é ainda mais radical do que a de Habermas. No segundo capítulo, procuramos desenvolver o modo como Zizek fundamenta a base ontológica da liberdade a partir da passagem de Kant a Hegel. O foco é depositado na mudança paraláctica do obstáculo epistemológico, em Kant, para a sua condição ontológica positiva, em Hegel. Ou seja, o modo como Hegel radicaliza o pensamento kantiano a partir de uma torção dialética puramente formal. No terceiro capítulo, a perspectiva da liberdade é deslocada agora para o campo da subjetividade, na relação dialética entre a Lei moral kantiana e o gozo sádico. Nesse sentido, procuro mostrar primeiramente como que Lacan articula Kant com Sade, para, em seguida, pensar como que o psicanalista procura uma saída para o princípio de liberdade kantiana a partir da Lei do desejo, o que nos permite pensar um Kant sem Sade. No quarto e último capítulo, passo para uma discussão propriamente política, onde questiono como é possível uma política verdadeiramente emancipatória, vinculada à ideia de luta de classe e ato político. Em cada ponto tratado, esforçamo-nos por radicalizar o princípio de liberdade humana em sua base materialista. O interessante na abordagem do materialismo dialético de Zizek é que, em momento algum, cabe substituir nossa realidade por outra melhor, mas apenas – e isso é o fundamental – radicalizar o que permanece in potentia na nossa.

Doing nothing, or inaction - typically defined by things like denial, avoidance, acceptance, complicity, laziness, collusion, or fear – is commonly conceived as an undesirable response to the structural violence and injustice of contemporary liberal-democratic capitalism. Subsequently, contemporary theories and practices of nonviolent action for building positive peace emphasise notions of participation, inclusion and the democratic voice as the basis for emancipatory politics. However, this emphasis on nonviolent and inclusive participation seems to only reinforce the violence of liberal-democratic capitalism and as such, ‘doing nothing’ appears in the guise of ‘doing something’. In a further twist, in contrast to claims made by contemporary theories of power and nonviolent action that there are immanent possibilities for resistance to power, our current predicament under the hegemony of liberal-democratic capitalism is actually experienced as a lack of viable options for transforming the structural violence of liberal capitalism. In the face of this closure of the socio-political imagination, participation has become a modern day fetish that serves to relieve us of the guilt that we are not doing enough to overcome the violence of liberal capitalism. In contrast to this fetishisation of nonviolent and inclusive participation, Zizek’s ‘politics of subtraction’ hints at a radically subversive form of violent inaction, one that has the potential to transform social and political power relations. Based on Zizek’s theoretical edifice, this research project aims to critique the assumptions surrounding ‘doing nothing’ in both peace theory and the theory of nonviolent action, and seeks to claim “doing nothing” as a subversive and emancipatory means of political transformation. Further, the project applies this notion of inactive violence to a case study of the democratization process in Fiji from 2012-2014 to examine liberal and traditional understandings of silence/inaction, and to explore possibilities for transforming four-decades of political instability and building peace with justice.