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Abstract

The domestication of suffering into pain and the translation of this pain into harm and injury starts off the process of admitting sufferers into the privileges of liberalism: the identity derived from this injury, the rights that compensate for the injury, and the interests that render injury fit for trade. Each stage of this process entails a series of translations, abstractions, and representations that are themselves suffered, not least when the sufferer self-represents as victim and when suffering that is not granted the status of injury within the liberal schema strikes back disoriented or triumphant.

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Notes

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© 2010 Asma Abbas

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Abbas, A. (2010). Theater of the Ascetic. In: Liberalism and Human Suffering. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230113541_3

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