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Serena Parekh

Northeastern University, Philosophy and Religion, Faculty Member

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Serena Parekh is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Northeastern University in Boston, where she is the director of the Politics, Philosophy, and Economics Program and editor of the American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy. Her primary philosophical interests are in social and political philosophy, feminist theory, and continental philosophy. Her book, Hannah Arendt and the Challenge of Modernity: A Phenomenology of Human Rights, was published in 2008 and translated into Chinese. She has also published numerous articles on social and political philosophy in Hypatia, Philosophy and Social Criticism, and Human Rights Quarterly. Her current research focuses broadly on global justice, responsibility, and statelessness. Her book, Refugees and the Ethics of Forced Displacement, is forthcoming with Routledge in 2016.
Address: Department of Philosophy and Religion
Northeastern University
371 Holmes Hall
360 Huntington Ave
Boston, MA, 02115

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Books by Serena Parekh

Hannah Arendt and the Challenge of Modernity: A Phenomenology of Human Rights

Papers by Serena Parekh

Our Moral Responsibility to Refugees goes Beyond Resettlement

Politicians, concerned citizens, and the media have been hotly debating whether or not we have a ... more Politicians, concerned citizens, and the media have been hotly debating whether or not we have a moral responsibility to resettle refugees fleeing the Syrian war and if so, how many we ought to resettle. Charity groups, religious leaders and morally conscious celebrities are among the many people who are encouraging the US and other states to resettle more refugees. Equally vocal, however, are those who oppose large, and often even small scale, resettlement measures. Governors across the United States, for example, are trying to block Syrian refugees from resettling in their states.

Moral Obligations to Refugees: Theory, Practice, Aspiration

Climate Change and Refugees

Hannah Arendt and Global Justice

Philosophy Compass

This essay explores recent scholarship on Hannah Arendt's contribution to the field of global jus... more This essay explores recent scholarship on Hannah Arendt's contribution to the field of global justice. I show that many of Arendt's ideas have been brought to bear fruitfully on some of the most pressing global issues of our day. I turn first to the area in which Arendt has, arguably, been most influential, namely human right. I then look at recent scholarship on Arendt and various issues in global justice, including immigration, statelessness, human security, global poverty, political reconciliation, and global democracy. This essay offers a critical analysis of the ways that Arendt's work has been employed in discussions of global justice and highlights the contributions that she has made to this field of thought.

Between Community and Humanity: Arendt, Judgment and Responsibility to the Global Poor

Philosophical Topics

I argue in this paper that Hannah Arendt can make a valuable contribution to the debate over glob... more I argue in this paper that Hannah Arendt can make a valuable contribution to the debate over global justice and our obligations to the global poor. I maintain that Arendt's work helps us to see how we might be able to combine the best impulses of both partialists and impartialists, and find a middle ground between taking seriously the importance of community as a human good, and the pressing ethical demands of noncitizens. I demonstrate that throughout her corpus, we see both impulses at work. Arendt's appreciation for communitarianism is evident in a number of features of her political philosophy: the undesirability of a world state, and the necessity of a political community to secure human rights, a public sphere, and freedom. By contrast, Arendt's cosmopolitanism is rooted in two features of her political phenomenology: that political action is about the world, a love of the world, and not particular people; and that human togetherness underlies action while human solidarity is its primary motivation. In addition to these two seemingly contradictory threads in Arendt's work there is a third element: Arendt's attempt to mediate between these two impulses through her concept of judgment. To judge means to start from your position within a community, and to take into 157

Beyond the Ethics of Admission: Stateless People, Refugee Camps, and Moral Obligations

Philosophy and Social Criticism

This article examines our moral obligations to refugees and stateless people. I argue that in ord... more This article examines our moral obligations to refugees and stateless people. I argue that in order to understand our moral obligations to stateless people, both de jure refugees and de facto stateless people, we ought to reconceptualize the harm of statelessness as entailing both a legal/ political harm (the loss of citizenship) and an ontological harm, a deprivation of certain fundamental human qualities. To do this, I draw on the work of Hannah Arendt and show that the ontological deprivation has three distinct though interconnected elements: a reduction to the merely human or bare life, a separation from the common realm of humanity and abandonment, and the diminishment of agency or ability to act in the Arendtian sense. If we pull apart the legal/political harm of statelessness from the ontological harm, we are better able to see that we can address some of the features of the ontological deprivation even though we may not be able to rectify the political harm. I conclude this article by discussing some suggestions that follow from a recognition of the reality and harm of the ontological deprivation.

"Taking Hold of Life: Liberal Eugenics, Autonomy, and Biopolitics."

Recent developments in biotechnologies raise important ethical questions. Th is essay examines on... more Recent developments in biotechnologies raise important ethical questions. Th is essay examines one such biotechnology, liberal eugenics. Liberal eugenics refers to genetic technologies designed not to improve health or to fi ght disease, but to augment the lives of ordinary, healthy individuals. It is "liberal" insofar as it does not involve state coercion; individuals are free to choose or refrain from choosing certain enhancements, either for themselves or for their children. For some, liberal eugenics is acceptable in a liberal political state because it protects and promotes the autonomy of individuals. Th ey see the protection of autonomy-understood as noninterference with a given choice-as the sine qua non of an ethically acceptable technology. If this is the case, then it appears that we have little reason to question the ethics of liberal eugenics.

The Human Rights Institute INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN RIGHTS (POLS 125)

Prof. Serena Parekh Office Hours: Wednesday 1:30-3:30 pm Office: Manchester Hall 136

Serena Parekh - Resisting "Dull and Torpid" Assent: Returning to the Debate Over the Foundations of Human Rights - Human Rights Quarterly 29:3

Care and Human Rights in a Globalized World

Southern Journal of Philosophy, 2008

One of the prominent themes in Gould&#x27;s paper is the interconnection between a number of ... more

Does Ordinary Injustice Make Extraordinary Injustice Possible? Gender, Structural Injustice and the Ethics of Refugee Determination

Our understanding of the impact of gender on refugee determination has evolved greatly over the l... more Our understanding of the impact of gender on refugee determination has evolved greatly over the last 60 years. Though many people initially believed that women could not be persecuted qua women, it is now frequently recognized that certain forms of gender-related persecution are sufficient to warrant asylum. Yet despite this conceptual progress, many states are still reluctant to consider certain forms of gender-related persecution to be sufficient to warrant asylum or refugee status. One reason for this continued bias is the lack of a framework with which to understand gender-related persecution. I argue that we ought to understand gender-related persecution as resulting from the intersection of individual or state persecution and structural injustice. Structural injustice can be understood as the kind of everyday injustice, harm, and violence that women experience that makes possible the more extraordinary kinds of violence that women are likely to claim as the basis of asylum. Understanding gender-related persecution within the context of structural injustice will, I argue, help us to see it as a legitimate form of persecution and thus allow more just outcomes for women refugees.

Does Ordinary Injustice Make Extraordinary Injustice Possible? Gender, Structural Injustice and the Ethics of Refugee Determination

Our understanding of the impact of gender on refugee determination has evolved greatly over the l... more Our understanding of the impact of gender on refugee determination has evolved greatly over the last 60 years. Though many people initially believed that women could not be persecuted qua women, it is now frequently recognized that certain forms of gender-related persecution are sufficient to warrant asylum. Yet despite this conceptual progress, many states are still reluctant to consider certain forms of gender-related persecution to be sufficient to warrant asylum or refugee status. One reason for this continued bias is the lack of a framework with which to understand gender-related persecution. I argue that we ought to understand gender-related persecution as resulting from the intersection of individual or state persecution and structural injustice. Structural injustice can be understood as the kind of everyday injustice, harm, and violence that women experience that makes possible the more extraordinary kinds of violence that women are likely to claim as the basis of asylum. Understanding gender-related persecution within the context of structural injustice will, I argue, help us to see it as a legitimate form of persecution and thus allow more just outcomes for women refugees.

Gender and Human Rights

the ashga te research comp anion to ethics and …, Jan 1, 2009

The phenomenological analysis of human rights in the work of Hannah Arendt

Boston College Dissertations and Theses, Jan 1, 2005

Getting to the Root of Gender Inequality: Structural Injustice and Political Responsibility

Hypatia, Jan 1, 2010

In this paper, I argue that there is a philosophical basis for the claim that states can be held ... more In this paper, I argue that there is a philosophical basis for the claim that states can be held responsible for structural injustices such as gender discrimination and violence-a claim that has been made in international human rights documents, but one that has not gained much normative force. To show this, I draw on and develop Iris Young's notion of ''political responsibility.'' The purpose of political responsibility is not to find fault or blame the state for a past wrong, but to encourage the state to make things more just in the future. I argue that the state is able to take responsibility in this sense and can discharge the duty of political responsibility in a more systematic way than individuals can. Further, I show that taking political responsibility would entail changing how states think about their human rights obligations. Rather than focusing on cataloguing abuses, states would be required to work toward changing conditions so that human rights violations are less likely to occur in the future. Consequently, I show that it does make sense to say that the state can be held accountable for structural injustices that lead to women's human rights violations.

Can a Violent Husband Violate Human Rights?

Conscience, morality and judgment

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Jan 1, 2008

This paper is an exploration of the role of conscience in the justification of human rights. I ar... more This paper is an exploration of the role of conscience in the justification of human rights. I argue that in both the western tradition of natural rights and the non-western traditions, human rights are justified, in part, because of their appeal to conscience, and not simply because they issue from a divine source or are based on reason. In contrast, contemporary justifications of human rights primarily look for an objective foundation or simply assert the pragmatic importance of human rights as their justification. While there are distinct advantages to this way of arguing, there are also problems, which I will discuss. As an alternative, I outline Arendt's understanding of conscience as the ability to be with and think with one's self as a secular alternative to both a non-secular version of conscience, and the denial of conscience implicit in contemporary theories. Her view of political judgment helps us to understand how conscience can be understood as subjective but not arbitrary. This paper brings Arendt's insights on conscience and judgment to bear on contemporary discourses of human rights.

Reframing violence against women as a human rights violation: Evan Stark's coercive control

by Serena Parekh and Kathryn Libal

Violence Against Women, Jan 1, 2009

Evan Stark claims that partner-perpetrated physical abuse and other forms of violence against wom... more Evan Stark claims that partner-perpetrated physical abuse and other forms of violence against women ought to be understood as a human rights violation. The authors engage Stark's rhetorically powerful political and analytical innovation by outlining one theoretical and one practical challenge to shifting the paradigm that researchers, advocates, and policy makers use to describe, explain, and remedy the harms of coercive control from misdemeanor assault to human rights violation. The theoretical challenge involves overcoming the public/ private dichotomy that underpins liberal conceptions of human rights. The practical challenge involves using the human rights framework in the United States, given public indifference to human rights rhetoric or law, reluctance of U.S. policy makers to submit to scrutiny or justice-oriented processes under international law on issues of human rights and especially war crimes, and the consequent U.S. legacy of refusal to participate meaningfully in the international human rights process. The authors conclude that employing a human rights framework holds potential in the United States, but the paradigm shift Stark advocates will not materialize without widespread mobilization of interest in and understanding of human rights among domestic violence advocates and the society in general.

Resisting" Dull and Torpid" Assent: Returning to the Debate Over the Foundations of Human Rights

Human Rights Quarterly, Jan 1, 2007

This article examines a number of the more well-known theories of the foundations of human rights... more This article examines a number of the more well-known theories of the foundations of human rights that have been developed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and adds to this discussion the voice of a less wellknown theorist of human rights, Hannah Arendt. The traditional theories of the foundations of human rights are divided into two camps, the essentialists and the anti-essentialists, and the benefits and limitations of each camp are analyzed. The author then articulates Arendt's view of human rights and situates her voice within the contemporary debate on human rights.

Hannah Arendt and the Challenge of Modernity: A Phenomenology of Human Rights

Our Moral Responsibility to Refugees goes Beyond Resettlement

Politicians, concerned citizens, and the media have been hotly debating whether or not we have a ... more Politicians, concerned citizens, and the media have been hotly debating whether or not we have a moral responsibility to resettle refugees fleeing the Syrian war and if so, how many we ought to resettle. Charity groups, religious leaders and morally conscious celebrities are among the many people who are encouraging the US and other states to resettle more refugees. Equally vocal, however, are those who oppose large, and often even small scale, resettlement measures. Governors across the United States, for example, are trying to block Syrian refugees from resettling in their states.

Moral Obligations to Refugees: Theory, Practice, Aspiration

Climate Change and Refugees

Hannah Arendt and Global Justice

Philosophy Compass

This essay explores recent scholarship on Hannah Arendt's contribution to the field of global jus... more This essay explores recent scholarship on Hannah Arendt's contribution to the field of global justice. I show that many of Arendt's ideas have been brought to bear fruitfully on some of the most pressing global issues of our day. I turn first to the area in which Arendt has, arguably, been most influential, namely human right. I then look at recent scholarship on Arendt and various issues in global justice, including immigration, statelessness, human security, global poverty, political reconciliation, and global democracy. This essay offers a critical analysis of the ways that Arendt's work has been employed in discussions of global justice and highlights the contributions that she has made to this field of thought.

Between Community and Humanity: Arendt, Judgment and Responsibility to the Global Poor

Philosophical Topics

I argue in this paper that Hannah Arendt can make a valuable contribution to the debate over glob... more I argue in this paper that Hannah Arendt can make a valuable contribution to the debate over global justice and our obligations to the global poor. I maintain that Arendt's work helps us to see how we might be able to combine the best impulses of both partialists and impartialists, and find a middle ground between taking seriously the importance of community as a human good, and the pressing ethical demands of noncitizens. I demonstrate that throughout her corpus, we see both impulses at work. Arendt's appreciation for communitarianism is evident in a number of features of her political philosophy: the undesirability of a world state, and the necessity of a political community to secure human rights, a public sphere, and freedom. By contrast, Arendt's cosmopolitanism is rooted in two features of her political phenomenology: that political action is about the world, a love of the world, and not particular people; and that human togetherness underlies action while human solidarity is its primary motivation. In addition to these two seemingly contradictory threads in Arendt's work there is a third element: Arendt's attempt to mediate between these two impulses through her concept of judgment. To judge means to start from your position within a community, and to take into 157

Beyond the Ethics of Admission: Stateless People, Refugee Camps, and Moral Obligations

Philosophy and Social Criticism

This article examines our moral obligations to refugees and stateless people. I argue that in ord... more This article examines our moral obligations to refugees and stateless people. I argue that in order to understand our moral obligations to stateless people, both de jure refugees and de facto stateless people, we ought to reconceptualize the harm of statelessness as entailing both a legal/ political harm (the loss of citizenship) and an ontological harm, a deprivation of certain fundamental human qualities. To do this, I draw on the work of Hannah Arendt and show that the ontological deprivation has three distinct though interconnected elements: a reduction to the merely human or bare life, a separation from the common realm of humanity and abandonment, and the diminishment of agency or ability to act in the Arendtian sense. If we pull apart the legal/political harm of statelessness from the ontological harm, we are better able to see that we can address some of the features of the ontological deprivation even though we may not be able to rectify the political harm. I conclude this article by discussing some suggestions that follow from a recognition of the reality and harm of the ontological deprivation.

"Taking Hold of Life: Liberal Eugenics, Autonomy, and Biopolitics."

Recent developments in biotechnologies raise important ethical questions. Th is essay examines on... more Recent developments in biotechnologies raise important ethical questions. Th is essay examines one such biotechnology, liberal eugenics. Liberal eugenics refers to genetic technologies designed not to improve health or to fi ght disease, but to augment the lives of ordinary, healthy individuals. It is "liberal" insofar as it does not involve state coercion; individuals are free to choose or refrain from choosing certain enhancements, either for themselves or for their children. For some, liberal eugenics is acceptable in a liberal political state because it protects and promotes the autonomy of individuals. Th ey see the protection of autonomy-understood as noninterference with a given choice-as the sine qua non of an ethically acceptable technology. If this is the case, then it appears that we have little reason to question the ethics of liberal eugenics.

The Human Rights Institute INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN RIGHTS (POLS 125)

Prof. Serena Parekh Office Hours: Wednesday 1:30-3:30 pm Office: Manchester Hall 136

Serena Parekh - Resisting "Dull and Torpid" Assent: Returning to the Debate Over the Foundations of Human Rights - Human Rights Quarterly 29:3

Care and Human Rights in a Globalized World

Southern Journal of Philosophy, 2008

One of the prominent themes in Gould&#x27;s paper is the interconnection between a number of ... more

Does Ordinary Injustice Make Extraordinary Injustice Possible? Gender, Structural Injustice and the Ethics of Refugee Determination

Our understanding of the impact of gender on refugee determination has evolved greatly over the l... more Our understanding of the impact of gender on refugee determination has evolved greatly over the last 60 years. Though many people initially believed that women could not be persecuted qua women, it is now frequently recognized that certain forms of gender-related persecution are sufficient to warrant asylum. Yet despite this conceptual progress, many states are still reluctant to consider certain forms of gender-related persecution to be sufficient to warrant asylum or refugee status. One reason for this continued bias is the lack of a framework with which to understand gender-related persecution. I argue that we ought to understand gender-related persecution as resulting from the intersection of individual or state persecution and structural injustice. Structural injustice can be understood as the kind of everyday injustice, harm, and violence that women experience that makes possible the more extraordinary kinds of violence that women are likely to claim as the basis of asylum. Understanding gender-related persecution within the context of structural injustice will, I argue, help us to see it as a legitimate form of persecution and thus allow more just outcomes for women refugees.

Does Ordinary Injustice Make Extraordinary Injustice Possible? Gender, Structural Injustice and the Ethics of Refugee Determination

Our understanding of the impact of gender on refugee determination has evolved greatly over the l... more Our understanding of the impact of gender on refugee determination has evolved greatly over the last 60 years. Though many people initially believed that women could not be persecuted qua women, it is now frequently recognized that certain forms of gender-related persecution are sufficient to warrant asylum. Yet despite this conceptual progress, many states are still reluctant to consider certain forms of gender-related persecution to be sufficient to warrant asylum or refugee status. One reason for this continued bias is the lack of a framework with which to understand gender-related persecution. I argue that we ought to understand gender-related persecution as resulting from the intersection of individual or state persecution and structural injustice. Structural injustice can be understood as the kind of everyday injustice, harm, and violence that women experience that makes possible the more extraordinary kinds of violence that women are likely to claim as the basis of asylum. Understanding gender-related persecution within the context of structural injustice will, I argue, help us to see it as a legitimate form of persecution and thus allow more just outcomes for women refugees.

Gender and Human Rights

the ashga te research comp anion to ethics and …, Jan 1, 2009

The phenomenological analysis of human rights in the work of Hannah Arendt

Boston College Dissertations and Theses, Jan 1, 2005

Getting to the Root of Gender Inequality: Structural Injustice and Political Responsibility

Hypatia, Jan 1, 2010

In this paper, I argue that there is a philosophical basis for the claim that states can be held ... more In this paper, I argue that there is a philosophical basis for the claim that states can be held responsible for structural injustices such as gender discrimination and violence-a claim that has been made in international human rights documents, but one that has not gained much normative force. To show this, I draw on and develop Iris Young's notion of ''political responsibility.'' The purpose of political responsibility is not to find fault or blame the state for a past wrong, but to encourage the state to make things more just in the future. I argue that the state is able to take responsibility in this sense and can discharge the duty of political responsibility in a more systematic way than individuals can. Further, I show that taking political responsibility would entail changing how states think about their human rights obligations. Rather than focusing on cataloguing abuses, states would be required to work toward changing conditions so that human rights violations are less likely to occur in the future. Consequently, I show that it does make sense to say that the state can be held accountable for structural injustices that lead to women's human rights violations.

Can a Violent Husband Violate Human Rights?

Conscience, morality and judgment

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Jan 1, 2008

This paper is an exploration of the role of conscience in the justification of human rights. I ar... more This paper is an exploration of the role of conscience in the justification of human rights. I argue that in both the western tradition of natural rights and the non-western traditions, human rights are justified, in part, because of their appeal to conscience, and not simply because they issue from a divine source or are based on reason. In contrast, contemporary justifications of human rights primarily look for an objective foundation or simply assert the pragmatic importance of human rights as their justification. While there are distinct advantages to this way of arguing, there are also problems, which I will discuss. As an alternative, I outline Arendt's understanding of conscience as the ability to be with and think with one's self as a secular alternative to both a non-secular version of conscience, and the denial of conscience implicit in contemporary theories. Her view of political judgment helps us to understand how conscience can be understood as subjective but not arbitrary. This paper brings Arendt's insights on conscience and judgment to bear on contemporary discourses of human rights.

Reframing violence against women as a human rights violation: Evan Stark's coercive control

by Serena Parekh and Kathryn Libal

Violence Against Women, Jan 1, 2009

Evan Stark claims that partner-perpetrated physical abuse and other forms of violence against wom... more Evan Stark claims that partner-perpetrated physical abuse and other forms of violence against women ought to be understood as a human rights violation. The authors engage Stark's rhetorically powerful political and analytical innovation by outlining one theoretical and one practical challenge to shifting the paradigm that researchers, advocates, and policy makers use to describe, explain, and remedy the harms of coercive control from misdemeanor assault to human rights violation. The theoretical challenge involves overcoming the public/ private dichotomy that underpins liberal conceptions of human rights. The practical challenge involves using the human rights framework in the United States, given public indifference to human rights rhetoric or law, reluctance of U.S. policy makers to submit to scrutiny or justice-oriented processes under international law on issues of human rights and especially war crimes, and the consequent U.S. legacy of refusal to participate meaningfully in the international human rights process. The authors conclude that employing a human rights framework holds potential in the United States, but the paradigm shift Stark advocates will not materialize without widespread mobilization of interest in and understanding of human rights among domestic violence advocates and the society in general.

Resisting" Dull and Torpid" Assent: Returning to the Debate Over the Foundations of Human Rights

Human Rights Quarterly, Jan 1, 2007

This article examines a number of the more well-known theories of the foundations of human rights... more This article examines a number of the more well-known theories of the foundations of human rights that have been developed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and adds to this discussion the voice of a less wellknown theorist of human rights, Hannah Arendt. The traditional theories of the foundations of human rights are divided into two camps, the essentialists and the anti-essentialists, and the benefits and limitations of each camp are analyzed. The author then articulates Arendt's view of human rights and situates her voice within the contemporary debate on human rights.

A meaningful place in the world: Hannah Arendt on the nature of human rights

Journal of human Rights, Jan 1, 2004