Susana Draper, Princeton professor: ‘The calling out of aggressors on social media often reproduces the tics of the punitive system’

The political theses of Susana Draper, 49, are based on collective wisdom. A literature professor at Princeton University, the training ground of the U.S. elite, she rejects academicism in favor of “learning by doing” when it comes to social movements. She herself has been active in anti-capitalist struggles like Occupy Wall Street.

“There is an idea that the only legitimate knowledge is that of the university, but that idea excludes many people,” she says at the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, at the presentation of her book Free and Fearless: Feminist Horizons and Alternative Justice, an instruction manual for stopping gender-based violence from taking place in our immediate surroundings.

Question. You are critical of singling out alleged aggressors.

Answer. The escrache (call-out) has its own political history, it first emerged in Argentinian neighborhood in the context of denouncing the officials of the military dictatorship. On social media, it has begun to be used as a way of making once-silenced testimonies heard, but it often reproduces certain tics of the punitive system and can be retraumatizing. The key is to ask ourselves why we are mobilizing. Is the goal simply to make the accused disappear, perhaps to disqualify him or her? That is the function of prison, which has clearly not succeeded in putting an end to violence.

Q. The #MeToo movement gained widespread prevalence online in 2017. You might call the internet its natural habitat.

A. Social media creates the illusion that it is connecting us, but it very much separates us. That’s why popular feminist movements, under slogans like #MeToo and #NiUnaMenos, grounded us in everyday life. They showed that abuse goes beyond singular cases, that it is something systematic, and began to present theories as to how we could address it without reproducing punitive logic or resorting to lethal situations. Just talking is not curative, we need to draw a common horizon.

Q. Throughout the book, you trace certain feminist experiences that go in that direction.

A. For example, that of Creative Interventions, a U.S. group that began to compile practical tools, stories of people who were able to address violence in their immediate surroundings. One of them stands out: the experience of a mother who practices with her adolescent son how to react if several boys take a girl away from a party. These are basic things, but when we only know how to turn to the police, we deprive ourselves of learning how to act before harm occurs.

Q. What can one do if the partner of someone close to you begins to show signs of aggressiveness?

A. There are no magic formulas, but it is important to pay attention to the person’s context. It is well established that serious cases of gender-based violence rarely begin suddenly, but rather, in a gradual way. Thinking of new horizons of feminist justice means anticipating that moment; getting into contact with those who are close to the person who could eventually cause harm so that they can help them to get rid of that attitude and support the other party involved.

Q. That happens by forging bonds in a world in which many people feel alone.

A. The key is that our cry against the culture of sexual violence can be translated into other ways of connecting, relating and educating ourselves. That’s why the movements for proper material conditions, like those of housing and food autonomy, are so important. They constitute another way of being with each other.

Q. Should social services carry out this kind of preventative work?

A. The ones that I am familiar with are overly professionalized and tied to the policing system. Their actions are guided by the universal subjectivity of the white middle class, with little concern for the base of the social pyramid. In the United States, it’s quite normal for a migrant woman to decide not to report out of fear of being deported. What do we do in those cases? I would say that social workers have to maximize community autonomy, instead of incentivizing more dependence on the government.

Q. Is the reactionary movement currently sweeping America cause for concern?

A. It is important to see it as a reaction to the social processes that have taken place in recent years, like the advance of feminism. It’s clear that those governments look to intensify surveillance systems and make us think that the solution to growing violence is the construction of more prisons. The case of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador is the most visible case of this, but there is also the model of Patricia Bullrich in Argentina. You look at photographs of Salvadorean prisoners and what you see are very young, poor and racialized boys.

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