Saying No to Guilt: Subaltern Cosmopolitanism and the Indebted Man

Abstract

This article explores how cosmopolitanism can serve as a key critical concept for thinking about subaltern practices through which to resist neoliberal economic and affective conditions. Drawing on the work of subaltern theorists I develop a theory of cosmopolitanism that envisions the indebted man as the locus of grassroots contestations of neoliberal institutions and policies, namely debt and the deployment of guilt. Unlike scholars such as Lazzarato and Joseph, who illuminate the current biopolitics of debt, I show that the destruction of biopolitical debt can be collectively imagined and exercised. Focusing on the 2012 revolts against austerity economics in Romania and Spain, but also drawing on other protest movements, I examine the affective practices that are deployed to interrupt the production of neoliberal debt. Whereas Hardt and Negri suggest that love has the capacity to bring about political protest, I argue that ‘saying no to guilt’ is a key strategy for activist groups and movements I analyze. The payoff of this article is to show that the creation of spaces for collective transformation and non-work strengthens a theory of cosmopolitanism.