Silence in political theory and practice

Abstract

Western political philosophy has been dominated by the idea of speech as the locus of subjectivity constitution, individual and collective. This has led to a neglect of silence and silent forms of political being. Taken for the absence of speech acts, silence has come to stand for the want or failure of agency. This special issue reconsiders silence in relation to both speech acts and other forms of political action. Equipped with new understandings of silence, it reassesses the role of silence and of silent agency in both democratic and authoritarian systems.

Listening by ‘Staying With’ the Absent Child

“…Voice has been central in the struggle for democracy and, throughout history, groups of people have gradually obtained their formal rights to be heard in society (Qvortrup, 2015). Voicing experiences, claiming the right to be both heard and listened to, has thus become a symbol for political recognition and empowerment, and the primary mode of democratic representation (e.g., James, 2007;Veiera, 2020). For this reason, voice is a central concept in child and childhood studies.…”