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"Nonhuman Humanitarians explores the role of animals laboring alongside humans in humanitarian operations, generating new ethical possibilities of care and transforming the basic tenets of humanitarianism. Meiches reveals that care, compassion, and creativity are creaturely rather than human and that responses to suffering and injustice do not-and cannot-stop at the boundaries of the human"--

Introduction : genocide as political discourse -- Groups, paradoxes of identity, and the racialization of global politics -- Parts, wholes, and the erasure of indigenous life -- Destruction and the creativity of violence -- Desire, international law, and the problem of unintentional genocide -- The logistics of prevention and the fantasy of preemption -- Genocide as politics and the horror of plasticity -- The sense of genocide and the politics of the future

AbstractThis paper examines the influence of nuclear weapons on fantasies of racial violence. Specifically, it argues that weapons impact the emergence of social formations, producing unique patterns of thought, desire, anticipation, and identity. While the effects of nuclear power have been central to disciplinary debates in international studies, existing critical commentary has largely focused on the discriminatory nature of the global nuclear hierarchy. By focusing on the productive impact of weapons on cultural registers, this article demonstrates that nuclear power not only reinforces global structures of racism and colonialism but also creates new articulations of white supremacy. It argues that a specific fantasy of nuclear genocide, seizing nuclear power as a means for executing a global race war, is an expression germane to the nuclear age. This article concludes by arguing that this fantasy plays an important role in white supremacist approaches to politics and existing forms of racist hierarchy.

Both classical and critical studies of warfare often comment on the relationship between war and excess. However, even in richly theoretical work, this connection is unanalyzed. This article focuses on the link between excess and war, and seeks to deepen our understanding of why excess reappears so frequently in the study of armed conflict and security studies. Specifically, the article turns to the work of Georges Bataille, an overlooked figure in the critical tradition, who extensively theorized linkages between excess and war. In Bataille's thought, excess is a key term for explicating the design, mobilization, and transformation of war. Moreover, Bataille sees the exposure to excess as playing a key part in social attachments to violence and armed conflict. The article unpacks how Bataille theorizes excess and applies his insights to the context of precision warfare. Using the case of the accident in the era of precision war, it reveals how Bataille anticipates many of the dynamics that structure late warfare through his understanding of excess. The article concludes by describing how Bataille's vision of excess would challenge critical war and security studies literatures in relation to the problems of war experience, relationships to death, and scholarship.

This article examines the role of racism in the development of genocide prevention and humanitarian intervention. It offers a brief history of the We Charge Genocide petition during the early 1950s. This petition demonstrated the potential for the emerging international law on genocide to challenge prevailing racial hierarchy. The movement triggered potent racialized anxieties amongst the United States and other colonial powers. Partly as a consequence of this movement, genocide was undermined as a potent international discourse. This article shows how decades later the renewed interest in genocide emerged without any sense of the connections between genocide discourse and protests against racial inequity. As a result, the antigenocide regime viewed genocide principally as a problem of state power rather than racial and colonial hierarchies. This ultimately fostered the development of a postracial regime of global governance in humanitarian institutions, which understand racial conflict as a site of political management rather than a factor in the formation of inequity and violence. The article describes how the suppression of these early struggles for racial justice depoliticized many of the sources of mass violence in the present and influenced the trajectory of practices of humanitarian intervention and genocide prevention.

The study of humanitarian intervention typically focuses on the human victims and saviours in armed conflict and natural disasters. Moreover, explanations of the virtues of humanitarian norms and ethics emphasise the importance of the university of suffering and the empathic nature of humanitarian efforts. In contrast, this article explores the neglected world of 'non-human humanitarians'. Specifically, the article outlines three cases of non-human actors that expand and complicate international humanitarian practices: dogs, drones, and diagrams. Drawing on new materialist and posthuman literatures, the article argues that non-humans possess distinct capacities that vastly expand and transform humanitarian efforts in ranging from relief, to medicine, to conflict resolution. Highlighting non-human humanitarians thus offers a new perspective on the resources available for redressing mass violence and conflict, but also complicates existing definitions of humanitarian norms. To the contrary, the article demonstrates that non-humans often maximise humanitarian services to a degree greater than their human counterparts, but have also introduced changes into humanitarian practices that have problematic unintended consequences. Non-human humanitarians reveals previously discounted participants in international politics and the key roles they play in various international interventions.

AbstractThe study of humanitarian intervention typically focuses on the human victims and saviours in armed conflict and natural disasters. Moreover, explanations of the virtues of humanitarian norms and ethics emphasise the importance of the university of suffering and the empathic nature of humanitarian efforts. In contrast, this article explores the neglected world of 'non-human humanitarians'. Specifically, the article outlines three cases of non-human actors that expand and complicate international humanitarian practices: dogs, drones, and diagrams. Drawing on new materialist and posthuman literatures, the article argues that non-humans possess distinct capacities that vastly expand and transform humanitarian efforts in ranging from relief, to medicine, to conflict resolution. Highlighting non-human humanitarians thus offers a new perspective on the resources available for redressing mass violence and conflict, but also complicates existing definitions of humanitarian norms. To the contrary, the article demonstrates that non-humans often maximise humanitarian services to a degree greater than their human counterparts, but have also introduced changes into humanitarian practices that have problematic unintended consequences. Non-human humanitarians reveals previously discounted participants in international politics and the key roles they play in various international interventions.

Genocide scholars have always argued over the best definition of genocide. However, recent genocide studies have begun to emphasize both the 'contestable' nature of genocide and, paradoxically, call for clear or rigid definitions of the term. This article evaluates this tension by examining the act of defining genocide as a type of epistemological practice. Placing the act of definition in the context of a complex socio-linguistic system, the article shows how genocide discourse is subject to a variety of demands and pressures. These pressures, internal to genocide discourse, inadvertently promote restrictive and paradoxical formulations of the concept. To illustrate this point, the article turns to Gregory Bateson's theory of the 'double bind' to show how contemporary discourses on genocide inadvertently restrict conceptual and theoretical innovation. These restrictions have serious implications for how we think, study, and respond to genocide.

Genocide scholars have always argued over the best definition of genocide. However, recent genocide studies have begun to emphasize both the 'contestable' nature of genocide and, paradoxically, call for clear or rigid definitions of the term. This article evaluates this tension by examining the act of defining genocide as a type of epistemological practice. Placing the act of definition in the context of a complex socio-linguistic system, the article shows how genocide discourse is subject to a variety of demands and pressures. These pressures, internal to genocide discourse, inadvertently promote restrictive and paradoxical formulations of the concept. To illustrate this point, the article turns to Gregory Bateson's theory of the 'double bind' to show how contemporary discourses on genocide inadvertently restrict conceptual and theoretical innovation. These restrictions have serious implications for how we think, study, and respond to genocide.