Wicked Problems: The Ethics of Action for Peace, Rights, and Justice

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.

Table 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.

Review :
Underexplored are the ethics of such approaches and whose interests are served by their successes. This edited collection of 17 short essays, along with an introduction, begins filling this lacuna. Readers will encounter a highly diverse set of chapters covering subject matter that touches on American Black nationalism, LGBTQ+ issues, human trafficking, sanctions, transitional justice, and more...The book is best used for individual chapters for scholarly and teaching purposes. This comprehensive survey of the wicked ethical problems created by struggles for peace, rights, and justice is elegant and fast-paced. It weaves together different perspectives, contexts, and dilemmas to provide readers with a vivid, diverse, and sometimes provocative set of insights. This collection will surely become the go-to text for all those wanting to better understand the moral complexities of movements for peace and justice. Wicked Problems is refreshing, forward looking, and engaging. It pushes the peace and conflict studies field into new directions and frames many of its most difficult challenges around the ethical implications for the various areas of this vast field of practice. Peace, rights, and justice advocacy has a wicked problem: an aspiration for the good that demands change and therefore entails conflict small, large, and sometimes even violent. Bringing together a diverse group of scholars and practitioners who have thought deeply about and grappled with such ethical dilemmas, this volume offers important insights, lessons learned, and possible paths forward. As such, Wicked Problems is a must-read for anyone involved in normative fields like peace studies, transitional justice, human rights, atrocity prevention, and social justice. A really valuable volume full of real-world dilemmas, rich personal experience, and practical advice from a wide range of activists. Wicked Problems is a major addition to the reading list of students studying human rights activism, social movements, political resistance, conflict transformation, and the struggle for peace. 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.