The insistence on exclusion: The anti‐integrative impulse and thwarted mourning in large groups.

This paper explores resistance to equality‐promoting measures as the external manifestation of thwarted mourning of losses incurred in social trauma. This resistance, which is evidenced in backlashes against social justice, is termed the anti‐integrative impulse. Outlining the unconscious mechanisms that undergird both the desires for equality and desires to maintain inequality, the central importance of mourning in social equality movements will be established, using Moglen's model of mourning social injury and Butler's work on grievability. Common defenses against social justice efforts will be discussed and understood in terms of refusal to mourn collective losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]