Scholars from the Global North have consistently facilitated research in the Global South, particularly with war-affected young people (Bragin et al. 2014) living in refugee camps (Cooper 2005). Th...

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue S1, Page S42-S45, March‐April 2022.

A central problem for phronetic case-based approaches to the ethics of teaching lies in the proper determination of normative ethical problems. Judgments about the character of normative ethical problems depend in part on background beliefs about what is (or is not) of ethical value. Thus, to distinguish genuinely normative ethical problems, teachers seem to first require knowledge of what is of ethical value, which practical problems themselves cannot generate. To resolve this practical and theoretical problem, Nicolas Tanchuk and Alyssa Emery (...) argue for a Deweyan approach to teacher ethics that asserts two central theses: First, negatively, that inductive evidence warrants skepticism about any normative theory grounded in external reasons — (purported) reasons that are actually or possibly disconnected from an agent's motivational set of beliefs, desires, and dispositions. Second, that a cognitive and affective orientation toward solving problems through learning survives skepticism about external ethical reasons, grounding the commitments of many anti-oppressive teacher educators. (shrink)

The food justice movement is a budding social movement premised on ideologies that critique the structural oppression responsible for many injustices throughout the agrifood system. Tensions often arise however when a radical ideology in various versions from multiple previous movements is woven into mobilization efforts by organizations seeking to build the activist base needed to transform the agrifood system. I provide a detailed case study of the People’s Grocery, a food justice organization in West Oakland, California, to show how (...) anti-oppression ideology provides the foundation upon which food justice activists mobilize. People’s Grocery builds off of previous social justice movements within West Oakland, reflected in activist meaning making around ideas of social justice and autonomy. However, the ongoing mobilization process also faces complications stemming from diverse individual interpretations of food justice—that may not be reflected in the stated goals of food justice organizations—as well as structural constraints. Consequently, building a social movement premised on food justice opens up social spaces for new activism, but may not be a panacea for solving food-related racial and economic inequality. The findings have implications for newly forming food justice organizations, future research on the food justice movement, as well as for theories on social movement mobilization. (shrink)

Abstract:In Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition, Glen Coulthard argues that since 1969, colonial power relations in Canada have shifted from an unconcealed structure of domination to a mode of colonial governance that operates through state recognition and accommodation. He instead looks to identify a type of recognition based on self-affirmation and self-recognition rather than state acceptance. Following Coulthard, I examine movements created to affirm oppressed groups in the context of anti-Semitism and anti-Blackness in (...) the mid-twentieth century and explore possible limitations of such movements, including the erasure or elision of complex intersections of identity. I then draw upon self-compassion, a mental health and wellness approach, as a potential framework for the affirmative politics Coulthard theorizes. Subsequently, I consider whether such a framework offers a mechanism to provide the self-affirmation and recognition that Coulthard identifies as vital to resisting oppression. I ultimately explore how understanding music as cultural production in music education might engender this affirmative politics to facilitate rich affirmation and validation of students and educators to musically imagine different possible futures. (shrink)

Liao and Carbonell explore how oppressive medical technologies constitute materiality insofar as they reflect past oppression, embody oppression in the present day, and carry oppression into the fu...

This paper will suggest some key elements needed to adequately ground a concept of oppression relevant to the ethics of the social professionsFootnote11. The ‘social professions’ is a useful phrase employed by Sarah Banks (2004) and includes social work, community and youth work, and other professions where human services are offered., and demonstrate how a coherent account of such a concept can be offered, drawing on recent work in social, moral and political philosophy: an account that both supports and (...) challenges the social professional. The ethical commitment of social professionals in many countries to an ‘anti-oppressive’ approach to their work has not always been well understood by those who have supported the idea, or by those critical of it. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding and development of anti-oppressive values and practice in the social professions through a review of recent work relevant to the concept of oppression. It argues that a substantial, critical concept of oppression should underpin any social professional ethics. (shrink)

There are three serious problems in the ongoing debate over whether or not to grant ethical significance to race. First, although disagreement over whether or not "race" is a "real" or "objective" concept is only part of the debate, exchanges have increasingly concentrated on this issue. The result is that currently, the question of whether or not to grant ethical significance to race is most often presented as primarily a metaphysical rather than a normative one. This is misleading because the (...) metaphysical disagreement reflects underlying normative concerns, rather than the other way around. Second, the normative debate centers on whether or not people of African descent in the United States are justified in granting ethical significance to race by treating members of their race as if they were family. I argue, however, that choosing to treat members of one's race as family is a right. Like other rights, it entails concomitant obligations to act upon it only in ways that do not infringe upon other rights of other people. The important question, therefore, is whether and how people can treat members of their race as family without infringing upon the rights of others. I argue that this is possible and delineate the responsibilities and limitations involved. Third, much of the debate is a consequentialist debate over whether strategies that promote granting ethical significance to race or strategies that promote denying ethical significance to race will help to mitigate anti-black oppression. Yet neither side offers an adequate analysis of anti-black oppression to support their claims. I present and defend an analysis that suggests that granting ethical significance to race is important for fighting anti-black oppression. While I do not intend this as a justification for granting ethical significance to race, because I argue that justification is not required, I offer it to persuade those who deny ethical significance to race to reconsider their position. (shrink)

This book clarifies the distinctions between three key concepts - Anti-Racist Practice (ARP), Anti-Discriminatory Practice(ADP) and Anti-Oppressive Practice (AOP). Critically and constructively analysing these three approaches to practice it reappraises their potential in the light of emerging equality issues in the health service. With contributions from leading teachers and practitioners in the field, Equalising Opportunities provides students and practitioners in health and social care with a clear overview of an area where there is much confusion and imperfect (...) understanding. (shrink)

A few years ago, the New York City Department of Health introduced a public health campaign entitled “Cut Your Portions, Cut Your Risk”, a series of posters in which images of food in increasingly large portion sizes appear. In one example, three packets of french fries are featured; in another, cheeseburgers are shown. In a red box in each, the text, in large, all-capital letters in English and Spanish, reads “Portions have grown,” and, below this, in all capitals, “so has (...) obesity, which can lead to many health problems” or “so has type 2 diabetes, which can lead to amputations.” Beneath the food, the posters admonish, again in all-capital... (shrink)

Oppression and the Human Condition is both a valuable teaching tool and an insightful addition to scholarship on the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre. Students and teachers will find it an excellent and accessible introduction to Sartre's existentialism, ideal for courses in existentialist and 20th century philosophy. Equally, Sartre scholars will find that the book, especially the sections on oppression and "bad faith," gives them much to think about. Author Thomas Martin applies Sartre's philosophy to contemporary issues and concerns, (...) and draws on two case studies to make his point. The cases examine modern-day oppressors--in one case an anti-semite, in the other a sexist who objectifies women--in the context of Sartre's "bad faith." The case studies also reinforce Martin's argument that Sartre's early philosophy, especially his concept of "bad faith," provides a framework for discussions of oppressions such as racism and sexism. (shrink)

All too often, social kinds function as sites of oppression. To be a woman, to be Black, to be trans – each, in its own way, situates someone at the lower end of a social hierarchy. Membership in such groups thus constitutes a liability: notwithstanding the goods people draw from sharing in these identities, they also stand at perpetual risk of those same identities exposing them to significant harm. What, if anything, can members of oppressed groups do to counter (...) that oppression? In this article I explore one possible strategy: people can – and do – strategically invoke their membership in what I call ‘anti-oppressive kinds’, in order to contest the oppression they face qua members of oppressed groups. Focusing on one particularly salient anti-oppressive kind, the human, I first offer an explanation as to how and why its invocation might be politically effective, before considering some hazards with its use. (shrink)

Does the black struggle for civil rights make common cause with the movement to foster queer community, protest anti-queer violence or discrimination, and demand respect for the rights and sensibilities of queer people? Confronting this emotionally charged question, Ladelle McWhorter reveals how a carefully structured campaign against abnormality in the late 19th and early 20th centuries encouraged white Americans to purge society of so-called biological contaminants, people who were poor, disabled, black, or queer. Building on a legacy of savage (...) hate crimes—such as the killings of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd—McWhorter shows that racism, sexual oppression, and discrimination against the disabled, the feeble, and the poor are all aspects of the same societal distemper, and that when the civil rights of one group are challenged, so are the rights of all. (shrink)

Karen Warren’s work has helped to transform the landscape of environmental philosophy, contributing theoretical grounding for Western ecofeminism and opening the range of theoretical perspectives one can adopt when doing Western environmental ethics. Although her work is laudable, there are substantive worries about how potential subjects of oppression are characterized in her later work. Warren’s work and relevant secondary literature can be used as a foil to illuminate inadequate justification for the failure to include all living entities as potential (...) subjects of the harm of oppression. The failure to provide conceptual room to include all entities that can rightfully be the potential subjects of oppression limits our understanding of oppression and the multiple ways in which it functions. Additionally, failure to attend to all potential subjects of oppression limits practical opportunities for anti-oppressive solidarity in political action. If oppression is correctly described as the harm of particular group members by others, and the class of living entities can be subjected to harm, then nonhuman living entities can potentially be subjects of oppression. The aim here is to provide conceptual support for the possibility that nonhuman life can be oppressed. (shrink)

In “Materialized Oppression in Medical Tools and Technologies”, we show how oppression can be inscribed in medical devices. We consider oximeters and spirometers, drawing heavily on the work of anthropologist Amy Moran-Thomas and historian Lundy Braun. Both devices encode racial biases: oximeters because they do not correct for race, and spirometers because they do. We zoom out from these particular devices to examine a wide range of tools and technologies, and we build a theoretical framework that covers not (...) only race but other axes of oppression: gender, ability, class, etc. -/- We are inspired by the peer commentaries and the guest editorial, and we are grateful to the contributors for engaging with our work and sharing their expertise. Their responses to our target article advance our understanding in three directions. First, a set of responses contextualize our framework within the histories of medicine, bioethics, and science and technology studies. Second, a set of responses provide additional examples of oppressive medical tools and technologies: not only material artifacts like oximeters and spirometers, but also spatial environments like inpatient psychiatric units, and cognitive niches comprised of digital technologies like electronic medical records and medical data classifications. Third, a set of responses propose countermeasures: operationalizing anti-oppressive practices for device design and testing; mapping the complex causal relationships involved in real-world problems; and repairing the harms done by materialized oppression through racism-conscious praxis. We reply to these three sets of responses—respectively, the “past, present, and future” of oppressive medical objects and spaces—in what follows. (shrink)

Literature on racism, anti‐racism, whiteness, nursing education and nurse educators was reviewed and analysed for the development of race consciousness and application of anti‐racist pedagogy. The literature describes an oppressive educational climate for non‐white identifying people, a curriculum that does not attend to the social construction of difference, and a nursing culture that is not consciously situated in a broader sociopolitical context. A particular focus on studies of nurse educators demonstrates a stark need for personal and professional development (...) towards effectively delivering anti‐racist pedagogy and a deconstruction of white normativity and dominance amongst white faculty. The protection and reproduction of white privilege is identified through the scholarship itself through a lack of racial analysis, an externalization of the root of oppression and non‐specific study measures and outcomes. The persistence and pervasiveness of white dominance in nursing and the lack of anti‐racist competence in white educators, particularly, merits a shift in anti‐racist efforts away from short‐term skill acquisition initiatives towards the deconstruction of socialized white supremacy and enactments of white privilege in nurse educators themselves. (shrink)

One of humans’ distinctive cognitive abilities is that they develop an array of capacities through an enculturation process. In “Cognition as a Social Skill,” Sally points to one of the dangers associated with enculturation: ideological oppression. To conceptualize how such oppression takes root, Haslanager appeals to notions of mindshaping and social coordination, whereby people participate in oppressive social practices unthinkingly or even willingly. Arguably, an appeal to mindshaping provides a new kind of argument, grounded in philosophy of mind, (...) which supports the claims that feminist and anti-racist want to defend. However, some theorists worry that Haslanger’s account does not shed much light on how individuals could exert their agency to resist oppression. I argue that enactivist conceptions of mindshaping and habit can help us to make sense of the power of social influences and how they have the potential to both enable and undermine cognition and agency. This moves us toward increased understanding of the workings of social oppression—distinguishing between constructive and enabling forms of heteronomy, and overdetermining and pernicious modes that lead to atrophied moral cognition and a narrowing of the field of affordances. (shrink)

This article explores how Britain’s Black Power movement challenged the political outlook of the anti-fascist left in the 1960s–70s. While the established left interpreted the National Front (NF) as an aberrant threat to Britain’s social democracy, Black political groups foregrounded the systemic racial violence of the British state. By addressing intensifying racial oppression during a critical early phase in the transition to neoliberalism, they prefigured Stuart Hall’s analysis of ‘authoritarian populism’. The British Black Power movement especially criticised the (...) high-profile Anti-Nazi League (ANL) for its singular focus on the NF, which was framed as a revived Hitlerite peril. For British Black radicals, the larger strategic problem was the populist racism, inflected by imperial nostalgia, which propelled Thatcher’s New Right to power. Instead of narrow Nazi analogies, they related the re-emergence of white nationalism to British social democracy’s racist treatment of Black immigrants, as well as its neocolonial role abroad. (shrink)

This paper critically interrogates the anti-fat beliefs that are employed in environmental bioethics, particularly in response to climate change. Fat bodies have been associated with climate change because they are presumed to consume more resources and produce more greenhouse gas emissions. In this paper, we argue that such interpretations employ mistaken assumptions to justify placing disproportionate blame on already oppressed individuals, reinforcing weight stigma, which increases the vulnerability of fat people to a range of harms and disproportionately affects communities (...) of color. For these reasons, conceiving fat bodies as harmful to the environment is both misguided and unjust. (shrink)

The anti-capitalist debate has traditionally drawn up battle lines between oppressed individuals on the one hand, and an oppressive system on the other. While this has high rhetorical value, it is based on imprecise use of language. The language confuses an amoral system with im/moral agents but at the same time uses anthropomorphic language to lend capitalism moral agency. This inevitably leads to a confused debate. Given that all opponents of capitalism want the reformation of what they see as (...) a flawed system, precision in the use of the language employed would move the debate into arenas of action, and thus the debate is more likely to generate change. (shrink)

This paper discusses ethical issues related to social work practice in the area of mental health. It does so via the use of a case study taken from my practice whilst I was on placement. Ethical issues are explored within a practice context that is becoming increasingly proceduralised and risk averse, and where protectionist responses contribute to undermining the rights of service users to self-determination. The paper explores the relationship between utilitarian and Kantian ethical theory and ethical decision-making as well (...) as commenting on the usefulness of an anti-oppressive ethical perspective. (shrink)

Law and racism are intertwined, with legal tools bearing the potential to serve as instruments of oppression or equity. This Special Issue explores this dual nature of health law, with attention to policing in the context of mental health, schools, and substance use disorders; industry and the environment in the context of food advertising, tobacco regulation, worker safety, and environmental racism; health care and research in the context of infant mortality, bias in medical applications of AI, and diverse inclusion (...) in research; and anti-racist teaching and practice in the context of building an interprofessional curriculum and medical-legal partnerships. (shrink)

This innovative text addresses the lack of literature regarding intersectional approaches to psychoanalysis, underscoring the importance of thinking through race, class, and gender within psychoanalytic theory and practice. The book tackles the widespread perception of psychoanalysis today as a discipline detached from the progressive ideals of social responsibility, institutional psychotherapy, and community mental health. Bringing together a range of international contributions, the collection explores issues of class, politics, oppression, and resistance within the field of psychoanalysis in cultural, theoretical, and (...) clinical contexts. It shows how, in contrast to this misperception, psychoanalysis has been attentive to these ideals from its origins, as well as demonstrating how it continues to be relevant today, through wide-ranging conceptual discussions of the anti-globalisation, Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements. Written in an accessible style, Psychoanalysis, Politics, Oppression and Resistance will be essential reading for practicing psychoanalysts as well as academics and students in a range of humanities and social sciences fields. (shrink)

Lisa Tessman’s Moral Failure: On the Impossible Demands of Morality raises important questions about ideal theory, oppression, and the role of action guidance in normative philosophy. After a brief overview of feminist and anti-racist philosophers’ critiques of ideal theory, I examine Tessman’s claim that nonideal oppression theorists focus too narrowly on action guidance and thereby obscure other important normative issues, such as the problem of moral failure. Although I agree with Tessman’s advocacy of a wider focus—and with (...) her suggestion that situations of inevitable moral failure are particularly important to examine in contexts of oppression—I question whether nonideal oppression theorists actually emphasize action guidance to the exclusion of other concerns. I conclude with a brief examination of the way that ideal and nonideal theory have been defined and understood in debates about normative methodology, and I suggest that a move away from Rawls’s account of the ideal/nonideal distinction would benefit feminists and other oppression theorists. (shrink)

In 2008, Dutch anti-Islam Member of Parliament Geert Wilders produced a short video called Fitna to visualize his argument that Islam is a dangerous religion. Thousands of men and women across the globe uploaded their own videos to YouTube to criticize or support the film. In this article, we look at these alternative videos from a feminist perspective, contrasting the gender portrayal and narratives in Fitna with those in the alternative videos. We contend that Fitna expressed an extremist Orientalist (...) discourse, in which women are presented as the current and future victims of the oppression of Muslim men and Islam. In contrast, the YouTube videos give voice to women themselves who come from across the globe, are relatively young and often active Muslims. Second, they express different view points in generically new ways, criticizing and ridiculing Wilders or producing serious and committed explanations of their own understanding of Islam. Third, although relatively few women appeared in the videos, those that did speak for themselves, not only take on Wilders, but also claim their right to speak within Islam. We propose to understand these videos as acts of citizenships through which women constitute themselves as global citizens, in some cases by engaging in ‘deliberation’ as it is understood in feminist political theory, in other cases by taking a ‘voice’ that can be responded to. (shrink)

Higher education institutions are legally bound to provide equal educational opportunities for diverse learners, traditionally materialized as individualized accommodations. This paper contends that despite the growing interest and scholarship in implementing more inclusive pedagogy enabling access to education for all students, those efforts still fall short of systematically addressing intersecting, oppressive, and anti-ableist practices in the classrooms. I argue, that in order to develop a truly inclusive, equitable, socially just and transformative pedagogy and teaching practices, we need a theory (...) that posits disability in the context of learning and development, the theory that integrates disability into human development in a manner that overcomes dichotomized and reductionist perspectives of disability and individualistic notions of learning. Drawing on my research on teaching and institutional practices for a student diagnosed with autism, analyzed through the lens of Critical Disability Studies in conjunction with Vygotsky’s theory of defectology and recent advances in cultural-historical activity theory, especially the Transformative Activist Stance, this paper offers steps toward integrating these approaches into a transformative pedagogy framework for inclusive, equitable, and anti-ableist pedagogy for all learners. (shrink)

In my dissertation I develop a series of guidelines for responsibly and respectfully navigating varying facets of aesthetic activity involving fat communities. I argue that fat people's engagement with the aesthetic can be used to foster community, resist anti-fat bias, and move towards fat justice. Moreover, I argue that considering representations and treatment of fat people in the production of art must be done carefully in order to avoid perpetuating negative stereotypes and anti-fat bias. My project aims to (...) improve the visibility of fat people, ensuring that fat communities can determine how and when they are seen in ways that affirm their identities and experiences. My project is broken down into four chapters, each of which tackles a different dimension of aesthetic engagement and activity. In the first, I develop a framework called "responsible aesthetic agency" for creators to use when depicting fat people in their work. I intend responsible aesthetic agency to be a way for creators to meet their bare minimum ethical obligations to fat people, and as such this framework is a precursor to Jeremy Fried's aesthetic allyship. I use this framework to argue that artists must attend to the narrative webs in which a work exists when designing their new work's narrative, and that fat people must be active participants in this design and in the realization of said narratives. My second chapter addresses how individuals can use aesthetic agency to advocate for themselves and their communities. I argue that beauty labor can be used to help dismantle anti-fat bias. Using Kathleen LeBesco's framework of agency and identity, coupled with Jeannine Gailey's assessment of the unique perception of fatness as simultaneously hypervisible and hyperinvisible, I argue that participants in the "Fuck Flattering!" movement shape their identities and advocate for fat communities by forcing society to acknowledge their visibility and worth. In my third chapter, I consider representations of fatness in popular media, arguing that we can best achieve fat visibility through centering imperfect representations of fatness. I use Anne Eaton's "Taste in Bodies and Fat Oppression" as a starting point. In this paper, Eaton argues that distaste for fat bodies has an affective element of disgust that we must address to mitigate anti-fatness. Eaton argues that we must habitually engage with vivid and engaging representations that encourage us to see fat bodies as likable and attractive. I argue that while this approach has worthwhile aims, it risks leaving behind those fat bodies which we cannot bring ourselves to see as likeable or attractive. To better combat our distaste for fat bodies, I argue that we must show fat people as complexly as we show thin characters onscreen, highlighting the pluralities of ways to exist as a fat person. Lastly, in my fourth chapter I discuss how to appropriately engage with marginalized communities as a member of a dominant group or identity. I examine the co-optation of the body positivity movement, outline the ethical harms that result from said co-optation, and discuss potential avenues for moving forward with the movement given its co-optation. I argue that in order to fully address the myriad levels of goals of the original body positivity movement, none of these three alternatives is sufficient, as each misses a crucial element of the original body positivity movement or asks participants to have too narrow of an attitude towards their own body. Given the shortcomings of these movements, I argue we should move forward from the body positivity movement’s co-optation by employing a modified framework of Aubrey Gordon’s concept of fat justice, one which also makes room to recognize the importance of fat people being able to experiment with beauty and see themselves as beautiful. (shrink)

The discourse that calls itself philosophy has long had problems with both women and Pyrrhonian Sceptics. This article explores how both Pyrrhonism and Michèle Le Dœuff's feminist philosophizing threaten this discourse by revealing its lack of philosophical rigour, to the extent that it should be relabelled philosophism. This exploration will also reveal how anti-feminism relates to anti-scepticism in the masculinist and philosophist imaginaries. Using Pascal as an initial point of contact, the article then suggests how feminist philosophy and (...) Pyrrhonism might develop a rational solidarity in the practice of philosophizing and in undoing, and keeping undone, oppressive relationships. (shrink)

"The fields of settler colonial, decolonial, and postcolonial studies, as well as Critical Animal Studies are growing rapidly, but how do the implications of these endeavours intersect? Colonialism and Animality: Anti-Colonial Perspectives in Critical Animal Studies explores some of the ways that the oppression of Indigenous persons and more-than-human animals are interconnected. Composed of twelve chapters by an international team of specialists plus a Foreword by Dinesh Wadiwel, the book is divided into four themes: Tensions and Alliances between (...) Animal and Decolonial Activisms Revisiting the Stereotypes of Indigenous Peoples' Relationships with Animals Cultural Perspectives Colonialism, Animals, and the Law This book will be of interest to undergraduate, postgraduate students, activists, as well as postdoctoral scholars, working in the areas of Critical Animal Studies, Native Studies, postcolonial and Critical Race Studies, with particular chapters being of interest to scholars and students in other fields, such as Cultural Studies, Animal Law, Critical Prison Studies, and radical criminology"--. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article addresses the growing literature in critical race studies, which holds that racism is permanent or incurable, and that by adopting this pessimistic view of racism, we can enact improved and healthier racialized lives. I argue that the focus on curing anti-Black racism, and the failure to do so in the civil rights era and its aftermath has left people of all races, to varying degrees, stuck in pessimistic states of racialized anger, resentment, guilt, and shame. These (...) pessimistic states have brought about an additional level of oppression for targets of racialized oppression. I call it “meta-oppression,” and it is the oppression of being oppressed. I argue that this oppression has exacerbated the effects of the social disease of racism, and it has literally affected the physiologies of many African Americans. This article provides a diagnosis of these existential and physiological states of meta-oppression and a clarification of its characteristics. This diagnosis is an initial step in a larger project of formulating and enacting effective treatments for it. I then argue that meta-oppression is a helpful diagnostic tool for clarifying the characteristics and ramifications on Blacks of US systemic racism during the post–civil rights movement period. I aim to establish meta-oppression as an existential and physiological condition that requires attention so as to expand the social imaginations of people of color and to allow us to engage in more systemic joyful affirmations of our racialized lives while still living within racist conditions. (shrink)

Oppression makes me angry. So, I am angry almost all of the time, as oppression (of various kinds) is endemic to our socio-political world. However, there is a growing philosophical literature that argues against anger as a necessary, virtuous, or important response to wrongdoing. Martha Nussbaum, in particular, argues that “anger is always normatively problematic, whether in the personal or in the public realm.” It is certainly true that anger can have bad or problematic effects, and it may (...) well be true that Nussbaum, and others who hold similar views, are on the right track in the moral realm. However, despite the serious moral worries surrounding anger (which I discuss in more detail below), I contend that maintaining an anti-anger position is mistaken in regard to the socio-political realm. In particular, I argue that anger is both an important, and a virtuous, response to the presence of oppression, that is, to the presence of widespread injustices that disproportionately negatively affect certain social groups, and their members, within and across societies. Anger, when in response to oppression, has the potential to be, not a vice, but a virtue. (shrink)

I trace a brief history of philosophical discussion of the concept WOMAN and identify two key points at which, I argue, things went badly wrong. The first was where when it was agreed that the concept WOMAN must identify a social not biological kind. The second was where it was decided that the concept WOMAN faced a legitimate challenge of being insufficiently “inclusive”, understood in a certain way. I’ll argue that both of these moves are only intelligible, if at all, (...) in the context of an anti-naturalist picture drawn from either post-structuralism or radical feminism. They become incoherent when adopted by methodological naturalists, who – especially when concerned to track oppression and discrimination – have no good reason to deny that WOMAN refers to a pre-given, biological kind. (shrink)

"The choice we have is not between reasonable proposals and an unreasonable utopianism. Utopian thinking does not undermine or discount real reforms. Indeed, it is almost the opposite: practical reforms depend on utopian dreaming."--Russell Jacoby, _Picture Imperfect_ Utopianism suffers from an image problem: A recent exhibition on utopias in Paris and New York included photographs of Hitler's _Mein Kampf_ and a Nazi concentration camp. Many observers judge utopians and their sympathizers as foolhardy dreamers at best and murderous totalitarians at worst. (...) However, as noted social critic and historian Russell Jacoby argues in this salient, polemical, and innovative work, not only has utopianism been unfairly characterized, a return to an iconoclastic utopian spirit is vital for today's society. Shaped by the works of Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Gustav Landauer, and other predominantly Jewish thinkers, iconoclastic utopianism revives society's dormant political imagination and offers hope for a better future. Writing against the grain of history, Jacoby reexamines the anti-utopian mindset and identifies how utopian thought came to be regarded with such suspicion. He challenges standard readings of such anti-utopian classics as _1984_ and _Brave New World_ and offers stinging critiques of the influential liberal and anti-utopian theorists Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, and Karl Popper. He argues that these thinkers mistakenly equate utopianism with totalitarianism. The reputation of utopian thought has also suffered from the failures of, what Jacoby terms, the blueprint utopian tradition and its oppressive emphasis on detailing all aspects of society and providing fantastic images of the future. In contrast, the iconoclastic utopians, like those who follow God's prohibition against graven images, resist both the blueprinters' obsession with detail and the modern seduction of images. Jacoby suggests that by learning from the hopeful spirit of iconoclastic utopians and their willingness to accept new possibilities for society, we open ourselves to new and more imaginative ideas of the future. (shrink)

This paper employs a feminist model of scapegoating designed to capture the function that scapegoating plays in the justification and masking of oppression, and examines specific forms of legislation that target the rights of trans people to uncover their scapegoating patterns. Because scapegoating is experienced as a justified attribution of blame, it evades the understanding of those participating in its dynamics. My aim is to make apparent the transphobic rhetoric that convinces people of its necessity, such that we can (...) determine the best means to undermine its discriminatory consequences. I do this by examining the scapegoating logic behind bills that seek to impact various aspects of the lives of trans people, including education, sports, identification, and healthcare. (shrink)

Interrogating received knowledge is constitutive to any critical project, and recently there has been a wave of scholarship which argues for locating the origin of racist-thinking prior to modern Europe—even prior to the Common Era—without any real consideration of the potential dangers accompanying such a seismic redefinition. By expanding “racism” to include potentially any pre-modern xenophobic or ethnicist atrocity, even well-meaning scholarship dilutes the peculiar injustice of modern Europe’s most successful epistemological weapon. As a result, we lose any criteria to (...) distinguish ubiquitous oppressive projects from specifically racist-projects of hegemony and domination. However laudable its intent, such scholarship falls prey to methodological, epistemological, and practical errors that hamstring the ameliorative impact of contemporary anti-racist work while ironically diminishing racism’s impact. For if every conflict is racist, then contemporary colorblindness is correct: if white supremacy isn’t particularly white, then racism is a distinction without a difference. (shrink)

This doctoral thesis examines the phenomenon of Filipinization, specifically understood as the ideological construction of a “Filipino identity” or ‘Filipino subject-consciousness” within the highly determinate context provided by the Filipino ilustrado nationalists such as José Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar and their fellow propagandists inasmuch as it leads to the nineteenth (19th) century construction of the modern Philippine nation. Utilizing Jacques Derrida’s deconstructive thinking, this study undertakes a genealogical critique engaged on the concrete historical examination of what is meant by (...) the term “Filipino” across a select historical timeline (1864-1898) and the various notions of Filipino identity implied by the different contexts within which the term “Filipino” has been employed. More specifically, it undertakes a selective philosophical excavation of three seminal texts in the history of Filipinization, viz.: 1) the Manifiesto of Padre Jose Burgos; 2) the writings of the Filipino ilustrados in La Solidaridad; and 3) Jose Rizal’s Annotations on Dr. Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas. -/- The philosophical claim of this work is the idea that Filipinization, taken as the differential construction of Filipino identity, is the effective translation of the colonial epistemic violence of Eurocentric racism and its consequent “horror of absolutism” into the homo-hegemony of Filipino nationalisms. By fetishizing the notion of a carefully constructed and essential “Filipino-identity,” Filipinization and the current nationalist discourses that utilize them, unwittingly, stands complicit with the same colonial violence and hegemony that they wish to combat. This happens precisely when the very structures of colonial oppression, on the ideological and practical levels, are transmogrified into nationalist ideals that assume legal and political power unto themselves in a self-referential and self-legitimating fashion. -/- Three processes will demonstrate the above thesis: first, by examining historical texts and setting itself against established nationalist historiographies, a genealogical analysis of the term “Filipino” reveals it as a pliable signifier whose semantics have evolved through time. From its originary referent in the Spanish criollo (creole), it has come to refer to people who would have been otherwise entirely alien to this class, viz., the mestizos (both Spanish and Chinese), the principalia (native elite), and eventually, the lowland Catholicized natives themselves. The historical hermeneutic of this identity-discourse in Padre José Burgos’ Manifiesto yields the fact that what gives the term “Filipino” its semantic consistency as a class concept is its essential constitution as a Hispanic and Catholic identity. -/- Second, from this semantic identification of the term “Filipino” as a Hispano-Catholic identity, we proceed to clarify the meaning of Filipinization in terms of the nationalist propaganda carried out by the Filipino ilustrados in the fortnightly periodical La Solidaridad. Here, the specific ilustrado construction of Filipino identity as a Spanish citizen (ciudadano Español) is revealed precisely as a political and legal construct that served as the basis for their own politics of social inclusion/exclusion. Filipinization can only be applied to those who have been hispanized and Christianized and never to those tribes who have resisted and remained outside Spanish colonial authority. Filipinization is thus revealed as a process of Hispanization and Christianization whereby the recipients of Spanish colonial hegemony are transformed into the religiously docile bodies of the Spanish Empire. -/- From this highly determinate context, the study proceeds to examine Rizal’s ontological grounding of collective Filipino-ness in the mythological construction of the pre-hispanic past as the source of a unique Filipino ancestrality. In his work on de Morga’s Sucesos, what is revealed is a mythologization that grounds a native, essential Filipino identity within a past unscathed by the Spanish colonial experience. Such mythologization, however, can only be possible through an anachronistic nationalist interpretation of historical data. Here, Filipinization is revealed as an exclusive prerogative, a nationalist program by which Rizal and the ilustrado class can combat the evils and excesses of the Spanish colonial enterprise. Ironically, though, this same struggle for emancipation also became an instrument by which the ilustrado class can retain their unjustified position of power over those who belonged to the colonial underside, thus, securing the possibility of perpetuating their own ilustrado bourgeois class interests. -/- Such discursive complicity is the essence of the myth of Filipinization: it presents nationalist identity discourse as an anti-colonial enterprise while being underlined by an economy of motives designed to cater primarily to the exclusive interests of the elite and ilustrado class. Thus, instead of securing the genuine, inclusive emancipation of all colonial subjects and a more humane existence for the poor and suffering majority, ilustrado nationalism has, ironically, merely reinforced those operative structures of colonial discrimination and oppression when the ilustrados: 1) grounded their racial theory upon the very same discourse of Eurocentric superiority that they are precisely supposed to question and 2) claimed a patrimony over Filipinas as their exclusive sovereign inheritance. These two factors illustrate how the manifest transfer of power from the Spanish Empire to the Philippine sovereign nation (and later as a nation-state) illustrate how Filipinization merely has transmogrified the face of Spanish colonialism into its new, subtle, and worse form in Filipino nationalism. -/- In this vein, the existence of the 19th century modern Philippine nation merely masked and deferred the crisis that was supposed to transfer power from the Spanish Empire to the multitude of the poor and suffering native indio majority. This crisis became all the more difficult to address be-cause of the duplicitous character of the discourse of Filipinization itself. It has not only effectively transferred power into the hands of the nationalist elite but also captured authentic emancipatory discourse within the identity-trap against which it can only hope to get out. This study concludes with the claim about the impossibility of ever escaping and overcoming the epistemic and practical violence necessarily contained within the historical discourse of colonialism. Or simply, we have no language or discourse that would enable us to overcome the complicity of Filipinization with the very (epistemic) violence against which it has set itself. (shrink)

In this article, I defend the pragmatic relevance of race in history. Kant and Hegel's racist development thesis assumes that nonwhite, non-European racial groups are defective practical agents. In response, philosophers have opted to drop race from a theory of history and progress. They posit that denying its pragmatic relevance amounts to anti-racist egalitarianism. I dub this tactic “colorblind cosmopolitanism” and offer grounds for its rejection. Following Du Bois, I ascribe, instead, a pragmatic role to race in history. Namely, (...) Du Bois argues that race is an “instrument of progress” that advances emancipatory struggle. He appeals to the writing of history—or historiography—to cultivate group consciousness of historical memory in order to strengthen intragroup bonds among the racially oppressed, especially black Americans, and create intergroup bonds that reconstruct the republic on the basis of universal ideals. I detail Du Bois's defense of the black struggle for freedom in the wake of the U.S. Civil War to provide a concrete illustration of “spirit” in American history. (shrink)

John Christman has recently objected to substantive conceptions of autonomy on the grounds that they introduce unwanted perfectionism into political thinking. I defend substantive conceptions of autonomy against Christman’s critique on two fronts. First, I defend substantive conceptions of autonomy against the charge that their utilisation in political theory would result in the inappropriate exclusion from democratic respect of individuals in oppressive relations. Second, I defend substantive conceptions of autonomy from the charge that they fail the ‘endorsement constraint’, i.e. that (...) incorporating a substantive conception of autonomy into the concept of the person at the heart of a political theory would be alienating for citizens. (shrink)

This chapter is intended to provide a new definition of insurrectionist ethics that cuts in many ways against the grain of positions already engraved in the literature. That is done by considering the various elements of a novel definition of insurrectionist ethics. One that treats fundamental, structural, and systemic oppression as the conditions that give warrant to an insurrectionist response. A notion of necro-depictions is articulated as an essential conceptual tool to understanding the duty to insurrect or resist (...) class='Hi'>oppression. It is here argued that insurrectionists ethics is an anti-ethical position that operates from an understanding of the severe ethical constraints under which oppressed people are forced to deliberate about the appropriate ends to seek through voluntary action. Insurrectionist ethics requires the transvaluation of existing values, and radical reformulation of conceptions of personhood, humanity, and liberation, among others, to render comprehensible its radical aims of social transformation, and abolition of present conditions of oppression. (shrink)

Language plays a role in the genocide of the Rohingya people in Myanmar and continues to shape their experiences in displacement, yet their linguistic rights are rarely discussed in relation to their human rights and humanitarian concerns. International human rights standards offer important foundations for conceptualizing the “right to language” and identifying how linguistic rights can be violated both in situ and in displacement. The Rohingya case highlights how language policies are weaponized to oppress unwanted minorities; their outsider status is (...) reinforced by the country’s language education policy and they face additional rights challenges in displacement—including obstacles to effectively accessing humanitarian aid. Moving forward, norms associated with self-determination and language rights offer a conceptual foundation for shifting attitudes and altering negative perceptions of Rohingya identity. (shrink)

What does it feel like to encounter ourselves and one another as implicated subjects, both in our everyday lives and in the context of our work as clinicians, and how does this matter? With contributions from a diverse group of relational psychoanalytic thinkers, this book reads Michael Rothberg's concept of the implicated subject - the notion that we are continuously implicated in injustices even when not perpetrators - as calling us to elaborate what it feels like to inhabit such subjectivities (...) in relation to others both similarly and differently situated. Implication and anti-Black racism are central to many chapters, with attention given to the unique vulnerability of racial minority immigrants, to Native American genocide, and to the implication of ordinary Israelis in the oppression of Palestinians. The book makes the case that the therapist's ongoing openness to learning of our own implication in enactments is central to a Relational sensibility and to a progressive psychoanalysis. As a contribution to the necessary and long-overdue conversation within the psychoanalytic field about racism, social injustice, and ways to move toward a just society, this book will be essential for all relational psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. (shrink)

This article addresses two questions: How should a ‘practical political theory’ approach the ideological struggle between advocates of critical social justice and defenders of free speech? And, what does this conflict tell us about the deficits of one particular tradition of practical political theory — namely, agonistic democracy? The paper’s purpose, then, is to illuminate a concrete contemporary phenomenon through the lens of agonistic theory and, conversely, to use this struggle as an impetus to carve out and address weaknesses in (...) the theory of agonism.I defend an ‘agonistic approach’ to the struggle against two alternatives — first, the claim that there is, conceptually, no ‘real’ conflict between social justice and free speech, and second, the strategy to ‘take sides’ in the conflict. By taking seriously the agonistic core idea that struggle and conflict can be valuable and productive expressions of plurality and inclusivity, I argue that this struggle should be approached as an agonistic conflict — as the welcome and important expression of a diversity of views on central social, moral and political questions.I also show, however, how retaining the focus on the real-life struggle between advocates of critical social justice and free-speech sheds light on the inconsistencies of much agonistic thought. In particular, I will criticize those agonists who limit their conception of the ‘agon’ to respectful struggles, and those who see the agon merely as a tool of emancipation for oppressed groups. Against these visions of agonism, I develop an anti-perfectionist, yet radical, account of agonism with the potential to serve as a guide in complex social and political conflicts. (shrink)

Teaching students to build resilience is necessary to keep imagining and fighting for a path towards social justice. To do so, clinicians can draw from the communities facing oppression and examine how they remain resilient despite oppression.

Are African and African-American Studies, as defined and practiced in the USA, tools of US cultural imperialism? Are discussions of race, racial inequality or racial oppression in other societies, when carried out by North Americans, to be viewed as `brutal ethnocentric intrusions'? These are among the central propositions of a vigorous polemic by two French sociologists, Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc Wacquant, in a 1999 article entitled `On the Cunning of Imperialist Reason'. As proof, Bourdieu and Wacquant call attention to (...) the recent transnational scholarly dialogue regarding race in Brazil and denounce the `imposition' of an `American tradition', `model' and `dichotomy' of race on Brazil. In particular, they attack as `ethnocentric poison' a 1994 monograph by Michael Hanchard on Brazilian `Black Consciousness' movements, Orpheus and Power: The Movimento Negro of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil, 1945-1988. This article dissects Bourdieu and Wacquant's mischaracterization of the current US-Brazilian dialogue on the African diaspora in the New World. It identifies their fundamental missteps and misjudgments, offers a critique of the schematic model of transnational intellectual circulation they offer in the article, and demonstrates their radical misrepresentation of Michael Hanchard's treatment of questions of race, color and nation in Brazil. (shrink)

This article discusses the politics behind the recently publicized arranged marriage of a 12-year-old Romani girl, Ana Maria Cioaba. It speaks to the anti-Romani racism in Romania and abroad inherent in the media portrayal of the marriage and criticizes the racist politics behind the involvement of the different political figures in an effort to ‘save’ Ms Cioaba. It also discusses the implications of the media’s obsession with the ‘exotic’ oppression of Third World women in the context of Ms (...) Cioaba’s arranged marriage. Ultimately the article also attempts to illuminate the precarious position of Romani feminism in racist countries. (shrink)