Abstract
As the world bears witness to the first live-streamed genocide1 in history with full collaboration of the so-called free world, whatever ethics had been defined and legally encoded by imperial powers in the aftermath of the Second World War are no longer functioning or indeed relevant. Instead at individual and collective levels, we must develop a more relational and nested approach to ethical caring; one that moves beyond saviourism and distant witnessing. To demonstrate this relationality, we present our thinking through a dialogic genre of creative and critical reflections and interventions. This dialogue draws and builds on entanglements of anti-coloniality and pre-coloniality to introduce the idea of kinship as ethical caring in genocidal times. We anchor our thinking in poetry of witness, written by the first author, to assert the inseparability of arts, politics, ethics and aesthetics. This paper is intended as reparative work in and of itself that joins the dots between vulnerability, care, kinship, solidarities and transnational communal liberations. As such, it offers a thinking process and demonstration for the daunting work of healing, reconnecting, and re-imagining old-new possibilities for and as remaking of life.
1 “Israel has Committed Genocide in the Gaza Strip, UN Commission Finds.” United Nations Human Rights Council, 16 Sept. 2025, ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-committed-genocide-gaza-strip-un-commission-finds?sub-site=HRC. Press release.
Recommended Citation
Badwan, Khawla and Singh, Sunny Prof
(2026)
"Kinship as Ethical Caring in Genocidal Times,"
Gatherings: Vol. 3:
Iss.
2, Article 4.
Available at:
https://fisherpub.sjf.edu/gatherings/vol3/iss2/4