Paper short abstract:

Heartwork is a commitment of another kind. Heartwork is the labor and attention (fieldwork + homework) that must be nurtured to see and feel the intensities of others. It is extraneous endeavor; the lives of others should not be so easily consumable. It is work on top of work—heartwork is hard work.

Paper long abstract:

H e a r t ///// B r e a k

—Katherine McKittrick

I turn towards the heart and ask what does an analysis from the heart offer? What if we see the world this way? I look at feminist and Islamic epistemologies to learn more about the heart. I focus on heartbeats to understand knowledge as gift and heartwork as being integral to honoring our entanglements. While a lot of attention is directed at the author, should more be also demanded from the reader (the “adjudicator of knowledge”)? I also focus on another quality of the heart: its propensity for injury. A heartache is a productive condition, not a lamentable state that must be wished away but a necessary ontological position. Heartache is hermeneutic openness, departures from the world as is. An investment in the heart warrants the redrawing of the very parameters of thinking and writing—how we approach others, what constitutes our site of engagement, and how we choose to express devotion and to whom.

Heartwork is a commitment of another kind. Heartwork encapsulates the labor and attention (fieldwork + homework) that must be nurtured to see and feel the intensities of others. Heartwork is extraneous endeavor; the lives of others should not be so easily consumable. It is work on top of work—heartwork is hard work.