Response to reviews of The Rohingya by Nasir Uddin
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20153649 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nasir Uddin (0000-0003-4970-0553, Faculty of Social Sciences University of Chittagong, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 178-185 |
| Publication date | 2023-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0129-7619 • E-ISSN: 1467-9493 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/sjtg.12457 |
| OpenAlex | W4316468054 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 8 |
Book reviews typically follow an academic ritual: giving a 'token praise' at the beginning, then a succinct statement on the contents of the book, after that criticizing some points claiming 'it has some weakness and limitations' and then making a concluding remark with a popular academic norm stating that 'despite having some shortcomings, it is a good contribution to the respective field'.The three reviewers (Farzana, 2023;Rajaram, 2023;Sarma, 2023) have followed the same rituals very nicely and almost 'to-the-point' though one seems harsh.However, I always take criticism very positively because constructive criticism helps develop my thinking and reshapes my current understanding.These three reviewers have done so and hence I am very grateful to them.In his review, Prem Kumar Rajaram started off with some hesitance (Rajaram, 2023: 170), as he claims that the word 'sub-human' could be construed to mean a sub-category of human beings.This is in fact a misleading interpretation because I have used the term 'subhuman', not 'sub-human'.'Sub-human' with a hyphen means a branch of 'human beings' but I did not mean that at all in my book.By 'subhuman', I have tried to make readers understand, that when a group of people lead a life lesser than human beings usually do, they could be called 'subhumans' because of the extreme form of vulnerability they experience in terms of deprivation of rights and entitlements, atrocious living conditions due to lack of social safety, and threats to their existence.In the introduction to my book, I have summarized the whole idea of 'subhuman' as a theoretical category by explaining that: However, Rajaram is kind enough to praise me in the immediate next sentence saying that, 'Nasir Uddin is brave to resurrect the term, demanding that we look squarely at the effects of legal, historical and cultural dehumanizing that the Rohingya in Burma and Bangladesh are subject to' (Rajaram, 2023: 170).Rajaram approached the idea of sub-humanity with references to Sassen (2010), Williams (1977) and Fanon (1961) and he has used 'savage sorting' as a unit of analysis.Rajaram aptly discusses the dichotomy between winners and losers (Sassen, 2010), citizens and non-citizens (Williams, 1977) and putatively civilized and uncivilized (Fanon, 1963) to understand sub-humanity in human society which has been historically inherited.He also highlights: 'three historical experiences and processes are: (1) the control of the social reproduction of others, (2) the delegitimation of other histories and (3) the control of local idioms that selectively translate the idioms of European modernity-democracy, development, citizenship-to local contexts' (Rajaram, 2023: 171) and I think these are relevant dimensions.Without opposing these three critical points, I would say the historical process of producing marginality and vulnerability is nothing new in the life of
Burmese · Citation · Citizenship · Library science · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Sociology · Sovereignty · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Computer Science · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Philosophy · Socioeconomic Development in Asia
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |