Economic Injustice Research Articles

Can’t pay, won’t pay: occult conflicts over neoliberal social relations in contemporary Zimbabwe

Based on interviews in Zimbabwe in 2016, the authors argue that stories about unsettled ngozi spirits are a powerful lens through which to understand grassroots experiences of neoliberalism. In the 1990s, ngozi symptoms of death and madness were associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and were instrumental in bringing families of victims and perpetrators together after war, to reconcile. Today, however, these symptoms are associated more with economic injustice. Resolving them has become a matter of payment, not reconciliation and human relationships. Anger is directed towards uncooperative family members and Pentecostal churches for perpetuating rather than healing this occult suffering.

Pogge, poverty, and war

According to Thomas Pogge, rich people do not simply violate a positive duty of assistance to help the global poor; rather, they violate a negative duty not to harm them. They do so by imposing an unjust global economic structure on poor people. Assuming that these claims are correct, it follows that, ceteris paribus, wars waged by the poor against the rich to resist this imposition are morally equivalent to wars waged in self-defense against military aggression. Hence, if self-defense against military aggression is just, then, ceteris paribus, so are defensive wars against the imposition of economic injustice. While I do not think Pogge’s analysis of the causes of global poverty is correct, I defend these inferences against various challenges.

Complicity and Cambridge poetry

ABSTRACTThis paper studies the concept of complicity through the work of two Cambridge School poets, J.H. Prynne and Peter Riley. The acknowledgement of complicity in social, political, and economic injustices has been central for poets influenced by J.H. Prynne, and the resulting poetry, often difficult and alienating, nevertheless seeks to give lyric expression to the historical burden of being at the dispensing end of global violence. Peter Riley’s work, on the other hand, implies an ethical position that also includes a real possibility of opting out of exploitative and violent historical tendencies: complicity here is emphatically within the ambit of volition. Through readings of Prynne’s ‘Refuse Collection’ – which was written in response to the torture at Abu Ghraib – and Riley’s Alstonefield: A Poem and Excavations, this paper argues that the differences between these positions are more a matter of emphasis than of kind.

Political Economy of Narcotics in Afghanistan

There are many problems that are clustering around globe as the issues of hunger, poverty, disease and other socio-political and economic injustice. These issues if not addressed, will continue to generate new anti-social activities, thereby can creating imbalance in the system. Among the antisocial activities which the world is watching today one of them are Narcotics Production, its trade and consumption these problems if not addressed will turn into an international crisis of unprecedented gravity? Narcotic Consumption causes many deaths every year in the entire world, because of the substance obtained from it that is Opium. The maximum production of Opium takes place in Afghanistan. The other concerns are large production, manufacturing of illegal substances as marijuana along with the revival of poppy cultivation and then smuggled through Afghanistan to peripheral and cross-regional countries. The past eighteen years have witnessed significant changes vis-a-vis people of Afghanistan as they have striven to establish an independent state with a market economy governed under pluralistic democracy. These changes besides the contemporary anti social movements as Hizbul Islami, and al-Qaeda are fuelling the country's Opium trade to a large extent. The problem is a serious concern in the future because it has a tendency to grow more and more as Afghanistan is about to complete the major project which will connect the South Asia, Central Asia and Middle East. That is New Silk Route, which is one of the biggest reconstructions happening in Eurasian Content after the disorganisation of Soviet Union.

Yom Kippur’s Call for Environmental Repentance

Yom Kippur’s Call for Environmental Repentance

Understanding Sustainability through Traditional Maasai Pastoral Systems in Southern Kenya

In the developed world, we tend to think of sustainability as a newly articulated solution to challenges of environmental resource degradation and issues of social and economic injustice. However, pastoralism as traditionally practiced by the Maasai of southern Kenya is tied closely to the land and responds to climatic variation within the region. In the early 20 th century, colonial policies began to alter traditional land use systems, compromising inherently sustainable arrangements and isolating populations from the land. This trend has continued somewhat in contemporary development practice. As a result of a shift toward privatization of land tenure, traditional pastoral systems are no longer viable. While studying abroad with The School for Field Studies, we became aware of the struggle many Maasai face as they attempt to continue pastoralism in an increasingly hostile environment. Ultimately, development efforts in the region should focus not on implementing exogenous concepts of ‗sustainability‘ but rather on supporting and adapting systems that are already in place. Author’s Note Kaitlyn received an email from Consilience while we were in Kenya. That night, we started talking about sustainability in the context of the Maasai. While we come from different disciplinary backgrounds—Emma is focused on Africana Studies while Kaitlyn‘s background is in Environmental Biology—in Kenya we had both come to understand the inextricable relationship between people and conservation in the developing world. We wanted to share our thoughts on issues of sustainable development, as well as some of the more formative experiences that contributed to our understanding of the complex nature of social and environmental issues in southern Kenya. We‘ve both developed a strong connection to the area. Emma plans to return to southern Kenya and research sustainable agriculture, ultimately working toward a graduate degree in the field. After spending a year in western Kenya studying the behavioral ecology of blue monkeys, Kaitlyn plans to pursue graduate education in the field of conservation biology. She will continue to engage in projects that integrate conservation and development efforts.

Two Ideals of Educational Justice

Background/Context This essay takes up McClintock's (2004) critique of educational discourses as overly dependent upon a distributive model of justice and largely ignorant of the formative assumptions that ground educational policy and practice. Purpose/Objective The question that McClintock's analysis begs is how educational scholarship became attached to a theoretical model that seems to fail its own requirements. My aim is to identify some of the sources of our assumptions about educational justice in order to tether them to their origins and understand how these ideological influences continue to shape our contemporary purposes Research Design I analyze a selection of significant moments in the history of educational thought in terms of their respective contributions to one of two ideals of justice: the distributive and the formative. My aim is to show how these two long-standing ideals influence contemporary thought on educational justice and to question whether our adherence to these ideals as we have inherited them serves the needs of contemporary thinkers and the populations they seek to serve. Conclusions/Recommendations By drawing attention to the confused status of distributive and formative ideals in education in contemporary educational discourses, the principal conclusion of this essay is that educational research's narrow reliance upon a distributive model exacts a formative injustice upon disenfranchised populations. By indicating the confusion of these ideals, we may read back critically against the commonly accepted notion of education as a democratic tool against economic injustice.

The Counterrevolutionary Campus: Herbert Marcuse and the Suppression of Student Protest Movements

With the recent surge of college protests against various forms of economic, political, social, and racial injustice, there have been persistent and pernicious reactions from other students, administrators and public figures that function to undermine the emancipatory impulses animating these demonstrations. The reactions are often justified under the banners of tolerance, chastising students to listen instead of protest. This article, focusing on Marcuse’s concepts of repressive toleration and counterrevolution, evaluates the reactionary responses to these events, as well as the critical potential of this fledgling student sensibility, a burgeoning refusal represented by protest events at American universities. We maintain that many of the calls for tolerance are actually demands for silence and belong to a wider counterrevolutionary phase of late capitalism observed by Marcuse. Bedrock liberties are dialectically inverted whereby speech and toleration are repressively deployed against demands for justice. This article concludes by arguing that it is crucial to the success of this resurgent sensibility for justice—and progress toward a radical socialist movement that coincides with the emancipatory vision of Herbert Marcuse—that the counterrevolutionary character of the responses are demystified.

The Struggle for Human Dignity in a Consumer-Oriented Culture

This article addresses the need to ground our discussions and advocacy to rectify economic injustice in the basic affirmation that the most vulnerable victims of injustice are above all full human beings created in the image of God and that their humanness is therefore inscribed with a dignity which we are bound to respect. There are three areas in which we need to be more attentive to the ways in which our discourse and assistance unwittingly reinforce patterns of defacement even as we seek to address economic injustice: (1) addressing our biases and negative feelings about the materially disadvantaged; (2) clarifying who the materially disadvantaged are; and (3) enlisting the aid of the impoverished in seeking the solutions to economic injustice.

Brexit, Post-liberalism, and the Politics of Paradox

Brexit is part of a tectonic shift in Western politics. An alliance of socialists and conservatives rejected the status quo of remote bureaucracy, mass immigration, and multiculturalism in favor of more self-government and the protection of settled ways of life. A similar realignment is underway in Western countries where the establishment is threatened either by old nationalist parties or by new, insurgent movements that are often far-right on questions of identity and social cohesion and far-left on welfare and the economy – such as Front National in France or Trump in the U.S.A. This paradoxical convergence marks a reordering of politics that cannot be mapped according to the old categories of left versus right because they are part of the same liberal logic that is now in question. Indeed, from the 1990s onwards both the center-left and the center-right tended to fuse economic with social liberalism, notably financial and trade liberalization coupled with equality legislation in support of abstract ideals such as diversity and inclusivity. In neither case did mainstream parties consider how the privileging of minority interests might affect the rest of the economy or the majority of society. Amid the backlash against the effects of globalization such as economic injustice and the impact of mass migration on communities, the centrist consensus is breaking. While many reactions are illiberal and even anti-liberal, there are also signs that the debate is shifting in a direction that can be described as ‘post-liberal’ – committed to greater economic egalitarianism and an updated version of social (small ‘c’) conservatism.

How Grassroots Truth and Reconciliation Movements can Further the Fight for Social Justice in U.S. Communities

Across the United States, people in communities burdened by economic injustice and political marginalization, violence, and longstanding legacies of oppression are turning towards truth and reconciliation commissions as an innovative way to address persistent inequalities. Such commissions have been organized under government auspices in other countries dealing with the aftermath of terrible civil wars and ethnic violence. In the United States, the process is driven from the grass roots rather than by government officials. How does this mechanism actually work in American communities as a form of community organizing for social justice?

Social justice dilemmas: evidence on the successes and shortcomings of three principals trying to make a difference

Social justice leadership has become a popular topic and catchphrase in the field of educational leadership. However, most scholarly and empirical contributions have ignored the inherent tensions, challenges and dilemmas associated with the practice of school leadership and the realities principals confront on a daily basis. This is partly because researchers have tended to ignore multiple facets of justice in their empirical investigations as well as how larger forces outside the school associated with historical, political, social and economic injustices marginalize students and communities. This article explores three cases of challenging school–community contexts that confound and partially subdue the efforts of well-intentioned principals. Each case highlights a dedicated principal committed to their school and community, and documents the significant progress made in addressing particular social justice issues, but also how they confronted justice dilemmas that they believed required them to prioritize certain social justice issues over others. These findings have important implications for how principals view their communities and engage in critical reflection about the leadership decisions and actions they take on a daily basis. This article concludes with implications for future research and a discussion of how aspiring principals can be better prepared to lead for social justice and effectively address justice dilemmas without ignoring or putting off other injustices.

Poverty and the ideological imperative: a call to unhook from deficit and grit ideology and to strive for structural ideology in teacher education

In this article I explore the educational equity implications of three popular ideological positions that drive teachers’ and teacher educators’ understandings of, and responses to, poverty and economic injustice in schools: deficit ideology, grit ideology, and structural ideology. The educator’s ideological position, I illustrate, determines their understandings of conditions such as socio-economic-based outcome disparities. Those understandings, in turn, determine the extent to which the strategies they can imagine have the potential to eliminate or mitigate those disparities. I then argue that teacher education for equity and economic justice must equip pre- and in-service educators with a structural ideology of poverty and economic injustice, based on a sophisticated understanding of relationships between structural inequalities and educational outcome disparities, rather than a deficit or grit ideology, both of which obscure structural inequalities and, as a result, render educators ill-equipped to enact equitable and just teaching, leadership and advocacy.

A Critical Review of Reinhold Niebuhr’s Thoughts on the Sin of Pride and Its Relevance to Korean Society

This study aims to explore the meaning of pride in Reinhold Niebuhr’s The Nature and Destiny of Man, as well as its relevance to Korean society. Niebuhr presents the pride of power, knowledge, and virtue as causes of various conflicts in American society. His thoughts are helpful to apply for an understanding of the underlying issues concerning Korean society. Niebuhr asserts that the pride of power, prompted by a sense of insecurity, causes economic injustice in society, since it seeks an even greater gain in order to guarantee their security, inevitably at the expense of others. Niebuhr also points out that the pride of knowledge causes a cultural imperialism by a majority group over the minority groups. He then argues that moral pride is revealed in all “self-righteous” judgments, in which the other is condemned because he fails to conform to the arbitrary standards of the self. Niebuhr stresses that self-righteousness has been one of the major causes for racial, national, religious, and social struggles in history. In Korean society, the pride of power exists among the plutocrats who possess many companies in various economic fields. In addition to economic problems, there is also an issue of intellectual pride. This is expressed in the attitude of native Koreans towards international laborers. But just as America faces tension with its immigrant population, so does Korea not always fairly treat those who arrive enamored by its seemingly prosperous economy. One more problem with which Korean society struggles is moral pride. The exclusive attitude of Christianity towards other religions is shown among Korean Protestants. It is necessary for the Korean Protestant church to cooperate with other religions in order to resolve social issues. Niebuhr’s analysis, however, is not alone sufficient to provide a solution to social problems, given the lack of practicality in motivating believers for moral practice. The reason is that Niebuhr does not emphasize the work of the Spirit to motivate believers. He seems to simply say that faith in Christ is enough. This has been criticized by some scholars. An examination of the narrative of the superintendent of a railroad company in In His Steps supports my thesis. In addition, I have discussed the current influence of Min Joong theology on Korean society as a case study. In sum, personal spiritual growth cannot be disregarded in a discussion of Christian social ethics, since motivation from Jesus is crucial in the moment of an ethical decision, and this is not alone derived from knowing or believing him but from following him through an intimate relationship.

Rediscovering Classism

Humanistic psychology’s ontological and historical mission has been to assist people in pursuing their fullest potential. Yet the literature has shown that healthy human growth and development are severely constrained by economic injustice and its socioeconomic discourses and structures. Humanistic psychology and professional counseling have remained largely silent on issues of classism ignoring the economic realities of poverty on human potential. The purpose of the article is to help restore classism to the foreground of humanist priorities and concerns. Practical strategies to address economic injustices will be discussed.

Resisting Injustice: Seeking New Ways to Speak!

Resisting Injustice: Seeking New Ways to Speak! Aruna Gnanadason Dalit* women in India speak… they break centuries‐old “silences” that have been imposed on them by caste and patriarchy. They express themselves through asking new questions with political astuteness, through insightful analyses of the role caste plays in Indian society, and through new ways of defining poverty and economic injustice through a Dalit lens. They give voice to their struggles through protest marches and peaceful resistance. They also speak through art and music, through dances to the beat of the parai*, through verse, and through the retelling of ancient stories of their mothers and fathers and a courageous reconstruction of history. Dalit women have broken the silence, and they have the determination to tear through the shrouds of silence that have for too long covered up their broken bodies, shadowed their spirits, and scarred their souls. The Dalit woman is the doubly or even thrice oppressed in Indian society. She has been called “the dust of the dust”. Dalit women are ground to dust by the weight of systems legalized in British colonial times and by an oppressive patriarchal and caste hierarchy in India—a religiously sanctioned indigenous system that has considered Dalits as the “outcastes” in Indian society. Even as I write this paper, yet another incident of a brutal rape and murder of a Dalit woman is reported. A group of gangsters evidently from the family of the headman (and of an upper‐caste group) gang rape a Dalit woman (who is not named!) and tear her body to pieces and burn her in Malpara Village in Agra. Agra is the city where the Taj Mahal stands. This marble architectural wonder aptly called “a poem of love” was built in 1631 by the Mughal King Shah Jahan in memory of his beloved Mumtaz Mahal. And somewhere nearby an unnamed Dalit woman is raped, dismembered, and burnt! While the report does not tell us why this fate for her—as in other cases, one can only conjecture that she must have broken some upper‐caste law; polluted the supposedly common well by drawing water from it; or perhaps having the gumption to cross the landlord's house, thus breaking the “apartheid‐like” laws that govern the movement of Dalits; or it could have been a way to teach a lesson to her people for having the courage to speak up; it could also be because she dared to fall in love with a man of an upper caste; or simply because the group of upper‐caste men wanted to show their power and have some fun! As in such cases, the village headman and others tried to prevent the woman's husband from approaching the police and burned her mutilated body—so that all evidence is erased. The police promise action, some arrests are made… but we know that the culprits will soon be out. Those with privilege escape punishment once too often, especially when a woman is the victim. We read report after report of the rape and abuse of Dalit women and girls in the hands of landlords, managers, and masters in places they work as domestic workers. Just any man or woman in authority over Dalits of an upper‐caste group is able to hold Dalits at ransom; with threats of violence and other forms of pressure. Privilege, power, and wealth largely remain ensconced in the hands of a minority in India. Reclaiming history has become a strong political tool in the hands of Dalits in India—hence, a Dalit History month was effectively used by Dalits to voice their protest, to say their story and demand that they be heard. As Dalit poet Challapalli Swaroopa Rani writes: The day I was born I bore the imprint of an unchaste woman thrown into the drainage of traditions and dustbin of customs. I became the forbidden one. I am the one carrying the onus of age‐old rejections generations of humiliations as my legacy… In which canto of your country's famed history will you write it down, my story? Therefore, a Dalit History Month (April 2015) which declares in its announcement: Dalit History Month is a...

Treasury Single Account – Transparency and Accountability in Public Finance Management in Nigeria: The Journey So Far

The purpose of this article is to evaluate and critique the policy of Treasury Single Account (TSA) adopted by the Nigerian government as an essential tool for enhancing transparency and accountability in public sector financial. Theoretically, it is expected that TSA would bring about mutual benefit, halt economic injustice and engender financial discipline, transparency, accountability, a new economic and political order in Nigeria. However, in the public sector management and political economy of Nigeria, its impact has been a mixed bag of the good, the bad and the ugly. Within the framework of New Public Management approach, the paper explores the gamut of issues surrounding the implementation of TSA and concludes that, for an administration that has social contract with Nigerians in terms of service delivery; it has the obligation to aggregating states’ resources to provide social services, amenities and infrastructural development to the people. Any step taking to ensure accountability and transparency by revenue generating agencies of government should be seen as a step in the right direction. However, while change is desirable, we feel there is need to exercise caution on account of the peculiar nature and character of the Nigerian state and society. Given the catalogue of challenges facing the operations TSA, it recommends among others, that the adoption of TSA in the country’s public sector should progress slowly and wisely. Institutions and institutional rules should be strengthened, be accountable and made autonomous of cabals and individual who might want to manipulate the system for group or personal interests.

Environmental apartheid: Eco-health and rural marginalization in South Africa

South Africa's infamous apartheid policies were not based on social, political, and economic injustice alone. They were also instituted environmentally with consequences that continue to scar the land and its people today. We offer the term environmental apartheid to refer to the use of the rural environment to deliberately marginalize racially defined groups, as well as the subsequent consequences of that marginalization. In the case of South Africa, the paradigmatic example of apartheid, environmental apartheid was largely instituted through rural marginalization, the use of rural space as an environmental means of marginalization. Although legal apartheid is over, environmental apartheid and its consequences continue to oppress Black South Africans, with devastating implications for their health, livelihoods, and ecological integrity. We illustrate these rural injustices through a case study of KuManzimdaka, a community of smallholder farmers on communal land in South Africa's Eastern Cape Province.

Position Statement On Climate Change.

The North Carolina Environmental Justice Network (NCEJN), a coalition of grassroots organizations, developed a statement to explain our environmental justice perspective on climate change to predominantly white environmental groups that seek to partner with us. NCEJN opposes strategies that reduce greenhouse emissions while maintaining or magnifying existing social, economic, and environmental injustices. Wealthy communities that consume a disproportionate share of resources avoid the most severe consequences of their consumption by displacing pollution on communities of color and low income. Therefore, the success of climate change activism depends on building an inclusive movement based on principles of racial, social and economic justice, and self-determination for all people.

The Dynamics of Pakistan’s Intra-national Security: The Role of the New Provinces

The debate and discourse to change the provincial map of Pakistan by creating new provinces is not a new phenomenon and is considered as a major challenge to intra-national security and to the centripetal forces who still want Pakistan to be a unitary/ centralised state instead of a federal state. What is intra-national security and how can the issue of creating new provinces have a major impact on the dynamics of national security at different levels? When compared with national security, which deals with the whole country, intra-national security relates to contradictions and variations in the security dynamics and paradigms in different parts of the country. Pakistan as a multiethnic, multilingual, multicultural and multi-religious state can effectively deal with issues of security if intra-national security is accepted as a reality and is beyond the scope of national security. Matters and issues relating to different regions of Pakistan located in its provinces can at best be understood in terms of intra-national security. If the approach of major power stakeholders in Pakistan is positive, and they wish to peacefully address issues that cause friction, instability, chaos, disorder and violence in different provinces because of social, economic and political injustices, they must seriously consider proposal to upgrade existing divisions of Pakistan into provinces. For that matter, proper brainstorming by the concerned stakeholders including civil society groups needs to be done so that consensus is reached on the methodology to create new provinces in Pakistan.