GCSC Keynote Lectures: Katharina Stornig: Eye/Witnessing, Media and the Un/Making of Solidarity: Transnational Aid in the Nineteenth Century

Katharina Stornig: Eye/Witnessing, Media and the Un/Making of Solidarity: Transnational Aid in the Nineteenth Century

This talk discusses the un/making of transnational relationships of aid and solidarity in the long nineteenth century. Since the 1830s, growing groups of Europeans actively supported others, who lived in large geographic distance and who did not belong to the same social, religious or national community. This transnational expansion of aid was largely due to the activities of Christian institutions, which, inspired by European imperialism and the growing missionary venture, started to massively promote support for distant others in need. Acknowledging the great importance of institutions and media in this context, my talk particularly explores the ways in which mediated information and knowledge about geographically distant societies and “cultures” worked out in the creation of solidarity, human concern and connectedness. Thereby, I particularly ask when and how mediated knowledge became culturally validated and potentially triggered support for some groups, while it encouraged indifference or even hostility towards others. Introducing the notion and practice of eye/witnessing as a means to produce facts (or truth) about geographically distant lives and needs, my talk also aims to speak to current concerns in today’s society with regard to the status of facts and emotions in social and political discourse and action. 

// Katharina Stornig