Humanitarianism and Suffering

Richard A. wilson is Gladstein Distinguished Chair of Human Rights, Professor of Anthropology, and Director of the Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut. He is the author or editor of numerous works on human rights, truth commissions, and international criminal tribunals, including Maya Resurgence in Guatemala, The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa, Low Intensity Democracy, Human Rights, Culture and Context, Culture and Rights, Human Rights in Global Perspectives, and Human Rights and the 'War on Terror.' He has been a visiting professor at the University of Oslo, Norway; the New School for Social Research; and the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. He is a member of the Committee for Human Rights of the American Anthropological Association. In addition, he serves on the editorial boards of Critique of Anthropology, the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, the Journal of Human Rights, the Journal of Transitional Justice, and the Journal of Social Justice. Richard D. Brown is Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of History and Director of the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute. He specializes in the cultural and political history of early America and is the author of The Hanging of Ephraim Wheeler: A Story of Rape, Incest, and Justice in Early America with Irene Quenzler Brown; The Strength of a People: The Idea of an Informed Citizenry in America, 1650-1870; Knowledge Is Power: The Diffusion of Information in Early America, 1700-1865; and Major Problems in the Era of the American Revolution, 1760-1791, among other works. Past president of the Society of Historians of the Early American Republic, he has held fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Science Research Council, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. Currently, he serves on the editorial board of the New England Quarterly.

• Part I. Histories and Contexts: 1. Mourning, pity, and the work of narrative in the making of 'humanity' Thomas W. Laqueur; 2. Contemporary humanitarianism: the global and the local contemporary David P. Forsythe; 3. Humanitarian reading Joseph R. Slaughter; 4. Global media and the myths of humanitarian relief: the case of the 2004 tsunami Rony Brauman; 5. Hard struggles of doubt: abolitionists and the problem of slave redemption Margaret M. R. Kellow; 6. 'Starving Armenians': the politics and ideology of humanitarian aid in the first decades of the twentieth century Flora A. Keshgegian; 7. International bystanders to the Holocaust and humanitarian intervention Michael R. Marrus; Part II. Narratives and Redress: 8. Victims, relatives and citizens in Argentina: whose voice is legitimate enough? Elizabeth Jelin; 9. Children, suffering and the humanitarian appeal Laura Suski; 10. The physicality of legal consciousness: suffering and the production of credibility in refugee resettlement Kristin Bergtora Sandvik; 11. 'Can you describe this?': human rights reports and what they tell us about the human rights movement Ron Dudai; 12. Financial reparations, blood money, and human rights witness testimony: Morocco and Algeria Susan Slymovics; 13. Remnants and remains: narratives of suffering in post-genocide Rwanda's Gacaca courts Lars Waldorf.

'… a very timely volume that should appeal to a wide range of anthropologists.' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute