Exploring Complicity: Concept, Cases and Critique - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1786600617 ISBN 13: 9781786600615

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2016

Synopsis

Questions of complicity emerge within a range of academic disciplines and everyday practices. Using a wide range of case studies, this book explores the concept of and cases of complicity in an interdisciplinary context. It expands orthodox understandings of the concept by including the notion of structural complicity, revealing seemingly inconsequential, everyday forms of complicity; examining different kinds and degrees of individual and collective complicity; and introducing complicity as a lens through which to analyse and critically reflect upon social structures and relations. It also explores complicity through a series of cases emerging from a variety of academic disciplines and professional practices. Its various chapters reflect on, amongst other things, the complicity of politicians, self-proclaimed feminists, health care workers, fictional characters, social movement activists and academic defenders of torture.

About this title

About the Author

Afxentis Afxentiou is a graduate student specialising in critical political thought at the University of Brighton.

Robin Dunford is a senior lecturer in globalisation and war at the University of Brighton.

Michael Neu is a senior lecturer in philosophy, politics and ethics at the University of Brighton.

Review

Practices of complicity are as prevalent as they are under-theorised. This book seeks to redress this situation, and is highly recommended for its innovative and wide-ranging approach to the subject. (Scott Veitch, Paul KC Chung Professor in Jurisprudence, University of Hong Kong)

'Complicity in wrongdoing is complex, rife and too often overlooked. For all three reasons, a critical understanding of it is vital. This rich, engaging collection is just the place to start: shining searching light at diverse dimensions of a phenomenon the moral, political and cultural significance of which has arguably never been greater.' (Gideon Calder, Senior Lecturer in Public Health, Policy and Social Sciences, Swansea University)

A philosophically rich volume that commands reflection on explicit forms and implicit reaffirmations of individual and structural complicity. Comprehensive and nuanced, it posits a masterful account of the complexities associated with understanding and assigning blame, suggesting that being complicit in wrongdoing often cannot be helped. Thus, it provides an important challenge to current thinking about complicity - sharpening the debate. (Garrett Wallace Brown, Reader in Political Theory, Global Ethics and Global Health Policy, University of Sheffield)

Edition details

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1786600617
• ISBN 13: 9781786600615
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 242
• Editor: Neu Michael, Dunford Robin, Afxentiou Graduate Student In Polit Afxentis