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Ethical action requires more than a catch-phrase. While a generation of changemakers and peacebuilders have set out to
Be the Change!, a thousand cautionary tales from the frontlines of social, economic, climate, and racial justice work suggest that deep ethical dilemmas don't always have easily actionable answers. Drawing on the lived experiences and real expertise of activists, educators, and researchers,
Wicked Problems explores how doing the work--around the world and in one's own community--often requires tough decisions: between peace and justice, revolution and reform, violence and nonviolence, and between means and ends.
List of contents
- Acknowledgments
- Contributors
- Introduction: Wicked Problems - The Ethics of Action for Peace, Rights, and Justice
- Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Douglas Irvin-Erickson, and Ernesto Verdeja
- I: VIOLENCE
- 1. The Ritual of Black Armed Resistance: Police Abolition through the Eyes of the Black Radical Tradition
- Tony Gaskew
- 2. Building a Movement to End Poverty through Nonviolent Resistance
- Liz Theoharis and Noam Sandweiss-Back
- 3. Is Violence the Answer? A Pragmatic Approach
- Kirssa Cline Ryckman
- 4. How Is It to Be Done? Dilemmas of Prefigurative and Harm - Reduction Approaches to Social Movement Work
- Ashley J. Bohrer
- II: LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONS
- 5. The Paradox of Survivor Leadership
- Minh Dang
- 6. Allies Out Front: Dilemmas of Leadership
- Daniel J. Myers
- 7. Organizing Dilemmas across U.S.- Based Social Justice Movement Spaces
- alicia sanchez gill
- 8. The Ones Who Walk Away to Stay and Fight
- Philip Gamaghelyan
- 9. From Righteous to Responsive: Rethinking the Role of Moral Values of Peacebuilding
- Reina C. Neufeldt
- III: SYSTEMS AND INSTITUTIONS
- 10. Dilemmas in Action Where Rule of Law Conflicts with Justice
- Deena R. Hurwitz
- 11. Establishing an Ethics of Post-Sanctions Peacebuilding
- George A. Lopez and Beatrix Geaghan-Breiner
- 12. Threading the Needle: Ethical Dilemmas in Preventing Mass Atrocities
- Ernesto Verdeja
- 13. Whither the Villains? The Ethical Dilemma in Armed Conflict
- Laurie Nathan
- 14. "A Different Kind of Weapon": Ethical Dilemmas and Nonviolent Civilian Protection
- Felicity Gray
- 15. The Ethics of Transitional Justice
- Tim Murithi
- 16. Why the Peacebuilding Field Needs Clear and Accessible Standards of Research Ethics
- Elizabeth Hume and Jessica Baumgardner-Zuzik
- 17. Consent, Inclusivity, and Local Voices: Ethical Dilemmas of Teaching Peace in Conflict Zones
- Agnieszka Paczynska and Susan F. Hirsch
- Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick is University Professor at the University of San Diego's Kroc School of Peace Studies. Austin's teaching, scholarship, and public engagement lies at the intersection of social movements, human rights, and new technology. He is the author of What Slaveholders Think and The Good Drone, and has written articles in Slate, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, The Conversation, MIT Reader, Medium, and Aeon. His commentary on current events includes appearances on BBC and Fox News, and his work on drones has been profiled in Science and Fast Company and by NBC, among others.
Douglas Irvin-Erickson is Assistant Professor at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, George Mason University. He is the author of Raphaël Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide, and many articles on human rights, international criminal law and legal history, genocide, and peace. Irvin-Erickson directs the Raphaël Lemkin Genocide Prevention Program at
the Carter School, is a Senior Fellow with the Alliance for Peacebuilding, a Board Member of the Institute for the Study of Genocide, and a member of the editorial board of Genocide Studies and Prevention. He lectures widely and works with governments, international organizations, and NGOs around the world.
Ernesto Verdeja is Associate Professor of Political Science and Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame. He researches contemporary genocide and mass atrocities, and political justice and reconciliation after violence. He has worked for a variety of human rights organizations and is the Executive Director of the non-profit Institute for the Study of Genocide. Ernesto regularly consults with governments and non-governmental organizations on mass atrocity prevention and reconciliation efforts.
Summary
The ethics of changemaking and peacebuilding may appear straightforward: advance dignity, promote well-being, minimize suffering. Sounds simple, right? Actually acting ethically when it really matters is rarely straightforward. If someone engaged in change-oriented work sets out to "do good," how should we prioritize and evaluate whose good counts? And, how ought we act once we have decided whose good counts? Practitioners frequently confront dilemmas where dire situations may demand some form of response, but each of the options may have undesirable consequences of one form or another. Dilemmas are not merely ordinary problems, they are wicked problems: that is to say, they are defined by circumstances that only allow for suboptimal outcomes and are based on profound and sometimes troubling trade-offs.
Wicked Problems argues that the field of peacebuilding and conflict transformation needs a stronger and more practical sense of its ethical obligations. For example, it argues against posing false binaries between domestic and international issues and against viewing violence and conflict as equivalents. It holds strategic nonviolence up to critical scrutiny and shows that "do no harm" approaches may in fact do harm.
The contributors include scholars, scholar practitioners in the field, and activists on the streets, and the chapters cover the role of violence in conflict; conflict and violence prevention and resolution; humanitarianism; community organizing and racial justice; social movements; human rights advocacy; transitional justice; political reconciliation; and peace education and pedagogy, among other topics. Drawing on the lived experiences and expertise of activists, educators, and researchers, Wicked Problems equips readers to ask--and answer--difficult questions about social change work.
Additional text
Although other books examine ethics in changemaking, this one stands out in the diversity of the contributors' backgrounds, experiences, and assumptions about changemaking... [It collects] a stunning array of authors write short, punchy chapters that offer a visceral kick in the gut by describing the trade-offs and tensions involved in addressing these problems outside the realm of normative academic posturing.
