Topolitics of the Safe Space

Abstract:This paper reflects on the political topology of "safe spaces" today and the logics of their advocacy by minoritized and oppressed groups. To do so, it draws on Derrida, a relentless thinker of aporetic topology. Safe spaces can be described as immunitary structures built or called upon against real and/or perceived threats, whose modes of defense, however, might well threaten the defeat of their purpose. A certain politics of immunity may turn into an auto-immune mechanism whereby, in Derrida's terms, the defense against the perceived external danger turns upon itself and, as such, attacks itself, thus jeopardizing, in the case in point, the democratic ideal it means to uphold. Derrida's political topology and his thinking about democracy can help us tackle the aporetic structure of the safe space as well as the complications—but also the promises—of such political gestures. Conversely, contemporary demands for safety emanating from stigmatized minorities, whether sexual or racial, can help us read Derrida anew by locating his emphasis on immunity and auto-immunity within the trauma-induced politics of resistance to injury.