Emotions, defences and denial in response to Human Rights abuses

Event synopsis: Atrocities and the suffering of distant strangers have become spectacles. The appeals of humanitarian and human rights campaigns create a new 'politics of pity' that transforms the way we think about our moral responsibility for distant suffering. In a parallel way, the spectacle of atrocity and the humanitarian appeal manifest a regime of visuality that displaces politics, time, global moral responsibility. How has the relationship between knowing about atrocity and engaging it morally, politically and in recognition of the fullness of its history become instead a relation mediated by spectacle? What does this tell us about the connection between representations of distant suffering and the limitations of humanitarian action? Would other kinds of representational strategies incite different kinds of action? And what is the responsibility of the spectator of distant suffering to act on what they see? These areas will be explored by a distinguished panel of scholars and practitioners whose work has directly confronted the historical incarnations of pity, the representations of distant suffering, and the relation between knowing and acting