There have been remarkable developments in the field of human rights in the past few decades. Still, millions of asylum-seekers, refugees, and undocumented immigrants continue to find it challenging to access human rights. In this book, Ayten Gundogdu builds on Hannah Arendt's analysis of statelessness and argues that these challenges reveal the perplexities of human rights. Human rights promise equal personhood regardless of citizenship status, yet their existing formulations are tied to the principle of territorial sovereignty. This situation leaves various categories of migrants in a condition of "rightlessness," with a very precarious legal, political, and human standing. Gundogdu examines this problem in the context of immigration detention, deportation, and refugee camps. Critical of the existing system of human rights without seeing it as a dead end, she argues for the need to pay closer attention to the political practices of migrants who challenge their condition of rightlessness and propose new understandings of human rights. What arises from this critical reflection on human rights is also a novel reading of Arendt, one that offers refreshing insights into various dimensions of her political thought, including her account of the human condition, "the social question," and "the right to have rights." Rightlessness in an Age of Rights is a valuable addition to the literature on Hannah Arendt and a vital way of rethinking human rights as they relate to contemporary issues of immigration.

There have been remarkable developments in the field of human rights in the past few decades. Still, millions of asylum-seekers, refugees, and undocumented immigrants continue to find it challenging to access human rights. In this book, Ayten Gundogdu builds on Hannah Arendt's analysis of statelessness and argues that these challenges reveal the perplexities of human rights. Human rights promise equal personhood regardless of citizenship status, yet their existing formulations are tied to the principle of territorial sovereignty. This situation leaves various categories of migrants in a condition of "rightlessness," with a very precarious legal, political, and human standing. Gundogdu examines this problem in the context of immigration detention, deportation, and refugee camps. Critical of the existing system of human rights without seeing it as a dead end, she argues for the need to pay closer attention to the political practices of migrants who challenge their condition of rightlessness and propose new understandings of human rights. What arises from this critical reflection on human rights is also a novel reading of Arendt, one that offers refreshing insights into various dimensions of her political thought, including her account of the human condition, "the social question," and "the right to have rights." Rightlessness in an Age of Rights is a valuable addition to the literature on Hannah Arendt and a vital way of rethinking human rights as they relate to contemporary issues of immigration.

Is it possible to rearticulate the relationship between Europe and its others in non-colonizing ways? Europe and Its Boundaries reflects upon this question, first by exploring several philosophical approaches to Europe's relation to non-Europe, then by examining that relationship in specific intellectual and material contexts of European domination. The philosophical approaches are explored through the works of G. W. F. Hegel, Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, and Hans-Georg Gadamer. Departing from the routine recognition of Europe's hegemonic role in constituting global political modernity, the authors examine fundamental political and ethical questions of coloniality, anti-coloniality, post-coloniality, mutual recognition, hospitality, responsibility, justice, and democracy. Regarding the intellectual and material contexts, the book explores the production of Europe and its relation to others in highly significant moments and sites of meaning making in European history and politics, from battles and monuments on its western and eastern territorial boundaries to museum exhibitions and immigrant detention centers, that is, new forms of borders at its very core. Europe and Its Boundaries thus reconsiders historical and contempoarary understandings of Europe, border politics, and global encounters more broadly. This book will find an audience among scholars of political theory, international relations, geography, cultural studies, history, and post-colonial studies.