Abstract

Fredrikzon and Haffenden (2023) argue that the so-called notion of erasure has remained largely under-researched. But what does erasure mean—how does it operate and how is it reproduced, particularly in relation to global capitalism? Contrary to the inclination to individualize the repressive character of erasure, this text will aspire to thematize erasure as a constitutive mechanism of global capitalism that permeates its logic. Stemming from distinct disciplinary areas yet which intersect in various ways, this research will therefore investigate erasure as a notion that is not isolated but related to its political, social, cultural, physical, and technological dimensions and processes that give meaning to it within a temporal horizon. Thus, the central thesis of this paper will be that the process of erasure needs to be understood as the essential element of modernity, appearing uncompromisingly in its histories and in particular in contemporary politics.