In his essay, “Understanding a Primitive Society” Peter Winch claims that cultures are enclosed in language games which are both mutually unintelligible and equally valid. In doing so he is trying to prevent anthropologists from concluding that a culture is ‘wrong’ about reality (i.e. their belief system and how that informs their daily life) (Winch 79). Winch sees such judgement as an open door to cultural imperialism; if a culture is wrong than it stands to be corrected by the culture which judges it as such. He has every reason for such a noble pursuit. Writing in the time of African decolonization, he had born witness to the colonialists’ domination of innumerable cultures. Justified out of a ‘need’ to civilize the inferior savages and support the superior Europeans (through slaves and natural resources) this unequal cultural relationship allowed for utter destruction on the continent.
The international community is fixated on the protection of human rights, and sees only one route to do this: the expansion of liberal democracy. The interest in propagating these models produced the conditions for conflict to break out in Sri Lanka.
In 1996, leaders came together at the World Food Summit in Rome to address the rising level of malnutrition throughout the world. They feared that if no action were taken, the amount of hungry people in the world in 2010 would reach 680 million, and set a commitment to halve the amount of undernourished people by 2015. Yet ten years after the summit, the World Food Program reported[1] the amount of hungry people has surpassed the 2010 estimate of 680 million and is already at 842 million.
While few tears will be shed for Gaddafi’s loss, might his death turn out to be a curse in disguise? Will the loss of their common enemy lead the Libyan rebel forces to unravel? And, if things do fall apart in Libya, how will this affect the Arab spring in other countries?
In this essay I will examine the areas in which NEPAD (the New Partnership for Africa’s Development) has been both praised and criticised whilst also inspecting its successes and failures, by which I mean to show that despite not being perfect NEPAD has the capacity to provoke real change on the continent.
Indigenous identity is problematic because it is grounded on the politics of difference, especially on the existence of a prior identity. This essay argues that indigenous security implies the identification and security of the vulnerable shared identity from the dominant one, which then results in the creation of indigenous peoples as a threat.
On the basis of Euro-American Feminist and popular discourse on Muslim women in the west, Islamic Feminism seems to be somewhat of an oxymoron. Likewise for many Muslims the label Feminism is often construed as a Western project, carrying with it historical and ideological baggage.
The R2P is heralded by many as making political power more responsible and accountable, both to the domestic citizenry and ‘international community’. It has sought to democratise humanitarian intervention in a way which reconceptualises sovereignty as responsibility and looks to protect the ‘victim other’ from imminent mass death at the hands of irresponsible state power.
We are routinely presented with the image of an angry bearded man, possibly a clip from a video linked to Al-Qaeda, and then an unspecific warning of an imminent threat. We are asked to be concerned, but not allowed to be informed. The implicit equivalence of margin with radical and radical with violence makes for perpetual insecurity in modern societies.
The July 2011 attacks in Norway have once again brought the issues surrounding success of far right parties and movements to the fore in Europe, as well as governmental responses to immigration and immigrant integration. Although Anders Breivik attacked members of the Norwegian governing party, his “manifesto” focused on support for multiculturalism and the spread of Islam.
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