Change and the politics of certainty

Renowned politics scholar Jenny Edkins explores the imperative for change in a world filled with inequality, violence, persecution, and injustice--and the difficulties of bringing it about. How do we transform the world when we are ourselves inescapably part of it? If we cannot know what makes the world the way it is, or what impact our actions will have, where do we begin? Over the course of ten chapters this book examines our varied responses to questions such as aid in times of famine; opposition to the Iraq War; humanitarian intervention; the memorialisation of 9/11; enforced disappearance; and calls for justice after the Grenfell Tower fire. Drawing on insights from the author’s life and on the work of playwrights and filmmakers, this book interrogates the ideas of thinkers including Lauren Berlant, Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Stuart Hall, Eric Santner, Elaine Scarry, Carolyn Steedman and Slavoj Žižek. Tackling themes such as the fantasy of security, contemporary notions of time and space, and ideas of humanity and sentience, this accessible book is essential reading for all who strive for a better world.