The question of high-seas interdiction of asylum seekers has not come before the United States Supreme Court ever since Sale v. Haitian Centers Council. A comparative perspective, however, reveals quite a different story.
Human rights are superficial
James Ron and his colleagues have started a new discussion at Open Democracy called "Open Global Rights." Ron and friends posted an early piece concerning
Humanity interview with James Ferguson, pt. 3: what future politics and development?
"If things were worse, they would be worse; and if they were better, they would be better. So I suppose that makes me a reformist, in those terms. I do not think that somehow without the velvet glove, all illusions would be undone and the masses would come to consciousness."
Humanity interview with James Ferguson, pt. 2: rethinking neoliberalism
"It is important to recognize that this thing we call neoliberalism is an intellectually complex field, and that there is not a single politics that we can neatly and unproblematically attach to the style of reasoning that we identify as neoliberal."
Humanity interview with James Ferguson, pt. 1: development as “swarming state power”
Humanity co-editors Nils Gilman and Miriam Ticktin spoke with James Ferguson on May 31, 2013, at Stanford University. This week their conversation will appear here in three installments, starting with today's.
Humanity as an Identity and Its Political Effects: A Note on Camps and Humanitarian Government
Agier offers an assessment of contemporary humanitarianism and appeals to humanity that juxtaposes a survey of camps with ethnographic reportage. According to Agier, contemporary humanitarianism must be understood as a new and unprecedented form of government that nevertheless leaves room for unsuspected political action.
Humanity 4.1 is out
Issue 4.1, featuring the work of photographer Murtada Bulbul and a dossier on transitions and reconciliation, is now live!
The peculiar Marxism of Elaine Scarry
<< Against political imagination I would also like to briefly defend The Body in Pain, a splendid, subtle book that I think offers a way around many of the snares that Moyn identifies in post-ideological politics generally, and in Rorty’s disaster-aversion project in particular. Scarry’s book has two parts. The first is about torture and war: means of “unmaking” the world. The second part, composed as a response to the first, is about human creativity: the way we make, as the case may be, “remake,” the world. Continue reading →
Against political imagination
When I was 18 years old, about to head off for college, a friend’s father gifted me a copy of Richard Rorty’s Philosophy and Social Hope. His explanation was cryptic.
Two Regimes of Global Health
The movement for global health is an increasingly prominent rationale for action across a range of organizations, including philanthropic foundations, development agencies, and biomedical research institutes.