ziasudra

I spent the past many hours transcribing Michael Horowitz's talk on human rights at this past February's Veritas Forum. I want it backed up somewhere, which is why I'm posting it.

I think Horowitz's talk really accentuates the ambiguity I feel about human rights activism. On the one hand, it's great to have people like him forming coalitions and working for causes to better the world. But on the other hand, I cringe every time he gets to the meta level and makes general statements about religion and politics and history. I've spent the past two years learning how to situate arguments within appropriate contexts and to deconstruct problematic arguments, and Horowitz's premises (and it appeared his worldview as well) consist of red light flashing, siren sounding unqualified assumptions that often lead to negative ramifications even in the face of improvements resulting from human rights or humanitarian actions.

I'm still ambiguous about advocacy groups. It's not that I think the solution lies in locking ourselves in the ivory tower to dissect the validity of one form of intervention over another—that does nothing when what the Admnistration listens to are not studies by scholars in academia, but by think tank big shots. But to dive head-first into human rights activism like a bull dog ... I don't know, Horowitz's perspective is too American-centric and too "modern, civilized West" minded for me.

( Michael Horowitz transcript (long) )

Current Mood: cynical
Current Music: The Veritas Forum Audio DVD

Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society
Nadia Abu El-Haj, University of Chicago Press, 2001.

OMG before I start my notes let me just say how excited I am that we're finally reading a pre-history book, after what I wrote last night about how much I miss ancient history!!! This book is my undergraduate field (well, mine was more linguistic while this one is more archaelogical), this is my academic love. ♥

Anyway...

Premise: to examine nation-building and colonization through the lens of archaeology.

( 1: Excavating Archaeology )

( 2: Scientific Beginnings )

( 3: Instituting Archaeology )

( 4: Terrains of Settler Nationhood )

( 9: )

( 10: Conclusion )

Current Mood: interested

The rest of my Algerian Civil War notes, continuation of this post. No formatting or consistency here. Just posting it because I want to have it accessible online in case anything happens to my computer's hard drive (too many horror stories). Passing right along.

(I should have known better than to sign up for a presentation the day after the March Madness championship. *is brain dead*)

( Chapters 2 to 10 Notes... )

[ETA 11:58 p.m.: spent the hour or so before class frantically putting a presentation together... the professor and my classmates liked the it! I'm soooo relieved. ^__^]

Current Mood: numb

The Algerian Civil War 1990-1998
Luis Martinez, C. Hurst & Co., Ltd., 2000.

What Luis Martinez does in this book:
“Rejecting culturalist explanations as too simplistic, the author concentrates on actors who act deliberately to maximise their advantage.” (p. ix)

“Unlike others who have treated the subject, he is the first to bring together a unified theory of warlike behaviour in the context of both institutional-historical and rational choice paradigms substantiated by an impressive array of solid empirical data gathered directly from the field.” (p. ix)

( 1: Introduction )

( 11: Conclusion )

Current Mood: dumb

Rethinking the Economics of War: the Intersection of Need, Creed, and Greed
Cynthia J. Arnson and I. William Zartman, Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2005.

On greed vs. grievance: “This book represents an attempt at such a synthesis, drawing on the path-breaking work of Collie rand others on the role of resource income, greed, and predation in fueling and sustaining conflict, and combining those insights with more long-standing, grievance-based explanations.” (p. 7)

( 1: The Political Economy of War: Situating the Debate )

( 2: Trafficking, Rents, and Diaspora in the Lebanese War )

( 3: The Evolution of Internal War in Peru )

( 6: The Democratic Republic of the Congo )

( 8: Surviving State Failure, Afghanistan )

( 9: Economic Factors in Civil Wars )

( 10: Need, Creed, and Greed in Intrastate Conflict )

Current Mood: stuffy-nosed

Wow, the end of the Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State game was intense! Two (or was it three?) lead changes with under 10 seconds of game time to go! I wonder who would have won had the referee called travel instead of foul at the very end of the game. Basketball is such a great way to pick up from where the Olympics left off. I'm so ready for March Madness!

Now onto your regularly scheduled reading notes...

( A Diplomatic Revolution )

Current Mood: restless

This week is the "February break" for New York state public schools, which means I won't have to go teach my kiddies. Now, a self-disciplined student would use that extra time to catch up on readings. But guess what I did?

onsa66 got their Neopet at http://www.neopets.com

Behold, my neopets!
I've played Neopets for six years—long before it surged to popularity a few years ago—first in a shared account with my cousins, then later getting my own. If you have a Neopets account too, look me up at onsa66.

Now I'm catching up on my reading, just jotting down random notes...

( Global Governance and the New Wars )

Current Mood: meh
Current Music: Animal Crossing -- in the tropical island!

A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two People
Ilan Pappe, Cambridge University Press, 2004.

"In this book I attempt a new approach. I hope to do this without marginalizing the importance of the West, political elites, nationalism and the intra-national conflict, or ignoring the importance of some of the main changes chronicled by modernization theorists. These processes include developments such as industrialization, urbanization, hygienization, secularization, centralization and politicization of what I call 'non-Western' societies which came in contact with the West." (pp. 7-8)

( Introduction Notes )

( Chapter 1 Notes )

( Chapter 2 Notes )

( General Impressions )

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: TV -- Olympics

When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda
Mahmood Mamdani, Princeton University Press, 2001.

Goals:
1. I show the ways in which history writing has been complicit with imperialism, particularly in naturalizing political identities, Hutu and Tutsi, and in considering facts about place of origin (migration) as key to history making.
2. I show the ways in which key texts on the 1959 Revolution failed to problematize the object of their analysis.

"Instead of addressing critically the ways in which the postcolonial state reproduced and reinforced colonially produced political identities in the name of justice, they ended up once again treating these identities as if they were natural constructs." (xiii)

( Chapters 1-3 Notes... )

Current Mood: achy

Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity
Talal Asad, Stanford University Press, 2003.

"What is the connection between 'the secular' as an epistemic category and 'secularism' as a political doctrine? Can they be objects of anthropological inquiry? What might an anthropology of secularism look like? This book attempts, in a preliminary way, to address these questions." (p. 1)

( Introduction: Thinking about Secularism )

( Chapter 1 Notes... )

( Chapter 2 Notes... )

( Some stray quotes from other chapters... )

Current Mood: stressed
Current Music: The library is eeriely quiet...

Theologies of Development: Faith, Holism, and Lifestyle Evangelism
Erica Bornstein, The Spirit of Development: Protestant NGOs, Morality, and Economics in Zimbabwe, Routledge, 2003.

“I document how faith was lived and critically theorized in terms of these concepts by employees of the two NGOs. My analysis focuses on faith at rural project sites where evangelism appeared as a unifying and hopeful social force, and faith in NGO offices where it disciplined, at times with divisive effects, the personal and institutional conduct of life.” (p. 45)

( Reading Notes… )

Current Mood: working
Current Music: Bare Naked Ladies, et. al. -- God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Child Sponsorship, Evangelism, and Belonging
Erica Bornstein, The Spirit of Development: Protestant NGOs, Morality, and Economics in Zimbabwe, Routledge, 2003.

“Child sponsorship produced unintended disjunctures between hopeful ideas of global humanitarianism and local political economies fraught with inequalities, reinforced by the very humanitarian aid that endeavored to transcend them.” (p. 67)

( Reading Notes… )

Current Mood: hmpf

Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal, and Political Dilemmas
J. L. Holzgrefe and Robert O. Keohane, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2003.

This book is a collection of essays on the subject of humanitarian intervention. In the editors' words:
"This book analyzes humanitarian intervention in the context of state failure in many parts of the world, and explores fundamental issues of moral theory, process of change in international law, and how conceptions of sovereignty are shifting as a result of changes in norms of human rights." (p. 2)

( Chapter 1 Notes )

( Chapter 3 Notes )

Current Mood: blah
Current Music: Basement of the library noises

Ethics and Intervention: The 'Humanitarian Exception' and the Problem of Abuse in the Case of Iraq
Alex J. Bellamy, Journal of Peace Research 41, no. 2, 2004, pp. 131-147.

"This article investigates whether, and when, using force to remove a foreign government is morally justifiable. It uses the case of Iraq to assess whether conservative interpretations of positive international law can be overridden by the moral right to uphold elements of natural law that are knowable to all." (p. 132)

( Reading Notes... )

Current Mood: discontent
Current Music: Newsong -- Can't Keep A Good Man Down

The Case of Ariel Sharon and the Fate of Universal Jurisdiction
John Borneman, ed., Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, Monograph Series Number 2, Princeton University, 2004.

Chapter 4, Laurie King-Irani
King-Irani’s purpose:
“I want to discover whether it is possible for international justice to have a local address. I also wonder if it is possible—or advisable—for anthropologists to undertake advocacy and activism on behalf of marginalized groups whose rights have been violated by the powerful.” (p. 71)

( Chapter 4 Notes... )

Chapter 5, Dan Rabinowitz
Purpose (p. 105):
“My argument below is that an ongoing demand to indict Sharon in an international forum for his responsibility in Sabra and Shatila is of great significance for Israeli society and for future relations with the Palestinians...”
1. To reframe Israel's collective memory.
2. To demilitarize the Israeli mind.

( Chapter 5 Notes... )

Current Mood: reading mood
Current Music: Simple Plan -- Addicted

Re-Orienting Desire: the Gay International and the Arab World
Joseph Massad, Public Culture 14, 2 (2002), pp. 361-385.

Universalization of "gay rights" as a global project that plays a similar role to missionary projects: "Organizations dominated by white Western males (the International Lesbian and Gay Association [ILGA] and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission [IGLHRC]) sprang up to defend the rights of 'gays and lesbians' all over the world and to advocate on their behalf." (p. 361)

Thesis:
"I argue that it is the discourse of the Gay International that both produces homosexuals, as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist, and represses same-sex desires and practices that refuse to be assimilated into its sexual epistemology." (p. 363)

( Reading Notes... )

"In undertaking this universalizing project, the Gay International ultimately makes itself feel better about a world it forces to share its identifications. Its missionary achievement, however, will be the creation not of a queer planet but rather a straight one." (p. 385)

Current Mood: curious
Current Music: Vivaldi Gloria

The Book of Jerry Falwell
Susan Friend Harding, Princeton University Press, 2000.

Definitions:
fundamentalism (small "f"): subset of self-declared fundamentalists.
Fundamentalism (big "F"): general; bible-believing Protestants, whether they self-identify as fundamentalists or not.

"For years, I stood at the crossroads that Campbell and others fashioned for me, in between being lost and being saved, listening.... This is... where I invite you to go as you read this book." (pp. xi-xii)

"I focus primarily on preacherly discourse because preachers command all the Bible-based poetic, rhetorical, and narrative skills which make their vernacular generative." (p. xii)

( Acknowledgement and Introduction )

( Part I Notes )

Current Mood: nerdy
Current Music: Third Day -- King of Glory

"Redeeming the 'Human' Through Human Rights"
Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity, Stanford University Press, 2003, pp. 127-158.

Done with the Susan Slyomovics book! The book left me with some questions. Not sure if Talal Asad's article addresses any of my ramblings. But he's the adored scholar of quite a few of my classmates, and I've liked all his other articles that I've read in the past. So this should be good.

"...while U.S. military doctrine makes breaches of the Geneva Convention more likely, it makes actual cases of torture less likely because and to the extent that a direct encounter between individual soldiers and civilians is avoided. The use of excessive force against civilians through aerial bombardment is regarded differently from the use of violence perpetrated by particular officials against individual victims. It is not a matter of human rights abuse but of collateral damage." (pp. 127-128)

( Reading notes... )

Current Mood: sleepy

The Performance of Human Rights in Morocco
Susan Slyomovics, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.

"Throughout this study, places and dates of publication [of prison publications] appear as one aspect of lapses that exist between the act of creation, the ability to write, and the freedom to publish. Consequently, prisoners' narratives are embedded in, correspond to, and transfigure Moroccan society and history." (p. 6)

( Reading )

( Post-reading thoughts... )

Current Mood: grave

Vows: The Story of a Priest, a Nun, and Their Son
Peter Manseau, Free Press, 2005.

Our class will actually be meeting Manseau next week, so I thought I'd jot down notes so I won't look like an idiot in front of him.

( Notable Quotes... )

This book is new. MSNBC just had an article on the book yesterday. Well, it's more an excerpt than a book review. But if you have a few spare minutes, go to the article and read the excerpt. Manseau's simple, yet utterly deep, prose can only be experienced by reading—everything that long-form nonfiction should be. The article's excerpt isn't long, just the first chapter, a very quick read.

Guh, now that I'm thoroughly fangirling Manseau and his book, I have even less of a chance to think up intelligent questions to ask him on Monday's class :p

Current Mood: recumbent
Current Music: Switchfoot -- Gone

Planning the Family in Egypt: New Bodies, New Selves
Kamran Asdar Ali, University of Texas Press, 2002.

"In this text I will present Egyptian voices that oppose or accept such impositions, but I will also go beyond such an exclusive presentation. I will illustrate how Egypt, as a modernizing state, uses the family planning program as a pedagogical project to manage its population." (p. 5)

( Introduction Notes... )

( Chapter 1 Notes... )

( Chapter 2 Notes... )

( Chapter 3 Notes... )

( Chapter 4 Notes... )

( Chapter 5 Notes... )

( Chapter 6 Notes... )

( Chapter 7 Notes... )

( Chapter 8 Notes... )

( Conclusion... )
.

Current Mood: working
Current Music: (for now) Newsboys -- Shine

Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity
Timothy Mitchell, University of California Press, 2002.

Nothing too in depth here. I'm trying to take notes off of a two-hour library reserve, so my tactic here is to copy down word for word passages that I can't take home with me, scanning the text enough to compose a response paper for tonight ;p

Mithcell's general premise: post-colonial Egypt is deeply entrenched in "connections between a war, an epidemic, and a famine." All of these tie into the bigger web of issues, "depended upon connections between rivers, dams, fertilizers, food webs, and, as we will see, several additional links and interactions." (p. 27)

( Reading Notes.. )

Wha?!? Where did the past two hours go? I'm just getting into the meaty part of the book, and now I have to return it back to reserve? Hmm... I'm going to try for a double-dip. Hopefully the second reserve copy is available.

[ETA: 4:25 p.m.: Yay, book renewed. Now onto more notes...]

( Reading Notes, Second Segment... )

Current Mood: studious

Can the Subaltern Speak?
Gayatri chakravorty Spivak, Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, pp. 271-313.

"This paper will move, by a necessary circuitous route, from a critique of current Western efforts to problematize the subject to the question of how the third-world subject is represented within Western discourse.

( Reading notes... )

I'm totally in love with Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. I was dreading it all last week because I have to have it read by Wednesday's class. But now I heart it.

Have no illusions. The book is dense. I'm only two-thirds of the way through the book so far, and only felt like my brain was about to explode only every other second or so. But at the same time, I haven't felt so academically stimulated for such a long time. All the talk about sovereignty and the Sacred Man and political theology and biopolitics... good stuff.

As usual, my notes behind the cut. I'm still amazed that you guys actually read them ^_^

( Introduction, Part I, and Part II notes... )
.

Current Mood: nerdy
Current Music: Stravinsky -- The Rite of Spring

The Repatriation of Anthropology as Cultural Critique
George E. Marcus and Michael M. J. Fischer, Anthropology as Cultural Critique: an experimental moment in the human sciences, 1999, pp. 111-136.

Objective: to analyze the phenomenon of "enlightening alien culture" while simultaneously critiquing one's own culture (middle-class, bourgeois, industrial capitalism, etc.).

( Anthropology as cultural critique... )
.

Current Mood: chipper

Michael Horowitz Transcript -- Human Rights

Archaeology in relation to nation-building and colonization

More Algerian Civil War Notes... incoherent

The Algerian Civil War

Greed, Creed, and Grievance

Basketball OK; Algeria

Neopets is fun

Palestine, Land of Two Peoples

A Look at Rwanda

Anthropology of the Secular

Theologies of Development

On Child Sponsorship

To Intervene or Not to Intervene

On the Legitimacy of the Iraq War

Human Rights Accountability, Academia

Construct of Sexuality

Fundamentalism As Discourse

Who's the "Human" in Human Rights?

Human Rights and Morocco

Peter Manseau Book

Planning the Family in Egypt -- an ongoing post

Timothy Mitchell: Rule of Experts

Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture

Book Rec + Notes

Anthropology as Cultural Critique

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January 2011

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