Author: Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann / Publishing Institution: Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University

Author:: Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann
Publication Date:: 01-2002
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Abstract:: This paper presents some very preliminary thoughts on reparations due to Sub-Saharan Africa, including acknowledgment, apology, and financial compensation. I am a political sociologist, a specialist in international human rights with a background in African studies. Focusing on the Afactual@ history of Africa, I consider the possibility of arguing a case for Western compensation for racial discrimination. I also consider the case for acknowledgment, apology and compensation drawn from the need to recognize the moral integrity of Africans.
Topic:: Globalization and Imperialism
Political Geography:: Africa

Author:: Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann
Publication Date:: 03-2000
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Abstract:: The insertion of identity politics into international relations undermines the capacity for cosmopolitan empathy, a capacity that might be useful in ameliorating some of the world's social problems. Empathy is the capacity to put oneself into another's shoes and recognize a stranger's humanity. The useful post-modern stress on the mutability of identity has hardened in identity politics into the creation of exclusive social categories of Oppressed and Oppressor. The social creation of such categories through such devices as the politics of amnesia paves the way for isolationist indifference. Yet data drawn both from the sociology of genocide and from the author's own research shows that humanitarian empathy across lines of identity is possible.
Topic:: International Relations, Civil Society, and Imperialism

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