Here, the claim that Middle Eastern (MENA) persons are racialized is a response to complexities t... more Here, the claim that Middle Eastern (MENA) persons are racialized is a response to complexities that define the United States (US); namely, the language of race is seen as antiquated or misleading, and thus it fails to capture MENA American experiences, leading some to call for different terminology (i.e., xenophobia or Islamophobia). The author argues that we should call social-political violence committed against MENA people racism because to name it otherwise is to ground the experience in an incomplete description which affords lighter moral responsibility and omits historical conflict. The article first elaborates the problem of racial conflict in the US and the specific problem of MENA racialization. It then responds with a historical argument that emphasizes key genealogical markers in the co-emergence of orientalism, colonialism, and racialization. The article closes by contrasting the idea of race with competing terms to defend its use on descriptive and normative grounds.
In the United States people of Middle Eastern descent are legally/politically categorized as whit... more In the United States people of Middle Eastern descent are legally/politically categorized as white, but in social encounters and popular representations Middle Eastern people are treated as a nonwhite inferior collective. In the absence of explicit systemic recognition through a protected class status, Middle Eastern Americans are not just vulnerable to the social-systemic violence that accompanies racialization; that violence is being tacitly permitted. I address this problem by describing the historical and political conditions that afford this racialization in the United States. I argue that the racialization of Middle Easterners, best understood from a historical perspective, is rooted in the repetitive treatment of certain peoples as objects of war to be degraded, exploited, dominated, and destroyed. To be treated as inferior and disposable is a general function of racism, which is afforded by racialization; but, the historical conditions of the mistreatment of Middle Eastern p...
Though written for political theorists and philosophers, Daniel Innerarity’s The Future and Its E... more Though written for political theorists and philosophers, Daniel Innerarity’s The Future and Its Enemies: In Defense of Political Hope (2012) is a battle cry – we must take the future seriously! – that transcends disciplinary boundaries, revealing a rapidly beating heart of much existential trembling. Innerarity opens with the simple observation that we have a poor relation with the future, based in fear, anxiety, excessive or insufficient worry, and a failure to predict or actively shape its emergence. Thus, Innerarity demands that all social theory ‘be a theory of time, specifically of the way we employ the future’ (2). One by one, the chapters problematize and call for change in the way we understand and relate to justice, decision-making, responsibility, and other aspects of social-political experience. The common argument of each chapter, however, is that democratic societies must reorganize their political activities in relation to the future. This reorganization relies on an openness and a hope informed by the acknowledgment that our complex future is not predetermined or trivial, as the naysayer enemies of the future would have us believe. Through this democratic reorganization, the future can be shaped in more stable, sustainable and just ways.
International Journal of Transitional Justice, 2015
ABSTRACT In this article, I argue that developed liberal states require a movement away from a po... more ABSTRACT In this article, I argue that developed liberal states require a movement away from a politics of control and toward techniques of reconciliation that are too often reserved for transitional societies. I first critique the liberal peace model on the grounds that it lacks an internal mechanism for maintaining peace and stability. I then discuss liberal praxis through an analysis of the US prison system, to demonstrate that a society can be nominally liberal and still fail to meet its own standards. Using the US as a cautionary tale, I suggest that by responding to social conflict through force, the liberal system increases instability by fragmenting communities and maintaining an individualistic order that is combative, thus leaving peace and justice as dormant possibilities. After critiquing liberal theory and practice, I discuss a corrective alternative, an ethics and politics of reconciliation that draws on restorative and transitional responses to instability.
Focusing on political and interpersonal conflict in the U.S., particularly racial conflict, but w... more Focusing on political and interpersonal conflict in the U.S., particularly racial conflict, but with an eye to similar conflicts throughout the world, we argue that the enactive approach to mind as life can be elaborated to provide an exigent framework for present social-political problems. An enactive approach fills problematic lacunae in the Western philosophical ethics project by offering radically refigured notions of responsibility and language. The dual enactive, participatory insight is that interactional responsibility is not singular and language is not an individual property or ability, something that someone simply and uniformly 'has' or 'controls'. These points have not been integrated into our self-understanding as moral actors, to everyone’s detriment. We first advocate for adequate appreciation of Colombetti and Torrance’s 2009 suggestion that participatory sense-making necessarily implies shared responsibility for interactional outcomes. We argue that...
Divisiveness routinely turns violent, thus making research into alternative means of dealing with... more Divisiveness routinely turns violent, thus making research into alternative means of dealing with conflict an urgent necessity. This dissertation focuses on the politics of divisiveness and the techniques of conflict transformation. In this, I offer a robust and operable theory of reconciliation. I argue that reconciliation is the first principle of justice. In this sense, the ideal of justice is enacted through the improvement and coordination of social-political relations, which requires the development of trust and institutions that facilitate the ever emergent demos. This is not to suggest that alternative approaches to justice, such as distributive models, are useless or wrong. Rather, justice requires a consensus which cannot be realized when persons see their neighbors as enemies. In conflicts, activities that benefit the enemy Other, such as the redistribution of wealth, will be taken as an injustice by other embattled social groups. As I demonstrate through various cases, interpersonal and institutional responses, like redistribution, often escalate discord and rarely create a shared sense of justice. Thus, conflict becomes a cyclical and multilevel problem. I explore how we can better respond to the cycle of conflict at individual, social, and systemic levels, in order to realize a legitimate notion of justice. I use an interdisciplinary approach to defend my arguments, drawing on iv philosophy and Conflict Resolution (CR). CR is an emerging field that emphasizes practical responses to conflict, often with advocacy for reconciliation. However, more theoretical work needs to be done to explain the ideal of reconciliation that directs CR practices. Within philosophy, little work has been done on the topic of reconciliation. A vast literature exists on the topic of justice, but this literature offers few practical descriptions of how persons come to agree upon the terms of justice. Thus, theories of justice are often labeled as 'ideal' simply because they are disconnected from the fragmented and conflict-ridden reality most people experience. This dissertation, as a project in non-ideal political theory that is empirically informed by cases and concerns in CR, fills these gaps in both philosophy and CR.
In this essay I defend a politics of reconciliation as a means of addressing conflict in the hope... more In this essay I defend a politics of reconciliation as a means of addressing conflict in the hopes of realizing a legitimate ethical-political reality, which is one based in a common and explicit trust. The ideal guiding this model of reconciliation is the affordance of peaceful and reciprocal meaning making or dialogical relations; that is, I understand reconciliation to be both the formation of the conditions of the possibility of cooperative meaning making, insofar as it involves the creation of the secure conditions needed to reestablish basic forms of trust between conflicting persons, and eventually the cooperative meaning making itself that leads to deeper forms of trust such as friendship or solidarity. Insofar as trust is crucial to the health of a democratic political system, a politics of reconciliation is needed in realizing this fundamental relationship, and this politic requires the enactment of a permanent reconciliatory apparatus.
In this article, I argue that developed liberal states require a movement away from a politics of... more In this article, I argue that developed liberal states require a movement away from a politics of control and toward techniques of reconciliation that are too often reserved for transitional societies. I first critique the liberal peace model on the grounds that it lacks an internal mechanism for maintaining peace and stability. I then discuss liberal praxis through an analysis of the US prison system, to demonstrate that a society can be nominally liberal and still fail to meet its own standards. Using the US as a cautionary tale, I suggest that by responding to social conflict through force, the liberal system increases instability by fragmenting communities and maintaining an individualistic order that is combative, thus leaving peace and justice as dormant possibilities. After critiquing liberal theory and practice, I discuss a corrective alternative, an ethics and politics of reconciliation that draws on restorative and transitional responses to instability.
In the United States people of Middle Eastern descent are legally/politically categorized as whit... more In the United States people of Middle Eastern descent are legally/politically categorized as white, but in social encounters and popular representations Middle Eastern people are treated as a nonwhite inferior collective. In the absence of explicit systemic recognition through a protected class status, Middle Eastern Americans are not just vulnerable to the social-systemic violence that accompanies racialization; that violence is being tacitly permitted. I address this problem by describing the historical and political conditions that afford this racialization in the United States. I argue that the racialization of Middle Easterners, best understood from a historical perspective, is rooted in the repetitive treatment of certain peoples as objects of war to be degraded, exploited, dominated, and destroyed. To be treated as inferior and disposable is a general function of racism, which is afforded by racialization; but, the historical conditions of the mistreatment of Middle Eastern peoples create a unique set of problems and tensions that assign specific meanings which must be addressed in combating racism. Included among these tensions is a problematic narrative that claims Middle Eastern peoples are an almost naturally warlike and thus fragmented collective. The problem of disunity results from being created and treated as objects of war. Thus, social recognition, or solidarity, is needed along with systemic recognition. As a more effective means of countering the repetitious practices of subjugation, I plea for a solidarity among Middle Eastern Americans in response to Orientalist-racist scripts that claim disunity and war are the preferred condition of Middle Eastern peoples.
Here, the claim that Middle Eastern (MENA) persons are racialized is a response to complexities t... more Here, the claim that Middle Eastern (MENA) persons are racialized is a response to complexities that define the United States (US); namely, the language of race is seen as antiquated or misleading, and thus it fails to capture MENA American experiences, leading some to call for different terminology (i.e., xenophobia or Islamophobia). The author argues that we should call social-political violence committed against MENA people racism because to name it otherwise is to ground the experience in an incomplete description which affords lighter moral responsibility and omits historical conflict. The article first elaborates the problem of racial conflict in the US and the specific problem of MENA racialization. It then responds with a historical argument that emphasizes key genealogical markers in the co-emergence of orientalism, colonialism, and racialization. The article closes by contrasting the idea of race with competing terms to defend its use on descriptive and normative grounds.
In the United States people of Middle Eastern descent are legally/politically categorized as whit... more In the United States people of Middle Eastern descent are legally/politically categorized as white, but in social encounters and popular representations Middle Eastern people are treated as a nonwhite inferior collective. In the absence of explicit systemic recognition through a protected class status, Middle Eastern Americans are not just vulnerable to the social-systemic violence that accompanies racialization; that violence is being tacitly permitted. I address this problem by describing the historical and political conditions that afford this racialization in the United States. I argue that the racialization of Middle Easterners, best understood from a historical perspective, is rooted in the repetitive treatment of certain peoples as objects of war to be degraded, exploited, dominated, and destroyed. To be treated as inferior and disposable is a general function of racism, which is afforded by racialization; but, the historical conditions of the mistreatment of Middle Eastern p...
Though written for political theorists and philosophers, Daniel Innerarity’s The Future and Its E... more Though written for political theorists and philosophers, Daniel Innerarity’s The Future and Its Enemies: In Defense of Political Hope (2012) is a battle cry – we must take the future seriously! – that transcends disciplinary boundaries, revealing a rapidly beating heart of much existential trembling. Innerarity opens with the simple observation that we have a poor relation with the future, based in fear, anxiety, excessive or insufficient worry, and a failure to predict or actively shape its emergence. Thus, Innerarity demands that all social theory ‘be a theory of time, specifically of the way we employ the future’ (2). One by one, the chapters problematize and call for change in the way we understand and relate to justice, decision-making, responsibility, and other aspects of social-political experience. The common argument of each chapter, however, is that democratic societies must reorganize their political activities in relation to the future. This reorganization relies on an openness and a hope informed by the acknowledgment that our complex future is not predetermined or trivial, as the naysayer enemies of the future would have us believe. Through this democratic reorganization, the future can be shaped in more stable, sustainable and just ways.
International Journal of Transitional Justice, 2015
ABSTRACT In this article, I argue that developed liberal states require a movement away from a po... more ABSTRACT In this article, I argue that developed liberal states require a movement away from a politics of control and toward techniques of reconciliation that are too often reserved for transitional societies. I first critique the liberal peace model on the grounds that it lacks an internal mechanism for maintaining peace and stability. I then discuss liberal praxis through an analysis of the US prison system, to demonstrate that a society can be nominally liberal and still fail to meet its own standards. Using the US as a cautionary tale, I suggest that by responding to social conflict through force, the liberal system increases instability by fragmenting communities and maintaining an individualistic order that is combative, thus leaving peace and justice as dormant possibilities. After critiquing liberal theory and practice, I discuss a corrective alternative, an ethics and politics of reconciliation that draws on restorative and transitional responses to instability.
Focusing on political and interpersonal conflict in the U.S., particularly racial conflict, but w... more Focusing on political and interpersonal conflict in the U.S., particularly racial conflict, but with an eye to similar conflicts throughout the world, we argue that the enactive approach to mind as life can be elaborated to provide an exigent framework for present social-political problems. An enactive approach fills problematic lacunae in the Western philosophical ethics project by offering radically refigured notions of responsibility and language. The dual enactive, participatory insight is that interactional responsibility is not singular and language is not an individual property or ability, something that someone simply and uniformly 'has' or 'controls'. These points have not been integrated into our self-understanding as moral actors, to everyone’s detriment. We first advocate for adequate appreciation of Colombetti and Torrance’s 2009 suggestion that participatory sense-making necessarily implies shared responsibility for interactional outcomes. We argue that...
Divisiveness routinely turns violent, thus making research into alternative means of dealing with... more Divisiveness routinely turns violent, thus making research into alternative means of dealing with conflict an urgent necessity. This dissertation focuses on the politics of divisiveness and the techniques of conflict transformation. In this, I offer a robust and operable theory of reconciliation. I argue that reconciliation is the first principle of justice. In this sense, the ideal of justice is enacted through the improvement and coordination of social-political relations, which requires the development of trust and institutions that facilitate the ever emergent demos. This is not to suggest that alternative approaches to justice, such as distributive models, are useless or wrong. Rather, justice requires a consensus which cannot be realized when persons see their neighbors as enemies. In conflicts, activities that benefit the enemy Other, such as the redistribution of wealth, will be taken as an injustice by other embattled social groups. As I demonstrate through various cases, interpersonal and institutional responses, like redistribution, often escalate discord and rarely create a shared sense of justice. Thus, conflict becomes a cyclical and multilevel problem. I explore how we can better respond to the cycle of conflict at individual, social, and systemic levels, in order to realize a legitimate notion of justice. I use an interdisciplinary approach to defend my arguments, drawing on iv philosophy and Conflict Resolution (CR). CR is an emerging field that emphasizes practical responses to conflict, often with advocacy for reconciliation. However, more theoretical work needs to be done to explain the ideal of reconciliation that directs CR practices. Within philosophy, little work has been done on the topic of reconciliation. A vast literature exists on the topic of justice, but this literature offers few practical descriptions of how persons come to agree upon the terms of justice. Thus, theories of justice are often labeled as 'ideal' simply because they are disconnected from the fragmented and conflict-ridden reality most people experience. This dissertation, as a project in non-ideal political theory that is empirically informed by cases and concerns in CR, fills these gaps in both philosophy and CR.
In this essay I defend a politics of reconciliation as a means of addressing conflict in the hope... more In this essay I defend a politics of reconciliation as a means of addressing conflict in the hopes of realizing a legitimate ethical-political reality, which is one based in a common and explicit trust. The ideal guiding this model of reconciliation is the affordance of peaceful and reciprocal meaning making or dialogical relations; that is, I understand reconciliation to be both the formation of the conditions of the possibility of cooperative meaning making, insofar as it involves the creation of the secure conditions needed to reestablish basic forms of trust between conflicting persons, and eventually the cooperative meaning making itself that leads to deeper forms of trust such as friendship or solidarity. Insofar as trust is crucial to the health of a democratic political system, a politics of reconciliation is needed in realizing this fundamental relationship, and this politic requires the enactment of a permanent reconciliatory apparatus.
In this article, I argue that developed liberal states require a movement away from a politics of... more In this article, I argue that developed liberal states require a movement away from a politics of control and toward techniques of reconciliation that are too often reserved for transitional societies. I first critique the liberal peace model on the grounds that it lacks an internal mechanism for maintaining peace and stability. I then discuss liberal praxis through an analysis of the US prison system, to demonstrate that a society can be nominally liberal and still fail to meet its own standards. Using the US as a cautionary tale, I suggest that by responding to social conflict through force, the liberal system increases instability by fragmenting communities and maintaining an individualistic order that is combative, thus leaving peace and justice as dormant possibilities. After critiquing liberal theory and practice, I discuss a corrective alternative, an ethics and politics of reconciliation that draws on restorative and transitional responses to instability.
In the United States people of Middle Eastern descent are legally/politically categorized as whit... more In the United States people of Middle Eastern descent are legally/politically categorized as white, but in social encounters and popular representations Middle Eastern people are treated as a nonwhite inferior collective. In the absence of explicit systemic recognition through a protected class status, Middle Eastern Americans are not just vulnerable to the social-systemic violence that accompanies racialization; that violence is being tacitly permitted. I address this problem by describing the historical and political conditions that afford this racialization in the United States. I argue that the racialization of Middle Easterners, best understood from a historical perspective, is rooted in the repetitive treatment of certain peoples as objects of war to be degraded, exploited, dominated, and destroyed. To be treated as inferior and disposable is a general function of racism, which is afforded by racialization; but, the historical conditions of the mistreatment of Middle Eastern peoples create a unique set of problems and tensions that assign specific meanings which must be addressed in combating racism. Included among these tensions is a problematic narrative that claims Middle Eastern peoples are an almost naturally warlike and thus fragmented collective. The problem of disunity results from being created and treated as objects of war. Thus, social recognition, or solidarity, is needed along with systemic recognition. As a more effective means of countering the repetitious practices of subjugation, I plea for a solidarity among Middle Eastern Americans in response to Orientalist-racist scripts that claim disunity and war are the preferred condition of Middle Eastern peoples.
Anti-Colonial Solidarity: Race, Reconciliation, and MENA Liberation confronts the racialization o... more Anti-Colonial Solidarity: Race, Reconciliation, and MENA Liberation confronts the racialization of Middle-Eastern and North African (MENA) perceived peoples from a global perspective. George Fourlas critiques how orientalism, racism, and colonialism co-emerged to afford the imaginary landscapes of the recently recategorized MENA. This critique clarifies possibility, both in a past obscured by colonial palimpsests, and in the present through exemplary cases of MENA solidarity. In confronting the problem of racialization, Fourlas reflects on the conditions of the possibility of a solidarity that resists the violent domination which has defined colonial power for centuries. Rather than offer a blueprint for a well-ordered society, however, Anti-Colonial Solidarity explores what is required to enact an open-ended collectivity that resists rigid universalism and prioritizes reciprocal relations with our living world. Anti-Colonial Solidarity is a call to action to reclaim ourselves and our history from the trappings of colonial domination.
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Papers by George Fourlas