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Taking my point of departure in a school’s neglection of the harassment of two Roma children I ask how it is possible to be placed outside an order that is supposed to support and protect all children regardless of their social, cultural, and ethnic background. The article is divided in three parts. Using Agamben’s understanding of bio-politics and the making of the non-human I illuminate how it is possible to expose children to structural violence by reducing them to non-humans, less worthy than others. There after I explore the foundations of Agamben’s terra ethica. An ethics that takes us beyond responsibility and dignity not only erases the division between worthy and non worthy beings, it also turns the question of identity into a non-question. With this ethics in mind, I return to the case of the Roma children, and arrive at the conclusion that instead of clinging on to an epistemological conformity that produces an order that actually makes exclusion possible, we ought to let the difference be.

Författare: Niclas Månsson

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Utbildning & Demokrati 3/2010