Edwin Ardener: the life-force of ideas

The work of the social anthropologist Edwin Ardener (1927-87) remains a fertile source of insight and influence, says his former student and editor of a collection of his essays, Malcolm Chapman.

(This article was first published on 21 September 2007)

The great unmentionable in disability politics

"I felt there was no space for me to express grief at my son's disability". The grief of those who care for people with a disability is betrayal of the Cause. Rahila Gupta asks: how do you value disability at the same time as mourn the loss of ability?

2012, an era of uncertainty

The tsunami and nuclear accident made 2011 an especially hard year for Japan. But the questions raised by the experience are similar to those being asked across the world, says Takashi Inoguchi.

Naming the movement

The early 21st century is marked by a profusion of initiatives that bring people together to discuss and explore big questions. It amounts to a great river of change - but to realise its potential the movement needs a formal designation, says Keith Kahn-Harris.

Terrorism in historical perspective

Terrorism is the defining issue of the post 9/11 world. It is also one of the most confusing and contested words in the political lexicon. The route to understanding, says Fred Halliday, is through making connections: between past and present, state and insurgent violence, nationalist and religious movements.

How to be radical? An interview with Todd Gitlin and George Monbiot

openDemocracy: Todd, what is your view of The Age of Consent?

Todd Gitlin: There are three reasons I like this book. First, I heartily approve its refusal of gesture politics, of the kind of activism which just stands on the sidelines and condemns everything.

Second, I am encouraged by the way George takes government seriously.

Libyan justice: medicine on death row

On 19 December 2006, a Libyan judge announced a verdict in the final appeal of six foreign health workers accused of deliberately infecting 426 children with HIV at the al-Fateh hospital in Benghazi, Libya.

The 2011 outlook: ideas and agents

Where are the sources of inspiration that can improve global and national prospects in 2011? openDemocracy writers across the world offer their thoughts.

(The first contributions in this collection were published on 3 January 2011)

Is the world getting larger or smaller?

It is hard to escape the grand statements: the world is getting smaller; we live in a global village; speed-up has conquered distance; time, finally, has annihilated space. We read of the death of distance, and that geography too is dead. (But then we are subjected, also, to assertions of the "end of history").

Olympian claims about "eras", shifts between great periods of history, are always a bit dubious, not least in their universalising pretensions. But recent changes do raise new questions.

A tale of miners, presidents and nations

The Chilean miners’ rescue, a inspiring story of human solidarity, offers the nation’s president a miraculous political reward. There are lessons for a European counterpart, says Goran Fejic.

Chile's global drama

An extraordinary Latin American country gifts another story to the world. But Chile's latest epic carries many ghosts in its train, writes Isabel Hilton.

The world's progress: aims, tools, realities

A United Nations summit in New York on 20-22 September 2010 is measuring progress in the fulfilment of global commitments to improving human security by 2015 - the Millennium Development Goals. But the focus should be on the instruments of delivery as much as the objectives, says Stephen Browne.

The Indian experience

By virtue of their legitimate capacity to throw "paper stones" at their ostensible rulers, ordinary people have begun to feel that those rulers can be made accountable.

Radical democratic theory never tires of claiming that democracy means something deeper and wider than mere elections, that to have real substance, democracy must embody social and economic equality.

Amnesty International: the politics of morality

The expansion of Amnesty International's remit to include "full spectrum" human rights may entail costs as well as benefits, says Stephen Hopgood, author of "Keepers of the Flame: Understanding Amnesty International".

The idea that the focus of Amnesty's International's work should be widely extended to accommodate what it called the "full spectrum" of human rights was advocated a year ago on openDemocracy by the organisation's British campaigns director, Stephen Bowen (see "'Full-spectrum' human rights: Amnesty International rethinks", 3 June

This week's editor

Heather McRobie


Heather McRobie is a regular contributor to 50.50

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