Waging War and Making Peace ─ Reparations and Human Rights

Humans are good at making war?and much less successful at making peace. Genocide, torture, slavery, and other crimes against humanity are gross violations of human rights that are frequently perpetrated and legitimized in the name of nationalism, militarism, and economic development. This book tackles the question of how to make peace by taking a critical look at the primary political mechanism used to "repair" the many injuries suffered in war. With an explicit focus on reparations and human rights, it examines the broad array of abuses being perpetrated in the modern era, from genocide to loss of livelihood. Based on the experiences of anthropologists and others who document abuses and serve as expert witnesses, case studies from around the world offer insight into reparations proceedings; the ethical struggles associated with attempts to secure reparations; the professional and personal risks to researchers, victims, and human rights advocates; and how to come to terms with the political compromises of reparations in the face of the human need for justice.?Waging War, Making Peace promises to be a major contribution to public policy, political science, international relations, and human rights and peace research.

Barbara Rose Johnston is Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Political Ecology and winner of the Lourdes Arizpe Award, presented by the American Anthropological Association’s Anthropology & Environment Section, for her outstanding contributions in the application of anthropology to environmental issues and discourse. Among her recent publications are Disappearing Peoples: Indigenous Groups and Ethnic Minorities in South and Central Asia (ed., with Barbara Brower, 2007); Half Lives & Half Truths: Confronting the Radioactive Legacies of the Cold War (ed., 2007), Consequential Damages of Nuclear War: The Rongelap Report (with Holly Barker, 2008), and Waging War, Making Peace: Reparations and Human Rights (ed., with Susan Slyomovics, 2008). Susan Slyomovics is Professor of Anthropology and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles and Director of UCLA's Center for Near Eastern Studies. Among her many important book publications is The Object of Memory: Arab and Jew Narrate the Palestinian Village (1998), which won the 1999 Albert Hourani Book Award given by the Middle East Studies Association and the 1999 Chicago Folklore Prize, and The Performance of Human Rights in Morocco (2005).