Is it possible to fight colonialism as a past and a present underlying structure in culturally diverse societies without contributing even further to political polarization? One of the most important societal challenges world-wide is increasing economic, social and cultural inequity, leading to politically polarized societies. Social unrest around Europe’s colonial past, still present as an undeniable heritage in cities, institutions, and international relationships, has pointed to colonialism as an unacknowledged and haunting past that needs to be dealt with to bridge the incommensurable differences between minority and majority cultures in heterogeneous and diverse societies. Mobilization of both minorities and majorities around decolonial agendas has most often been fueled by anger, resentment, and fear and has, in Denmark and elsewhere, resulted in mutual accusations of racism and the exclusion of adversaries, thus, leading to further polarization. Even though anger is an apt feeling towards centuries of injustice, Playing with ghosts investigates how decolonial art can and does offer an alternative to the antagonistic clashes through the creation of affective ambivalent and playful modes of exchange that enable new forms of critique, subject formations and facilitate encounters between socially and culturally diverse groups.
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