Politics of Resilience

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juha Vuori
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
The Political ◽  
External Shocks ◽  
World War ◽  
Neoliberal Governmentality ◽  
Critical Awareness ◽  
Strategic Bombing ◽  
Political Concern ◽  
The Us

The resilience of urban populations has been a state concern at least since the US strategic bombing surveys of World War II, but resilience really entered national security strategies and “all hazards” approaches to security and disaster management in the mid-2000s, when it was adopted as a concept for resolving the insecurities of the “war on terror” and climate change. The entry of resilience-thought into politics has several intellectual roots. Psychologically, the notion refers to individuals’ and societal groups’ capacity to recover from, or resist, misfortune speedily and easily. In the political uses of resilience, it has come to denote not only recovery from stresses and disturbances, or “bouncing back” to a previous normalcy, but also a “bouncing forward” effect through adaptation that can be considered desirable despite the general negativity attached to being vulnerable to continuous external shocks. While resilience has been a political concern since the 2000s, much of resilience research does not take politics into account when discussing, analyzing, and promoting resilient systems and practices for societies. This can lead to a normative contestation of resilience that stems from the normalization and essentialization of resilience as a universal and neutral public good for all, when it in actuality is saddled with conflicting values and involves both power and politics. Furthermore, resilience can also take on “perverse” forms where the resilience of internal elements of a system can work against the sustainability or viability of its whole, or where resilience maintains socially unjust or ecologically unhealthy practices. Even authoritarian political orders can display resilience. Accordingly, studies that focus on the politics of resilience tend to take a critical view of it, and of the politics it produces or maintains. When examining resilience with such critical awareness, questions such as resilience of what, to what, and for whom become relevant. Furthermore, when researching resilience, it is prudent to ask what it does politically and socially, what kinds of subjectivities and objectivities it produces, what kinds of values are inscribed and prescribed in its use, and who or what puts forth resilience speech and practices. One of the main critical viewpoints on the politics of resilience has been that it is a form of neoliberal governmentality that shifts responsibility to individuals and vulnerable groups for their own survival while simultaneously removing their political agency to affect change in regard to the continuous perturbations they face. Still, some suggest that resilience as such should not be conflated with the resilience politics of particular states and societies, but instead be examined more broadly, maintaining the possibility that it can also serve progressive agendas. To get a grasp on such angles of approach to resilience, the present bibliographical article presents an overview of what the politics of resilience is thought to be in its literature, what the origins and genealogy of resilience are, and what kind of debates and topics the literature has produced on the politics of resilience.

Racist Attachments: Dakko-chan, Black Kitsch, and Kawaii Culture

2022 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-187
Author(s):  
Erica Kanesaka
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
Japanese People ◽  
Security Treaty ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Turmoil

Abstract This article explores the ties between anti-Black racist kitsch and kawaii culture through the history of the Dakko-chan doll. In what came to be called the “Dakko-chan boom” of 1960, tens of thousands of Japanese people lined up to purchase an inflatable blackface doll with a circular red mouth, grass skirt, and winking hologram eyes. Dakko means “to hug,” and Dakko-chan's astronomical popularity resulted in part from the way the doll could be worn as an accessory, attached to the body by its hugging arms. This article asks what it meant for Japan, a nation still recovering from World War II and the American occupation, to quite literally embrace American blackface in the form of an embraceable doll. Rejecting the claim that blackface loses its significance in a Japanese context, this article argues that Dakko-chan cannot be considered devoid of racist meanings. Emerging amid the political turmoil surrounding the revision of the US-Japan Security Treaty, Dakko-chan came to express a wide range of contradictory feelings about race, sex, and nation, illustrating how affective attachments to racist forms have accrued rather than dissipated through their movement into new cultural contexts.

Lectures of the Air Corps Tactical School and American Strategic Bombing in World War II

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Air Power ◽  
Us Army ◽  
Strategic Bombing ◽  
Crucial Component ◽  
The Us ◽  
Army Air Force

In the 1930s the US Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) articulated the concept of high-altitude daylight precision bombing (HADPB), a coherent yet controversial theory for victory through the independent employment of air forces. The ACTS lectures present a uniquely American theory of strategic bombing later tested in World War II. These lectures, never before published, introduce Air Corps thinking on strategic bombing during the interwar period. Their originality is found in the causal logic for how HADPB operations would lead to victory by the direct attack of vital and vulnerable economic targets. The ACTS instructors and students would later be responsible for translating theory into practice. In so doing, the logic of HADPB was tested and in many ways found wanting. Though the US Army Air Force fell short of independently achieving decisive victory, the ACTS prewar rationale for the construction of heavy bombers offered the United States the offensive capability to conduct long-range air campaigns. HADPB proved to be a key component to the Allies gaining air superiority over western Europe. Finally, HADPB raids starved the German military of fuel such that it no longer had the means to maintain its desperate counteroffensive at the Battle of the Bulge. American air power did prove critical to the Allied victory, not in the independent and decisive way envisioned by ACTS but as a crucial component of a combined arms strategy.

The Unassailable Self: Freud's Image Among Post-war American Intellectuals

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Jenness
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
External Force ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Human Being ◽  
World War ◽  
The Us ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Way

This paper explores the way American intellectuals depicted Sigmund Freud during the peak of popularity and prestige of psychoanalysis in the US, roughly the decade and a half following World War II. These intellectuals insisted upon the unassailability of Freud's mind and personality. He was depicted as unsusceptible to any external force or influence, a trait which was thought to account for Freud's admirable comportment as a scientist, colleague and human being. This post-war image of Freud was shaped in part by the Cold War anxiety that modern individuality was imperilled by totalitarian forces, which could only be resisted by the most rugged of selves. It was also shaped by the unique situation of the intellectuals themselves, who were eager to position themselves, like the Freud they imagined, as steadfastly independent and critical thinkers who would, through the very clarity of their thought, lead America to a more robust democracy.

La “neutralidad” chilena en la Segunda Guerra Mundial (1939-1943): Un análisis historiográfico con énfasis en la literatura sobre las relaciones Chile-Japón

2016 ◽  
pp. 95
Author(s):  
Pedro Iacobelli Delpiano
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
World War ◽  
International History ◽  
Roosevelt Administration ◽  
The Us ◽  
Second World

ResumenLa literatura sobre la historia internacional de Chile durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial ha centrado el debate en torno al juego de presiones ejercidas por los Estados Unidos hacia los gobiernos radicales de Jerónimo Méndez Arancibia y Juan Antonio Ríos Morales para conseguir que Chile se sumara a la política continental contra las fuerzas del Eje. La neutralidad chilena fue interpretada como una actitud traicionera por los estadounidenses y en un triunfo por los países del Eje durante 1941 a 1943. Este artículo introduce el debate y busca presentar las posibilidades historiográficas al incluir a Japón, tanto como actor relevante en la política chilena como receptor de la “neutralidad” chilena en el periodo.Palabras clave: Chile, Japón, Segunda Guerra Mundial, Estados Unidos, historiografíaThe Chilean “Neutrality” in World War II (1939-1943): A historiographical analysis focused on the literature of the diplomatic relations between Chile and JapanAbstractThe literature about Chile´s international history during World War II has heavily laid on the power dynamics between the US and the Chilean radical governments of vice-president (interim) Jerónimo Méndez Arancibia and president Juan Antonio Rios Morales. Since the Roosevelt administration sought to secure the rupture of diplomatic relations between Chile and the Axis powers, Santiago´s refusal to break relations was understood as treason by the US and as a diplomatic success by the Axis powers during 1941-1943.This paper delves into the historiographical possibilities in including Japan, either as a relevant actor in the Chilean politics and as receptor of the newsabout Chile´s neutrality.Keywords: Chile, Japan, Second World War, United States, historiographyA “neutralidade” chilena na segunda guerra mundial(1939-1943): uma análise historiográfica, com ênfase naliteratura sobre as relações Chile-JapãoResumoA literatura sobre a história internacional do Chile durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial tem-se centrado no debate em torno ao jogo de pressões exercidas pelos Estados Unidos aos governos radicais de Jerónimo Méndez Arancibia e Juan Antonio Rios Morales, para conseguir que o Chile pudesse se somar a política continental contra as forças do Eixo. A neutralidade chilena foi interpretada como uma atitude traiçoeira pelos norte-americanos e uma vitória para os países do Eixo durante 1941 a 1943. Este artigo introduz o debate e procura a presentar as possibilidades historiográficas ao incluir ao Japão, tanto como um ator relevante na política chilena como o destinatário da “neutralidade” chilena no período.Palavras-chave: Chile, Japão, Segunda Guerra Mundial, Estados Unidos, historiografia

Habeas Corpus Today

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda L. Tyler
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
The Political ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
Habeas Corpus ◽  
World War ◽  
Japanese American Internment ◽  
Guantanamo Bay ◽  
Executive Authority ◽  
Enemy Combatant

The experience of World War II and the precedent of the Japanese American internment dramatically altered the political and legal landscape surrounding habeas corpus and suspension. This chapter discusses Congress’s enactment of the Emergency Detention Act of 1950 along with its repeal in 1971. It further explores how in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, questions over the scope of executive authority to detain prisoners in wartime arose anew. Specifically, this chapter explores the Supreme Court’s sanctioning of the concept of the “citizen-enemy combatant” in its 2004 decision in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and evaluates Hamdi against historical precedents. Finally, the chapter explores how Hamdi established the basis for an expansion of the reach of the Suspension Clause in other respects—specifically, to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Anti-Aryan Moment: Decolonization, Diplomacy, and Race in Late Pahlavi Iran

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 691-702
Author(s):  
Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Cold War

In 1946, the entertainer and activist Paul Robeson pondered America's intentions in Iran. In what was to become one of the first major crises of the Cold War, Iran was fighting a Soviet aggressor that did not want to leave. Robeson posed the question, “Is our State Department concerned with protecting the rights of Iran and the welfare of the Iranian people, or is it concerned with protecting Anglo-American oil in that country and the Middle East in general?” This was a loaded question. The US was pressuring the Soviet Union to withdraw its troops after its occupation of the country during World War II. Robeson wondered why America cared so much about Soviet forces in Iranian territory, when it made no mention of Anglo-American troops “in countries far removed from the United States or Great Britain.” An editorial writer for a Black journal in St. Louis posed a different variant of the question: Why did the American secretary of state, James F. Byrnes, concern himself with elections in Iran, Arabia or Azerbaijan and yet not “interfere in his home state, South Carolina, which has not had a free election since Reconstruction?”

Choice in the West

1953 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-167
Author(s):  
S. Bernard
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Working Out

The advent of a new administration in the United States and the passage of seven years since the end of World War II make it appropriate to review the political situation which has developed in Europe during that period and to ask what choices now are open to the West in its relations with the Soviet Union.The end of World War II found Europe torn between conflicting conceptions of international politics and of the goals that its members should seek. The democratic powers, led by the United States, viewed the world in traditional, Western, terms. The major problem, as they saw it, was one of working out a moral and legal order to which all powers could subscribe, and in which they would live. Quite independently of the environment, they assumed that one political order was both more practicable and more desirable than some other, and that their policies should be directed toward its attainment.

“The Triumph of the West”: American Education and the Narrative of Decolonization, 1930–1965

2018 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 567-594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Jackson
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World History ◽  
American Education ◽  
World War ◽  
The West ◽  
Global Engagement ◽  
The Us ◽  
Good Government ◽  
Western Values ◽  
European Colonialism

This article examines representations of imperialism, anti-colonial nationalism, and decolonization in US textbooks for American and World History courses between 1930 and 1965. Broadly speaking, 1930s and early 1940s texts lauded imperialism and associated European colonialism with American imperialist activities. Authors extolled the benefits for colonial peoples, including literacy, good government, and peace, and anti-colonial nationalists were caricatured as irrational and ungrateful. US global engagement during and after World War II gradually changed the narrative, particularly following Philippine independence in 1946, as texts subsequently portrayed the US as an enlightened decolonizer. Postwar textbooks tended to argue that nationalism was a product of Western ideas and that anti-colonial nationalism was a triumph for Western civilization. While constructing this narrative of the spread of Western values, textbook authors largely marginalized colonial actors, promoted unflattering and stereotyped views of Africans and Asians, and de-emphasized the extreme violence inherent in the decolonization process.

When the Bombs Fell

Strange Bird ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele K. Troy
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Air Force ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
World War ◽  
Royal Air Force ◽  
Joint Chiefs Of Staff ◽  
Winston Churchill ◽  
Strategic Bombing ◽  
German Capital ◽  
Franklin Roosevelt

This chapter examines how the Allied bombings of Germany affected the lives of people in the Albatross-Tauchnitz fold, particularly Max Christian Wegner and Walter Gey. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of Adolf Hitler's reign, the Nazi elite gathered with thousands of party loyalists on January 30, 1943 for an evening of rousing speeches at the Berlin Sportpalast. The Allies commemorated Hitler's tenth anniversary by sending Royal Air Force Mosquito light bombers on a daylight air raid on the German capital. For Prime Minister Winston Churchill, President Franklin Roosevelt, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this attack marked the beginning of the “strategic bombing” campaign they had agreed upon at the Casablanca Conference days earlier. This chapter considers Wegner's arrest and imprisonment at the height of World War II as well as Gey's efforts to make the best of the Albatross Press's ever-shrinking terrain.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document