Considering the uneasy alliance between humanitarian aid, human rights, and military operations
Coopted by military operations, humanitarianism has never been neutral. Rather than welcoming refugees, host countries assess the relative risks of taking them in versus turning them away, using a risk-benefit analysis that often reduces refugees to collateral damage in proxy wars fought in the war on terrorism. Carceral Humanitarianism testifies that humanitarian aid and human rights discourse are always political and partisan.
Forerunners is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital works. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.
About the Author
Kelly Oliver is W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University.
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: From Political Right to Humanitarian Charity
“Rescue Politics”
Impossible Testimony
Humanitarian Warfare and Humanitarian Aid: Two Sides of the Same Sovereign
The Christian Roots of State Sovereignty
A Brief History of Humanitarianism
Contemporary Humanitarian Space
Human Rights Discourse as Alibi for Humanitarian War
Collateral Damage and the Lesser of Evils
Rethinking the “Worst”
A New Form of Genocide
Humanitarian Aid as Poison and Cure
Conclusion: Toward Hospitality as Earth Ethics
References
What People Are Saying
"Kelly Oliver’s concise book brings a necessary and provocative philosophical appraisal of humanitarianism, focused on the treatment of refugees and the realities of migrant detention centers in the context of the ‘war on terror’. I highly recommend this concise text for critical geographers of borders and migration as well as for all kinds of activist endeavors advocating for freedom of movement and anti-war positions." Antipode