Bachelor thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (BSc)
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Unconditional love is theorized across different fields to be key for making our politics more forgiving and our social justice more effective. This is because of love’s 1) willed character in...Show moreUnconditional love is theorized across different fields to be key for making our politics more forgiving and our social justice more effective. This is because of love’s 1) willed character in contrast to mere sentimentalism, 2) its dynamic tendency towards turning love into action and help, 3) the forgiveness it brings that is necessary for embracing the heterogeneity of politics, 4) the purpose and embrace it can give to the anger that sprouts out of societal injustice, 5) the embodiedness and personal touch that they give to policies of care, and 6) a common interest with justice towards giving loveable people what they deserve. However, this is not just theory, and as a proper anthropologist I have shown how different actors longing for social justice put this love-justice relation into practice. Ranging from meditating to embody love and turn political and societal ideals of embrace into a reality, to seeing love as entailing and impulsing a drive towards LGBT+ inclusion campaigns and justice, all across the world love is employed as a vital component for making a better world. I have argued that unconditional love has a wide variety of benefits it can bring to social justice, both seen by academics and by actors that put this into practice. Because in the end, love’s dynamic character cannot let us sit still when we see that those we love deserve better.Show less
