Tired of trying to belong: On affective justice and fatigue

In this article, I offer a critical phenomenological exploration of the affective dimension of the experience of indebtedness that many people racially construed as ‘immigrants’ describe being faced with. I have done so, more specifically, by turning the philosophical spotlight on the experience of fatigue resulting from the affective labor of having to constantly prove one’s belonging and loyalty to the nation. In particular, I discuss two questions: How can Shilol Whitney’s theory of ‘affective by-products’ and ‘affective injustice’ help us understand why fatigue functions a mark of injustice in accounts of marginalized lived experience? And what characterizes the internal dynamic of fatigue itself, as lived experience? I defend the subversive power of staying with fatigue in order to interrogate its meaning and power, and challenge the ‘passivist’ view of what it means to yield to fatigue. More generally, I argue that a critical phenomenology of fatigue offers a valuable contribution to contemporary philosophical debates concerning the often unacknowledged, affective labors of marginalized social groups.