Name: Sara Ahmed – ‘Behind many disasters are unheard complaints’
Start: 2025-10-20T19:00:00+01:00
End: 2025-10-20T20:30:00+01:00
Location: 14A Long Row, NG1 2DH Nottingham, United Kingdom

$Sara Ahmed \u2013 \u2018Behind many disasters are unheard complaints\u2019$

A moving exploration of the solace and power of listening in an unjust world, from the author of The Feminist Killjoy Handbook‘ launched by Five Leaves a couple of years back
To complain is an intimate, dangerous act. Whether it’s speaking up about racism in the workplace or taking a stand against sexual harassment at university, the act of complaining to an institution can leave you isolated and undermined, all while the original injustice remains unresolved. Time and time again, we see these unanswered complaints compound to disastrous effect.
In No is Not a Lonely Utterance, Sara Ahmed dissects the anatomy of a complaint, revealing how institutions create hostile environments that stigmatize complainers, and charts a way we can listen to grievances with ‘feminist ears’: going beyond mere validation and seeking instead to address the root causes of injustice and inequality.
Weaving together testimonies from various walks of life, Ahmed shows us what we learn about the ways institutions exercise their power when complaints are raised, and indeed what we learn about our capacity to collectivize and create social bonds through complaint. In doing so, she inspires us to create better environments for our life’s work.
Sara Ahmed is a feminist writer and independent scholar who works at the intersection of feminist, queer and race studies. Her research is concerned with how bodies and worlds take shape; and how power is secured and challenged in everyday life worlds as well as institutional cultures.