Your Search Results
-
Promoted Content
-
Promoted Content
Humanities & Social SciencesOctober 2022France, humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect
by Eglantine Staunton
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesMay 2024The anthropology of ambiguity
Theory, praxis and critique
by Mahnaz Alimardanian, Timothy Heffernan
This volume puts ambiguity and its generative power at the centre of analytical attention. Rather than being cast negatively as a source of confusion, bewilderment or as a dangerous portent, ambiguity is held as the source of the dynamic between knowledge and experience and of certainty amid uncertainty. It positions human life between the realms of mystery and mastery where ambiguity is understood as the experience and expression of life and part of navigating the human condition. In turn, the tension between the tradition in anthropology of examining cultural certitudes through ethnographic description and efforts to challenge dominant expressions of incertitude are explored. Each chapter presents ethnographic accounts of how people engage individually and collectively with the self, the other, human-made institutions and the more-than-human to navigate ambiguity in a world affected by viral contagion, climate change, economic instability, labour precarity and (geo)political tension.
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2017The empire in one city?
Liverpool's inconvenient imperial past
by Sheryllynne Haggerty, Andrew Thompson, Anthony Webster, John M. MacKenzie, Nicholas J. White
From the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century, Liverpool was frequently referred to as the 'second city of the empire'. Yet, the role of Liverpool within the British imperial system and the impact on the city of its colonial connections remain underplayed in recent writing on both Liverpool and the empire. However, 'inconvenient' this may prove, this specially-commissioned collection of essays demonstrates that the imperial dimension deserves more prevalence in both academic and popular representations of Liverpool's past. Indeed, if Liverpool does represent the 'World in One City' - the slogan for Liverpool's status as European Capital of Culture in 2008 - it could be argued that this is largely down to Merseyside's long-term interactions with the colonial world, and the legacies of that imperial history. In the context of Capital of Culture year and growing interest in the relationship between British provincial cities and the British empire, this book will find a wide audience amongst academics, students and history enthusiasts generally.
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesDecember 2020The military-humanitarian complex in Afghanistan
by Bertrand Taithe, Eric James, Tim Jacoby
-
Trusted Partner
African historyJanuary 2017Humanitarian aid, genocide and mass killings
Médecins Sans Frontières, the Rwandan experience, 1982–97
by Jean-Hervé Bradol. Series edited by Bertrand Taithe
Throughout the 1990s, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was forced to face the challenges posed by the genocide of Rwandan Tutsis and a succession of outbreaks of political violence in Rwanda and its neighbouring countries. Humanitarian workers were confronted with the execution of almost one million people, tens of thousands of casualties pouring into health centres, the flight of millions of people who had sought refuge in camps and a series of deadly epidemics. Drawing on various hitherto unpublished private and public archives, this book recounts the experiences of the MSF teams working in the field. It is intended for humanitarian aid practitioners, students, journalists and researchers with an interest in genocide and humanitarian studies and the political sociology of international organisations.
-
Trusted Partner
Literature & Literary StudiesMarch 2023
Sleep and its spaces in Middle English literature
Emotions, ethics, dreams
by Megan Leitch
Middle English literature is intimately concerned with sleep and the spaces in which it takes place. In the medieval English imagination, sleep is an embodied and culturally determined act. It is both performed and interpreted by characters and contemporaries, subject to a particular habitus and understood through particular hermeneutic lenses. While illuminating the intersecting medical and moral discourses by which it is shaped, sleep also sheds light on subjects in favour of which it has hitherto been overlooked: what sleep can enable (dreams and dream poetry) or what it can stand in for or supersede (desire and sex). This book argues that sleep mediates thematic concerns and questions in ways that have ethical, affective and oneiric implications. At the same time, it offers important contributions to understanding different Middle English genres: romance, dream vision, drama and fabliau.
-
Trusted Partner
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesJune 2025
Humanitarianism and the Greater War, 1914–24
by Elisabeth Piller, Neville Wylie
-
Trusted Partner
MedicineHumanitarian Aid
Encounters with People in Need
by Joachim Gardemann
Joachim Gardemann outlines his encounters and experiences as a pediatrician in crisis zones while working for the Red Cross all over the world. He describes people in existential emergency situations, who have been traumatized but survived a genocide on the border with Rwanda. People who have fled from civil wars in Congo or escaped from the Kosovo war. He traces the suffering of people in Iran, China and Haiti after losing their relatives and all their possessions in severe earthquakes. At their moments of greatest vulnerability, in the shelters and dirt of a refugee camp in Jordan, he meets people who have fled from the turmoil of the civil wars in Sudan and Syria. He sketches poignant portraits of the victims of the tsunami disaster in Sri Lanka. He gives a striking account of the devastation wrought by the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone. He creates a worthy memorial to those who died of Ebola, who lost their lives as doctors and nurses in the fight against Ebola as well as to those who survived.
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesOctober 2024
Humanitarianism, empire and transnationalism, 1760-1995
Selective humanity in the Anglophone world
by Joy Damousi, Trevor Burnard, Alan Lester
This is the first book to examine the shifting relationship between humanitarianism and the expansion, consolidation and postcolonial transformation of the Anglophone world across three centuries, from the antislavery campaign of the late eighteenth century to the role of NGOs balancing humanitarianism and human rights in the late twentieth century. Contributors explore the trade-offs between humane concern and the altered context of colonial and postcolonial realpolitik. They also showcase an array of methodologies and sources with which to explore the relationship between humanitarianism and colonialism. These range from the biography of material objects to interviews as well as more conventional archival enquiry. They also include work with and for Indigenous people whose family histories have been defined in large part by 'humanitarian' interventions.
-
Trusted Partner
Business, Economics & LawMay 2025Hierarchies and exclusion in humanitarianism
by Clara Egger, Andrea Schneiker
While humanitarians generally present themselves as 'do-gooders' and use this image to gather support and funding, this edited volume addresses hierarchies and exclusions in humanitarianism - an issue that has gained increased attention. Contributions analyse how hierarchies, power asymmetries and exclusion emerge, are maintained and can ultimately be challenged in humanitarian governance. Leading scholars on humanitarianism coming from a variety of disciplinary fields such as international relations, philosophy, organisational science and management, and sociology analyse exclusion dynamics at the individual, organisational and structural levels. Authors thereby combine data from a diverse range of methods, including ethnography, survey and statistical analysis. The volume informs current efforts to increase inclusiveness and equity in humanitarian practice.
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesJuly 2025Formulating development
How Nestlé shaped the aid industry
by Lola Wilhelm
In the 1970s, Nestlé became a lightning rod for criticism against the food industry's negative impacts on humans and their environment, especially in the Global South. But what has so far eluded historical scrutiny is that the picture was more nuanced. This book tells the exclusive story of how the Swiss food giant, and more broadly corporate capitalism, have shaped the aid industry since the late nineteenth century. It follows Nestlé's bid for a share of the humanitarian market brokered by the Red Cross in wartime Europe, of its clinical trials in Swiss and Senegalese maternities, and of its agricultural modernisation schemes in Mexico, India, and the Ivory Coast. Based on extensive research in the firm's own historical archives and the records of national and international aid agencies, the volume interrogates the legacies of this long history for international development today.
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesJuly 2016The humanitarian-military complex in Afghanistan
by Bertrand Taithe, Eric James, Tim Jacoby
Violent conflict brings together two seemingly disparate groups: humanitarians and soldiers. This mixes and convolutes agendas, blurring lines that are often perceived to be sacrosanct. Delving deeply into the history and reasons of why these two groups work in close proximity, this study provide a unique insight into the history, ethical dilemmas and policy conundrums when aid workers operate close to the military. Using Afghanistan as a case study, analytical rigour, deep primary research and "field" knowledge are combined in an exceptional contribution to this important area. This book gives scholars and practitioners alike a nuanced perspective on the challenges faced by aid workers, military personnel and decision-makers alike in countries affected by violent conflicts, hosting foreign military interventions and receiving international aid. ;
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesJune 2021
Acts of supremacy
by J. Bratton, Richard Cave, Brendan Gregory, Michael Pickering
Imperialist discourse interacted with regional and class discourses. Imperialism's incorporation of Welsh, Scots and Irish identities, was both necessary to its own success and one of its most powerful functions in terms of the control of British society. Most cultures have a place for the concept of heroism, and for the heroic figure in narrative fiction; stage heroes are part of the drama's definition of self, the exploration and understanding of personal identity. Theatrical and quasi-theatrical presentations, whether in music hall, clubroom, Shakespeare Memorial Theatre or the streets and ceremonial spaces of the capital, contributed to that much-discussed national mood. This book examines the theatre as the locus for nineteenth century discourses of power and the use of stereotype in productions of the Shakespearean history canon. It discusses the development of the working class and naval hero myth of Jack Tar, the portrayal of Ireland and the Irish, and the portrayal of British India on the spectacular exhibition stage. The racial implications of the ubiquitous black-face minstrelsy are focused upon. The ideology cluster which made up the imperial mindset had the capacity to re-arrange and re-interpret history and to influence the portrayal of the tragic or comic potential of personal dilemmas. Though the British may have prided themselves on having preceded America in the abolition of slavery and thus outpacing Brother Jonathan in humanitarian philanthropy, abnegation of hierarchisation and the acceptance of equality of status between black and white ethnic groups was not part of that achievement.
-
Trusted Partner
2024Brave new city
Smart Cities - a survaillance-nightmare?
by Peter Schaar
The dream of the ideal city is as old as the city itself. Since real cities often develop chaotically, the idea of perfecting them, even tearing them down if necessary, and rebuilding them according to the prevailing patterns of thought is an obvious one. The latest manifestation of this utopia is the smart city - the intelligent city, packed with the latest technology and extensively digitised. But will air taxis and hyperloops, ubiquitous sensors, access control systems and data-driven management really make the city of the future a better place to live? Are they the answer to the enormous challenges facing today's fast-growing metropolises? Or will the supposed administrative paradise ultimately mutate into a digital juggernaut?
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesMay 2020Connecting centre and locality
by Chris R. Kyle, Jason Peacey, Alastair Bellany
-
Trusted Partner
-
Trusted Partner
June 1993Die Ideologie des Ästhetischen
by Paul Man, Karl Heinz Bohrer, Christoph Menke, Jürgen Blasius, Christoph Menke
Als Paul de Man 1983 starb, war er der wohl bekannteste und einflußreichste Vertreter einer Richtung der Literaturkritik und ihrer Theore, die allgemein als »dekonstruktiv« bezeichnet wird. Kennzeichnend für diese Richtung ist eine erneute Konzentration auf die innere Verfaßtheit der literarischen Texte. Eine erste Auswahl dieser methodisch vorbildlich wie brillant geschriebenen Texte ist 1988 unter dem Titel »Allegorien des Lesens« in der edition suhrkamp erschienen. Die vorliegende Auswahl konzentriert sich auf die methodologischen und theoretischen Prämissen dieses Vorhabens, wie sie die Abhandlungen über die Zeitlichkeit der Literatur, über Shelley und über die Autobiographie deutlich machen. Sich auf die immanente Verfaßtheit und Bewegung von Texten einzulassen ist nach de Man kein selbstzweckhaftes, folgenloses Unternehmen. De Man beansprucht vielmehr für seine »Rückkehr zur Philologie« eine allgemeine Bedeutung; die Literaturkritik ist zugleich philosophische und politische Kritik. Damit ist der zweite Schwerpunkt dieser Auswahl bezeichnet. De Man erläutert diese These zum einen in kritischer Auseinandersetzung mit der Philosophie Jacques Derridas. Zum anderen zeigt er an zentralen Texten der ästhetischen Tradition, an Kant und Hegel, daß ihr falsches – »ideologisches« – Verständnis literarischer Texte unter der Kategorie des »Ästhetischen« ebenso weitreichende philosophische wie politische Konsequenzen hat.
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesJanuary 2013Christian Dualist Heresies in the Byzantine World, c. 650-c. 1450
by Janet Hamilton, Bernard Hamilton
Christian dualism originated in the reign of Constans II (641-68). It was a popular religion, which shared with orthodoxy an acceptance of scriptual authority and apostolic tradition and held a sacramental doctrine of salvation, but understood all these in a radically different way to the Orthodox Church. One of the differences was the strong part demonology played in the belief system. This text traces, through original sources, the origins of dualist Christianity throughout the Byzantine Empire, focusing on the Paulician movement in Armenia and Bogomilism in Bulgaria. It presents not only the theological texts, but puts the movements into their social and political context.
