Agenda

20 Apr 2026 14:30

LAB DEA - Postmetropolitan Trauma: Terrorism, Reparation and the Work of Decolonization

Sala grande, II piano, Palazzo Marcorà Malcanton

Hélène Quiniou, Max Planck Institute
Postmetropolitan Trauma: Terrorism, Reparation and the Work of Decolonization

Abstract
Drawing on a genealogy of compensation schemes for victims of terrorism in France, Hélène Quiniou examines the entanglements of humanitarianism, state violence, and counterinsurgency. Tracing reparations from the Algerian War of Independence through the bombings of the 1980s and up to the post-2015 attacks, her work shows how compensation emerged not only as a humanitarian response but also as a political technology within the “war on terror”. This presentation proposes a Fanonian reading of these histories, bringing legal and archival materials into dialogue with the final chapter of The Wretched of the Earth on war neuroses. Through a discussion of the film L’Effroi des Hommes (1991), which addresses PTSD among veterans of the Algerian war and victims of terrorism, the presentation explores the psychic, colonial, and political continuities shaping contemporary figures of trauma, victimhood, and repair. Conceived as a potential chapter of an ongoing monograph, her presentation invites reflection on the colonial afterlives of counterterrorism and the ambivalences at the heart of modern humanitarianism.

Nota biografica
Hélène Quiniou earned her doctorate in Anthropology from Columbia University in 2023. She is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. She has worked extensively on issues of war and trauma, and has conducted ethnographic research at the trials for the 2015 Paris terror attacks. More recently, she has worked on a historical anthropology of images and gestures. Currently, she is working on her first monograph, Postmetropolitan Trauma: A History of the Present.

Ingresso libero - Seminario valido per il tirocinio DEA/ACEL.
Coordinatrice: Franca Tamisari: tamisari@unive.it

Organizzatore

Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici (Franca Tamisari); CentroAGeS; LAB DEA

Allegati

Locandina 265 KB

Cerca in agenda