Dany Celermajer | The University of Sydney (original) (raw)
Papers by Dany Celermajer
Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, 2021
Drawing on the emerging field of multispecies justice, this article seeks to understand how the i... more Drawing on the emerging field of multispecies justice, this article seeks to understand how the idea of transitional justice, capaciously understood, might be put to work to transform unjust relations between humans and the more-than-human. Reflecting on concerns in the literatures on animals and the environment concerning the cogency of addressing past wrongs against the more-than-human by using a justice framework, the article sets out a foundational agenda for transitional justice and a conceptual framework responsive to the ontological diversity of beings and communities other than humans. Focusing on soil specifically, the article explores the problem of developing transitional justice approaches for transforming relations that involve systemic violence where such violence is not acknowledged because the harmed being – soil – is not recognized as the type of community to which justice might be owed. To illustrate proto-transitional justice, the article considers both the work o...
Animal Sentience, 2020
Baker & Winkler's argument that some humans, especially some Indigenous peoples, neither conceive... more Baker & Winkler's argument that some humans, especially some Indigenous peoples, neither conceive of themselves as ontologically distinct from nature, nor do they organize their lives as such, is an important one. However, one needs to understand how colonialism and global capitalism have drawn Indigenous peoples and animals into new political economies. The new situation and the constrained opportunities available may have introduced a range of injustices or forms of violence that did not previously exist. This commentary proposes how a multispecies justice lens might assist in evaluating the most just arrangement for all parties, human and nonhuman.
Conservation Biology, 2020
Compassionate conservation is based on the ethical position that actions taken to protect biodive... more Compassionate conservation is based on the ethical position that actions taken to protect biodiversity
Animal Studies Journal, 2019
The entanglement of donkey and human lives is both long and multidimensional, woven with the thre... more The entanglement of donkey and human lives is both long and multidimensional, woven with the threads of economic interdependence , cultural and religious significance, militarism, friendship, ideas about and programs of conservation, and traditional Chinese medicine turned into a global industry. In this paper, we discuss four eras of entanglement of wild donkeys in Australia. During the first, now past, domesticated donkeys were exploited workers in the colonial project. In the second, present era, most Australian donkeys are unwanted wild animals, declared wildlife pests subject to mass eradication for conservation and livestock production. In the third emerging era donkeys are positioned as potential exploitable commodities in the feverish international trade and trafficking in donkey skins for the industrial production of the traditional Chinese medicine ejiao. In this paper, we look at the present and emerging eras and enquire what a just fourth future era could look like. We consider the extreme violence and cruelty inflicted upon wild donkeys under the guise of both permissive animal welfare legislation and discourses that position them as not simply 'killable' but 'needing to be killed'. We suggest that to fully come to terms with the impediments to building advocacy strategies on behalf of donkeys during this second era, we need to begin by recognising their status as animals without a status: 'illegible animals'. Finally, we imagine a third era of entanglements, where donkeys might flourish as the new wild megafauna in Australia, as respected workers in a range of valued activities such as land regeneration and fire prevention, and as friends who will nourish the project of continuing to build respectful crossspecies relationships.
The Prevention of Torture, 2018
There is an urgent need to analyze and assess how we prevent torture, against the background of a... more There is an urgent need to analyze and assess how we prevent torture, against the background of a rigorous analysis of the factors that condition and sustain it. Drawing on rich empirical material from Sri Lanka and Nepal, The Prevention of Torture: An Ecological Approach interrogates the worlds that produce torture in order to propose how to bring about systemic institutional and cultural change. Critics have decried human rights approaches' failure to attend to structural factors, but this book seeks to go beyond a 'stance of criticism' to take up the positive project of reimagining human rights theory and practice. It discusses key debates in human rights and political theory, as well as the challenges that advocates face in translating situational analyses into real world interventions. Danielle Celermajer develops a new, ecological framework for mapping the worlds that produce torture, and thereby develops prevention strategies.
Journal of Human Rights Practice, 2013
Drawing on a current project working on the prevention of torture and other forms of cruel, inhum... more Drawing on a current project working on the prevention of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment with the security sectors of two post-conflict developing societies-Nepal and Sri Lanka-this article explores the trends in human rights education and the theoretical, contextual and practical challenges arising from interventions, and proposes some preliminary thoughts on ways forward. We argue that while there is an assumption that training can contribute to enhancing adherence by security personnel to human rights principles in general and those concerning torture in particular, little attention has been paid to theorizing precisely how such training brings about attitudinal and behavioural change. Moreover, the standardized approach to developing and exporting such training packages raises significant questions regarding how context is understood and incorporated. Finally, the difficulties associated with effectively evaluating the impact of training on practice have resulted in the reproduction of strategies with little actual knowledge of what is working. Accordingly, in the development of training interventions more attention is required to both the theories of change and the lived reality of those whose views and behaviours we seek to change.
The Sins of the Nation and the Ritual of Apologies, 2009
At the time of writing, 250,000 people had sponsored a hand. The Sea of Hands has been planted in... more At the time of writing, 250,000 people had sponsored a hand. The Sea of Hands has been planted in different forms in a range of iconic public spaces across Australia, including Bondi Beach, Sydney Harbour Bridge, and Uluru (Ayers Rock).
Journal of the Polynesian Society, 2012
Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 2013
privileges and exemptions granted Jews and Christians as discriminatory. One issue that requires ... more privileges and exemptions granted Jews and Christians as discriminatory. One issue that requires further exploration, which is beyond the remit of this study, is why other Jewish communities in the modern Middle East and North Africa were more culturally and intellectually integrated than their Syrian counterparts. Jewish participation in Syrian society of the nineteenth century was, in fact, marginal. The Arabic sources are indeed lacking in substantial content, as Harel indicates. One aspect of daily life in Damascus and elsewhere, which is not mentioned, is the visitation of shrines and pilgrimage to them, though pilgrimage no longer played as central a role in the daily lives of Jews as in pre-modern times. The synagogues of Elijah at Jobar and Aleppo were important pilgrimage sites since ancient times. However, pilgrimage customs were far more integral to the daily life of Jews in Palestine, North Africa, Iraq and Persia than Syrian Jewry. This study is a must read for students and academics as well as those more generally interested in the history of the Jewish communities of Syria in modern times.
Literature Aesthetics, Jan 28, 2012
Kafka listened to tradition, and he who listens hard, does not see. Walter Benjamin, Some Reflect... more Kafka listened to tradition, and he who listens hard, does not see. Walter Benjamin, Some Reflections of Kafka When, with our mind's eye, we followed Socrates from the obscurity of the cave out into the clarity of the sun's light, we inherited a metaphoric world of knowing that remains deeply woven into the fabric of Western thought and language. The truth of Hannah Arendt's observation that, "from the outset in formal philosophy, thinking has been thought of in terms of seeing"1 is evidenced by the ubiquitous presence of visual metaphors throughout our language. If you look at how you think about your own cognitive processes, you might see what I mean; but if you remain in the dark, this article should elucidate the claim. Although obvious once pointed out, the dominance of sight in the Greek way of thinking is so pervasive that it has entered the category of the invisible conditions of thought. A number of thinkers have pointed out both the distinctly Athenian roots of vision's dominance in our models of thought, and the existence of another, parallel metaphoric world of knowing: the hearing of the Jews. 2 In his classic comparative text on Hebrew and Greek modes of thought, ThorIief Boman tracks this difference and
Democratic Theory
The threat of emergency measures introduced in face of COVID-19 has largely been framed in terms ... more The threat of emergency measures introduced in face of COVID-19 has largely been framed in terms of individual rights. We argue that it is not the protection of the sovereign individual that is most at stake, but the relations between political subjects and the institutions that enable their robust political participation. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the ways in which isolation and the incapacity to discern truth or reality condition totalitarianism and are exacerbated by it, we argue that the dangers for the evacuation of democratic politics are stark in our era. We consider contemporary political action in concert in Germany to illustrate this critique of COVID-19 emergency measures. Drawing on the legal concept of “appropriateness,” we explicate how the German critical response to the shutdown is founded on a concern for democratic principles and institutions, and aims to achieve two crucial goals: governmental transparency and social-political solidarity.
Drawing on a current project working on the prevention of torture and other forms of cruel, inhum... more Drawing on a current project working on the prevention of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment with the security sectors of two post-conflict developing societies -Nepal and Sri Lanka -this article explores the trends in human rights education and the theoretical, contextual and practical challenges arising from interventions, and proposes some preliminary thoughts on ways forward. We argue that while there is an assumption that training can contribute to enhancing adherence by security personnel to human rights principles in general and those concerning torture in particular, little attention has been paid to theorizing precisely how such training brings about attitudinal and behavioural change. Moreover, the standardized approach to developing and exporting such training packages raises significant questions regarding how context is understood and incorporated. Finally, the difficulties associated with effectively evaluating the impact of training on practice have resulted in the reproduction of strategies with little actual knowledge of what is working. Accordingly, in the development of training interventions more attention is required to both the theories of change and the lived reality of those whose views and behaviours we seek to change.
Drafts by Dany Celermajer
Contemporary Political Theory, 2020
The climate catastrophes that are beginning to ravage the planet make starkly evident the inadequ... more The climate catastrophes that are beginning to ravage the planet make starkly evident the inadequacy of existing concepts and institutions of justice to protect the interests of the full range of beings whose lives and flourishing are in peril. This Critical Exchange seeks to thematize some of the thornier questions that arise when we try to imagine and institutionalize justice in ways that accommodate this far broader and more diverse cast of subjects, agents and actors, as well as their relationships. We do not simply seek to increase the range of subjects of justice, but also to challenge the idea that it is only subjects, understood as individuals, who fall within the ambit of justice.
Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, 2021
Drawing on the emerging field of multispecies justice, this article seeks to understand how the i... more Drawing on the emerging field of multispecies justice, this article seeks to understand how the idea of transitional justice, capaciously understood, might be put to work to transform unjust relations between humans and the more-than-human. Reflecting on concerns in the literatures on animals and the environment concerning the cogency of addressing past wrongs against the more-than-human by using a justice framework, the article sets out a foundational agenda for transitional justice and a conceptual framework responsive to the ontological diversity of beings and communities other than humans. Focusing on soil specifically, the article explores the problem of developing transitional justice approaches for transforming relations that involve systemic violence where such violence is not acknowledged because the harmed being – soil – is not recognized as the type of community to which justice might be owed. To illustrate proto-transitional justice, the article considers both the work o...
Animal Sentience, 2020
Baker & Winkler's argument that some humans, especially some Indigenous peoples, neither conceive... more Baker & Winkler's argument that some humans, especially some Indigenous peoples, neither conceive of themselves as ontologically distinct from nature, nor do they organize their lives as such, is an important one. However, one needs to understand how colonialism and global capitalism have drawn Indigenous peoples and animals into new political economies. The new situation and the constrained opportunities available may have introduced a range of injustices or forms of violence that did not previously exist. This commentary proposes how a multispecies justice lens might assist in evaluating the most just arrangement for all parties, human and nonhuman.
Conservation Biology, 2020
Compassionate conservation is based on the ethical position that actions taken to protect biodive... more Compassionate conservation is based on the ethical position that actions taken to protect biodiversity
Animal Studies Journal, 2019
The entanglement of donkey and human lives is both long and multidimensional, woven with the thre... more The entanglement of donkey and human lives is both long and multidimensional, woven with the threads of economic interdependence , cultural and religious significance, militarism, friendship, ideas about and programs of conservation, and traditional Chinese medicine turned into a global industry. In this paper, we discuss four eras of entanglement of wild donkeys in Australia. During the first, now past, domesticated donkeys were exploited workers in the colonial project. In the second, present era, most Australian donkeys are unwanted wild animals, declared wildlife pests subject to mass eradication for conservation and livestock production. In the third emerging era donkeys are positioned as potential exploitable commodities in the feverish international trade and trafficking in donkey skins for the industrial production of the traditional Chinese medicine ejiao. In this paper, we look at the present and emerging eras and enquire what a just fourth future era could look like. We consider the extreme violence and cruelty inflicted upon wild donkeys under the guise of both permissive animal welfare legislation and discourses that position them as not simply 'killable' but 'needing to be killed'. We suggest that to fully come to terms with the impediments to building advocacy strategies on behalf of donkeys during this second era, we need to begin by recognising their status as animals without a status: 'illegible animals'. Finally, we imagine a third era of entanglements, where donkeys might flourish as the new wild megafauna in Australia, as respected workers in a range of valued activities such as land regeneration and fire prevention, and as friends who will nourish the project of continuing to build respectful crossspecies relationships.
The Prevention of Torture, 2018
There is an urgent need to analyze and assess how we prevent torture, against the background of a... more There is an urgent need to analyze and assess how we prevent torture, against the background of a rigorous analysis of the factors that condition and sustain it. Drawing on rich empirical material from Sri Lanka and Nepal, The Prevention of Torture: An Ecological Approach interrogates the worlds that produce torture in order to propose how to bring about systemic institutional and cultural change. Critics have decried human rights approaches' failure to attend to structural factors, but this book seeks to go beyond a 'stance of criticism' to take up the positive project of reimagining human rights theory and practice. It discusses key debates in human rights and political theory, as well as the challenges that advocates face in translating situational analyses into real world interventions. Danielle Celermajer develops a new, ecological framework for mapping the worlds that produce torture, and thereby develops prevention strategies.
Journal of Human Rights Practice, 2013
Drawing on a current project working on the prevention of torture and other forms of cruel, inhum... more Drawing on a current project working on the prevention of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment with the security sectors of two post-conflict developing societies-Nepal and Sri Lanka-this article explores the trends in human rights education and the theoretical, contextual and practical challenges arising from interventions, and proposes some preliminary thoughts on ways forward. We argue that while there is an assumption that training can contribute to enhancing adherence by security personnel to human rights principles in general and those concerning torture in particular, little attention has been paid to theorizing precisely how such training brings about attitudinal and behavioural change. Moreover, the standardized approach to developing and exporting such training packages raises significant questions regarding how context is understood and incorporated. Finally, the difficulties associated with effectively evaluating the impact of training on practice have resulted in the reproduction of strategies with little actual knowledge of what is working. Accordingly, in the development of training interventions more attention is required to both the theories of change and the lived reality of those whose views and behaviours we seek to change.
The Sins of the Nation and the Ritual of Apologies, 2009
At the time of writing, 250,000 people had sponsored a hand. The Sea of Hands has been planted in... more At the time of writing, 250,000 people had sponsored a hand. The Sea of Hands has been planted in different forms in a range of iconic public spaces across Australia, including Bondi Beach, Sydney Harbour Bridge, and Uluru (Ayers Rock).
Journal of the Polynesian Society, 2012
Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 2013
privileges and exemptions granted Jews and Christians as discriminatory. One issue that requires ... more privileges and exemptions granted Jews and Christians as discriminatory. One issue that requires further exploration, which is beyond the remit of this study, is why other Jewish communities in the modern Middle East and North Africa were more culturally and intellectually integrated than their Syrian counterparts. Jewish participation in Syrian society of the nineteenth century was, in fact, marginal. The Arabic sources are indeed lacking in substantial content, as Harel indicates. One aspect of daily life in Damascus and elsewhere, which is not mentioned, is the visitation of shrines and pilgrimage to them, though pilgrimage no longer played as central a role in the daily lives of Jews as in pre-modern times. The synagogues of Elijah at Jobar and Aleppo were important pilgrimage sites since ancient times. However, pilgrimage customs were far more integral to the daily life of Jews in Palestine, North Africa, Iraq and Persia than Syrian Jewry. This study is a must read for students and academics as well as those more generally interested in the history of the Jewish communities of Syria in modern times.
Literature Aesthetics, Jan 28, 2012
Kafka listened to tradition, and he who listens hard, does not see. Walter Benjamin, Some Reflect... more Kafka listened to tradition, and he who listens hard, does not see. Walter Benjamin, Some Reflections of Kafka When, with our mind's eye, we followed Socrates from the obscurity of the cave out into the clarity of the sun's light, we inherited a metaphoric world of knowing that remains deeply woven into the fabric of Western thought and language. The truth of Hannah Arendt's observation that, "from the outset in formal philosophy, thinking has been thought of in terms of seeing"1 is evidenced by the ubiquitous presence of visual metaphors throughout our language. If you look at how you think about your own cognitive processes, you might see what I mean; but if you remain in the dark, this article should elucidate the claim. Although obvious once pointed out, the dominance of sight in the Greek way of thinking is so pervasive that it has entered the category of the invisible conditions of thought. A number of thinkers have pointed out both the distinctly Athenian roots of vision's dominance in our models of thought, and the existence of another, parallel metaphoric world of knowing: the hearing of the Jews. 2 In his classic comparative text on Hebrew and Greek modes of thought, ThorIief Boman tracks this difference and
Democratic Theory
The threat of emergency measures introduced in face of COVID-19 has largely been framed in terms ... more The threat of emergency measures introduced in face of COVID-19 has largely been framed in terms of individual rights. We argue that it is not the protection of the sovereign individual that is most at stake, but the relations between political subjects and the institutions that enable their robust political participation. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the ways in which isolation and the incapacity to discern truth or reality condition totalitarianism and are exacerbated by it, we argue that the dangers for the evacuation of democratic politics are stark in our era. We consider contemporary political action in concert in Germany to illustrate this critique of COVID-19 emergency measures. Drawing on the legal concept of “appropriateness,” we explicate how the German critical response to the shutdown is founded on a concern for democratic principles and institutions, and aims to achieve two crucial goals: governmental transparency and social-political solidarity.
Drawing on a current project working on the prevention of torture and other forms of cruel, inhum... more Drawing on a current project working on the prevention of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment with the security sectors of two post-conflict developing societies -Nepal and Sri Lanka -this article explores the trends in human rights education and the theoretical, contextual and practical challenges arising from interventions, and proposes some preliminary thoughts on ways forward. We argue that while there is an assumption that training can contribute to enhancing adherence by security personnel to human rights principles in general and those concerning torture in particular, little attention has been paid to theorizing precisely how such training brings about attitudinal and behavioural change. Moreover, the standardized approach to developing and exporting such training packages raises significant questions regarding how context is understood and incorporated. Finally, the difficulties associated with effectively evaluating the impact of training on practice have resulted in the reproduction of strategies with little actual knowledge of what is working. Accordingly, in the development of training interventions more attention is required to both the theories of change and the lived reality of those whose views and behaviours we seek to change.
Contemporary Political Theory, 2020
The climate catastrophes that are beginning to ravage the planet make starkly evident the inadequ... more The climate catastrophes that are beginning to ravage the planet make starkly evident the inadequacy of existing concepts and institutions of justice to protect the interests of the full range of beings whose lives and flourishing are in peril. This Critical Exchange seeks to thematize some of the thornier questions that arise when we try to imagine and institutionalize justice in ways that accommodate this far broader and more diverse cast of subjects, agents and actors, as well as their relationships. We do not simply seek to increase the range of subjects of justice, but also to challenge the idea that it is only subjects, understood as individuals, who fall within the ambit of justice.