Ari Gandsman | University of Ottawa | Université d'Ottawa (original) (raw)

Papers by Ari Gandsman

BioéthiqueOnline, 2014

In recent decades, the right to die has emerged as one of the most divisive social and political ... more In recent decades, the right to die has emerged as one of the most divisive social and political questions in North America and Europe, one that involves the mobilization of numerous social actors and activists as well as several legal challenges. In Québec, the provincial legislature formed the "Select Committee on Dying with Dignity", a group of legislators tasked with examining the issue. In their 2012 report, they recommend the legalization of "medical aid in dying" as an appropriate part of the continuum of care at the end of life. From a meta-analysis of the written and oral submissions collected by the Committee in different locations throughout the province, this article presents several competing meanings of what human dignity means at the end of life. Intrinsic definitions of dignity – whether religious or philosophical – often associate dignity with an acceptance of death. These definitions of dignity compete with more relative and contingent understan...

In recent years, human rights film festivals have proliferated across the globe. Often co-sponsor... more In recent years, human rights film festivals have proliferated across the globe. Often co-sponsored by human rights organizations like Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch. While human rights documentaries are not a widely identified subgenre of nonfiction film, they can be situated within a wider tradition of non-fiction filmmaking that engages in social and political issues, motivated by the underlying premise that films can effect change. Human rights documentary are often auto-denominations based on filmmaker intent, political engage¬ment, or topical focus. Although human rights documentaries should be disquieting, their aesthetic form ends up conforming to what will be shown in the article to be a problematic aesthetic and narrative template at odds with their aims. This article will offer a critique of this dominant representational style through an analysis of China Blue, directed by Micha Peled. China Blue will then be contrasted with Last Train Home, a 2009 film on t...

The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 2018

In debates over medically assisted dying right to die activists are often accused of embracing an... more In debates over medically assisted dying right to die activists are often accused of embracing anunbridled neoliberal individualistic ethics that devalue life and reject notions of community andcare. Through an ethnographic study of activists in North America and Australia, this articleaims to complicate this point of view by showing how they are deeply invested in what it meansto act morally in the world vis-a-vis their relationships with others and how they envisage thisissue within an ethics of care. Although activists are often accused by opponents of delegitimis-ing the ageing process and relying on atomised individual values, in depth interviews with rightto die activists reveal complex, ambiguous and contradictory reflections on the ageing processas a dominant source of suffering while defending an ethics of care and life. In the end, this arti-cle argues that the right to die paradoxically constitutes an ethics for living.

Criminologie, 2018

À partir de recherches ethnographiques menées auprès d’activistes du droit à la mort, cet article... more À partir de recherches ethnographiques menées auprès d’activistes du droit à la mort, cet article cherche à relever et à analyser les divisions de nature conceptuelle qui structurent les arguments des activistes. D’une part, des activistes soutiennent que la mort médicalement assistée doit être rigoureusement distinguée de l’acte du suicide. Pour ce faire, ils font référence à la notion « d’esprit sain » dans un contexte où le corps est malade, faisant ainsi appel au caractère fondamentalement rationnel d’un processus décisionnel fondé sur la volonté dans le choix. Ils distinguent un tel choix des suicides, non rationnels, qui sont visiblement le résultat d’un « esprit troublé ». Toutefois, en puisant dans une base de données ethnographiques considérable et dans des entrevues, on constate que les activistes reconnaissent aussi implicitement une frontière perméable entre les deux actes. Plusieurs points de tension et d’ambiguïté surviennent d’ailleurs lorsqu’il s’agit de distinguer l...

Death studies, Jan 26, 2017

The right to die is an issue is predicated on larger cultural understandings of autonomy. Autonom... more The right to die is an issue is predicated on larger cultural understandings of autonomy. Autonomy, in turn, is centered around assumptions of choice, that individuals are able to make health-related decisions based on a rational calculation. In such a way, a medically assisted death is differentiated from suicide. Through an ethnographic study of right to die activists in North America and Australia and how they understand ideals of "good deaths," this article will complicate this view by examining the ethical subject constructed by such activism that reveals autonomy to be a useful guiding fiction that mask larger ethical relationships.

Choice Reviews Online, 2015

Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 2012

Abstract This article presents an account of a victim-centred social movement, the Axel Blumberg ... more Abstract This article presents an account of a victim-centred social movement, the Axel Blumberg Crusade for the Lives of Our Children, formed by the father of a young Argentine who was kidnapped and then murdered. In examining how this anti-crime movement advocated for mano dura (tough on crime) policies in challenging the government, comparisons will be drawn with human rights organizations formed by family members of the disappeared—mobilizations with appeals similarly organized around “citizen-victims” using idioms of parental bereavement and a resulting “moral authority of grief.” This leads to an analysis of the movement as a post-political mobilization predicated on a moralization of politics.

The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 2012

Organismos de derechos humanos como Las Madres y Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo constituyen modelos... more Organismos de derechos humanos como Las Madres y Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo constituyen modelos importantes de activismo ciudadanía en América Latina. Como revelan sus nombres, son modelos particulares de activismo organizado en categorías de parentesco y en gran medida biológicamente definido con lazos afectivos. En lugar de ver a estas organizaciones como la politización de lo que convencionalmente se entiende como el terreno apolítico de la maternidad, en este artículo muestro que lo contrario también puede ocurrir. Movimientos que enfatizan los lazos biológicos y las identidades adquiridas también tienen efectos de despolitización. Porque se percibe que sus actividades radican fuera de la política. Privilegiar las relaciones afectivas como un modo de organización-un evento necesario en la evolución de estos grupos durante la dictadura-ha dado lugar a una paradoja en el desarrollo de estos grupos, los cuales por un lado evitan ser percibidos como participantes de la actividad política, a pesar de desarrollar explícitamente una actividad política.

International Journal of Transitional Justice, 2012

Anthropologica, 2021

Abstract:Both gun rights advocates and right-to-die activists shape their moral selves through ti... more Abstract:Both gun rights advocates and right-to-die activists shape their moral selves through time in relation to a demand of personal autonomy. Practising autonomy – having a sense of control over one's own life and death – becomes the principle of the good for both gun advocates and right-to-die activists. Though the ethical aims of both groups could not be more different, both movements produce a similar kind of subject. Whether through guns or end-of-life technologies, the person who has control over death has control over life, resulting in a subject actively working in and through time. However, while right-to-die activists take their own lives into their sovereign hands, gun owners engage with an ethics of time to prove their capacity in deciding who may live and who must die.Resumé:Les défenseurs du droit au port d'armes et les militants du droit de mourir construisent tous deux leur soi moral au fil du temps en fonction d'une exigence d'autonomie personnell...

The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology

BioéthiqueOnline, 2014

Résumé Abstract Au cours des dernières décennies, le droit de mourir a émergé comme l’une des que... more Résumé Abstract Au cours des dernières décennies, le droit de mourir a émergé comme l’une des questions sociales et politiques les plus controversées en Amérique du Nord et en Europe. Celui-ci implique la mobilisation de nombreux acteurs sociaux et militants ainsi que plusieurs défis juridiques. Au Québec, le législateur provincial a formé le « Comité spécial sur la question de mourir dans la dignité », un groupe de législateurs chargé d’examiner la question. Dans leur rapport de 2012, ils recommandent la légalisation de « l’aide médicale à mourir » comme une partie appropriée de la continuité des soins de fin de vie. À partir d’une méta-analyse des observations écrites et orales recueillies par le Comité dans différents endroits de la province, cet article présente plusieurs significations concurrentes de ce que signifie la dignité humaine à la fin de la vie. Les définitions intrinsèques de la dignité – qu’elles soient religieuses ou philosophiques – associent souvent la dignité à ...

Regulating the End of Life, 2021

Anthropologie et Sociétés

On considère que le droit de mourir, en tant que mouvement social contemporain d’importance, s’es... more On considère que le droit de mourir, en tant que mouvement social contemporain d’importance, s’est constitué en réaction aux interventions biomédicales préoccupantes qui cherchent à prolonger la vie à tout prix. Cependant, l’aide médicale à mourir est elle aussi une intervention biomédicale reposant sur des technologies biomédicales et qui se fonde sur le langage de la technique biomédicale. Bien que les partisans du droit de mourir aient souvent recours à ce langage dans l’énoncé de leurs arguments, une écoute attentive des voix de ces activistes permet de nuancer et d’affiner l’approche des aspects contradictoires et multiples de cette expérience. La façon dont ils parlent de la mort révèle des préoccupations implicites se rapprochant davantage des notions heideggériennes de « l’art » et un prolongement des anciennes conceptions de « l’art de mourir ». Acceptant l’inéluctabilité de la mort, ou de vivre de façon à être vers la mort, les activistes se soucient souvent bien davantage...

Medicine Anthropology Theory | An open-access journal in the anthropology of health, illness, and medicine

BioéthiqueOnline, 2014

In recent decades, the right to die has emerged as one of the most divisive social and political ... more In recent decades, the right to die has emerged as one of the most divisive social and political questions in North America and Europe, one that involves the mobilization of numerous social actors and activists as well as several legal challenges. In Québec, the provincial legislature formed the "Select Committee on Dying with Dignity", a group of legislators tasked with examining the issue. In their 2012 report, they recommend the legalization of "medical aid in dying" as an appropriate part of the continuum of care at the end of life. From a meta-analysis of the written and oral submissions collected by the Committee in different locations throughout the province, this article presents several competing meanings of what human dignity means at the end of life. Intrinsic definitions of dignity – whether religious or philosophical – often associate dignity with an acceptance of death. These definitions of dignity compete with more relative and contingent understan...

In recent years, human rights film festivals have proliferated across the globe. Often co-sponsor... more In recent years, human rights film festivals have proliferated across the globe. Often co-sponsored by human rights organizations like Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch. While human rights documentaries are not a widely identified subgenre of nonfiction film, they can be situated within a wider tradition of non-fiction filmmaking that engages in social and political issues, motivated by the underlying premise that films can effect change. Human rights documentary are often auto-denominations based on filmmaker intent, political engage¬ment, or topical focus. Although human rights documentaries should be disquieting, their aesthetic form ends up conforming to what will be shown in the article to be a problematic aesthetic and narrative template at odds with their aims. This article will offer a critique of this dominant representational style through an analysis of China Blue, directed by Micha Peled. China Blue will then be contrasted with Last Train Home, a 2009 film on t...

The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 2018

In debates over medically assisted dying right to die activists are often accused of embracing an... more In debates over medically assisted dying right to die activists are often accused of embracing anunbridled neoliberal individualistic ethics that devalue life and reject notions of community andcare. Through an ethnographic study of activists in North America and Australia, this articleaims to complicate this point of view by showing how they are deeply invested in what it meansto act morally in the world vis-a-vis their relationships with others and how they envisage thisissue within an ethics of care. Although activists are often accused by opponents of delegitimis-ing the ageing process and relying on atomised individual values, in depth interviews with rightto die activists reveal complex, ambiguous and contradictory reflections on the ageing processas a dominant source of suffering while defending an ethics of care and life. In the end, this arti-cle argues that the right to die paradoxically constitutes an ethics for living.

Criminologie, 2018

À partir de recherches ethnographiques menées auprès d’activistes du droit à la mort, cet article... more À partir de recherches ethnographiques menées auprès d’activistes du droit à la mort, cet article cherche à relever et à analyser les divisions de nature conceptuelle qui structurent les arguments des activistes. D’une part, des activistes soutiennent que la mort médicalement assistée doit être rigoureusement distinguée de l’acte du suicide. Pour ce faire, ils font référence à la notion « d’esprit sain » dans un contexte où le corps est malade, faisant ainsi appel au caractère fondamentalement rationnel d’un processus décisionnel fondé sur la volonté dans le choix. Ils distinguent un tel choix des suicides, non rationnels, qui sont visiblement le résultat d’un « esprit troublé ». Toutefois, en puisant dans une base de données ethnographiques considérable et dans des entrevues, on constate que les activistes reconnaissent aussi implicitement une frontière perméable entre les deux actes. Plusieurs points de tension et d’ambiguïté surviennent d’ailleurs lorsqu’il s’agit de distinguer l...

Death studies, Jan 26, 2017

The right to die is an issue is predicated on larger cultural understandings of autonomy. Autonom... more The right to die is an issue is predicated on larger cultural understandings of autonomy. Autonomy, in turn, is centered around assumptions of choice, that individuals are able to make health-related decisions based on a rational calculation. In such a way, a medically assisted death is differentiated from suicide. Through an ethnographic study of right to die activists in North America and Australia and how they understand ideals of "good deaths," this article will complicate this view by examining the ethical subject constructed by such activism that reveals autonomy to be a useful guiding fiction that mask larger ethical relationships.

Choice Reviews Online, 2015

Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 2012

Abstract This article presents an account of a victim-centred social movement, the Axel Blumberg ... more Abstract This article presents an account of a victim-centred social movement, the Axel Blumberg Crusade for the Lives of Our Children, formed by the father of a young Argentine who was kidnapped and then murdered. In examining how this anti-crime movement advocated for mano dura (tough on crime) policies in challenging the government, comparisons will be drawn with human rights organizations formed by family members of the disappeared—mobilizations with appeals similarly organized around “citizen-victims” using idioms of parental bereavement and a resulting “moral authority of grief.” This leads to an analysis of the movement as a post-political mobilization predicated on a moralization of politics.

The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 2012

Organismos de derechos humanos como Las Madres y Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo constituyen modelos... more Organismos de derechos humanos como Las Madres y Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo constituyen modelos importantes de activismo ciudadanía en América Latina. Como revelan sus nombres, son modelos particulares de activismo organizado en categorías de parentesco y en gran medida biológicamente definido con lazos afectivos. En lugar de ver a estas organizaciones como la politización de lo que convencionalmente se entiende como el terreno apolítico de la maternidad, en este artículo muestro que lo contrario también puede ocurrir. Movimientos que enfatizan los lazos biológicos y las identidades adquiridas también tienen efectos de despolitización. Porque se percibe que sus actividades radican fuera de la política. Privilegiar las relaciones afectivas como un modo de organización-un evento necesario en la evolución de estos grupos durante la dictadura-ha dado lugar a una paradoja en el desarrollo de estos grupos, los cuales por un lado evitan ser percibidos como participantes de la actividad política, a pesar de desarrollar explícitamente una actividad política.

International Journal of Transitional Justice, 2012

Anthropologica, 2021

Abstract:Both gun rights advocates and right-to-die activists shape their moral selves through ti... more Abstract:Both gun rights advocates and right-to-die activists shape their moral selves through time in relation to a demand of personal autonomy. Practising autonomy – having a sense of control over one's own life and death – becomes the principle of the good for both gun advocates and right-to-die activists. Though the ethical aims of both groups could not be more different, both movements produce a similar kind of subject. Whether through guns or end-of-life technologies, the person who has control over death has control over life, resulting in a subject actively working in and through time. However, while right-to-die activists take their own lives into their sovereign hands, gun owners engage with an ethics of time to prove their capacity in deciding who may live and who must die.Resumé:Les défenseurs du droit au port d'armes et les militants du droit de mourir construisent tous deux leur soi moral au fil du temps en fonction d'une exigence d'autonomie personnell...

The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology

BioéthiqueOnline, 2014

Résumé Abstract Au cours des dernières décennies, le droit de mourir a émergé comme l’une des que... more Résumé Abstract Au cours des dernières décennies, le droit de mourir a émergé comme l’une des questions sociales et politiques les plus controversées en Amérique du Nord et en Europe. Celui-ci implique la mobilisation de nombreux acteurs sociaux et militants ainsi que plusieurs défis juridiques. Au Québec, le législateur provincial a formé le « Comité spécial sur la question de mourir dans la dignité », un groupe de législateurs chargé d’examiner la question. Dans leur rapport de 2012, ils recommandent la légalisation de « l’aide médicale à mourir » comme une partie appropriée de la continuité des soins de fin de vie. À partir d’une méta-analyse des observations écrites et orales recueillies par le Comité dans différents endroits de la province, cet article présente plusieurs significations concurrentes de ce que signifie la dignité humaine à la fin de la vie. Les définitions intrinsèques de la dignité – qu’elles soient religieuses ou philosophiques – associent souvent la dignité à ...

Regulating the End of Life, 2021

Anthropologie et Sociétés

On considère que le droit de mourir, en tant que mouvement social contemporain d’importance, s’es... more On considère que le droit de mourir, en tant que mouvement social contemporain d’importance, s’est constitué en réaction aux interventions biomédicales préoccupantes qui cherchent à prolonger la vie à tout prix. Cependant, l’aide médicale à mourir est elle aussi une intervention biomédicale reposant sur des technologies biomédicales et qui se fonde sur le langage de la technique biomédicale. Bien que les partisans du droit de mourir aient souvent recours à ce langage dans l’énoncé de leurs arguments, une écoute attentive des voix de ces activistes permet de nuancer et d’affiner l’approche des aspects contradictoires et multiples de cette expérience. La façon dont ils parlent de la mort révèle des préoccupations implicites se rapprochant davantage des notions heideggériennes de « l’art » et un prolongement des anciennes conceptions de « l’art de mourir ». Acceptant l’inéluctabilité de la mort, ou de vivre de façon à être vers la mort, les activistes se soucient souvent bien davantage...

Medicine Anthropology Theory | An open-access journal in the anthropology of health, illness, and medicine

SEARCH AFTER METHOD: Sensing, Moving, and Imagining in Anthropological Fieldwork, 2020

Reigniting a tradition of learning from experience, Search After Method is a plea for livelier fo... more Reigniting a tradition of learning from experience, Search After Method is a plea for livelier forms of anthropology. The anthropologists in the collection recount their experiences of working in the field, framed within a range of anthropological debates. The book thus provides accounts of lived experiences from both extensive and contemporary fieldwork as well as offering solutions for how to evolve the art of anthropological research beyond what is currently imagined.

During the military dictatorship in Argentina between 1976 and 1983, an estimated 30,000 civilian... more During the military dictatorship in Argentina between 1976 and 1983, an estimated 30,000 civilians disappeared. Most of these individuals were kidnapped by the military and taken to clandestine prisons where they were tortured and killed. The children of these victims were also seized, and pregnant women were kept alive long enough to give birth. An estimated 500 infants and young children of the disappeared were given for adoption to families with close ties to the military. Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo) were formed to discover the fate of their grandchildren. This thesis examines the key role that the search for the kidnapped children of the disappeared has played in Argentina's post-dictatorship human rights struggle. As an ethnography of human rights, I analyze how human rights struggles are waged over competing empathetic appeals. The thesis focuses on public debates and legal contents. It is divided into three interrelated sections: the first focuses on the disappeared, the second on the search for and recovery of the children of the disappeared and the third on family member organizations. In debates about the disappeared, I trace the shifting view of the disappeared within human rights discourse from innocent victims in the aftermath of the dictatorship to political activists in the present. I then examine how this view has also been called into question.

During the military dictatorship in Argentina (1976--1983), 30,000 civilians disappeared. Most of... more During the military dictatorship in Argentina (1976--1983), 30,000 civilians disappeared. Most of these people were taken by the military to clandestine prisons where they were tortured and killed. The children of these victims were also seized, and pregnant women were kept alive long enough to give birth. An estimated five hundred infants and young children of the disappeared were given for adoption to highly connected families. This thesis consists of a historical background of these events and then offers a series of explanations as to why the military did this.

Survivors of terrible events are often portrayed as unsung heroes or tragic victims but rarely as... more Survivors of terrible events are often portrayed as unsung heroes or tragic victims but rarely as complex human beings whose lives extend beyond the stories they have told. The contributors to Beyond Testimony and Trauma consider other ways to engage with survivors and their accounts based on valuable insights gained from their work on long-term oral history projects. While the contexts vary widely, they demonstrate that – through deep listening, long-term relationship building, and collaborative research design – it is possible to move beyond the problematic aspects of "testimony" to shine a light on the more nuanced lives of survivors of mass violence