Experiences show that selective prosecutionstrategies may result in only some offenders being indicted, withothers benefitting from amnesty. For example, the hybrid courts ofCambodia and Sierra Leone only indicted small proportion of eachnation’s offenders (five35 and 1336 respectively), which left thousandsof other offenders to benefit from amnesty.
raises breadth v. depth issue --> law has a signaling function; does punishing a cross-section send a strong enough message?
Regional human rights courts can consider whether, by grantingamnesty, a state over which it has jurisdiction is in violation ofits international obligations. Where these courts find a violation,they can recommend a range of remedies, including orderingthat the amnesty be annulled. If the state complies with sucha ruling, it can result in the amnesty ceasing to have effect indomestic law
comforting to know that there are checks in place when amnesty = improperly done
The period between the start and end dates should be theminimum necessary for the achievement of the law’s objectives.The selection of these dates can affect the legitimacy of theamnesty
interesting that political considerations inform cut off dates
the exclusion of thefollowing acts from an amnesty may serve to increase itslegitimacy and legality:i. serious international crimesii. other serious acts of violence against persons that may notrise to the level of an international crimeiii. acts or offences motivated by personal gain or malice
have to account for the fact TJ process are also about restoring trust in the law and other institutions - how might amnesty undermine that by separating moral harm from legally cognizable harm (AZAPO)?
When an offenderhas committed both included and excluded offenses, apartial amnesty could be possible. As noted in Guideline 16,the implementation of limited amnesties requires individualdeterminations of their application
more precise approach
n making these decisions, nationalcriminal justice systems can apply established principles of law,for example, by exercising discretion in developing selectiveprosecution strategies. Selective prosecution strategies are alsoemployed by international and hybrid courts. As a result, stateswill not necessarily be violating their obligations if, due to theexercise of prosecutorial discretion, they do not prosecute allperpetrators or instances of these crimes
complementarity in action
After extensive gross human rights violations or violent conflictwithin a society, there are often substantial legal, political,economic, and social challenges to pursuing widespreadprosecutions. It is rarely possible or practical to prosecute alloffender
limited institutional capacity --> forced to make normative judgments and create hierarchies of harm
requirements to apologise,
but apologies can be weaponized / be performative and serve only to exonerate the state (esp. the case in settler states like Canada, where indigenous scholars and activists have criticized the way that formal apologies by state leaders like Trudeau can have a silencing effect and allow the state to absolve itself -- which looks like presenting injustice as a part harm and eliding the way that the Canadian state continues to infringe on tribal sovereignty in the present, fails to adequately deal with the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women, etc.
Those responsible for gross violations of human rights orinternational crimes should be held accountable. In addition to legalmechanisms of accountability, which normally give rise to individualprosecution, there are non-legal mechanisms the use of whichmay, in some contexts, be preferable
important to reflect how the law isn't the only tool of accountability; easy to slip into carceral logics --> when incarceration isn't a cure-all for every social ill; how can legal and non-legal forms of accountability work together?
Over the past two years, the more than 150 female lawyers in our organization have registered 9,976 cases of sexual and gender-based violations and general human rights violations. Of these, 715 were allegations of rape. Most of the victims of these crimes will not see justice. For example, of the 171 cases of rape we submitted to the national courts in 2016-17, we have received decisions for only 24.
intersectionality of victims - whose claims / victimhood is made legible in these spaces?
Second, like it or not, international criminal tribunals need powerful patrons to operate successfully. T
but what implications does this have on how the courts operates? --> need for powerful patrons, makes the court operate under the shadow of great power politics, which explains the disparity of prosecutions involving the Global North vis a vis the Global South
Arguments in favor of a complementary system won out, mainly because states held firm to the notion of state sovereignty. Indeed, the ICC, as a voluntary treaty body, is grounded in the consent of states that sign up to its terms.
democratic logic --> democracies gain legitimacy from the consent from the governed; ICC's legitimacy also supported by the consent of the states in its jurisdiction
1) It protects the accused if they have been prosecuted before national courts.2) It respects national sovereignty in the exercise of criminal jurisdiction. 3) It might promote greater efficiency because the ICC cannot deal with all cases of serious crimes.
need to balance considerations of accountability with due process (no double jeopardy, ex post facto prosecutions, etc. )
It was in the late 1990s, after the genocides in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, that governments were moved to come together to create an independent, permanent international criminal court that would be powerful enough to hold accountable those most responsible for serious crimes— regardless of their rank.
existence of ICC / ICJ as a deterrence - state / other institutional actors operating with the knowledge that international mechanisms of accountability exist, and act accordingly to maintain peace / free elections / avoid committing mass atrocities
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court — currently signed by 139 states — is the treaty that created the International Criminal Court (ICC). In effect, it established a new system linking the national and international court systems to deal with the most egregious crimes: war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
countervailing value - state sovereignty? what do states risk in opting in to this system?
“The duty to investigate and prosecute serious crimes lies first and foremost with domestic authorities. It is crucial for national authorities and their international partners to step up efforts to pursue justice."
pro - allows for tailoring to cultural / social / political context, con - limited resources? dependent on political will of authorities to a) acknowledge that violence has occurred and b) punish it?
The judges also ruled on reparations claims, awarding between 200 million to one billion Guinean francs (approximately US$23,000 to $115,000) for the different groups of victims, including those who have suffered physical and psychological trauma.
what pitfalls come with putting a price tag on trauma / harm? when is the debt paid?
, in a landmark trial for rapes and killings of protesters in 2009, Human Rights Watch said today
hierarchies of victimhood --> important to vindicate sexual violence not as an incident of war, but as a crime, in and of itself
They are symptomatic of the double standards that influence the broader international system and often reinforce colonial legacies that fuel underlying power imbalances, which can lead to unequal access to justice.
yes, power differential between Global North and Global South
A rush to refer the situation in Ukraine to the ICC following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, while welcome, far outstrips the offers of support member countries have made for other situations, such as Darfur or Palestine
politics shaping who gets prosecuted in the ICC
The Day of International Criminal Justice on July 17 marks the anniversary of the adoption of the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The drive for global justice faces an important test. While different pathways to accountability flourish, justice remains under threat from those who fear accountability and their allies.
ICC politics - disproportionate focus on Global South undermines its legitimacy
The conflicts and crises raging across the globe today in Darfur, Gaza, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Ukraine demonstrate how impunity fuels cycles of violence. As the world confronts these emergencies, it is crucial that impartial and independent justice is delivered to victims of grave international crimes, regardless of where they are committed or by whom.
serves detterence + retribution functions
Notonly will you provide the jurors with more cogent thoughts and arguments,but they will infer from the silence that what you are about to say is importantand worthy of consideration
key insight
hese examples of courtroom closing arguments, as with President Obama’seulogy in Charleston, demonstrate how pauses occupy a “beacon position” inspeech.112 Like a lighthouse, they signal “pay attention,” and because of, orin addition to, that signaling function, pauses increase comprehension of thewords that the pause precedes or follows.
silence as a way of underscoring what matters
hese first two types of nonspeech are both silence for a nonrhetoricalpurpose. While these two noncommunicative silences are important, they notthe focus of this article. Rather, this article focuses on the third kind: silences—or what the Greeks called evyloti slopi—“Eloquent Silence.” 40 This is the type ofsilence in which the nonspeaker intends to be communicative by her silence,or, for our purposes, to make an argument.
consider what is intended to be communicated by silence - what are we meant to hear in it?
Silence, asa means of communication, has been variously categorized, but most simplybreaks down into three groups. First, silence can be simple silence, in otherwords, as stillness—sleep, meditation, or the pause necessary for turn-taking inconversation.38 Second, silence can be silencing—a verb that means censorship o
definitions of silence
o start down the remedial road, this article keys on a lawyer’s effective use ofspoken silence and, to a lesser extent, documentary silence in legal discourse.The author demonstrates, in Section II, why silence is rhetorical. SectionIII explores how silence works—cognitively—to persuade. In Section IV, theauthor highlights how lawyers can, and should, talk less in conversations andcourt, and consider more deliberately when to, and not to, respond to a brief,letter, e-mail, or text. In Section V, the article concludes with an observation,rather than recommendation, on when to stay silen
summary of Rappaport's arguments
ilence is powerful because itpenetrates the listener’s mind by giving meaning to what was already heard;conversely, silence can act as a ramp up to what is about to be heard. Silence,thus, allows the listener to finish a thought, or prepare to receive a thought.Either way, the listener becomes participant.
silence as a form of dialogue
the President stopped—he stopped. For a full thirteenseconds silence reigned, and then, slowly, the President began to sing AmazingGrace. Peter Manseau wrote of “Obama’s graceful pause in Charleston” 16 and,quoting Evans Crawford’s book on African-American preachers’ sermons, 17observed that Obama’s pause was “not a ‘dead silence’ but a ‘live silence.’. . . It is a silence that organizes time that invites us to think of time not assomething passed but as something plotted
the power of intentional silence
The law that the Supreme Court establishesis the law that they must live by, so all things considered, it’s better to have itclearer than confusing
silence as serving a public good and avoiding confusion
ut recent social science research suggests that the winking faces andpineapples might have a better chance of being understood than an actual, fully‐written email message.
symbols as mode of communication
ain Boulevard is a busy street where vehicles travelling in an easterly direction generally andhabitually speed in excess of the posted speed limit. This accident was not the first one involvinga phone booth at this particular location
custom (unreasonable though); goes to idea of like circumstances
Anthony Appleton was standing next to the phone booth occupied by Peters just prior to theaccident. According to Appleton, he saw Ford’s car veer toward the booth and, although hewaited several seconds before running away, he was able to get out of the car’s path to avoidinjury.
implicates duty to rescue potentially - but unsuccessful because of the lack of a special relationship
Heattempted to flee but was unable to do so because, according to him, the door to the booth“jammed and stuck, trapping” him inside
booth operator potentially negligent - bad door
It looks like we just might have a deal,” and then asked “When doyou suppose we’ll have our new garage?” Jones replied “If all goes well, in about eight to twelvemonths once we start construction, depending on soil conditions, weather conditions, and designdetails. I can’t imagine it any sooner, but I guess anything is possible
oral confirmation
Neither Smith nor Jones signed their names though theyshook hands
no signature
Mimi falls asleep on the couchuntil she hears a rustling in the outdoor trash cans. Mr. T assumes that it’s the mob boss comingto fulfill the CEO’s promise, so he takes his shotgun and shoots the shadow on the edge of hisproperty.
affirmative defense - self-defense
She brings paperwork to Mr. T’s room. He says hedoesn’t want to sign anything and just wants to go home. She blocks the door, and says he hasto sign the papers in order to leave. Mr. T is too feeble to force her to move and there’s only onedoor
false imprisonment
he doctor is trying to impress the medical students shadowing him, and so he opens upMr. T’s file and says in a deep, calm voice: “Well, I have good news and bad news. The goodnews is that your body is no longer filled with sand, but it is filled with tumors.” No one laughs.Mr. T starts sobbing and can’t hear the doctor saying “I was just kidding.” He starts sobbing sohard that the heart monitor he’s attached to shows a tremendous spike in blood pressure.
IIED - reckless conduct -> severe emotional distress (cancer diagnosis = serious + life-threatening)
In hisdistressed state, Mr. T thinks that Mimi is his late wife and asks her to come in an ambulancewith him
IIED (potentially)?
A strong ocean breeze comes and sends a large amount of sand intoMr. T’s eyes. Mr. T is a jeweler, so his eyesight is incredibly important to him. He also has animmune system deficiency where his insides are allergic to sand
transferred battery - daughter intended to cause offensive/harmful contact to her mother and injures Mr. T accidently in the process of doing that
Just like the Rebuttal and Refutationsection in CRARC, the rebuttal sectionin IRARC will help you gain credibilitywith the reader, and it will help youfocus your arguments
rebuttal is important - improves credibility and shores up your argument
. A properlyCRARCed argument section address-es the strongest arguments first, fol-lowed by weaker arguments andpublic-policy arguments. This is thebest method for persuasive writing.It draws the court’s attention rightaway to the arguments with which itmight agree.
start strong - right out of the gate
interpleader
a suit pleaded between two parties to determine a matter of claim or right to property held by a third party.
You’ll know your research is donewhen your keep seeing the same author-ities. But don’t wait to find and under-stand every piece of research. the goalis to know everything when you’re donewriting, not before you start writing
key point - don't wait to feel like you understand everything before getting into the writing process
f you’re writing to your supervisors,appreciate not only that they’re busy, butalso that their definition of a “draft” willbe different from yours. when they say,“Just give me a draft,” they mean “Giveme a perfect, final product tomorrow
important clarification
ndergraduates are wordy writers. They overcomplicateissues and don’t edit for concision and clarity. They’vea word count to reach.26 College courses give studentsword minimums; law-school courses give students wordmaximums. In law school, every word counts. Timespent on one argument is time not spent on another. Ifthe student’s writing is clear and concise, they can saymore in less space
be economical - every word and sentence has to be purposeful
When entering law school, students should expect tostruggle at legal writing.25 Legal writing is a new skill. Agood writer isn’t always a good legal writer, although onlya good legal writer can be a good lawyer. Law studentswho majored in English or history might believe they’regood writers until they start law school
be patient with yourself, this is a new form of writing
When writers write in the active voice and preferverbs to nouns, the reader is engaged. Sentences shouldgo from old to new, simple to complex, short to long,and end with power
key
Logical thinkers can learn to writefor the reader. The reader is the only one who counts
what you say and how you say it should be informed by who your audience is
Great legal writers turn complicated legal issues intosomething simple and understandable. They bring theiraudience to a logical conclusion, one that suits theirclients
translation from the complex to the simple = key
The British legal theorist P. S. Atiyah putsit directly: “The concept of a system of precedent is that it constrainsjudges in some cases to follow decisions they do not agree with
a benefit of this is that it allows for continuity and stability - rather than decisions changing with the composition and temperament of the judges on the courts
She has reached her decision because, having been persuaded byHenningsen, she now believes that unconscionable contractual provi-sions based on extreme disparities of bargaining power in consumertransactions should not be enforced.
precedent is intended to enhance the courts' discretion - offer templates for successful and accurate judgement
In-stead the decision exemplifies the fundamental human capacity to learnfrom others and from the past.
looking to precedent as a way of seeking wisdom on how to approach a problem addressed by a vertical / horizontal court
we can label the court now making the decision the in-stant court and its current controversy the instant case. And we can callthe previous court (including the same court in an earlier case) the prece-dent court and its decision the precedent case.
key definitions
What counts as the same question will occupy much of our atten-tion, but first we need to examine just what the obligation to follow aprecedent is.
key point
When Lord Mans-field provided the metaphor of the common law “working itself pure,”he was simultaneously celebrating the common-law approach and of-fering a realistic understanding of the fact that the common law doesnot necessarily get things right the first (or even the second or third)time around.
common law is iterative - can fall prey to the problems of availability heuristic, leaving courts to make judgements on cases not representative of the population, but in dealing with case after case, can then correct itself
The common law oper-ates one case at a time, so it is said, 24 and thus possesses the ability tosee not only the first case on some topic but all of the subsequent cases
addresses the con of the availability heuristic
Having the litigants in a particulardispute argue their controversy may well be the best way for that disputeto be resolved, but if we are to understand the common-law method asbeing in part based on the premise that seeing a particular concrete con-troversy is a reliable way for making the law that will affect other and fu-ture cases, then implicit in the common-law method is the belief that thecase before the court may be representative of cases of that type
case = example/case study
common law, in being fluid and always improvable atthe hands of common-law judges, gradually approaches a perfection inwhich the rules almost never generate suboptimal outcomes.
flexibility as major benefit of the common law system
remaining continuously open to defeat in a particular case orsubject to modification as new situations arise.
cases can be overturned / deemed unconstitutional (example: Brown vs Board as an answer to Plessy vs Ferguson)
he countries of the common-law world have inherited from England alegal system in which written-down rules are less important than thepopular rulebook image of law has it, and in which judge-made law—law created in the process of deciding particular disputes—occupies cen-tral stage
under the common law structure, decisions > a dogmatic written code of law
. In Parents Involved in Com-munity Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1,
Parents ICS vs. Seattle Schools - example of how dicta can be fallible sometimes
e commonly believe that promises create commitments,because it is wrong to lead someone to rely on some proposition and thento turn around and undercut the basis for that reliance. So too with pro-viding reasons. Giving reasons induces reasonable reliance and creates aprima facie commitment on the part of the court to decide subsequentcases in accordance with the reason that it has explicitly given on a previ-ous occasion
judicial reasoning = laying a foundation for later courts/ cases to build on
dicta
Dicta is short for the Latin phrase obiter dictum, meaning "something said in passing."
Dicta in law refers to a comment, suggestion, or observation made by a judge in an opinion that is not necessary to resolve the case, and as such, it is not legally binding on other courts but may still be cited as persuasive authority in future litigation. Also referred to as dictum and judicial dicta. A dissenting opinion is also generally considered obiter dictum.
Andthus, when in law a court gives a reason for a decision, it is expected tofollow that reason in subsequent cases falling within the scope of the rea-son articulated by the court on the first occasion.
cases + decisions have to have a geneology of logic that supports them
hen the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education11 famouslyjustified holding racially segregated schools unconstitutional under theFourteenth Amendment by saying that “separate but equal [schools are]inherently unequal,” it was announcing not just that the separate but(superficially) equal public schools in Topeka, Kansas, were unconsti-tutional, but that all separate but (superficially) equal public schoolswere unconstitutional
rulings are meant to offer us frameworks and applications for other cases, not just the one in question
that a sense of the right outcome precedes the judi-cial attempt to find formal legal support for it
which sounds like a form of confirmation bias
ypically, however, the judicial opinion is the explanation by ajudge of the reasoning that led him or her to some conclusion.
judicial opinion definition
United States v. Locke,
key case
As a consequence, appellate advocates frequently findthemselves asked in oral argument how the rule or result they are advo-cating will play out in various hypothetical situations
appellate arguments as higher level cold-calling
They do believe, however, that what lawyers andjudges think they are doing—their internal view of their own activities—often masks a deeper reality, one in which policy choices and variousother nonlegal attributes play a much larger role in explaining legal argu-ments and legal outcomes than even the participants themselves believeor understand.
speaks to the fact that the profession operates beyond an objective level - shaped by a myriad of forces, structures, and institutions in American life
But what really distinguishes lawyers from other sorts of folk, soit is said, is mastery of an array of talents in argument and decision-making that are often collectively described as legal reasoning
key definition - legal reasoning = argument and decision-making
oor writing goesunread or is misunderstood. Good writing is appreciated. Greatwriting is rewarded lavishly
write to be understood
Legalese can be eliminated:“When legalese threatens to strangle your thought processes,pretend you’re saying it to a friend. Then write it down. Thenclean it up.
aim for concision always
criminate, greed is a human constant, and mountain gorillas are prized by poachers as well as zoologists. As Rwanda succumbed to genocide this spring, dooming as many as 500,000 people, it seemed sadly likely that the slaughter would also doom 60 rare gorillas that have drawn tourists to the Virunga Mountains for the past 15 years.
this is important because....
T h o s e s w e e t s o l d i e r s o f o u r s ,t h e r e w a s n o t h i n g i n i t f o r t h e m .T h e i r o n e a n d o n l y d e s i r e 30w a s t o c o m e h o m e i n p e a c e
parallel to denials of culpability by Nazi soldiers
“Back to the camp, m arschl" the soldier commanded
command has dual function - in the context of the S/S camp and the camps in Europe; presence of German language
Our own soldiers
our own - repetition of words claiming responsibility for the violence
ere you transported human beings
second person you = accusatory, transportation of human being - dictions summons up images from the Holocaust of Jewish people transported to their deaths in the concentration camps
The real threat posed by chemical weapons is largely psychological. Thenotion of being gassed is so horrendous to Israelis that if even one gas fatality were sustained, Israelmight strike back with overwhelming force.
emotion (rather than just rationality) as a player in politics and warfare; Jewish history of persecution during the Holocaust and centuries before it playing into their foreign policy
Chemical weapons are dangerous, to be sure,but not "weapons of mass destruction" in any meaningful sense
shows us the danger of equivocation and the importance of expertise and the role of scientists in public and political discourse; the scary thing is that today, there is a strain of mistrust of experts and anti-intellectuals
As a reader, I’m constantly making a decision about whether to trust that writer or not—not just trust that they are telling the truth, which is the usual journalistic standard of trust, but trust that they are not objectifying the vulnerable people in their stories. As a writer, I’m constantly thinking about this, while I’m reporting and while I’m drafting at my desk, and I’m mercilessly second-guessing myself, because if I don’t, I might screw it up. And then it’s up to the reader to decide whether I’ve succeeded or not
reminiscent of a situation that Anderson Cooper recounted during his visit of seeing a family of corpses on the roadside in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. He noticed that the skin had peeled off one of their hands, and he started photographing that - but unbeknownst to him, a fellow photographer was taking images of him photographing that family. And he kept that picture taken by the other photographer as a reminder of what it looks like to go too far.
You meet her in any other way than as a victim of rape, and go to the reportorial trouble of learning what her average day is like, and then writing that. If we know Chanel as a person before we hear her talk about her rape, the result is probably going to be less objectifying.
important to avoid the tendency to reduce people to their trauma - especially when the person is from a minoritized / marginalized background
In your BR article “The White Correspondent’s Burden,” you write, “Being an object of compassion is not the same thing as being the subject of a story
I’ll give you an example of a kid you have to take care of,” Njikam said, “and the kid who wants to cross the road, but you see an oncoming car. Even if the kid doesn’t appreciate that you want to stop him or her from crossing [in their] own interest — you see the point I am trying to make?”But the women saw it differently. They felt harassed by Mechanism officials’ repeated calls and requests to meet again. Cecile pretended to be sick; Victoire simply stopped answering their calls.
t would be hard to overstate the meaning — and continued relevance — of the Akayesu verdict. “Before Akayesu, there was debate about whether rape was even a war crime or merely an inevitable consequence or side effect of armed conflict,” said Askin, “After Akayesu, rape and other forms of sexual violence were taken far more seriously.”
sexual violence as a premeditated war tactic; it's central not just marginal
She presented her findings to the Office of the Prosecutor in The Hague, the headquarters for the tribunal, but she was told there was no interest in pursuing rape charges after all. Pruitt’s work was essentially buried.
Who's a victim? Whose pain gets to count?
Pruitt, whose story is a key part of Mitchell’s film, came away convinced that court investigators had largely dismissed the issue, discrediting survivors for spurious reasons and focusing narrowly on genocide, which they thought was the more important crime. “Many of the investigators said, ‘Well, we can’t be concerned about some women who got raped. We can’t divert resources to investigate those crimes. We had a genocide down here,’” Pruit
Who are the people at Roval’sWhat is it about the people at Roval’sWhat’s with the people at Roval’s
unpacking the politics of respectability and seeking legibility from others
nd nevertheless, this pressure in the chestand nevertheless, this sweat on the faceand afterwards, at a distance you repeat by heart without mistakeswhat you should have said this morningand you break it down like small changeand you pay yourself a high price.
striking stanza - cost of carrying multiple identities and presenting a facade of one to the world
In this he reveals his midpoint position, like thatof other immigrant writers who emphasize their foreignness by testifying abouttheir immigration trauma without giving up the hope that eventually Israelinesswill include them and not see them as foreigners
what are the implications of inclusion into the nation-state as citizen, rather than Other? Who wins - and who loses?
idn’t agree to erase or redeem their immigration trauma through the universality ofIsraeliness
how is popular consent for a universal Israeli identity secured?
These walls, which did not leave room for the Mizrahiimmigrants—whose Arabness the Mizrahi immigrants themselves wanted toerase—did not allow the testimony about his trauma to be heard. They did notallow the testimony of anyone who could not speak from the position of a native,whose claim on national territory was evident, to be heard.
raises the question of whose experience is legible and whose voice is audible
his is how ethnic, particularistic Ashkenaziliterature was written in the 1960s; it presented itself as universal literature—colorless and transparent—that replicates the paradox of universal particularisticsovereignty by means of aesthetics, and develops color-blindness that blocks, or atleast treats with suspicion, any possibility of giving voice to the Mizrahi immigrant,whose color is not white and so cannot be considered universally transparent
powerful commentary on whiteness as default
On the other hand, as an Arab-Jew—that is, someone who is both Arab and Jew—he identifies with the Palestinian victims, though this too is denied together withhis participation in the de-Arabization that is enacted on him by the state
Mizrahi Jewish experience as a potential bridge?
On the other hand, thereis the trauma of the ’48 war, which includes the trauma of the Jewish war victimand—along with, and mainly in opposition to it—the trauma of the Palestinianvictims of the Nakba. In addition there is the trauma of the abuser, the Jewish Israelias responsible for the events of the Nakba, which the state works to deny.
parallel to what Cesaire tells us - violence inflicted by the colonizer boomerangs back
This duality is enabled by the duality of theterm “subject,” which indicates both the citizen who is subject to the state and theautonomous individual for whom subjugation is an expression of his individual will,while through the aesthetic experience—that of poetry, for example—the paradoxof the state is replicated, as it represents the members of the nation as individualswhile at the same time embodying the universal idea of the state
interesting
The hegemonic Ashkenazi reaction is twofold: It avoids the pain of a bleedingwound that demands that it take moral and political responsibility for theoppression of Mizrahi Jews, and it violently negates the Mizrahi Jews’ expression oftheir posttraumatic state (turbulent wind).
key
Art cannot bear witness to trauma becausetrauma is beyond representation and mediating language; art cannot bear witnessbecause trauma is experienced not when the actual event occurs but only in a placeand time that differ from those of the original event
isn't this true of language broadly - it can only reach towards what cannot be expressed
The aesthetic representation, “he must becomposing a poem,” organizes the trauma into a set mold, processing it and closingoff its chaos. In this way the readers are protected from the difficult encounter withtrauma, allowing the pain to remain unspoken.
What happens when pain stays unspoken? At one level, there's an element of refusal in not offering up stories of trauma for public consumption, and then on another, it's like what Zora Neale Hurston said, which is, "If you're silent about your pain, they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it"
Indeed, Biton openedhis first book by highlighting the difficulty of communicating trauma, even bypoetic means
dynamic of silence vs silencing - parallels to be drawn between (lack of) articulation of Nakba trauma by Palestinians and this context of immigration trauma
But the story betrayed my presuppositions; the protagonists didnot reveal their memories. On the contrary, they were living their present;their stories were not the past but the present, and their pain was not thememory of pain but the experience of their daily lives. This is why myfeeling is that Gate of the Sun is an unfinished novel, and it will remain openuntil the moment when this wound is healed
powerful!!
“I don’t think that the expulsions of 1948 were war crimes.You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs; you have to dirtyyour hands. . . . A society that aims to kill you forces you to destroy it.When the choice was between destroying and being destroyed, it isbetter to destroy
twisted logic - best defense is a good offense
he nakba is not only amemory; it is a continuous reality that has not stopped since 1948. Dealingwith it as a history of the past is a way to cover up the struggle betweenpresence and interpretation that has not stopped since 1948.
Key!
This insis-tence upon the name has become a major element in Palestinian literatureand takes many forms, for example, the voices of the peasants (Darwish),the refugee (Kanafani), the intellectual (Jabra Ibrahim Jabra), the story-teller (Shammas), and the popular hero (Habibi)
naming = site of colonial violence, but also site of resistance
hey lost their Palestinian name. Suddenly a whole people becamenameless and had no right to use their name and refer to their na-tional identity. This was one of the most painful elements of the1948 war. One can argue that Palestine has never existed as an in-dependent state. This is true not only for Palestine but also formost of the countries of the region. But this land was known toevery one as the land of Palestine. Even in the Zionist documents,this name was used. The people who inhabited this land are knownas Palestinians. Suddenly the name has vanished.
discursive and physical violence
comparing the struggle of the Romans against thebarbarians to Israel’s struggle in the so-called war on terrorism.
nuance - the oppressed can also take part in the oppression of others
he term was veryproblematic; its philological root has the connotation of a natural catas-trophe. Many intellectuals refused this term, arguing that it liberates Pal-estinian leadership and Arab governments from direct responsibility forthe defeat. The critics of Zurayk had a major point, but words have theirown histories, and when a word becomes an untranslatable proper name,we have to try to understand the wisdom of language.
Interesting!!!
The first Palestinian novella narrating aspects of the nakba waswritten by Ghassan Kanafani and published in 1963
Silence as indicator of trauma; gap between the events of the nakba, 1948, and the publication of the first novella to talk about it in 1963
n Tammuz’s novella, the land is mute. Luna cannot speak for her-self, and her appropriation by the son, who will become her true lover, isaccomplished by the fire of two consecutive wars:
Oedipal?
oth meet in the orchard of Mahomet Effendi, a Turkish landowner in Jaffa, who has an adopted girl whose origins are vague: was she aJewish or a Muslim Arab? No one knows
parallels to how there are competing claims of ancestry to th land of Israel/Palestine
here is now a tremendous opportunity to end American indifference andinaction toward the political cancer that Saddam Hussein represents in this region.This is a part of the world that needs a radical shift in American policy. If thechallenge represented by the attacks of Sept. 11 is going to be met, then overthrowingSaddam Hussein by reaching out to the people of Iraq is where it has to begin
indirect approach, rather than invasion
he empathy toward the Pal-estinian’s fate and suffering is expressed by Yeshurun from a Jewishstandpoint, which does not create an identification between him andthe Palestinian and therefore does not dissolve the Palestinian intoJewishness nor annihilate his otherness
identification without equivalence
It is on this basis that Yeshurun is able to conclude that the Jews (“Ja-cob’s rose”) are responsible for posing the question of moral responsi-bility for the fate of the Palestinians: a question they must pose of their“thorns”—that is to say, their violent emissaries
imagery evokes connects - the plant has both a flower and thorns; use of agricultural metaphor is particularly significant in light of both Palestinian and Zionist ties to land
A survey of Hebrew poetry published between1948 and 1958, the results of which were compiled in the anthology TellIt Not in Gath, provides relatively few instances of Hebrew poetry thatreflects directly on the Nakba; and those exceptions generally soughtto render the trauma manifest through its hasty rehabilitation at theprice of repressing the injustices themselves.
aphasia - unwillingness to speak of that Palestinian experience of displacement
But it should also be remem-bered that the Jews demand of the Palestinians to recognize a traumafor which the Palestinians were not responsible, whereas the comple-mentary demand from the Palestinian side is for the Jews to recog-nize the trauma that resulted from their actions
points to asymmetry - at the end of Ma'loul Celebrates Its Destruction, a Palestinian man comments "We are not their killers"
or many Jews who immigrated to Israel afterthe Holocaust, the State of Israel functioned as a haven and as a placeof recuperation. That is to say, among other reasons, in order to im-plement the terrible lesson of the Holocaust, in order to remedy thatJewish helplessness in Europe that had brought about their destruc-tion, part of the Jewish people established the State of Israel at theexpense of the Palestinians
nuance of being both oppressed and oppressor
He left Israel for good in1971—living in Moscow, Cairo, andBeirut before settling for a long stayin Paris—a departure that somePalestinians, especially those whoremained behind, considered a be-trayal
complicated ethics - writer bound up with Palestinian nationhood writing from elsewhere; complications of existing in diaspora
I'm from a village, remote, forgotten,
resisting erasure - His ancestral home was in a village. It was wiped out of the map after independence. Thus, its streets are nameless. All the villagers now work as laborers in the fields and quarry. This section ends with the same rhetorical question posed at the official.
Put it on record at the top of page one: I don't hate people, I trespass on no one's property.
Setting the record straight - combatting the vilification of Palestinians and distorted understandings of the region's history
You stole my forefathers' vineyards And land I used to till, I and all my children, And you left us and all my grandchildren Nothing but these rocks. Will your government be taking them too As is being said?
accusatory language here - "You stole" ; speaks to ongoing injustice and dispossession
Put it on record. I am an Arab. Colour of hair: jet black. Colour of eyes: brown.
this language reminds me of how the state sees
My roots Took hold before the birth of time
asserting Palestinian indigeneity - refusal to be erased; combatted narrative/ idea of a "land without a people for a people without a land"
I am an Arab. I am a name without a title,
speaking back against projects of dehumanizing the Other - including repeated presence of a human "I" presence; Arabs as protagonists, rather than mere victims of history
The clothes and exercise books From the rocks And beg for no alms at your door, Lower not myself at your doorstep
assertion of dignity and right to be respected
Identity card
In this free-verse poem, Darwish assumes the symbolic persona of an ordinary Palestinian victim of Zionist oppression being interrogated by an Israeli official. The verses empower the peaceful dispossessed Palestinian with an assertive identity and a confident voice that defy continuous humiliations at the hand of the occupier. Although the poet was fluent in Hebrew, he ignores the official’s language by omitting his questions from the poem and replies only in Arabic to underscore his own and Palestine’s cultural and national identity. The poem’s power lies partially in its stark language, uplifting tone and simple, direct images, which endow the speaker with a kind of primal nobility.
Sheridan exclaimed on one occasion: “Give me a tyrant king, give me a hostile House of Lords, give me a corrupt House of Commons,—give me the press and I will overturn them all.” Gentlemen of the National Press Association, you have the press—what will you do with it? Upon your answer depends the future welfare of your race. Can you stand in comparative idleness, in purposeless wrangling, when there is earnest, practical, united work to be done?
powerful conclusion
The time for action has come. Let the association tax itself to hire a detective, who shall go to the scene of each lynching, get the facts as they exist in each case of outrage—especially where the charge of rape is made—furnish them to the different papers of the association and those so situated shall publish them to the world.
Ida B Wells - foremother of investigative journalism
now by the press we can speak to the nations.”
press has local, state, national, and global platform - a great power that comes with great responsibility
And so in part was counteracted the libel on these foully murdered men. How many such have gone down to a violent death without anything to chronicle the true facts in their case, will never be known.
establishing objective facts = critical function of the press; journalism vindicated the African American grocery store owners who were lynched and defamed
One of the first requirements then of Southern Journalism is to have, wherever practicable, an organ on the ground. Scattered throughout the South are journals which for lack of capital and good business management fail to do the good they might.
importance of local journalism - which, today, is under threat
. The assassin’s bullet and ku-klux whip is still heard and the sight of the hangman’s noose with an Afro-American dangling at the end, is becoming a familiar object to the eyes of young America.
powerful imagery and rhetoric here
The blood, tears, and groans of hundreds of the murdered cry to you for redress; the lamentations, distress and want, of numberless widows and orphans appeal to you to do the only thing which can be done—which is the first step toward revolution of every kind—the creation of a healthy public sentiment.”
intersection between journalism and activism - the written word as an engine of social change
Her untiring research revealed that less than a third of all lynchings were caused by the salacious and sensationalized crime of rape and even here, many of the cases involved consensual sexual relations between white women and black men. Most blacks were lynched because they were successful or in some way an economic or political threat to Southern white male power
interesting - goes against conventional understandings; looking at lynching as mechanism for social control
Why don’t we turn it into somethinglarger?” He suggested writing the piece as a how-to manual, “Robert Mugabe’s‘How to Destroy a Country in Ten Easy Steps.’ ” That structure worked muchbetter than a traditional account of the suffering and the policies behind it. Ifyou’re lucky enough to have the editor who will work with you, you’re in anunusual and fortunate place, which is where I am now, thankfully
telling stories effectively -> meaningful change
y “takingsides,” I don’t mean rooting for the Tutsis in Rwanda or rooting against CharlesTaylor in Liberia. I mean not acting merely as a stenographer in the face of theseinjustices, but instead thinking prescriptively,framing coverage around what onewould want the desired outcome to be: what one would want one’s readers todo, what one would want one’s readers to influence their governments to do,how one would want people to think about the crisis and the steps needed toimprove conditions
YES
Much of the early coverage of atrocities carriedout against civilians is framed in terms of civil war and ancient ethnic hatreds.Most of these atrocities occur in places where reporters don’t have the languageskills they need to operate on their own or to acquire any kind of “coffee shop” or“man on the street” understanding
here's where the collaboration with local journalists is critical - but those people are often in the line of fire during mass atrocities
In the nineties, both the Clinton administration and the Bush administra-tion before it believed that we could come home after the cold war and focus onthe economy. There was a retreat in terms of international engagement. Thepress coverage of the decade mirrored that government’s priorities
contradicts paradigm of media as a fourth estate checking those in power and holding them account - here, journalists mirrored the America 1st approach
And usually, sadly, we see this reflected in thenature of the coverage in the early weeks and months of campaigns of killing.Early coverage tends to be very deferential to official sources because uponarrival,the first thing a reporter does is to go to the official places—which are upand running even in wartime—to get a press pass.
strips away facade of objectivity - showing how governments / official narratives mediate 'the facts' that get reported
This is true even if the story is soft and fluffy andhumanitarian and simply about large loss of life or casualties. And though this isdiminishing somewhat, there remains an appetite for foreign news that can belinked even indirectly to the priorities that have been set in Washington.
this offers an answer to the question of so what - reporters are helping to define the policy agenda (for better and for worse)
Now there is an increase in coverage and in money spent on foreign news. Thequestion that burns in every American’s mind is, “Why do they hate us?” There isa newfound awareness and outward orientation that has come in the wake of thechallenge of terrorism
media's role in informing the citizenry and setting the terms of public discourse and debate
, especially the evidence that we supply to war-crime tribunals
broader significance of witnessing - getting justice for victims of mass atrocity, genocide, and war
nd it suddenly occurred to me, with shame, that all of my bravado about being the same asthe male reporters was not accurate. Women, when they choose to be mothers, have to make achoice, and I was not entirely honest about mine: this lifestyle was hurting those who loved me
raw, authentic
He forced me to go back to Iraq while I was still breastfeeding, stating that it was in my contract. Isobbed on the plane, with a picture of my infant tucked in my pocket. I sobbed in my Baghdadoffice when I had to pump breast milk and throw it down the drain. I heard a male colleague saytriumphantly on the satellite phone, “She had a baby and lost her nerve!” They sent me to Sadr Cityanyway, at a particularly dangerous time, my body still recovering from a high-risk pregnancy andsix months of bed rest.
sexism with the ranks, blatant disregard for di Giovanni and her family
I was in Somalia a few months later, working on a story for The New York Times Magazine on theShabab when I got a call on my satellite phone. JC had shot himself back home in Bolivia. I sat onthe rooftop, the sound of gunfire ringing through Mogadishu, and wept for my beautiful friend.Colvin later told me, “He saw too much.
horrible - leaving the war zone, but the war zone doesn't leave you
Many of my colleagues were completely devastated by what they had seen. The level of alcoholism,divorce, drug abuse, breakups, misery, and sorrow once we left the front line was astonishing. Therewas a period in my life when I found it intolerable to go to parties and hear what I perceived to bethe banalities of ordinary life. My colleagues and I rejected the traditional world, and we werepaying the price for it
high cost for bearing witness
I mistakenly took that as a benediction,so I pushed myself even harder, farther down even lonelier roads and more perilous assignments,closer to death. It did not help that the news organization I worked for at the time encouraged me toperform more daring exploits in order to get a big story
mental health is key - how should news organizations juggle the well-being of people working for them with their role in informing the citizenry and documenting a history of the present?
. I believed in bearing witness (the title ofKopple’s film) to atrocities, and I was motivated by a strong sense of justice. But I wanted, morethan anything, to have a family.
high personal cost to reporters - sacrificing the personal for the public good
There were instead editors who wanted scoops at the expense of the safety of their reporters.
business-side of journalism - desire for greater readership and sales comes into tension with a moral imperative to make sure that reporters are safe
n 2012, while working on a story about war criminals in Belgrade, Serbia, I got a devastating earlymorning phone call: my colleague and friend Marie Colvin was dead, killed by Bashar al-Assad’sbombs in Homs, Syria. Her roller-coaster life is captured in a new film, A Private War, currently intheater
life and death stakes constant beg the question - is this all worth it - for the goal of potentially changing hearts, minds, and the world?
Hebrew literature of the past thirty years reflects Israel's rhythm of lifeand her wars
as Said puts it - literature is entangled with and not separate from the machinations of power
nationnomenon wgenerals andhis
war fought twice - once on the battlefield, and once in memory
would liallegory of tthan the mop
reveals how personal and political intersect
ar. Now our conquered fields join the kingdoms of thehater. Like a foul, silent threat they infiltrate us with waves of obscure,foreign odours.. In front of our eyes they stiffen with a dark presence,hostile and evil.
vilification of the Other
The works of Amos Oz also repeat the sense of living on the edge of anencroaching wildern
encroaching wilderness = representative of fear of Palestinian presence as threat to Israeli occupation
o New Histo-rian group has emerged in the Arab world to complement the work ofWestern and Israeli scholars. There is no thirty-year rule for the declas-sification of documents in the Arab world, and it is unlikely there willbe one in the near future
imbalance in epistemology
The 1948 war for Palestine, called by Israelis the "War of Indepen-dence" and by Palestinians the nakba
power of naming in representing the past
American Zionists in andout of the government, along with representatives of the Jewish Agency
Palestinians didn't have a comparable international presence
e development of its unoccupied and uncultivated lands; and thatPalestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth integrated in thestructure of the new democratic world.
presence of other occupants of the land goes unsaid
lity, genitalia, grotesquerie, which reveal the phobicated whole w
colonial reading of the Black body as monstrous
m essence. But not before observinhistory like Eric Stokes's The English Utilitariansanomalous gaze of otherness but finally disavows iterance
colonial gaze looks into the world of the colonized, but is not reciprocated
artments othrough the wmost recentlyanomalous Bipwhich to
class of colonized intellectuals who stand in the gap between the colonizer and the colonized masses
, that "partial reform" will produce an empty form ofitation of English manners which will induce them [the colonial subjectmain under our protection,"'5 Grant mocks his moral project and violatEvidences of Christianity--a central missionary tenet--which forbtolerance of heathen faiths
this technique produces distance and proximity at the same time
The effect ofand disturbingpost-Enlightenanot
.
astration,3 thOther, as a
interesting in light of the French assimilationist model of colonialism - that reproduces Frenchness in the psyche of the colonized, but still relegates them to a lower status (which Fanon discovered upon arrival to France and Gandhi learned when physically thrown out of train in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa)
gue thathistory, it r
invocation of history to legitimize colonialism; telos of history with West as the desired end
s
Trompe-l'œil is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface.
fundamental principle appears to havebeen forgotten or overlooked in our system ofcolonial policy - that of colonial dependence.To give to a colony the forms of independenceis a mockery; she would not be a colony for asingle hour if she could maintain an indepen-dent station.
exposes the underbelly of the civilizing mission - hierarchical relationship where European colonizer > colonized, but arguably, the dependence goes both ways
He was willing to believe the worst about the motives and standards of thenation's leading news organization, while accepting at face value some Pallywood-stylefantasies about all-fronts fakery.
a degree of confirmation bias is at work here
It is the fundamental drive that makes us stickwith this odd line of work, the usually unspoken but immensely powerful source ofpride in what we do. It is summed up by three words: I saw this.
especially in the era of the deep fake - can we even trust our eyes?
e images arriving from Gazapresent a picture of seemingly one-sided violence, in which apparently all thecasualties are unarmed civilians
interesting how seemingly objective media - photo, video, etc. - can be distorted in service of a desired narrative
ese images do appearauthentic, and I should not have cast doubt on them. I apologize especially to SergeyPonomarev of e New York Times, whose work I impugned
the cost of so many images of violence and suffering circulating - it numbs us to the pain right in front of us
ade a mistake earlier this week in a series of Twitter posts
very forthright about doing wrong - admirable
his is a child,'' he said, after he revealed the pale gray face of Ibrahim al Qun, 14. ''This is the exit wound.'' He pointed at the ragged, softball-sized black hole where the boy's left eye had been. A sniper's bullet entered at the back of the boy's head, he said.
devastating picture to paint
We mean thebest for the people under our control; stability, democracy, prosperity, are our goals;why else would we have risked so much to help an oppressed people achieve them?e case of Mohammed al-Dura suggests the need for much more modestassumptions about the way other cultures—in particular today's embattled Islam—will perceive our truths.
I don't agree with this conclusion; disagreement of what the truth is not intrinsic to the Middle East. Looking at the political climate of the 21st U.S., the truth is contested terrain (a la the Big Lie, Jan 6th, 2016 Election, etc.)
She disappointed him by not embracing themaximum version—the all-encompassing hoax—and counseled him not to talk abouta staged event unless he could produce a living boy or a cooperative eyewitness.
raises questions about where the standard of proof should lie - absence of evidence / affirmative evidence?
n short, the physical evidence of the shooting was in all ways inconsistent with shotscoming from the IDF outpost—and in all ways consistent with shots coming fromsomeplace behind the France 2 cameraman, roughly in the location of the Pita.Making a positive case for who might have shot the boy was not the business of theinvestigators hired by the IDF. ey simply wanted to determine whether the soldiersin the outpost were responsible. Because the investigation was overseen by the IDFand run wholly by Israelis, it stood no chance of being taken seriously in the Arabworld.
isn't it logical for the IDF to defer responsible to preserve their image?
o underscore the importance of the media in international politics, Weimann showssome of his students a montage of famous images from past wars: for World War IIthe ag raising at Iwo Jima; for Vietnam the South Vietnamese officer shooting aprisoner in the head and the little girl running naked down a path with napalm onher back. For the current intifada, Weimann told his students, the lasting iconicimage would be the frightened face of Mohammed al-Dura
yes
e further attempt to actually justify killing the boy was, in terms of public opinion,yet more damning for the IDF. Eiland said, "It is known that [Mohammed al-Dura]participated in stone throwing in the past."
Palestinian boys often surveilled, detained, and tortured in I/P
Printoutlets were generally careful to say that Mohammed al-Dura was killed in "thecross re" or "an exchange of re" between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians. e NewYork Times, for instance, reported that he was "shot in the stomach as he crouchedbehind his father on the sidelines of an intensifying battle between Israeli andPalestinian security forces."
where do we draw the line between objective reporting of the facts and failing to hold culpable parties responsible?
ousands of mournerslined the route. A BBC TV report on the funeral began, "A Palestinian boy has beenmartyred."
interesting use of passive language here - hides culpability under the guise of staying neutral
throw rocks, and shots ring out from various directions
rocks vs arms -> not a fair, symmetrical fight between Israelis and Palestinians
here isabundant documentary evidence of most of the day's events—with a few strange andcrucial exceptions, most of them concerning Mohammed al-Dura.
despite presence of recording - which is objective - there are still questions about what exactly transpired
On September 28 of that year, a ursday, Ariel Sharon, then theleader of Israel's Likud Party but not yet Prime Minister, made a visit to the highlycontested religious site in Jerusalem that Jews know as the Temple Mount andMuslims know as Haram al-Sharif, with its two mosques. For Palestinians this was thetrigger—or, in the view of many Israelis, the pretext—for the expanded protests thatbegan the next day
effort towards balanced account of the intifada
the Arab media denounced thebrutality that created these new martyrs.
assumption that Arab people/media/etc. are a monolith
t now appears that the boy cannot have diedin the way reported by most of the world's media and fervently believed throughoutthe Islamic world.
issue of fact vs. narrative
"In the epitome of his arroganceand the peak of his media campaign in which he boasts of 'enduring freedom,' Bushmust not forget the image of Mohammed al-Dura and his fellow Muslims in Palestineand Iraq. If he has forgotten, then we will not forget, God willing.
media + images of the dead as political tools (images of Michael Brown laying on the ground on the front page of The Times)
uring an exchange of re between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian demonstrators
elides asymmetries in power
e image of a boy shot dead in his helpless father's arms during an Israeliconfrontation with Palestinians has become the Pietà of the Arab world.
estine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of theArab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation
key diction - homeland vs. nation-state?
we call upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israelto return to the ways of peace and play their part in the development of the State, withfull and equal citizenship and due representation in its bodies and institutions.
claim for equal citizenship - 1 state (containing both Israeli and Arab citizens with no discriminatory treatment of the latter)
. (Hereagain we arrive at a paradox of damage: to refute it, we need to say it aloud.)
YES!
Considering the excerpt from Craig Gingrich-Philbrook (2005), desire-based frameworks defy the lure to serve as “advertisements for power” by doc-umenting not only the painful elements of social realities but also the wis-dom and hope. Such an axiology is intent on depathologizing the experiencesof dispossessed and disenfranchised communities so that people are seen asmore than broken and conquered. This is to say that even when communitiesare broken and conquered, they are so much more than that—so much morethat this incomplete story is an act of aggression
in parallel to the work of Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, and August Wilson - who took care not only to document past and present wrongs, but the fullness, richness, beauty, and humanity of African American life in the United States. Tuck is pushing us to think more expansively about the way we tell stories
Though it is no longer in fashion toframe research as “the problem with (insert tribe or urban community here)”as it was in past generations, the legacy of this approach is alive and well. (Seealso Harvey [1999] on “civilized oppression.”)
lineage tracing back to the sociological idea of the problem, as articulated in works like Robert Parks' race relation - locating marginalized people as the cause of social disharmony
This policy and others, such as mayoralcontrol in New York City that has systematically closed down all avenues forcommunity participation in school decision making (YRNES, 2008), colludein the production of damage-driven data and, indeed, in the production ofdamage. (See also Gilborn [2005] for an analysis of white supremacy and edu-cation policy.
damage-centric data can inspire policies that exacerbate that damage
Rather, here I am concerned with research that happensmuch more surreptitiously, research that invites oppressed peoples to speakbut to “only speak from that space in the margin that is a sign of deprivation, awound, an unfulfilled longing. Only speak your pain”
Tuck nuances the varied ways that violence takes place - separating the need to unearth buried histories of oppression from framing the stories of Indigenous people as singular
ndians were simply not con-nected to the organs of propaganda so that they could respond to the manner inwhich whites described them.
connects to Nigerian author Wole Soyinka's quote - that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter
Further, because so many outsiders benefit fromdepicting communities as damaged, it will have to be these same communi-ties that hold researchers accountable for the frameworks and attitudes theyemploy. It is too tempting to proceed as usual
the violence of the episteme - Wolfe speaks to logic of elimination and Povinelli speaks to the burying and distortion of Indigeneity to fit the social and political agenda of the settler state
The lives of city youth—already under thewatchful eyes of police and school security officers, already tracked by videocameras in their schools, on the streets, and in subways—are pursued by (well-intentioned) researchers whose work functions as yet another layer of surveil-lance. What will be the outcomes and effects of this research in and on ourcommunities? Are we certain that the benefits will outweigh the costs? Whatquestions might we ask ourselves before we allow researcher entry
connects back to role of anthropology as part of a colonial apparatus and the ways that knowing a population allows for the inscription of power