Anarchival tremors: Glitch, haunting, and an ethic of care

Abstract

In this article, I explore the implications of ‘glitch’, a rupture in systems of coherence and meaning, as both a theoretical and practical lens for creative arts therapies (CAT). Tracking arts-based methods, I weave together archival fragments and artworks with practitioner reflections. This discussion unfolds three constellations: Oceanic (and Other) Absences, which attends to colonial erasures and haunted matter; Gendered Silencing, which explores glitch as resistance within patriarchal archives; and Improvisatory Repair, which turns to embodied and therapeutic improvisation. Across these constellations, I theorise how glitches serve as potential sites of historical haunting, resistance, and anarchival emergence. Drawing on Avery Gordon’s notion of haunting and Legacy Russell’s glitch feminism, I position glitch as a haunting rupture, a spectral interruption through which silenced histories, affects, and identities reappear and reconfigure meaning. I conclude with a call for a glitch-attuned ethic of care in clinical and institutional settings