Volume 3, No. 2 Spring 2011

International Connections

C E N T E R F O R I N T E R N A T I O N A L A N D C O M P A R A T I V E S T U D I E S

U N I V E R S I T Y O F M I C H I G A N

International Connections is published twice a year, and highlights the work, research, and travels of individuals involved with the Center for International and Comparative Studies (CICS). The Center supports work related to the themes of human rights, international development, and international security and cooperation. An online version of the publication is available at http://www.umich.edu.ii/cics

Ken Kollman, CICS Director and International Institute Director Susanne Kocsis, CICS Assistant Director and Senior Editor Savitski Design, Designers

Contributors are generally affiliated in some capacity with CICS, although articles submitted by professionals or scholars working on CICS themes will be considered for publication. Articles should be 1,000-2,000 words in length, double-spaced, and should adhere to stylistic guidelines in The Chicago Manual of Style. Articles should be emailed to InternationalConnections@umich.edu

Cover Photos, clockwise from top:

The Nobel medal on the empty chair during the ceremony to honor last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo. EPA/HEIKO JUNGE NORWAY OUT

Nathan VanderVeen playing with children at orphanage in Peru, CICS International Internship

“Enough is Enough” Political Demonstration in Nigeria, Photo by Damola Osinulu, Incoming fellow, Michigan Society of Fellows, 2011-2014

In This Issue

1 Introduction

2 Economic Transformation and Popular Contestation in AfricaAnne PitcherCICS International Security and Development Fellow and Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies and Political Science at the University of Michigan

6 What is Universal about Universal Human Rights?David PorterCICS Human Rights Fellow and Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan

11 Heat Wave: A CICS Student-run Conference on Climate ChangeMarissa GawelJunior at the University of Michigan, International Studies with an emphasis on Global Health and the Environment, minor in German; and Secretary of the International Studies Student Advisory Board

12 Volunteering in a Rural Peruvian Medical ClinicNathan VanderVeenSenior at the University of Michigan, Spanish and Biological Chemistry, planning to attend medical school

Evolution of International Studies

The Center for International and Comparative Studies (CICS) is home to International Studies at Michigan. As the International Studies Program continues its unprecedented rapid expansion, CICS has responded quickly to accommodate curricular and programming

needs as they emerge. While the program moves through various stages of development, the center evaluates its success in relation to similar programs across the country and programs at Michigan with which it shares characteristics.

International Studies (also named Global Studies at some institutions) is a relatively new field that analyzes the world as a global system, bound together by trade, communications networks, and governance agreements. It also explores cultural structures that inform public policy and debate about contemporary life. International organizations and institutional bodies that address global issues are examined, as well as the processes for attending to complex global problems (such as climate change, human rights, and health) that transcend national boundaries.

The importance of this advancing style of scholarship has been highlighted by recent developments in the Middle East from Tunis to Cairo, which are sending ripples throughout the region and even across the African continent. The International Institute recently hosted a roundtable discussion featuring prominent Middle East scholars at Michigan to discuss the origins of these events and potential outcomes. Ideas about democratic principles, social justice, and resource allocation have spread through increasingly educated and wired populations in countries which have lived under autocratic rule, and where young people connected by the internet and social media are demanding more democratic forms of governance.

While the internet and increased connectivity have enabled social movements to succeed in some countries, the same technology has served to enhance monitoring and crackdowns on political protest elsewhere, such as in Iran.

Questions of wealth distribution, human rights, workers’ rights, private property, and human security are underlying themes of reform movements emerging across the globe. The articles in this issue illustrate how democratization can affect foreign investment, and how existing cultural mythologies are reflected in the perception of rights and the outcome of democracy movements taking place.

CICS Fellows

Fellowships are awarded annually by CICS to scholars working in the areas of human rights, international development, and international security and cooperation. CICS Fellows are essential components in the creation of content that drives the center’s programs and initiatives. The ongoing current work of two CICS Fellows is highlighted in this issue.

Anne Pitcher (CICS International Security and Development Fellow and Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies and Political Science at U-M), in her article, Economic Transformation and Popular Contestation in Africa, examines changing patterns of capital and investment in Sub-Saharan Africa and the resulting transformation of the political and physical landscapes in urban and rural settings there. She explores factors driving foreign investment, causes of the current uneven economic development across the continent, and political shifts and upheavals emerging as a result.

In his article entitled What is Universal about Universal Human Rights?, David Porter (CICS Human Rights Fellow, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at U-M, and Faculty Associate with the Center for Chinese Studies) describes how citizens derive their understanding of the meaning of universal rights from values embedded in the language of their own cultural mythologies. Porter uses the example of the European Enlightenment to illustrate how perceptions of concepts such as the individual, free expression, and obligations of the individual to the community are products of metaphors and stories that make up cultural histories and heritage.

Next, U-M junior Marissa Gawel provides a brief synopsis of the CICS student-run conference held in February, 2011 entitled Heat Wave: A Human-centered Approach to Climate Change. The conference was organized, publicized, and run by a group of U-M students who were elected to the International Studies Student Advisory Board. Marissa Gawel is Secretary of the student advisory board, which also includes Kimberly Grambo, Co-President, Chelsea Hunersen, Co-President, and Kevin Carney, Vice President. The students were led by Dr. David Scott, who helped them identify and secure speakers, and assisted with overall planning and execution of the event.

Finally, the last article in this issue features an essay by U-M senior Nathan VanderVeen who traveled to Peru through a CICS International Internship grant to volunteer in a rural hospital and orphanage. His experience working in the Peruvian medical system revealed stark differences with hospital practices in the U.S., including frequent physician strikes, and a shocking lack of privacy, equipment, and health education there. The internship convinced him to continue to pursue his medical studies, and profoundly influenced his perspective on medical practices and the doctor-patient relationship.

Spring 2011 1

In the last two decades, African countries south of the Sahara have undergone political and economic changes that have been just as transformative and momentous as those that have occurred in Latin America or East Central Europe. Many

governments now practice some form of democratic electoral politics: their citizens enjoy basic political rights and civil liberties that were denied to them just 20 years ago. Countries have also liberalized trade, established investment centers, created stock markets, and passed privatization laws. Not only are market economies emerging across the continent, but also they are consolidating from the coast of Ghana to the interior of Zambia.

The extent to which African governments have embraced competitive elections, liberalized their economies, or attracted foreign direct investment (FDI), however, varies enormously across the continent. With vast natural resources such as oil, diamonds, cobalt, copper, or gold, countries such as Angola, Nigeria, or the Democratic Republic of Congo have received most of the foreign investment in the last 10 years despite half-hearted commitments to democratic principles and to the divestiture or sale of parastatals in strategic, profitable sectors of the economy. By contrast, investors have largely overlooked primary commodity producers such as Senegal, Benin, or Malawi, despite their records of political stability, regular competitive elections, and extensive privatization.

In many cases, only a small elite has managed to enjoy the benefits brought by increased investment and greater global integration. A sizeable percentage of Africa’s population continues to live below the poverty line. The skewed patterns of development raise questions about what kind of economic development is occurring in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and what its political and economic effects are. This article will examine sources and sectors of investment; discuss the changing spatial patterns of capital expansion in selected African countries; and highlight efforts to politically contest the resulting asymmetries of power and resources.

Divergent Outcomes

Beginning in the 1990s, many countries across Africa announced ambitious plans to develop their private sectors. They passed new investment laws, liberalized trade, guaranteed private property

rights, and supported indigenous investors through loans and grants. Consistent with these objectives, countries such as Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Guinea, and Cape Verde sold many of their state-owned enterprises to foreign and domestic investors. Although inflows of FDI in all of Africa (including North Africa) still account for at most 5% of total global investment in a good year, they have tripled in the last five years. Before dropping by 25% in 2009 owing to the effects of the global financial crisis, FDI reached a peak of 88 billion dollars in 2008.

A striking feature of economic development, however, is how uneven it is across countries and sectors, and between urban and rural areas. Out of a total of 45 countries in SSA, just four countries—

Angola, Nigeria, Sudan, and South Africa—received more than 3 billion dollars each of FDI inflows in 2009 according to the World Investment Report. Three of these four countries were oil producers. South Africa is the exception: it consistently attracts high levels of investment due to its well-developed infrastructure, large domestic market, and commercial linkages with other countries. South Africa is also the only one of the four countries that is a liberal democracy.

By comparison, consider the case of South Africa’s northern neighbor, Zimbabwe. The tragedy of Zimbabwe is not that the government that assumed power at independence in 1980 has failed to develop the natural endowments of the country. Many of these were already developed. The tragedy is that economic policy choices made by the government have systematically destroyed the assets with which the country began its independence, such as an extensive road and rail network, good commercial linkages, a manufacturing base, and a banking system. In addition, acute differences with respect to land access, skills, education levels, health care, and overall well-being, existed between black and white Zimbabweans at independence. Yet a leadership that once attracted admiration across the continent has failed to address those disparities in a meaningful and just fashion.

Just as countries demonstrate marked disparities in rates of investment and the extent of development, their urban and rural areas also exhibit sharp contrasts. After mining, most investment is spatially concentrated in industry and services located in urban areas. Investors are attracted to urban locations where transport and trade networks are already established, where populations are concentrated, and where access to government services is easier. In that sense, some investment is “path dependent.” It

Economic Transformation and Popular Contestation in Africaby Anne Pitcher

A striking feature of economic development in Africa is how uneven it is across countries and sectors, and between urban and rural areas.

CICS International Connections2

mimics patterns of investment established by colonial regimes and reinforced by their successors just after independence.

Driven by new technology, the telecommunications sector has witnessed exponential growth, but here again, rates vary between countries: 92% of the population in South Africa has access to cell phones while only 14% of the population in Rwanda has them. Following the end of Angola’s nearly 30-year civil conflict, purchases of cell phones multiplied in that country. According to the World Bank, when the conflict ended in 2002, only 1% of the population had access to cell phones; now 38% of the population or nearly 7 million people own them.

On the other hand, investment in agriculture, on which the majority of people still depend for their livelihoods, has languished. In spite of rising global prices, crops such as maize, cotton, cocoa, and coffee have not seen a corresponding increase in investment or production. As in the past, poor infrastructure, inadequate linkages with industry, a lack of support for smallholders, and inconsistent agricultural policies contribute to a lack of development in rural areas. The one exception is biofuel production, which has expanded in Benin, Mali, Kenya, Zambia, Mozambique, and Tanzania, sometimes at the expense of food cultivation. Although some policymakers have argued that the cultivation of biofuels will not affect, and may even enhance, food production, the caveat is usually that it will depend on the proper management of bioenergy versus food cultivation. Since the capacities of most governments in Africa are already stretched quite thin, proper management is likely to be in short supply. Indeed, evidence is beginning to mount that officials are turning a blind eye to land grabbing by large, commercial biofuel producers.

Old and New Players

It is not surprising that French multinationals invest in former French colonies such as Chad and Madagascar while British companies are more likely to invest in former British colonies such as Ghana, Zambia, Kenya, or Uganda. Aside from the official language they have in common, they often have similar legal systems and other institutional arrangements, which ease the challenge of investing on the continent. The continuation or revival of linkages with companies headquartered in former colonial powers, however, should not lead observers to overlook the proliferation of other players.

Not only has South-South trade and investment expanded, but also intra-African investment is increasing. International attention has focused on the role of China in Africa, but two issues often get overlooked in the constant publicity about Chinese investment. First, China is not a new player in Africa. After many African countries achieved independence in the

1960s and 1970s, China provided assistance to build roads, railways, schools, hospitals, and sports stadia; it established diplomatic relations, and allocated aid, particularly to those countries such as Mozambique, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Zambia, and Angola, which claimed to be socialist. What is new about China’s current interest is that both private and state firms from China are building on previous alliances to purchase copper mines, finance oil production, build railroads, and run retail shops selling consumer goods.

Second, China is not the only emerging market economy to make a bold move in Africa. India has invested in chemicals, plastics, food and beverage industries, often in countries with which it previously had a historical connection such as Mauritius, Mozambique, Kenya, and Uganda. Malaysian and Brazilian firms have equally expanded into selected countries. One of Angola’s largest employers is a construction and engineering firm,

Odebrecht, based in Brazil. Additionally, South Africa is a driving force behind the growth of intra-African investment. The share of the total outward stock of FDI in the rest of Africa by South African firms expanded from a mere 5% in 1995 to 22% or about 11 billion dollars by 2008. Two South African cellular telecommunications companies, Vodacom and MTN, both less than 20 years old, dominate the telecommunications market in countries such as Ghana, Tanzania, DRC, Nigeria, and Uganda. According to their company reports, MTN and Vodacom had 116 million and 40 million subscribers respectively across the continent.

Residences in Talatona, outside of Luanda, Angola Photo by Pelleg Architects

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New Forms and Functions of Capital

Three features of the recent changes in Africa are particularly striking. First, “new urbanism” has reached Africa’s capitals and larger cities. New urbanism is a particular approach to urban design that advocates the mixed use of urban space. It is a deliberate and conscious blending and balancing of commercial and residential areas with a stress on walkability and accessibility. South Florida was the epicenter of new urbanism in the 1980s, but its appeal now extends far beyond the Americas. Probably the best exemplar of new urbanism in Africa is Melrose Arch in Johannesburg. It is a stylized, constructed imitation of an upscale London neighborhood complete with boutiques, restaurants, and residences interspersed along a cobbled “High Street.”

The model informs the design of new urban developments such as Luanda Sul and Talatona on the outskirts of Luanda in post-war Angola. Both of the projects are efforts to relieve the congestion in and around Luanda, a capital city intended for a half million people. Over the course of the country’s 30-year war, which concluded in 2002, Luanda’s population swelled to approximately 3.5 million residents as internally displaced persons (IDPs) flocked to the capital. But these real estate developments are not intended for former IDPs; they are for the well-off. Combining convention centers, upscale residential living, office blocks, and entertainment, these planned communities cater to an urban elite whose wealth is often sustained by revenues from Angola’s substantial oil and diamond production or through connections to government.

Meanwhile, across the continent in another war torn country, the incoming government of Southern Sudan (whose secession from Northern Sudan is imminent) plans to spend 10 billion dollars to re-build several cities. The project has received international attention not because it addresses southern Sudan’s acute problem of urban poverty and homelessness, but because the cities will be shaped like animals or fruit: one design looks like a rhinoceros, another a giraffe, and yet another, a pineapple.

Second, following global trends, malls, fast food restaurants, and cafés selling flavored coffee have sprouted up from Kampala to Cape Town. Lusaka, Maputo, Nairobi, Luanda, Lagos, Algiers, Tunis and many other capital cities now have upscale shopping malls.

Their proliferation across Africa in countries that are awash in oil revenues or in those whose gross domestic product is more modest has only slowed with the recent global financial crisis. In South Africa, members of the growing black middle class now frequent Maponya Mall in Soweto, South Africa’s largest urban township. Elsewhere in Africa, malls are frequently the preserve of extremely wealthy, urban elites who are connected to centers of economic and political power, or they are enjoyed by tourists. Casablanca’s luxury waterfront promenade mall is designed to look like a sea shell and contains the first Galeries Lafayette—the famous French department store—in Africa.

So great has been the expansion of private sector activity in Africa that the continued existence of large state owned enterprises (SOEs) has gone nearly unnoticed. This is the third most striking feature of the development that is occurring. Despite the global diffusion of ideas and policies extolling the virtues of private sector

driven economies, many African countries have followed the examples of Brazil, India, and China, and retained SOEs in strategic sectors of their economies. Domestic SOEs have partnered with foreign private companies or foreign SOEs to finance roads and electricity, as well as mining operations, hotels, and residential communities. Governments have invested public pension funds in shopping centers, airports, and telecommunications. Public companies often provide the highest paying, salaried jobs in management for recent college graduates, and they offer the most stable, wage paying jobs in the formal sector. In many African countries, private sector development is not occurring instead of public sector development, rather, it is intimately intertwined with the priorities and projects of the state sector.

The demonstrations that have taken place in Tunisia and Egypt are not exceptional cases; they are part of a trend. Waves of protest are rippling across the African continent from north to south.

Proposed city in Southern Sudan in the shape of a rhinoceros Photo by Alan Boswell

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The Cost of Development

Whether it is post-apartheid Johannesburg or war torn Luanda that is experiencing a boom in residential real estate or retail shops, these changes have associated costs. Growth for some has meant displacement for others. For example, local governments or private developers have cleared squatter settlements to make way for new malls, scattering the urban poor to densely populated, poorly serviced areas on the margins of city districts. Moreover, while a small elite live in gated communities and shop at fancy boutiques, the majority of Africans still live on less than two dollars a day. In Mali, Madagascar, Mozambique, Niger, and Zambia, more than half the population lives below the poverty line. One reason for this is that formal sector employment now constitutes a mere fraction of total employment in these countries. Even in South Africa, which is routinely regarded as the most developed country south of the Sahara, nearly half of the economically active population is un- or under-employed. Ironically, one of the few sectors to experience employment growth is private security companies (PSCs). Often comprised of those who formerly served in the military, PSCs guard the cars, homes, shops, and office blocks of Africa’s elite.

Contestation and Participation

As long as democracies are fragile and rights are weak, it is likely that highly uneven economic development and the concentration of benefits to a select few will continue. Yet, faced with rising prices or shortages of basic amenities such as food, water, and electricity, coupled with bleak prospects for a stable and sustainable income, ordinary people in Africa have used the available political space to articulate their grievances and advance their interests. The demonstrations that have taken place in Tunisia and Egypt are not exceptional cases; they are part of a trend. Waves of protest are rippling across the African continent from north to south. Protesters have demanded better representation, greater accountability,

and a more equitable distribution of resources. Last year, for example, organizers of the “Enough is Enough” campaign in Nigeria relied on the internet, cell phones, and television to mobilize and politicize young people. The campaign held rallies to demand better treatment from their representatives as well as the provision of basic services like water and electricity. They are now engaged in a vigorous effort to register voters in advance of Nigeria’s upcoming elections.

In the capital of Mozambique, too, incensed residents used their cell phones on two separate occasions to organize wildcat demonstrations in response to soaring prices for gas and food. Each time, the government agreed to offset the cost increases with subsidies, but it is now closely monitoring cell phone subscribers in order to avoid further protests. Finally, the recent overthrow of Tunisia’s long serving autocrat—orchestrated by young people using the latest technology—demonstrates that the allocation of political and economic benefits to a small segment of the population has not gone uncontested. Instead, the dispossessed and the disenfranchised are creatively and collectively challenging the status quo.

Anne Pitcher is a CICS International Security and Development Fellow and Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies and Political Science at the University of Michigan. She is also the Associate Director of African Studies in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies. Her current research examines the political and economic effects of institutional change in Sub-Saharan Africa. She is particularly interested in how different party systems shape the characteristics of market economies in Mozambique, Zambia, South Africa, and Angola. She is completing a book entitled Party Politics and Economic Reform in Africa’s Democracies, which will be published by Cambridge University Press.

“Enough is Enough” Political Demonstration in Nigeria Photo by Damola Osinulu, Incoming fellow, Michigan Society

of Fellows, 2011-2014

What is Universal about Universal Human Rights?by David Porter

In the long history of human rights activism, few moments have been as poignant as the recent presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. For the man who was honored at the December ceremony in

Oslo was conspicuously absent from the event, having been sentenced to an 11-year prison term for advocating sweeping changes to his country’s political system. When the chairman of the prize committee noted that the fact of Liu’s imprisonment itself demonstrated the appropriateness of the award, the honoree’s empty chair received a standing ovation in his stead.

The image of the empty chair, reproduced widely across the web, became a powerful symbol for Liu’s extraordinary integrity and courage. But the vacancy that it so vividly dramatized also reminded viewers of another kind of absence: the lack of respect for human rights in China that Liu had struggled so valiantly to address. This idea, that Chinese society is characterized by a gaping void where human rights should be, has been one of the most commonly repeated truisms in the U.S. media about China for at least the 22 years since the crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

There is no contesting the fact of ongoing and serious human rights abuses by the current regime. It is worth considering, however, the implications of framing this issue in terms of a fundamental “lack” on China’s part. More generally, we might

well ask how adequate our understanding of another society can possibly be when this understanding is constructed largely in negative terms. For the absence of protections for human rights is by no means China’s only perceived lack. The history of Western accounts of China over the past 150 years has produced (and, in some quarters, continues to produce) a remarkable catalog of failures, gaps, and absences. At various stages, the Chinese have been faulted by European and American observers for their ostensible lack of intellectual curiosity, scientific reason, inductive logic, inflected grammar, rational taxonomies, democracy, and individualism, among many others. While we might attribute China’s failure to respect human rights most immediately to the autocratic nature of the present regime, our conception of this failure is also shaped by a long history in the West of attempting to define China through what it is not.

The perception of critical lacks in any foreign society typically results from taking a set of values derived from one cultural context and then applying them as a benchmark or a yardstick in the assessment of another. One problem with the forms of knowledge gained through such a process is that they generally tell us more about the priorities of the observers than about the distinctive features of the culture being observed. There are serious limits to the possibilities of intercultural dialog when we begin with the premise that one side is already in possession of all the right answers while the other side has none.

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Are Human Rights Universal?

Attempts to initiate dialog on this basis are commonly founded on a belief in the universality of those values we hold dear. All human beings, the argument goes, are born with various natural rights that must be respected regardless of the context in which they live. We describe a right (such as freedom of expression) as universal to the extent we believe that all societies are bound to protect their citizens’ free exercise of this right. Some philosophers (and, it should be added, some authoritarian regimes) take issue with such universalist claims on the grounds that the value systems governing the relationship of individuals to their communities differ from place to place as a consequence of distinctive cultural histories. These differences ought to be respected, it is argued, on grounds of cultural diversity and moral pluralism. For one society to impose its political models and value systems on another is tantamount, some would say, to cultural imperialism.

A great deal of ink has been spilled in recent years on both sides of this controversy, and China has emerged as an important test case for thinking through some of the central problems that it raises. Will the growing prosperity of the Chinese middle class, for example, eventually lead to increasingly vocal claims for political rights and a convergence of the Chinese political system with Western democratic models and rights-based jurisprudence? Or will China follow a distinctively Chinese trajectory, leading to the emergence of models of governance grounded in Chinese history rather than a liberal conception of human rights? What role can or should international human rights advocates play in this process?

To imagine the universalist and pluralist positions on human rights as diametrically opposed, as we so often do, may blind us to possibilities for reconciling them and limit our ability to respond effectively to such questions. It is difficult to assail the

Chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize committee Thorbjoern Jagland places the Nobel Peace Prize diploma and gold medal on the reserved vacant chair of Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo (portrait hanging on wall at left) during the ceremony for the laureate and dissident Liu Xiaobo at the city hall in Oslo, December 10, 2010. With the guest of honour stuck in a Chinese prison, last year’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony centred around an empty chair, as its celebration of dissident Liu Xiaobo continues to split the global community and infuriate Beijing. HEIKO JUNG/AFP/Getty Images

underlying universalist claims that all people share certain legitimate aspirations to a life offering dignity, the satisfaction of basic needs, and freedom from violence, and that social institutions in all societies ought to be constructed in such a way as to maximize the likelihood that such aspirations will be realized by all. It is equally hard to deny that communities differ in their histories, institutions, and value systems, and that a particular set of norms that has evolved in one context (such as the European Enlightenment) might not be readily accepted or function well in another (such as modern China).

Both of these claims, I believe, are valid. We can reduce the seeming distance between them if we are careful to distinguish

the notion of basic human aspirations in the abstract from the language through which they are imagined and expressed in any given context. We are unlikely to meet with objections from any quarter to a “universalist” assumption that people everywhere share certain very basic needs and desires, provided that these are described at a sufficient level of generality and abstraction. Differences arise when we attempt to elaborate such vague definitions or to illustrate them with meaningful examples. The real differences, that is, emerge as a product of the culturally bounded language forms through which we must inevitably understand and articulate these ideals. Although the ideals themselves, in their most abstract form, may well be understood as universal, they realistically can exist for us only through the inherited, culturally specific stories and metaphors we deploy in articulating them.

Human Rights and Metaphor

Within the Anglo-American tradition, much of the language we use to think about our most cherished social ideals derives from a series of stories and metaphors that coalesced into their modern versions during the period of the Enlightenment. John Milton, for example, in the impassioned critique of government censorship he offered in his influential essay Areopagitica (1644), advocated for the protection of heterodox views through a proto-liberal reading of the Book of Genesis. The fact that God gave the first humans and their progeny free will, he reminds his readers, means that the pursuit of virtue

must always involve the exercise of choice. The virtuous person is one who has the discipline and the discernment to choose the correct path even in the face of temptation. These faculties of moral decision making, however, must continuously be strengthened through regular trials. We need to protect bad books, in other words, in order to exercise and demonstrate our virtue in choosing to reject their ideas.

In modern America, we are more overtly concerned with cultivating democratic citizenship than religious virtue, but the metaphorical structure of one of our more powerful arguments against government censorship remains the same: we require unfettered access to competing viewpoints, we

believe, in order to exercise our judgment and fulfill our responsibilities as members of a democratic society. Our conception of free expression as an essential human right, in other words, is in large measure the product of a deeply embedded tradition of stories linking unconstrained choices with the cultivation of virtue. A society steeped in different kinds of stories about virtue might well evolve different ways of imagining the relationship among authority, judgment, and right behavior. Certain very general aspirations (that people should treat each other well, for example) might be shared between these societies, but striking contrasts would likely appear in their members’ intuitive notions about how they are best to be attained.

To take a second example, Americans often talk about rights as valued possessions. Familiar turns of phrase suggest that they are things that we deeply cherish and that we need to protect and defend lest they be taken away. We think of rights, in short, as a form of valuable personal property. The metaphor comes so easily to us that we’re apt to forget that it is a metaphor, and a metaphor, again, with a clear Enlightenment lineage. In his Second Treatise on Government (1690), John Locke, one of the first thinkers to formulate the modern idea of individual rights, famously posited a right to life and right to liberty by analogy with the right to accumulate and protect private property. Indeed, his conception of political rights was deeply grounded in his influential labor theory of property.

There are serious limits to the possibilities of intercultural dialog when we begin with the premise that one side is already in possession of all the right answers while the other side has none.

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As we saw with Milton, then, Locke helped to create what we might term a foundational mythology through which we have come to understand the idea of rights. To use the term “mythology” here is not to suggest that his ideas are false, but rather to point out that they are structured, as most enduring ideas are, along the contours of a deeply compelling story. Other societies, inhabiting different mythological landscapes, are likely not to share our reliance on Lockean property metaphors in conceiving the proper relationship between individuals and collectivities. From this perspective, our distinctive conception of rights as the cherished and jealously guarded possessions of individuals, while clearly productive in certain contexts, would seem to have no more universal validity than the use of fireworks on a summer evening to symbolize a nation’s political independence.

A final example of the enduring power of Enlightenment mythologies in shaping our conception of rights can be seen in the iconic status in American society of the lone hero, the solitary cowboy, the rebel, the outlaw, the self-made man, living off the grid, free of the encumbrances of social ties and—in Tea Party parlance—“government interference.” Although the cultural genealogy of such figures reaches back as far as Homer, the interpretation of their independence in terms of political freedom is a product of the Enlightenment, and more specifically of the age’s most imaginative myth-maker, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In his famed Essay on Inequality (1754), Rousseau fabricates a grand history of human civilization as a story not of increasing prosperity and cultural achievement, but rather of ever-increasing corruption, servitude, and degradation.

Within the Anglo-American tradition, much of the language we use to think about our most cherished social ideals derives from a series of stories and metaphors that coalesced into their modern versions during the period of the Enlightenment.

In his influential essay

Areopagitica (1644), John Milton

lobbied for the protection of

heterodox views.

In his famed Essay on Inequality

(1754), Rousseau fabricates a grand

history of human civilization as a

story not of increasing prosperity and

cultural achievement, but rather of

ever-increasing corruption, servitude,

and degradation.

In his Second Treatise on

Government (1690), John Locke,

famously posited a right to life and

right to liberty by analogy with the

right to accumulate and protect

private property.

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The golden age that civilized societies have forever left behind, by his account, was a state of nature in which individual humans roamed the primeval forests, satisfying their basic needs through their own skill and prowess, and enjoying a condition of perfect autonomy and freedom. Various forms of government and the crippling dependency they entailed progressively restricted this primal freedom until it lingered as little more than a distant memory. The marked tendency in our society

to value self-reliance over mutual obligation and the right to freedom and autonomy over the responsibilities of community derive, in no small measure, from this narrative tradition. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of the ideal of freedom in American popular discourse without recourse to stories of this kind. It is by no means difficult to imagine, however, that children growing up with a different pantheon of story-time heroes might well conceive of the relationship between individuals and their communities in rather different terms.

Other Traditions, Other Stories

Once we recognize the degree to which our specific ideas about human rights are the products of a distinctive set of myths and metaphors, we can begin to develop a more nuanced and constructive approach to thinking about rights in a place like China. While we are clearly justified in deploring abuses of state power wherever they occur, it is, perhaps, no longer sufficient to diagnose the problem as a “lack” that can best be remedied by cajoling or coercing others into accepting as universally valid our construals of proper social arrangements. From a principled as well as pragmatic point of view, it might prove more useful to acquaint ourselves with the resources—in myths and metaphors and familiar stories about the near and distant past—that other cultures make available for thinking through universal problems of politics and ethics.

From a principled as well as pragmatic point of view, it might prove more useful to acquaint ourselves with the resources—in myths and metaphors and familiar stories about the near and distant past—that other cultures make available for thinking through universal problems of politics and ethics.

Chinese culture offers a boundless supply of such conceptual tools, and anyone who has grown up within this tradition can draw upon tales and proverbs and turns of phrase that express and give structure to beliefs about self-cultivation, the nature of social ties, and the proper role and limits of government. Stories travel, of course, and the repertoire of resources available for thinking through such issues in China has increased dramatically thanks to expanding channels of translation over

the past hundred years. The success of future dialog about human rights depends, in large measure, on our willingness in the West to widen these channels into two-way streets. Rather than simply congratulating ourselves for our liberal outlook and lamenting China’s lack thereof, we need to acknowledge and engage with the bounty that China’s heritage affords. A dialog that draws upon these conceptual resources alongside those of the Enlightenment will enable us to address in more creative and productive ways persistent social ills in both Chinese society and our own.

David Porter is a CICS Human Rights Fellow and Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan, where he is also a Faculty Associate with the Center for Chinese Studies. He is the author of Ideographia: The Chinese Cipher in Early Modern Europe (Stanford, 2001) and The Chinese Taste in Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge, 2010). He is currently working on a comparative study of English and Chinese literary cultures during the period of the Ming-Qing transition.

CICS International Connections10

On Friday, February 11, the International Studies Student Advisory Board and David Scott held a day-long conference focused on climate change from a human-centered approach. Students and members

of the Ann Arbor community were invited to hear some of the University’s top professors speak about various aspects of climate change and how it will personally affect them in their lifetimes.

Opening the conference was Dr. Perry Samson, Associate Chair of the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences. As a part-time “storm chaser,” he discussed the science behind global warming, illustrating the causes of it and to what extent it is man-made. Using extensive graphs and data, Dr. Samson displayed the irrefutable science behind the climate change controversy, and showed that the world’s current weather phenomena are not normal weather fluctuations, but rather signs of global warming.

Following Dr. Samson’s presentation was Professor Brian Min, Assistant Professor of Political Science, who presented his findings on the political economy of energy through use of satellite images of the world at night. He found that nighttime lights in India have a very strong correlation with where the politicians in power live or are from. Over an extended period of time, Professor Min observed that when political leadership changed, the areas that were amply lit changed accordingly, illustrating the role politics plays in energy distribution.

Continuing on these ideas, Dr. Thomas Gladwin, Max McGraw Professor of Sustainable Enterprise in the School of Natural Resources and Environment and Ross School of Business, lectured on the imminent issues faced by society due to changing weather dynamics. He proposed that climate change affects not only environmental issues, such as water availability and ecosystem health, but also rates of urbanization, population size, and poverty. For example, as global temperatures increase, rising sea levels will threaten major cities, and farmers in developed regions will experience failing crop yields.

To wrap up the speaker section of the conference was Dr. Jiaguo Qi, Director of the Center for Global Change and Earth Observations and Professor of Geography at Michigan State University. Dr. Qi extensively discussed his findings about how

climate change affects American agriculture. He charted changes in where soybeans and corn were grown in the past to explain how climate change is affecting agricultural yield as well as growth areas of prominent crops. He concluded his lecture with a discussion of carbon sequestration as a means of agricultural reform.

A meet and greet followed during which representatives from student groups around the University such as ENACT, the Student Sustainability Initiative, Kilowatt, and the International Studies Honor Society, mingled with conference attendees to discuss practical ways to work against climate change, based on what they had learned at the conference.

Marissa Gawel is a junior at U-M majoring in International Studies with an emphasis on Global Health and the Environment and pursuing a minor in German. She is also the Secretary of the International Studies Student Advisory Board. She is interested in local food and sustainable agriculture and spent the past two summers volunteering in Germany, the Gambia, and Hungary.

Heat Wave: A CICS Student-run Conference on Climate Changeby Marissa Gawel

The Weather Project, Olafur Eliasson (Exhibit at the Tate Modern, London) Photo by John Slothower

Spring 2011 11

CICS International Internship

CICS International Connections12

Volunteering in the rural Peruvian hospitals and orphanages of Huancayo during the summer of 2009 provided an intimate glimpse into a medical system that contrasts starkly with contemporary hospital practices

in the U.S. The most striking differences in healthcare practices reflect myriad factors: sociocultural variations, transition from a folkloric approach, and limited funding allocated to public clinics. The limited resources that support patients without health insurance in Perú leave the patients, the public, and the doctors

in a perpetual state of deprivation as the clinics remain chronically understaffed and unable to support the overwhelming need. Frustrations escalate in local clinics such as Carrión in Huancayo as epidemics that pervade in the poor populations of the town (including multidrug resistant tuberculosis, known as MRD-TB, and AIDS) increase annually due to lack of funding. Doctors in the clinics must take up positions in private clinics in order to scratch out a living. They often work in marginal conditions that put them at risk of disease, which promotes a sense of apathy in a country that once prided itself on a superior tuberculosis campaign.

Cultural Differences

One of the most important aspects of healthcare is a trusting relationship between the healer and the patient—something I experienced firsthand shadowing doctors in rural Western Michigan.

Several sociocultural factors in Carrión create a very different doctor-patient interaction. The ideological clash that resulted from the takeover of Western medicine over previously used folkloric practices in Perú, and social nuances that distinguish Anglo Saxon and Latin cultures contribute to these differences.

Luxuries that were taken for granted in the U.S. such as privacy, confidentiality, and the doctor’s punctuality (and in some cases, mere presence) during daily rotations seemed to be variable in the daily routine of the clinics where I was stationed. The lack of privacy was one of the most glaring differences that I noticed in my initial visit to the clinic. Various wards—pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, surgery, internal medicine, ICU, and tuberculosis—are each allotted a single room with around 30 beds. Patients might reside in these rooms for weeks surrounded by other patients suffering from contagious illnesses (especially respiratory). Rounds consisted of a 12-person team—one doctor, three interns, three nurses, two medical students, and three volunteers—who listened as the doctor wanders from bed to bed and inquired about the interns’ notes on each patient’s history and progress, often without ever directly addressing the patient. Remarks regarding potentially embarrassing issues such as suicide, obesity, sexuality, and poor hygiene are not off limits for doctors to discuss in front of his team and the other patients.

To a large extent, such incongruities can be attributed to cultural differences between the United States and Perú. Latin American cultures, in general, tend to be far less sensitive to topics that North Americans deem controversial. In my experiences living and studying in Latin America, themes like depression, sexuality, obesity, and alcoholism, to name a few specific examples, are common components of conversation. Those same topics are typically avoided in many North American homes.

Medical Labor Conditions and Limited Resources

The community also suffers from frequent doctor and intern strikes—the popular method used by union groups to achieve labor goals in Perú. Doctors sometimes refuse to return to the hospital for days at a time, demanding an increase in wages and rights from a government that rarely responds to their claims.

Volunteering in a Rural PeruvianMedical Clinicby Nathan T. VanderVeen

Interns, the core team that keeps the clinic operating smoothly, seem to strike every few days. They beg for basic rights such as their own separate bathroom, breaks between demanding routines, and a bed to rest in during 72-hour shifts.

Limited technology and training often make it challenging to correctly diagnose and treat the ailments that are seen in the hospital. Blood and urine samples are sent to Lima to be analyzed and returned within five to seven days (barring miner or transportation strikes)—often not enough time to deduce a treatment for a patient in dire need of a diagnosis. Limited testing, however, can be done on site in Carrión with the help of an ecograph which provides an image of bones and soft tissue to diagnose illnesses such as pneumonia and fractures; and an ultrasound, which provides images of fetuses and internal organs. The ecograph and ultrasound, as well as the use of anesthesia, drug prescriptions, surgery, and sterile draping prove to be quite costly for patients who lack health insurance.

The general public in Huancayo, Perú also suffers because of a lack of health education and prevention. During the end of my stay I witnessed the closing of the public schools in the town for fear that an outbreak of H1N1 would overload the hospital with patients. The orphanages that we had been visiting for weeks quarantined their facilities, keeping volunteer groups from teaching English or conducting preventive health seminars for the children. The local government concluded that healthcare facilities would simply be unable to accommodate a large number of patients in the case of an outbreak. Many citizens of Huancayo are unaware of the meaning of microbe or bacteria—knowledge which empowers a person to prevent the spread of illness. A comprehensive educational campaign could be effective in lowering the risk of disease for the mountain-valley community.

Openness of the Peruvian Health System

The clinic was open to receiving aid, both in the form of supplies and volunteers willing to lead seminars on preventive medicine. Doctors were inviting to visiting student interns who were interested in following them around during rotations, and many were willing to answer questions and teach the American students as if they

were their own. Many Peruvian doctors share a willingness to integrate folkloric techniques with modern Western practices. For example, the consumption of charcoal in the form of burnt toast is commonplace due to the purifying properties of carbon. Limited resources in the clinic often prompt doctors to creatively combine modern and traditional approaches. Ideally, a collaboration between the two systems that incorporates the creative, spiritual, holistic, and de-stigmatized aspects of Peruvian healthcare with the empirical, privileged, interpersonal facets of practice in the United States would offer the most complete and effective approach to health and wellness.

My internship in Perú highlighted a direct correlation between governmental support and a country’s medical praxis. Having the opportunity to volunteer in clinics, orphanages, and centers for teenage mothers provided me with invaluable insight that will forever mark my own perspective on health and healing. The time that I spent in the hospital in Perú was one of the most valuable experiences of my life, enabling me to gain insight into the medical field, into another culture, and into numerous unforgettable personalities along the way.

I cannot thank CICS enough for helping me solidify my goal of becoming a doctor at a time when I was questioning my career choice because of a lack of experience in the field. The CICS internship convinced me to continue down this path, and gave me a unique perspective on healthcare funding, education, and the importance of a strong doctor-patient relationship.

Nathan VanderVeen is currently a senior at the University of Michigan, studying Spanish and Biological Chemistry. After his internship in Perú, he studied Anthropology through the U-M program in Sevilla, Spain. Following graduation, he plans to travel to Quetzaltenango, Ecuador to intern with Primeros Pasos, a primary care clinic providing reliable and affordable local healthcare centered on preventive health and education. He plans to attend medical school in hopes of practicing a holistic and culturally sensitive form of medicine in marginalized communities in the U.S.

The most striking differences in healthcare practices reflect myriad factors: sociocultural variations, transition from a folkloric approach, and limited funding allocated to public clinics.

Spring 2011 13

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