Wilfred Beckerman
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198294894
- eISBN:
- 9780191599064
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198294891.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Environmental Politics
Wilfred Beckerman argues that the answer to the sustainability question, ‘what to sustain?’, should not be restricted to some category of the environment, but should refer to the political and social ...
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Wilfred Beckerman argues that the answer to the sustainability question, ‘what to sustain?’, should not be restricted to some category of the environment, but should refer to the political and social institutions and norms that will guarantee personal liberty and respect for human rights. He is sceptical of arguments in favour of inter‐generational egalitarianism, in part because he sees no reason to invest present levels of welfare with the normative significance that supporters of sustainable development claim for them. He argues, instead, for an ‘extended humanitarianism’ that would take the suffering of the present poor seriously and would entail concern for future generations and even for animals.Less
Wilfred Beckerman argues that the answer to the sustainability question, ‘what to sustain?’, should not be restricted to some category of the environment, but should refer to the political and social institutions and norms that will guarantee personal liberty and respect for human rights. He is sceptical of arguments in favour of inter‐generational egalitarianism, in part because he sees no reason to invest present levels of welfare with the normative significance that supporters of sustainable development claim for them. He argues, instead, for an ‘extended humanitarianism’ that would take the suffering of the present poor seriously and would entail concern for future generations and even for animals.
Wilfred Beckerman and Joanna Pasek
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199245086
- eISBN:
- 9780191598784
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199245088.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Environmental Politics
Discusses one principle that has been suggested as a guide to the way we ought to take account of the interests of future generations, namely the principle of intergenerational ‘equity’ and its ...
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Discusses one principle that has been suggested as a guide to the way we ought to take account of the interests of future generations, namely the principle of intergenerational ‘equity’ and its related claim of intergenerational equality, particularly in spheres such as the way we should share out ‘finite’ resources among generations. This chapter examines the possible arguments in favour of intergenerational egalitarianism and concludes that they are difficult to defend. It is proposed that egalitarianism should be replaced by the principle of ‘threshold prioritarianism’, so that our moral obligation to future generations should be based on a humanitarian concern to avoid policies that may impoverish them.Less
Discusses one principle that has been suggested as a guide to the way we ought to take account of the interests of future generations, namely the principle of intergenerational ‘equity’ and its related claim of intergenerational equality, particularly in spheres such as the way we should share out ‘finite’ resources among generations. This chapter examines the possible arguments in favour of intergenerational egalitarianism and concludes that they are difficult to defend. It is proposed that egalitarianism should be replaced by the principle of ‘threshold prioritarianism’, so that our moral obligation to future generations should be based on a humanitarian concern to avoid policies that may impoverish them.
Wilfred Beckerman and Joanna Pasek
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199245086
- eISBN:
- 9780191598784
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199245088.003.0010
- Subject:
- Political Science, Environmental Politics
Some current environmental problems are global and have public good elements that raise, in an acute form, the question of how the costs of a collective effort from which the world as a whole will ...
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Some current environmental problems are global and have public good elements that raise, in an acute form, the question of how the costs of a collective effort from which the world as a whole will benefit should be shared out among poor and rich countries. This chapter discusses how far theories of justice provide guidance to this question. It argues that the answer seems to be ‘very little’ and that, in order to arrive at some ground rules for allocating the burden of global environmental protection between countries—as between generations—we are forced back on humanitarian principles of concern for the poor.Less
Some current environmental problems are global and have public good elements that raise, in an acute form, the question of how the costs of a collective effort from which the world as a whole will benefit should be shared out among poor and rich countries. This chapter discusses how far theories of justice provide guidance to this question. It argues that the answer seems to be ‘very little’ and that, in order to arrive at some ground rules for allocating the burden of global environmental protection between countries—as between generations—we are forced back on humanitarian principles of concern for the poor.
Nicholas J. Wheeler
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199253104
- eISBN:
- 9780191600302
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199253102.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Investigates why Vietnam was so heavily sanctioned for its use of force against the murderous regime of Pol Pot. The reactions of other states reflected the domination of a pluralist conception of ...
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Investigates why Vietnam was so heavily sanctioned for its use of force against the murderous regime of Pol Pot. The reactions of other states reflected the domination of a pluralist conception of international society. However, I argue that Vietnam's use of force should have been legitimated on solidarist grounds as humanitarian.Less
Investigates why Vietnam was so heavily sanctioned for its use of force against the murderous regime of Pol Pot. The reactions of other states reflected the domination of a pluralist conception of international society. However, I argue that Vietnam's use of force should have been legitimated on solidarist grounds as humanitarian.
Gil Loescher
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199246915
- eISBN:
- 9780191599781
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199246912.003.0009
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
The 1990s ushered in a new era in which humanitarian issues played a historically unprecedented role in international politics. Refugee movements in northern Iraq, Somalia, former Yugoslavia, and ...
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The 1990s ushered in a new era in which humanitarian issues played a historically unprecedented role in international politics. Refugee movements in northern Iraq, Somalia, former Yugoslavia, and Haiti were the subject of increasing discussion in political and military fora such as the UN Security Council and NATO. Forced displacements were also at the centre of crises in the African Great Lakes region, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Albania, Kosovo, and East Timor. The eighth High Commissioner, Sadako Ogata, initiated changes within UNHCR that permitted it to respond to internal displacements in ongoing civil wars as well as to promote mass repatriation movements to countries of origin in Central America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. These events have significant implications for the protection of refugees and for the future of humanitarianism.Less
The 1990s ushered in a new era in which humanitarian issues played a historically unprecedented role in international politics. Refugee movements in northern Iraq, Somalia, former Yugoslavia, and Haiti were the subject of increasing discussion in political and military fora such as the UN Security Council and NATO. Forced displacements were also at the centre of crises in the African Great Lakes region, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Albania, Kosovo, and East Timor. The eighth High Commissioner, Sadako Ogata, initiated changes within UNHCR that permitted it to respond to internal displacements in ongoing civil wars as well as to promote mass repatriation movements to countries of origin in Central America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. These events have significant implications for the protection of refugees and for the future of humanitarianism.
Didier Fassin
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691157382
- eISBN:
- 9781400846801
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691157382.003.0006
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This chapter examines the politics of childhood in the context of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. It employs the concept of “moral economy” to address the ways in which the tragedy of orphanhood became ...
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This chapter examines the politics of childhood in the context of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. It employs the concept of “moral economy” to address the ways in which the tragedy of orphanhood became crystallized as a notion; the constellation of moral sentiments within which it has become entangled; the political debates in which orphanhood has been deployed and transformed; and the interventions that have relied on it as an orienting principle. It proposes to consider moral economies as “the production, distribution, circulation, and utilization of moral sentiments, emotions and values, norms and obligations in the social space.” Understood in this way, moral economy is constructed around social issues, such as immigration, violence, poverty—and childhood—in particular historical contexts. The chapter explores the interface between the global circulation and utilization of moral sentiments with regard to children, and their local production and distribution, as part of a larger project of a moral history of the present focused on “humanitarian reason.” The politics of childhood is particularly relevant to our understanding of humanitarianism—its aspirations and its contradictions.Less
This chapter examines the politics of childhood in the context of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. It employs the concept of “moral economy” to address the ways in which the tragedy of orphanhood became crystallized as a notion; the constellation of moral sentiments within which it has become entangled; the political debates in which orphanhood has been deployed and transformed; and the interventions that have relied on it as an orienting principle. It proposes to consider moral economies as “the production, distribution, circulation, and utilization of moral sentiments, emotions and values, norms and obligations in the social space.” Understood in this way, moral economy is constructed around social issues, such as immigration, violence, poverty—and childhood—in particular historical contexts. The chapter explores the interface between the global circulation and utilization of moral sentiments with regard to children, and their local production and distribution, as part of a larger project of a moral history of the present focused on “humanitarian reason.” The politics of childhood is particularly relevant to our understanding of humanitarianism—its aspirations and its contradictions.
Elizabeth E. Prevost
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199570744
- eISBN:
- 9780191722097
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570744.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
This chapter places Anglican missionary feminism in the broader context of internationalism and anti‐imperialism between the wars. In the wake of the destruction of the First World War, missionaries ...
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This chapter places Anglican missionary feminism in the broader context of internationalism and anti‐imperialism between the wars. In the wake of the destruction of the First World War, missionaries reassessed Christianity and colonialism relative to one another, and used gendered ideals of maternalism and humanitarianism to construct a discourse of material and spiritual regeneration. Informed by other supra‐national experiments of the 1920s such as the League of Nations and the ecumenical movement, missionaries and supporters construed a new world order in which ‘Christian internationalism’ would replace imperialism, and female religious authority would enact a comprehensive transformation of social relations that would mitigate hierarchical constructions of gender, class, and race. Maude Royden was among the more vocal critics of an imperialist, capitalist, patriarchal status quo; yet she also personified an uneasy balance of optimism and ambivalence about how to reconcile the mixed record of the global church as well as the empire.Less
This chapter places Anglican missionary feminism in the broader context of internationalism and anti‐imperialism between the wars. In the wake of the destruction of the First World War, missionaries reassessed Christianity and colonialism relative to one another, and used gendered ideals of maternalism and humanitarianism to construct a discourse of material and spiritual regeneration. Informed by other supra‐national experiments of the 1920s such as the League of Nations and the ecumenical movement, missionaries and supporters construed a new world order in which ‘Christian internationalism’ would replace imperialism, and female religious authority would enact a comprehensive transformation of social relations that would mitigate hierarchical constructions of gender, class, and race. Maude Royden was among the more vocal critics of an imperialist, capitalist, patriarchal status quo; yet she also personified an uneasy balance of optimism and ambivalence about how to reconcile the mixed record of the global church as well as the empire.
Webb Keane
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691167732
- eISBN:
- 9781400873593
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691167732.003.0009
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This concluding chapter discusses the universal aspirations of contemporary human rights and humanitarian movements and the problems that they face. The human rights movement aims to realize the ...
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This concluding chapter discusses the universal aspirations of contemporary human rights and humanitarian movements and the problems that they face. The human rights movement aims to realize the assertion in the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Meanwhile, humanitarianism tends to focus on suffering and the prevention or amelioration of physical harm. Both movements, however, are predicated on ethical universality in principle and its global reach in practice. That is, since ethical values, the sentiments they should induce, and the obligations they impose pertain to all humans, so too should ethical agency be indifferent to any distinctions of culture, ethnicity, religion, gender, age, or political divisions.Less
This concluding chapter discusses the universal aspirations of contemporary human rights and humanitarian movements and the problems that they face. The human rights movement aims to realize the assertion in the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Meanwhile, humanitarianism tends to focus on suffering and the prevention or amelioration of physical harm. Both movements, however, are predicated on ethical universality in principle and its global reach in practice. That is, since ethical values, the sentiments they should induce, and the obligations they impose pertain to all humans, so too should ethical agency be indifferent to any distinctions of culture, ethnicity, religion, gender, age, or political divisions.
Neville Wylie
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199547593
- eISBN:
- 9780191720581
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199547593.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter takes a broad view of British POW policy‐making over the war by highlighting the part played by the Dominion governments. It shows how the Dominions came, over time, to acknowledge their ...
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This chapter takes a broad view of British POW policy‐making over the war by highlighting the part played by the Dominion governments. It shows how the Dominions came, over time, to acknowledge their individual responsibility for their nationals in enemy captivity, and how this reflected their growing maturity as independent members of the international community. Waxing concern in the Dominions over the fate of their prisoners led to demand for an increased say in Whitehall policy‐making. Particular emphasis is given to the role of the Canadian government, and the Canadian high commissioner in London, Sir Vincent Massey, in challenging British policy during the shackling crisis, and elevating humanitarianism to the centre of Canadian diplomacy over the middle years of the war.Less
This chapter takes a broad view of British POW policy‐making over the war by highlighting the part played by the Dominion governments. It shows how the Dominions came, over time, to acknowledge their individual responsibility for their nationals in enemy captivity, and how this reflected their growing maturity as independent members of the international community. Waxing concern in the Dominions over the fate of their prisoners led to demand for an increased say in Whitehall policy‐making. Particular emphasis is given to the role of the Canadian government, and the Canadian high commissioner in London, Sir Vincent Massey, in challenging British policy during the shackling crisis, and elevating humanitarianism to the centre of Canadian diplomacy over the middle years of the war.
Nicola Mai
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226584959
- eISBN:
- 9780226585147
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226585147.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
The book draws on unique and original research on the experiences of women, men, transgender people, minors and third party agents working in the sex industry in a variety of settings and jobs in the ...
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The book draws on unique and original research on the experiences of women, men, transgender people, minors and third party agents working in the sex industry in a variety of settings and jobs in the European Union, the Balkans and North Africa. Mobile Orientations addresses a critical issue within the transformation of global societies: the relation between the increase in migration flows, the expansion of the sex industry and the emergence of new forms of agency and exploitation. Moral panics about migrant ‘sex slaves’ being exploited in the global sex industry obfuscate the reality that only a minority is actually trafficked. The original research evidence analysed in Mobile Orientations counters the scenario of hegemonic exploitation presented by such moral panics. It shows that by migrating and working in the global sex industry, young women and men find opportunities to counter the increased precariousness and exploitability they meet in neoliberal times. The book’s autoethnographic writing style expresses the main theoretical contribution Mobile Orientations aims to make: to provide a nuanced and emic analysis of the complex understandings of agency and exploitation of migrants working in the global sex industry. The discussion of the methodological and expressive opportunities (and challenges) offered by ethnography and participatory filmmaking is integral part of the argument made by Mobile Orientations, which ultimately challenges the criteria of scientific and documentary authenticity and the forms of social exclusion engendered by the convergence between sexual humanitarianism and neoliberalism.Less
The book draws on unique and original research on the experiences of women, men, transgender people, minors and third party agents working in the sex industry in a variety of settings and jobs in the European Union, the Balkans and North Africa. Mobile Orientations addresses a critical issue within the transformation of global societies: the relation between the increase in migration flows, the expansion of the sex industry and the emergence of new forms of agency and exploitation. Moral panics about migrant ‘sex slaves’ being exploited in the global sex industry obfuscate the reality that only a minority is actually trafficked. The original research evidence analysed in Mobile Orientations counters the scenario of hegemonic exploitation presented by such moral panics. It shows that by migrating and working in the global sex industry, young women and men find opportunities to counter the increased precariousness and exploitability they meet in neoliberal times. The book’s autoethnographic writing style expresses the main theoretical contribution Mobile Orientations aims to make: to provide a nuanced and emic analysis of the complex understandings of agency and exploitation of migrants working in the global sex industry. The discussion of the methodological and expressive opportunities (and challenges) offered by ethnography and participatory filmmaking is integral part of the argument made by Mobile Orientations, which ultimately challenges the criteria of scientific and documentary authenticity and the forms of social exclusion engendered by the convergence between sexual humanitarianism and neoliberalism.
Adam Branch
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199782086
- eISBN:
- 9780199919130
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199782086.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Western intervention has become a ubiquitous feature of violent conflict in Africa. Humanitarian aid agencies, community peacebuilders, microcredit promoters, children’s rights activists, the World ...
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Western intervention has become a ubiquitous feature of violent conflict in Africa. Humanitarian aid agencies, community peacebuilders, microcredit promoters, children’s rights activists, the World Bank, the International Criminal Court, the US military, and numerous others have involved themselves in African conflicts, all claiming to bring peace and human rights to situations where they are desperately needed. However, according to Adam Branch, Western intervention is not the solution to violence in Africa but, instead, can be a major part of the problem, often undermining human rights and even prolonging war and intensifying anti-civilian violence. Based on an extended case study of Western intervention into northern Uganda’s twenty-year civil war, and drawing on his own extensive research and human rights activism there, this book lays bare the reductive understandings motivating Western intervention in Africa, the inadequate tools it insists on employing, its refusal to be accountable to African citizenries, and, most important, its counterproductive consequences for peace, human rights, and justice. In short, Branch demonstrates how Western interventions undermine the efforts Africans themselves are undertaking to end violence in their own communities. The book does not end with critique, however. Motivated by a commitment to global justice, it proposes concrete changes for Western humanitarian, peacebuilding, and justice interventions as well as a new normative framework for re-orienting the Western approach to violent conflict in Africa around a practice of genuine solidarity.Less
Western intervention has become a ubiquitous feature of violent conflict in Africa. Humanitarian aid agencies, community peacebuilders, microcredit promoters, children’s rights activists, the World Bank, the International Criminal Court, the US military, and numerous others have involved themselves in African conflicts, all claiming to bring peace and human rights to situations where they are desperately needed. However, according to Adam Branch, Western intervention is not the solution to violence in Africa but, instead, can be a major part of the problem, often undermining human rights and even prolonging war and intensifying anti-civilian violence. Based on an extended case study of Western intervention into northern Uganda’s twenty-year civil war, and drawing on his own extensive research and human rights activism there, this book lays bare the reductive understandings motivating Western intervention in Africa, the inadequate tools it insists on employing, its refusal to be accountable to African citizenries, and, most important, its counterproductive consequences for peace, human rights, and justice. In short, Branch demonstrates how Western interventions undermine the efforts Africans themselves are undertaking to end violence in their own communities. The book does not end with critique, however. Motivated by a commitment to global justice, it proposes concrete changes for Western humanitarian, peacebuilding, and justice interventions as well as a new normative framework for re-orienting the Western approach to violent conflict in Africa around a practice of genuine solidarity.
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691166094
- eISBN:
- 9781400873814
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691166094.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This chapter introduces the “two faces of faith” discourse that shapes the contemporary global governance of religious diversity. It explains how this discourse shapes contemporary international ...
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This chapter introduces the “two faces of faith” discourse that shapes the contemporary global governance of religious diversity. It explains how this discourse shapes contemporary international politics and policy, and illustrates its impact on the politics of transnational humanitarian assistance in North Africa. The North African example demonstrates how the “two faces” framework shapes the lives of the Sahrawi refugees in southwestern Algeria, one of many contexts in which the global dynamics of good religion-bad religion have materialized. The discussion also develops the distinction that is central to the argument of this book between religion as construed by those in positions of power—expert religion and governed religion, of which the “two faces” is an example, and a broader field of cultural and religious practice.Less
This chapter introduces the “two faces of faith” discourse that shapes the contemporary global governance of religious diversity. It explains how this discourse shapes contemporary international politics and policy, and illustrates its impact on the politics of transnational humanitarian assistance in North Africa. The North African example demonstrates how the “two faces” framework shapes the lives of the Sahrawi refugees in southwestern Algeria, one of many contexts in which the global dynamics of good religion-bad religion have materialized. The discussion also develops the distinction that is central to the argument of this book between religion as construed by those in positions of power—expert religion and governed religion, of which the “two faces” is an example, and a broader field of cultural and religious practice.
Davide Rodogno
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691151335
- eISBN:
- 9781400840014
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691151335.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
This epilogue discusses the European powers' humanitarian interventions from the interwar period and since 1989. It first considers the massacres, atrocities, and other abuses committed during World ...
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This epilogue discusses the European powers' humanitarian interventions from the interwar period and since 1989. It first considers the massacres, atrocities, and other abuses committed during World War I and World War II before looking at interventions during the Cold War (1945–1989). It then compares instances of humanitarian intervention and nonintervention since 1989 with those of the nineteenth century. It also examines humanitarian intervention as a means of addressing threats to international peace and security, nineteenth-century humanitarian interventions as ex post facto events with unexceptional outcomes and unintended consequences, and the transformation of intervention from one focused on short-term rescue to one focused on long-term protection of victims of massacres and atrocities. Finally, the chapter explores public opinion regarding humanitarian intervention, the emergence of “new humanitarianism,” and the United Nations's The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) document.Less
This epilogue discusses the European powers' humanitarian interventions from the interwar period and since 1989. It first considers the massacres, atrocities, and other abuses committed during World War I and World War II before looking at interventions during the Cold War (1945–1989). It then compares instances of humanitarian intervention and nonintervention since 1989 with those of the nineteenth century. It also examines humanitarian intervention as a means of addressing threats to international peace and security, nineteenth-century humanitarian interventions as ex post facto events with unexceptional outcomes and unintended consequences, and the transformation of intervention from one focused on short-term rescue to one focused on long-term protection of victims of massacres and atrocities. Finally, the chapter explores public opinion regarding humanitarian intervention, the emergence of “new humanitarianism,” and the United Nations's The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) document.
Adam Branch
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199782086
- eISBN:
- 9780199919130
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199782086.003.0000
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
The introduction presents the dominant image informing Western intervention in Africa: helpless African victims in need of external saviors. It shows how this image, as it motivates interventionist ...
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The introduction presents the dominant image informing Western intervention in Africa: helpless African victims in need of external saviors. It shows how this image, as it motivates interventionist practice, gives rise to the paradox of human rights intervention: that intervention can entrench or even give rise to the very problems—the human rights violations—it claims to be resolving. The result is that, instead of fulfilling their stated liberal aspirations, human rights interventions can converge upon arbitrary power, corruption, and violence on the local, national, and international levels. The chapter then places intervention in its international political context, before going on to briefly describe the book’s methodology.Less
The introduction presents the dominant image informing Western intervention in Africa: helpless African victims in need of external saviors. It shows how this image, as it motivates interventionist practice, gives rise to the paradox of human rights intervention: that intervention can entrench or even give rise to the very problems—the human rights violations—it claims to be resolving. The result is that, instead of fulfilling their stated liberal aspirations, human rights interventions can converge upon arbitrary power, corruption, and violence on the local, national, and international levels. The chapter then places intervention in its international political context, before going on to briefly describe the book’s methodology.
Adam Branch
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199782086
- eISBN:
- 9780199919130
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199782086.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Chapter 3 addresses the politics of relief aid distribution as it has been reframed within a human rights-based approach. The chapter explicates the epistemology, techniques, and effects of relief ...
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Chapter 3 addresses the politics of relief aid distribution as it has been reframed within a human rights-based approach. The chapter explicates the epistemology, techniques, and effects of relief aid in general and as evidenced in northern Uganda. It argues that, because of the Uganda government’s international political relations, relief aid has been allowed be incorporated into its counterinsurgency with highly destructive consequences, most evident in the archipelago of forced internment camps run by the Ugandan military and international aid agencies. The chapter also shows how the administrative aspect of relief aid tends to discipline the recipients of aid as helpless, passive victims and to criminalize those who refuse that aid.Less
Chapter 3 addresses the politics of relief aid distribution as it has been reframed within a human rights-based approach. The chapter explicates the epistemology, techniques, and effects of relief aid in general and as evidenced in northern Uganda. It argues that, because of the Uganda government’s international political relations, relief aid has been allowed be incorporated into its counterinsurgency with highly destructive consequences, most evident in the archipelago of forced internment camps run by the Ugandan military and international aid agencies. The chapter also shows how the administrative aspect of relief aid tends to discipline the recipients of aid as helpless, passive victims and to criminalize those who refuse that aid.
Alex de Waal
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199739073
- eISBN:
- 9780199855872
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199739073.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter takes an anthropological look at the principles, institutions, and practices of humanitarianism. The chapter finds that the ethics and norms inherent in the humanitarian encounter ...
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This chapter takes an anthropological look at the principles, institutions, and practices of humanitarianism. The chapter finds that the ethics and norms inherent in the humanitarian encounter frequently reflect the fact that good intentions can have unintended and harmful consequences. This analysis looks at development programs, humanitarian efforts, human rights organizations, and peacemaking initiatives. It is argued that the ethics of humanitarianism may indeed be compromised as humanitarians engage with political reality. However, this engagement elevates politics overall. The principles and rules of humanitarian institutions can constrain power, and its adverse impact on philanthropy. In a case study of the Sudan, however, the chapter finds that Sudanese politics and society overwhelm and subvert humanitarian ethics and norms.Less
This chapter takes an anthropological look at the principles, institutions, and practices of humanitarianism. The chapter finds that the ethics and norms inherent in the humanitarian encounter frequently reflect the fact that good intentions can have unintended and harmful consequences. This analysis looks at development programs, humanitarian efforts, human rights organizations, and peacemaking initiatives. It is argued that the ethics of humanitarianism may indeed be compromised as humanitarians engage with political reality. However, this engagement elevates politics overall. The principles and rules of humanitarian institutions can constrain power, and its adverse impact on philanthropy. In a case study of the Sudan, however, the chapter finds that Sudanese politics and society overwhelm and subvert humanitarian ethics and norms.
Chiara Lepora and Robert E. Goodin
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199677900
- eISBN:
- 9780191757273
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199677900.003.0009
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter concludes, summarizing the book. Good intentions are not enough; it matters morally what happens in consequence. Complicity makes a potential causal contribution to the wrongdoing of ...
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This chapter concludes, summarizing the book. Good intentions are not enough; it matters morally what happens in consequence. Complicity makes a potential causal contribution to the wrongdoing of another, and is pro tanto blameworthy for that reason, but it might on balance be the right thing to do. It might even be the right thing to do, as a humanitarian actor for example, to put yourself into a situation where you can only do good by being complicit with the wrongdoing of othersLess
This chapter concludes, summarizing the book. Good intentions are not enough; it matters morally what happens in consequence. Complicity makes a potential causal contribution to the wrongdoing of another, and is pro tanto blameworthy for that reason, but it might on balance be the right thing to do. It might even be the right thing to do, as a humanitarian actor for example, to put yourself into a situation where you can only do good by being complicit with the wrongdoing of others
J. Paul Narkunas
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823280308
- eISBN:
- 9780823281534
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823280308.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Reified Life: Speculative Capital and the Ahuman Condition addresses the most pressing political question of the 21st century: what forms of life are free and what forms are perceived legally and ...
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Reified Life: Speculative Capital and the Ahuman Condition addresses the most pressing political question of the 21st century: what forms of life are free and what forms are perceived legally and economically as surplus or expendable, human and otherwise. Reified Life theorizes the dangerous social implications of a posthuman future, whereby human agency is secondary to algorithmic processes, digital protocols, speculative financial instruments, and nonhuman market and technological forces. Narkunas contends that it is premature to speak of a posthuman or inhuman future, or employ an ‘ism, given how dynamic and contingent human practices and their material figurations can be. Over several chapters he diagnoses the rise of “market humans,” the instrumentalization of culture to decide the life worth living along utilitarian categories, and the varied ways human rights and humanitarianism actually throw members of the species like refugees outside the human order. Reified Life argues against posthumanist calls to abandon the human and humanism, and instead proposes the ahuman to think alongside the human. Reified Life elaborates speculative fictions as critical mechanisms for envisioning alternative futures and freedoms from the domineering forces of speculative capital, whose fictions have become our realities. Narkunas offers, to that end, a novel interpretation of the post-anthropocentric turn in the humanities by linking the diminished centrality of humanism to the waning dominion of nation-states over their populations and the intensification of financial capitalism, which reconfigures politics along economic categories of risk management.Less
Reified Life: Speculative Capital and the Ahuman Condition addresses the most pressing political question of the 21st century: what forms of life are free and what forms are perceived legally and economically as surplus or expendable, human and otherwise. Reified Life theorizes the dangerous social implications of a posthuman future, whereby human agency is secondary to algorithmic processes, digital protocols, speculative financial instruments, and nonhuman market and technological forces. Narkunas contends that it is premature to speak of a posthuman or inhuman future, or employ an ‘ism, given how dynamic and contingent human practices and their material figurations can be. Over several chapters he diagnoses the rise of “market humans,” the instrumentalization of culture to decide the life worth living along utilitarian categories, and the varied ways human rights and humanitarianism actually throw members of the species like refugees outside the human order. Reified Life argues against posthumanist calls to abandon the human and humanism, and instead proposes the ahuman to think alongside the human. Reified Life elaborates speculative fictions as critical mechanisms for envisioning alternative futures and freedoms from the domineering forces of speculative capital, whose fictions have become our realities. Narkunas offers, to that end, a novel interpretation of the post-anthropocentric turn in the humanities by linking the diminished centrality of humanism to the waning dominion of nation-states over their populations and the intensification of financial capitalism, which reconfigures politics along economic categories of risk management.
Jonathan Benthall
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781784993085
- eISBN:
- 9781526124005
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781784993085.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Middle Eastern Cultural Anthropology
This book is the fruit of twenty years’ reflection on Islamic charities, both in practical terms and as a key to understand the crisis in contemporary Islam. On the one hand Islam is undervalued as a ...
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This book is the fruit of twenty years’ reflection on Islamic charities, both in practical terms and as a key to understand the crisis in contemporary Islam. On the one hand Islam is undervalued as a global moral and political force whose admirable qualities are exemplified in its strong tradition of charitable giving. On the other hand, it suffers from a crisis of authority that cannot be blamed entirely on the history of colonialism and stigmatization to which Muslims have undoubtedly been subjected – most recently, as a result of the “war on terror”.
The book consists of seventeen previously published chapters, with a general Introduction and new prefatory material for each chapter. The first nine chapters review the current situation of Islamic charities from many different viewpoints – theological, historical, diplomatic, legal, sociological and ethnographic – with first-hand data from the United States, Britain, Israel–Palestine, Mali and Indonesia. Chapters 10 to 17 expand the coverage to explore the potential for a twenty-first century “Islamic humanism” that would be devised by Muslims in the light of the human sciences and institutionalized throughout the Muslim world. This means addressing contentious topics such as religious toleration and the meaning of jihad.
The intended readership includes academics and students at all levels, professionals concerned with aid and development, and all who have an interest in the future of Islam.Less
This book is the fruit of twenty years’ reflection on Islamic charities, both in practical terms and as a key to understand the crisis in contemporary Islam. On the one hand Islam is undervalued as a global moral and political force whose admirable qualities are exemplified in its strong tradition of charitable giving. On the other hand, it suffers from a crisis of authority that cannot be blamed entirely on the history of colonialism and stigmatization to which Muslims have undoubtedly been subjected – most recently, as a result of the “war on terror”.
The book consists of seventeen previously published chapters, with a general Introduction and new prefatory material for each chapter. The first nine chapters review the current situation of Islamic charities from many different viewpoints – theological, historical, diplomatic, legal, sociological and ethnographic – with first-hand data from the United States, Britain, Israel–Palestine, Mali and Indonesia. Chapters 10 to 17 expand the coverage to explore the potential for a twenty-first century “Islamic humanism” that would be devised by Muslims in the light of the human sciences and institutionalized throughout the Muslim world. This means addressing contentious topics such as religious toleration and the meaning of jihad.
The intended readership includes academics and students at all levels, professionals concerned with aid and development, and all who have an interest in the future of Islam.
Kristen E. Cheney
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226437408
- eISBN:
- 9780226437682
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226437682.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, African Cultural Anthropology
The African HIV/AIDS pandemic has defined the childhoods of an entire generation. Many children have lost their parents to AIDS while HIV-infected children are now surviving thanks to life-saving ...
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The African HIV/AIDS pandemic has defined the childhoods of an entire generation. Many children have lost their parents to AIDS while HIV-infected children are now surviving thanks to life-saving antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). In this incisive ethnography, Cheney argues that humanitarian misreadings of the 'AIDS orphan crisis' have affected children's lives as irrevocably as HIV/AIDS itself. Using participatory research with the “post-ARV generation” in Uganda, this book traces the social transformations caused by AIDS orphanhood and it impacts on children, families, and communities. Young people’s experiences in the post-ARV era show how orphan suffering is still compounded by poverty and other structural vulnerabilities. Cheney explains how these vulnerabilities have posed new challenges to traditional systems of family support and child protection. Moreover, she argues that global humanitarian responses such as Western ‘orphan rescue’ efforts to relieve the ‘orphan crisis’ have actually deepened it. Crying for Our Elders substantially expands theoretical discussions of humanitarianism, children’s studies, orphanhood, kinship and the resilience of family as well as methodological innovations in longitudinal participatory research with children. Privileging young people’s perspectives, Cheney demonstrates that despite the challenges of growing up in the era of HIV/AIDS, the post-ARV generation still holds out hope for the future.Less
The African HIV/AIDS pandemic has defined the childhoods of an entire generation. Many children have lost their parents to AIDS while HIV-infected children are now surviving thanks to life-saving antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). In this incisive ethnography, Cheney argues that humanitarian misreadings of the 'AIDS orphan crisis' have affected children's lives as irrevocably as HIV/AIDS itself. Using participatory research with the “post-ARV generation” in Uganda, this book traces the social transformations caused by AIDS orphanhood and it impacts on children, families, and communities. Young people’s experiences in the post-ARV era show how orphan suffering is still compounded by poverty and other structural vulnerabilities. Cheney explains how these vulnerabilities have posed new challenges to traditional systems of family support and child protection. Moreover, she argues that global humanitarian responses such as Western ‘orphan rescue’ efforts to relieve the ‘orphan crisis’ have actually deepened it. Crying for Our Elders substantially expands theoretical discussions of humanitarianism, children’s studies, orphanhood, kinship and the resilience of family as well as methodological innovations in longitudinal participatory research with children. Privileging young people’s perspectives, Cheney demonstrates that despite the challenges of growing up in the era of HIV/AIDS, the post-ARV generation still holds out hope for the future.
