Ungrievable Lives

Racism, Risk and Responsibility in Neoliberal Societies

Tanisha Spratt

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2026
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350400832
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Social Sciences

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the resurgence of Black Lives Matter (BLM) following the death of George Floyd, brought into stark clarity what scholars and activists have long argued – that when it comes to matters of sickness, health, life and death, some lives matter more than others.
In this original and much-needed exploration of attitudes towards (un)grievable lives, Spratt extends Judith Butler's theory of grievability to examine contemporary debates about blame, risk, death and dying in the context of racial disparities in health and mortality. Drawing on contemporary examples – from immigration policy and prison reform to medical ethics, health behaviours, and the denial of citizenship – Spratt reveals how neoliberal systems and attitudes produce hierarchies of human value. In doing so, she argues that racist, sexist and classist ideas about risk and vulnerability shape whose lives are protected and whose deaths are mourned, rendering some losses publicly grievable while others pass with little recognition.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface: A Note to the Reader
• Introduction: Conceptualizing Grievable Life
• 1 Embodied Trauma and the Burden of Blame: Rethinking Shame and Racialized ‘Obesity’ Through Roxane Gay’s Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
• 2 Ungrievability and Mass Incarceration: The Tragic Death of Kalief Browder
• 3 Understanding Black Lives as Grievable Lives: Black Lives Matter and the Murder of George Floyd
• 4 Ungrievability Unveiled: ‘Jihadi Brides’ and the Case of Shamima Begum
• 5 Child Death, Visual Consumption and Grievability Politics: Remembering Alan Kurdi
• Conclusion: Imagining Grievable Futures
• Index