Change and the Politics of Certainty

Jenny Edkins is Professor of Politics at The University of Manchester

• Introduction1. Objects among objects2. Intellectuals as experts3. The final core of uncertainty4. Humanitarianism, humanity, human5. Memory and the future6. Loss of a loss7. Tracing disappearance8. Stardust9. Grenfell Tower fire10. From one world to anotherConclusion

‘Only Jenny Edkins has the breadth of curiosity and knowledge to reveal relationships between the post-disaster politics of the Grenfell fire and the international responses to famine. This is a book for our times.’ Cynthia Enloe, author of The Big Push: Exposing and Challenging Persistent Patriarchy‘Jenny Edkins takes us on a transformative journey into the subtleties of a politics without certainty. Powered by a quiet anger at the injustices of this world, her essays artfully resurrect modes of life that would “otherwise vanish without a trace.” This book exemplifies what it means to slowly, hopefully, on day-to-day terms, undo a patently colonial world.’ Himadeep Muppidi, Betty G.C. Cartwright Professor of Political Science & International Studies, Vassar College‘In this carefully written book Edkins draws together strands of inquiry across her career to expose the ethical tensions of pursuing justice on behalf of a universalised, unprovincialised subject -- the "We". Traversing multiple topics and various scales of analysis, Edkins argument provokes intimate and difficult questions for the academic committed to studying political change.’ Robbie Shilliam, Professor of International Relations, Johns Hopkins University