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COMPARATIVE HUMANITARIANISM
Professor Chris GarcesDepartment of AnthropologyCornell Universityceg97@cornell.edu
It is now commonplace to hear that we live in a humanitarian age; but to what extent ishumanitarian practice coextensive with global and cultural politics today? This seminar will explore how institutions and governments identify ‘states of emergency’ in order tosafeguard populations and political alliances. But we will also consider the globallymundane and quieter interventions that typically go unnoticed by way of humanitarianaid. Our readings problematize gift exchange and the logic of sacrifice across charitable, philanthropic, NGO, religious, and paeacekeeping efforts. Key topics include: thegendered dynamics of aid distribution; the impact of philanthropy on private-public balances of power; the role of displaced populations as biopolitical communities; and thedemocratic applications of charity to mask imperial resemblances. We will together challenge the ethical knot of using ‘voluntary actions’ as the basis of normative politicalsystems, highlighting contingencies and exploring paradoxes in humanitarian endeavors.The student taking this course will leave it with a fuller command of the range of humanitarian work taking place in today’s world.
COURSE STRUCTURE:
This seminar is divided into twelve weekly themes germane to the study of comparativehumanitarianism. Each week, seminar participants will be required to analyze a set of core readings that have influenced directions in humanitarian critique. Every student willalso select one additional text from a list of elective readings—grouped under sub-thematic headings—delivering a brief in-class presentation on how the these secondaryworks build upon and/or modify our understanding of core weekly materials. Thecurriculum allows for students to familiarize themselves with works relevant to the fieldof international humanitarianism, complementing personal scholarly interests and criticaltheoretical trajectories. The two major class assignments will include a scholarly book review essay and a full-length research paper.
THEME 1: THE QUESTION OF HUMANITARIANISM
Readings
:
•
Barnett, Michael and Thomas G. Weiss. 2008. “Humanitarianism: A Brief History of the Present.” In:
Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics
. (eds. M. Barnett and T. Weiss.) Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press, pp. 1-48.
•
Kennedy, David. 2004. “Introduction.”
The Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism. Princeton
. N.J. : Princeton University Press.
•
Mauss, Marcel. 1925
The Gift
(selections)
Elective
:
•
CHARITY PROBLEMATIZED
o
Bornstein, Erica. 2009 “The Philanthropic Impulse”
Cultural Anthropology
v. 24, n. 4
o
Garces, Chris & Alexander Jones. 2009. “Mauss Redux: From Warfare’s Human Toll to
l’homme total
”
Anthropological Quarterly
Winter
o
Marion, Jean-Luc. 2002.
A Prolegomenon to Charity
. New York: Fordham UniversityPress
o
Heyd, Douglas. 1982.
Supererogation: Its Status in Ethical Theory
. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press
•
THE POLITICS OF CARE UNDER CAPITALISM
o
Haskell, T.L. 1985a. “Capitalism and the origins of the humanitarian sensibility.” Part 1,
American Historical Review
90(2) (April): 339–61.
o
Haskell, T.L. 1985b. “Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility.” Part2,
American Historical Review
90(3 )(June): 547-566.
•
HUMANITARIANISM AS POLICY?
o
Rieff, David. 1995. “The Humanitarian Trap.”
World Policy Journal
Winter.
o
Smillie, Ian. 2004.
The Charity of Nations : Humanitarian Action in a Calculating World
.Bloomfield, CT : Kumarian Press.
THEME 2: HUMANITARIAN DISCOURSE AS SECULAR RELIGION
Readings:
•
Asad, Talal. 2003.
Formations of the secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity
. Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press.
Elective:
•
THE RELIGIOUS LOGIC(S) OF ASSISTANCE
o
Kilbride, Philip Leroy. 2007.
Faith, Morality and Being Irish : A Caring Tradition in Africa.
Lanham: University Press of America.
o
Bornstein, Erica. 2001a. “Child Sponsorship, Evangelism, and Belonging in the Work of World Vision Zimbabwe.”
American Ethnologist
, 28(3):595-622.
o
Bornstein, Erica. 2007. “Faith, Liberty, and the Individual in Humanitarian Assistance.”In:
Nongovernmental Politics
(eds. by M. Feher ,G. Krikorian & Y. Mckee. New York :Zone Books, pp. 658-667.
o
Garces, Chris 2007. “The Ethical Turn … to Saintliness? An Ethnographic Challenge”
Anthropology and Humanism
32 (2):213–21.
o
Feldman, Ilana. 2007a. “The Quaker way: Ethical labor and humanitarian relief.”
American Ethnologist
34(4): 689-705.
•
FAITH-BASED CHARITIES
o
Bornstein, Erica. 2001b. “The Verge of Good and Evil: Christian NGOs and EconomicDevelopment in Zimbabwe.”
PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review
, 24(1):59-77.
o
Chikwendu, Eudora. 2004. “Faith-Based Organizations in Anti-HIV/AIDS Work AmongAfrican Youth and Women.”
Dialectical Anthropology
28(3-4).
o
Fitzgerald, Rosemary. 2001. “‘Clinical Christianity’: The Emergence of Medical Work asa Missionary Strategy in Colonial India, 1800-1914.” In:
Health, Medicine and Empire: Perspectives on Colonial India
(eds. B. Pati and M. Harrison) pp. 88-136. New Delhi:Orient Longman.
o
Gagnon, V. P. 2006. “Catholic relief services, USAID, and authentic partnership inSerbia.” In
Transacting transition : the micropolitics of democracy assistance in the former Yugoslavia
(ed. Keith Brown) Bloomfield, CT : Kumarian Press.
o
Robert Wuthnow. 2006
Saving America: Faith-Based Services and the Future of Civil Society
. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
THEME 3: THE BIOPOLITICAL AGE
Readings
:
•
Foucault, Michel. 1990.
The History of Sexuality v. 1: An Introduction
. New York: Vintage
•
Agamben, Giorgio. 1995.
Homo Sacer
. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
•
Fassin, Didier. 2007a. “Humanitarianism as a Politics of Life.”
Public Culture
19(3).
Elective
:
•
HUMANITARIANISM AS POPULATION GOVERNMENT
o
Foucault, Michel. 1980. “The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century.” In
Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977
(ed. ColinGordon) pp.166-182. New York: Pantheon.
o
Foucault, Michel. 1977.
Discipline and Punish.
Translated by Alan Sheridan. London:Penguin.
o
Agamben “No to Bio-political Tattooing”
Le Monde
10 January 2004
o
Redfield, Peter. 2005. “Doctors, Borders, and Life in Crisis.”
Cultural Anthropology
20(3): 328-361.
o
Fassin, Didier. 2007b. “Humanitarianism: A Nongovernmental Government.” In
Nongovernmental Politics
, (eds. Feher, Michel; Gaëlle Krikorian; Yates Mckee.) NewYork : Zone Books
•
DISPLACED PEOPLES & REFUGEE STATUS
o
Arendt, Hannah. “We Refugees” In: M.M. Anderson, ed.
Hitler’s Exiles: Personal Stories of the Flight from Nazi Germany to America
. New York: The New Press
o
Hyndman, Jennifer. 2000.
Managing Displacement: Refugees and the Politics of Humanitarianism.
Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
o
Malkki, Liisa. 1995.
Purity and Exile : Violence, Memory, and National Cosmologyamong Hutu Refugees in Tanzania.
Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
o
Malkki, Liisa. 1996. “Speechless Emissaries: Refugees, Humanitarianism, andDehistoricization”
Cultural Anthropology
11(3): 377-404.
o
Ticktin, Miriam. 2005. “Policing and Humanitarianism in France: Immigration and theTurn to Law as State of Exception”
Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies
7 (3) 2005: 347-368.
o
Feldman, Ilana. 2007b. “Difficult Distinctions: Refugee Law, Humanitarian Practice, andPolitical Identification in Gaza”
Cultural Anthropology
22(1): 129-169.
•
NEW BIOPOLITICAL COMMUNITIES
o
Fassin, Didier and E. D’Halluin. 2005. “The Truth from the Body: Medical Certificatesas Ultimate Evidence for Asylum Seekers.”
American Anthropologist
, 107(4): 597-608
o
Nyers, Peter. 2005.
Rethinking Refugees Beyond States of Emergency (Global Horizons)
. New York: Routledge Press
o
Philip Gourevitch. 1999.
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed WithOur Families: Stories from Rwanda
. New York: Picador
o
Hardt, Michael & Antonio Negri. 2005.
Multitude: War & Democracy in the Age of Empire
. New York: Penguin Press
o
Deleuze, Gilles. 1984. “Nomad Thought.” In: David B. Allison, ed.:
The New Nietzsche
. New York: Dell Publishing pgs. 142-9
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