Care Ethics and the Refugee Crisis

This book advocates for the philosophical import of care in re-evaluating problems of humanitarianism in the context of the ongoing international refugee and forced migration situation. In doing so, it rethinks the human capacity to care about the suffering of distant others.

At a time when emotional resources are running low, there is a need to recast what it means to care, with the aim of generating a productive movement against the rise of value fundamentalism globally-embraced in mantras of 'good and evil' and 'us and them'-and to confront xenophobia and oppressive politics. The author draws upon a wide array of rich traditions, including historical and contemporary writings on self-care and care of the other, to re-examine the intersection of care ethics and justice. She also rethinks the relationship between care and contestation, here analyzed in the aesthetic, ethical, political, and religious domains of human experience. From within the context of this contingent historical repetition of political oppression, the book constructs a reminder not only of what it feels like to care, but how and why we should act upon our care.

Care Ethics and the Refugee Crisis is an important contribution to the growing literatures on care ethics and immigration/forced migration in philosophy. It will also appeal to scholars and advanced students working in other disciplines such as political science, refugee and migration studies, and social anthropology.

Marcia Morgan is Associate Professor of Philosophy and 2020-21 Program Director at the Center for Ethics at Muhlenberg College, USA. She is the author of Kierkegaard and Critical Theory (2012) and co-editor of Richard J. Bernstein and the Expansion of American Philosophy: Thinking the Plural (2016).

"[This book] builds on recent developments in feminist care ethics and political theory to overcome the challenges of justly caring for refugees and other forced migrants. Morgan highlights the ways in which care is both necessary and dangerous."
-Alex Sager, The Review of Politics