Human Rights and the End of Status

April 27, 2016 by
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When Solon gave Athens her laws, he developed egalitarian citizenship by democratizing practices hitherto reserved to nobility. His gesture to the intermediate classes laid the groundwork for Athenian democracy, and anticipated a period of classical splendor to boot. But the idea of group equality – for all its historical instructiveness for understanding the legal position of individuals in society – has received surprisingly little attention in attempts to grasp the foundations of contemporary human rights law. This is especially puzzling considering that the recognition of Continue reading →

Cleaning up the “dirty little secrets” of research ethics: Reflections from the International Studies Association 2016

April 12, 2016 by and
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This blog is a follow-up to the authors’ online symposium on the evolving ethics of qualitative research in fragile states For policymakers, fragility and conflict are one of the 21st century’s key development challenges. Fragility is by definition heterogeneous and contextual—which is why qualitative research is such a good tool to help us understand exactly why “there” is so messed up, and what we could or should do to fix it. And so, perhaps logically, we—primarily young, western, tertiary-educated men and women—are doing more and Continue reading →

The Middle East in the Making of Modern Humanitarianism

April 12, 2016 by and
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Download the podcastFeed | iTunes | Hipcast | SoundcloudThe First World War and the fall of the Ottoman Empire are defining moments in the political history of the modern Middle East. This narrative is usually told through the lenses of the breakup of empire, the successes and failures of national movements, and the colonial involvement of British and French Mandates in the region. In this episode, Keith Watenpaugh offers a different approach to this story through a critical look at the role of American humanitarian Continue reading →

Patriotes, Mondialistes, and Sites of International Memory

April 6, 2016 by
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In the opening decades of the twenty-first century, Europeans have returned to the political rhetoric of times we might have long thought past. Late last year nostalgia and disorientation resonated through the French National Front’s victory-cry at elections, as Marie Le Pen declared the world no longer divided left against right, but patriotes against mondialistes. Given the combination of challenges making European headlines—from collapsing economies to borders—the rhetoric of the right echoes a sense of threat posed to nations by globalization (a tone particularly resonant Continue reading →

Introduction

March 25, 2016 by and
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Biafra . . . In our time it came again . . . Emboldened by half a millennium Of conquest, battering On new oil dividends, are now At its black throat squeezing . . . Must Africa have To come a third time? —Chinua Achebe, “Biafra, 1969”1 In his analysis of human rights languages and metaphors, Makau Mutua argues that the human rights project reproduces colonial imageries of Africa’s savagery and barbarism. In his early work, Mutua argued that human rights discourse is characterized by Continue reading → Continue reading →

Humanitarian Dispossession: Celebrity Activism and the Fragment-Nation of the Sudan

March 25, 2016 by
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On March 8, 2012, Oxfam America invited seventy “women leaders” to spend International Women’s Day on Capitol Hill to celebrate the organization’s activism initiative “Sisterhood on the Planet.” A diverse group of influential women, including politicians, faith-based activists, and celebrities, answered the invitation to promote President Barack Obama’s global “Feed the Future” initiative, which assists women farmers in establishing land ownership and control over food resources. The summit also highlighted the achievements of two women in particular: Kristin Davis, one of Oxfam’s global ambassadors and Continue reading → Continue reading →

Celebritizing Conflict: How Ben Affleck Sells the Congo to Americans

March 25, 2016 by and
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It’s fairly clear that in the modern age there is a currency to celebrity, or celebrity is a currency, really. I’ve discovered that you can spend it in a lot of ways, or you can squander it. You can be taxed, as well. I really started thinking long and hard about how to use that currency as long as I had it. —Ben Affleck on his work for Eastern Congo1 From serving as United Nations ambassadors to appearing as spokespersons for major NGO campaigns, global Continue reading → Continue reading →

When Rights Come Home: The Intimate Politics of Women’s Rights in Urban Uganda

March 25, 2016 by
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Introduction The relationship between human rights and African states is a complex one. For many states, the dictates of neoliberal economic reforms have provided a rationale for a retreat from any commitment to a broad conception of human rights encompassing economic and social justice. As James Ferguson has argued, neoliberal policies have typically “hollowed out” African states and legitimized an outsourcing of government responsibilities to nongovernmental organizations and the private sector.1 Many African states have therefore combined a limited commitment to individual civil and political Continue reading → Continue reading →

The Cry for Human Rights: Violence, Transition, and the Egyptian Revolution

March 25, 2016 by and
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In January 2011, Egypt and, indeed, the world witnessed something immense and unprecedented: millions of people from every sector of society took to the streets to overthrow their dictator. As known scholars and activists involved and interested in Egyptian politics, both authors of this essay were approached to comment on the momentous events and/or speak about them at public forums. Various media outlets sought out Atef Said, an Egyptian human rights lawyer and sociologist living in the area. The questions they asked, however, were disconcerting Continue reading → Continue reading →

Conservation, Neoliberalism, and Human Rights in Kenya’s Arid Lands

March 25, 2016 by
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In the last century and a half, over 105,000 protected areas (PAs), encompassing about 11 percent of the world’s land, with different levels of “protected” area status, have been established on every continent.1 The establishment and operation of these PAs have resulted in numerous human rights abuses.2 Literatures on the relationships between human rights and conservation are rich with theoretical and empirical examples that typify two main waves of conservation over the last fifty years. In this essay I describe how a third but less Continue reading → Continue reading →

Current Issue

Our long-awaited issue of Humanity journal is out! Its special dossier, Iran under Sanctions, examines the myriad and devastating impacts of international sanctions on society, culture, and politics. The issue includes an essay on the legal case Herero and Nama v. The Federal Republic of Germany to theorize reparations for German colonialism and slavery as they became linked with the aftermath of the Shoah. It also includes essays on T.H. Marshall and the right of access to justice; visual representations of Armenian genocide survivors; and, the concept of radical friendship in relation to the Farmers’ Protests in India.

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