Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present [Paperback]

In the face of the worlds disorders, moral concerns have provided a powerful ground for developing international as well as local policies. Didier Fassin draws on case materials from France, South Africa, Venezuela, and Palestine to explore the meaning of humanitarianism in the contexts of immigration and asylum, disease and poverty, disaster and war. He traces and analyzes recent shifts in moral and political discourse and practices  what he terms humanitarian reason and shows in vivid examples how humanitarianism is confronted by inequality and violence. Deftly illuminating the tensions and contradictions in humanitarian government, he reveals the ambiguities confronting states and organizations as they struggle to deal with the intolerable. His critique of humanitarian reason, respectful of the participants involved but lucid about the stakes they disregard, offers theoretical and empirical foundations for a political and moral anthropology.

Didier Fassinis the James D. Wolfensohn Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is the author ofWhen Bodies Remember: Experiences of AIDS in South Africa(UC Press) and coauthor ofThe Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry into the Condition of Victimhood.

This is a field-defining volume. Based on ten years of comparative field research and a unique combination of medical and anthropological expertise, Didier FassinsHumanitarian Reasonavoids moralizing in favor of careful sociological analysis. Humanitarianism emerges both as a form of reason and as a key force in the contemporary arts of government.  --Claudio Lomnitz, Columbia University, author ofDeath and the Idea of Mexico

This is a rigourous, principled, and compelling account of the emergence of humanitarianism and of what happens when humanitarianism is put into practice. Through a tour of various humanitarian projects in France and elsewhere, Didier Fassin lC3