Description
Book SynopsisOne of the first readings, in English or French, of Édouard Glissant as an ethical theorist
Trade ReviewChoose Your Bearing commits to inclusive universal rights and protections for natural environments. Interweaving philosophy and history, Benjamin Davis presents an elegant account of the contributions, contradictions, and betrayals of human rights advocacy within anti-colonial struggles. Referencing Glissant, Said, Marx, Du Bois and other intellectuals, this book engages ethics, diverse ethnic identities, and the structural antagonisms between colonizers and the colonized. Choose Your Bearing offers a succinct study of intellectuals and care-givers who improvised a common language for political advocacy; thus, it clarifies how to stabilize current resistance to imperialism and predatory powers. – Joy James, author of New Bones Abolition and Contextualizing Angela Davis
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Starting from Responsibility and Human Rights Thesis and Chapter Outline Chapter One: The Right to Opacity in Theory Toward an Alternative Ethical Vocabulary Alterity and Encounter Read in Context Contacts, Relays, Opacities The Right to Opacity and Human Rights Chapter Two: The Right to Opacity in Practice The Critical-Reformist Tension Three Approaches to Human Rights The Paradigmatic Approach The Critical Approach The Organizational Approach The Three Approaches at Work and the Promises of Standing Rock Chapter Three: Solidarity beyond Participation Institutions and Imaginaries Roots: Identity and Belonging Relations: Solidarity, Anarchy, and Generosity Root Identity and Relation Identity Expansive Belonging Chapter Four: The Feasibility of Ethical Pursuits Feasibility The Other of Thought La Facultad Deslenguada Entanglements Making Kin Chapter Five: The Limits of Ethics and the Question of Political Commitment Summary of Study The Limits of Ethics The Question of Political Commitment W. E. B. Du Bois’s Critique of Elite Human Rights Discourse Bibliography
