Winter Readings: Nine New Faculty Books

L’État en Afrique: la politique du ventre

Cet essai publié chez Fayard en 1989 (nouv. éd. augmentée 2006) et devenu un classique en sociologie de l’État vient de paraître dans une traduction en japonais de Shozo Kamo. L’analyse des groupes sociaux qui se disputent l’État postcolonial et des différents scénarios qui ont prévalu depuis la proclamation des indépendances permet à l’auteur d’avancer des hypothèses neuves sur la formation d’une classe dominante, sur la dépendance des sociétés africaines vis-à-vis de leur environnement international, sur la place déterminante en leur sein des stratégies individuelles et des modes populaires d’action politique, sur l’importance des réseaux d’influence et des terroirs historiques dans le déroulement des conflits, sur la récurrence des conduites – souvent religieuses – de dissidence sociale, sur l’émergence de cultures politiques originales. En définitive, l’ouvrage propose une lecture à la fois provocante et nuancée de ce qu’il est convenu de nommer le développement et la « politique du ventre », pour reprendre une expression camerounaise.

Penser différentes manières de penser : théories du droit international

Andrea Bianchi

Deux poissons nagent dans un étang. « Tu sais quoi ? », demande l’un des poissons.
« Non, dis-moi », répond l’autre.
« Je parlais l’autre jour avec une grenouille. Elle m’a dit que nous sommes entourés d’eau. Il paraît même que nous vivons dedans ! »
Son ami le fixe, d’un air sceptique : « De l’eau ? Qu’est-ce que c’est ? Montre-moi l’eau ! »

Les juristes – et les internationalistes n’y font pas exception – ont tendance à se focaliser sur la pratique du droit, souvent sans accorder une attention soutenue aux théories sous-jacentes qui en déterminent pourtant la production et la mise en oeuvre. Ce livre se veut une tentative de remuer l’eau dans laquelle, en tant qu’internationalistes, nous nageons. Il propose une introduction à différentes approches du droit et sensibilités à son égard. Penser différentes manières de penser le droit international se veut ainsi une invitation faite aux internationalistes, et à quiconque s’intéresse à cette discipline, à engager une réflexion sur les modes et modalités de production des connaissances, aussi bien dans le champ scientifique que dans la pratique sociale du droit international.

150 Years of Contributing to the Development of
International Law

Justitia et Pace (1873-2023)
Edited by Marcelo Kohen and Iris van der Heijden

In light of the 150th anniversary of the Institut de Droit international, this book has been published on its history and work. It contains 45 chapters (16 in French and 29 in English) written by prominent members, including former professors and alumni of the Graduate Institute. Part I focuses on its evolution through a historical lens and the role it has played so far, discussing its mission, composition, codifying role, external relations, dissemination, and the interaction of private international law and public international law. Part II focuses on its contribution to the codification and development of international law in different areas: settlement of disputes, sources, ius in bellum and ius ad bellum, individual and collective human rights, regulation of spaces, and harmonisation of private international law. The book addresses the challenges and controversies that arose in the course of the work; the resolutions adopted, their impact and the way forward. It concludes with the position of the Institute in today’s world and its future.

International Organizations and Research Methods: An Introduction

Edited by Fanny Badache, Leah R. Kimber, and Lucile Maertens

Scholars have studied international organisations (IOs) in many disciplines, thus generating important theoretical developments. Yet a proper assessment and a broad discussion of the methods used to research these organisations are lacking. Which methods are being used to study IOs and in what ways? Do we need a specific methodology applied to the case of IOs? What are the concrete methodological challenges when doing research on IOs?
This book compiles an inventory of the methods developed in the study of IOs under the five headings of Observing, Interviewing, Documenting, Measuring, and Combining. It does not reconcile diverging views on the purpose and meaning of IO scholarship, but creates a space for scholars and students embedded in different academic traditions to reflect on methodological choices and the way they impact knowledge production on IOs.

Destiny/Destination

Alessandro Monsutti et Carlo Vidoni

Cet ouvrage est né comme projet collaboratif de la rencontre de deux vagabonds de l’âme, un artiste aux multiples facettes, Carlo Vidoni, et un anthropologue itinérant, Alessandro Monsutti. Dans l’idée d’aller au-delà des angoisses et des peurs face à un monde perçu comme incertain, dans lequel la mobilité de certaines personnes est vécue comme une menace pour la stabilité de la vie d’autres personnes, les auteurs ont confronté les trajectoires de migrants qui ont
quitté l’Italie ou sont arrivés en Italie à des moments différents et poussés par des motivations tout autant diverses. Le point de départ visuel, esthétique et narratif a été inspiré par les lignes de la main qui, symboles du destin de chacun et dans le même temps caractéristique universelle, racontent différentes histoires unies par leur commune humanité. L’itinéraire proposé par cet ouvrage serpente à travers les courts récits biographiques de huit personnes qui narrent leurs trajectoires. Leurs récits sont accompagnés des dessins de Carlo Vidoni, des textes poétiques d’Alessandro Monsutti, Tareq Aljabr, Ebrahim Amini, Mohsen Lihidheb, Cléo Petric et Michele Picardi, et d’une postface de Jean-François Bayart.

Atomized Incorporation: Chinese Workers and the Aftermath of China’s Rise

Sungmin Rho

Atomized Incorporation examines why the Chinese regime selectively tolerates workers’ collective action within single factories and what this means for the country’s long-term political resilience. It investigates the implications of state-labour relations in contemporary China and suggests that it has evolved away from overt coercion to limited incorporation. Based on two years of in-depth fieldwork, the author uncovers how ordinary workers think, believe and behave in this changing socio-political environment. She demonstrates that labour grievances have become more politicised and finds that the current approach to economic grievance resolutions demobilises the emergence of labour movements by rewarding those with collective action resources within individual workplaces.
Sungmin Rho argues that though this limited state of incorporation allows workers to express discontent at wages and working conditions, it also denies them the opportunity to make claims about structural problems and does not effectively enhance political loyalty in the long run.

Reflections: Understanding our Use and Abuse of Water

Mark Zeitoun

Water is central to all life, but we use it to destroy. Water can nourish, but we use it to starve. It can cleanse and unify, but we ensure it contaminates and divides. The consequences of continuing to desecrate or beginning to restore water’s inner grace are tremendous – and will reflect as much on us as portend our future. Drawing upon twenty-five years of professional work as a water engineer, negotiator and scholar, Mark Zeitoun provides a unique insider’s account of this phenomenon. He explains how unchecked assumptions about water mix with political and economic systems to create an insatiable and ruinous thirst for ever more water. He shows how we use water to lethal effect in wars, and demolish drinking-water systems with wanton disregard. He questions why we transform the most majestic of rivers into canals which spark international conflict and challenge our capacity for preventative diplomacy. The answers reflect more about our society than we might care to admit. If we are to restore water’s inner grace, the author argues, we should worry not so much about “saving” water, but think about what we do with it when it is in our hands.

The Lives of Extraction: Identities, Communities and the Politics of Place

Edited by Filipe Calvão, Matthew Archer and Asanda Benya

The frontiers of extraction are expanding rapidly, driven by a growing demand for minerals and metals that is often motivated by sustainability considerations. Two volumes of International Development Policy are dedicated to the paradoxes and futures of green extractivism, with analyses of experiences from five continents. In the first of these volumes, 16 authors offer a critical and nuanced understanding of the social, cultural and political dimensions of extraction. The experiences of communities, indigenous peoples and workers in extractive contexts are deeply shaped by narratives, imaginaries and the complexity of social contexts. These dimensions are crucial to making extraction possible and to sustaining its expansion, but also to identifying opportunities for resistance, and to paving the way for alternative, post-extractive economies.

The Afterlives of Extraction: Alternatives and Sustainable Futures

Edited by Filipe Calvão, Matthew Archer and Asanda Benya

In the second of the two volumes dedicated to the paradoxes and futures of green extractivism, 22 authors, using different conceptual approaches and in different empirical contexts, demonstrate the alarming obduracy of the logic of extractivism, even – and perhaps especially – in the growing support for the so-called green transition. The authors highlight the complex and enduring legacies of resource extraction and the urgent need to move beyond extractive models of development towards alternative pathways that prioritise social justice, environmental sustainability, democratic governance and the well-being of both humans and non-humans. They also caution us against the assumption that anti-extraction is anti-extractivist, that post-extraction is post-extractivism, and they critically attune us to the systemic nature of extractivism in ways that both connect and transcend any particular site or scale.

ADMITTED PORTAL

AFRICAS RISING?

RESEARCH MULTIMEDIA

AN ENDURING LEGACY FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS

ENGAGING THE FUTURE

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