It is the fragility of life, as well as the evolving nature of the epistemologies that call for new theories, that make uncertainty, ambivalence and contradictions livable. A politics of the strong that lashes out with cold statistics is not helpful when we try to understand the multiple crisis humanity is confronted with. Against the limitation of development to technical possibilities and the ignorance of the violence that comes with it, especially for vulnerable social groups, there is a need for the work of memorization. An embodied past should be cared for, instead of forgetting violence and the cruelty of hegemonic desires (Barad 2017). The transhumanist romanization of technology and digitalization should be countered with a theory of fragility that focusses on ambiguities, particularities and vulnerabilities of a future that is different and available through a journey of the past: as lost possibilities, which no longer should be sacrificed to politics of strength. Post/pandemic times demand to take fragility, suffering and the loss of the „other“ into account, which makes the lives of the majority fragile, too. (Bayramoğlu 2021) We need connections and relations that transgress political, organizational and identity-related borders. Following Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (2012), we will advocate for a training of ethical reflexes. Conscience, moral judgment and the critical mind must function. This is not feasible without learning that enables students and later citizens to grasp complexity as well as an unlearning of imperialist attitudes. The contribution will present a Theory of Fragility, which I developed together with my colleague Yener Bayramoğlu (2021). Central to this perspective is to show how ethical learning and the acceptance of interdependency is necessary to survive times of crisis. The theory of fragility draws on an alternative timeliness, which is borrowed from queer studies and calls for an epistemological change in the wake of postcolonial Studies. A pedagogy framed by a theory of fragility focuses on human interdependences and seeks possibilities to learn to live with uncertainties.

Barad, K. (2017): Troubling Time/s And Ecologies Of Nothingness: Re-Turnung, Re-Membering, And Facing The Incalculable“. In: New Formations 92 (31), p. 56-86. Bayramoğlu, Yener (2021): Border Panic Over The Pandemic: Mediated Anxieties About Migrant Sex Workers And Queers During The Aidfs Crises In Turkey“. In: Ethnic and Racial Studies 44 (9), p. 1589-1609. Bayramoğlu, Y. & Castro Varela, M. d. M. (2021): Post/pandemisches Leben. Eine neue Theorie der Fragilität. transcript Verlag, Bielefeld. Spivak, G. C. (2012): An Aesthetic Education in the Age of Globalization. Harvard University Press.