Post-Humanitarianism: Governing Precarity in the Digital World

ISBN-13: 9780745698595 / Angielski / Miękka / 2018 / 224 str.

Mark Duffield

Opis

The world has entered an unprecedented period of uncertainty and political instability. Faced with the challenge of knowing and acting within such a world, the spread of computers and connectivity, and the arrival of new digital sense–making tools are widely celebrated as helpful.

Recenzje

"Mark Duffield's Post-Humanitarianism Illustrates how the world of humanitarian emergency provided a practical stage for new forms of knowledge and governing agency, now being generalised across the globe. Brimming with empirical insight and innovative conceptual framings, this book will be a must read for students, academics and practitioners interested in contemporary transformations in development, security and governance and in the need for a critical alternative." David Chandler, University of Westminster "In his latest book Mark Duffield combines compelling theoretical insights and practical experience of humanitarian work in Sudan to paint a rather sombre picture of a post-humanitarian world governed increasingly by computers and algorithms. Disasters have long shaped North-South relations, but humanitarianism has become pessimistic towards human agency and its transformative potential to build modern infrastructure protecting people from disasters. The humanitarian sector has adopted post-humanist thinking alienated from human hopes and understanding. Duffield explores 'post-humanitarianism' as 'the international face of post-humanism'. Post-humanitarian alienation shapes the new field of digital humanitarianism and is complicit with a technological barbarism seeking to use digital technology to manage disaster-affected populations and dis-affected people living in precarious conditions. Yet Duffield's book bursts with optimism about humanity's potential to build a better world. His underlying argument is that technocratic cybernetic approaches are not fit for political problems. Only conscious collective human agency and popular accountability may help found a humane world." Vanessa Pupavac, University of Nottingham

Spis treści

• Contents
• Preface
• Chapter One: Introduction – Questioning Connectivity
• Chapter Two: Against Hierarchy
• Chapter Three: Entropic Barbarism
• Chapter Four: Being There
• Chapter Five: Fantastic Invasion
• Chapter Six: Livelihood Regime
• Chapter Seven: Instilling Remoteness
• Chapter Eight: Edge of Catastrophe
• Chapter Nine: Connecting Precarity
• Chapter Ten: Post–Humanitarianism
• Chapter Eleven: Living Wild
• Chapter Twelve: Conclusion – Automating Precarity

O autorze

Mark Duffield is Professor Emeritus and former Director of the Global Insecurities Centre at the University of Bristol.