Title: Rightlessness : testimony and redress in U.S. prison camps since World War II /
Authors: Paik, A. Naomi
Year: 2016
Subjects: Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp; Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp; War and emergency legislation United States.; Detention of persons United States; War on Terrorism, 2001-2009; Terrorism Prevention Law and legislation United States; Detention of unlawful combatants United States.; Refugees Legal status, laws, etc. United States; Haitians Legal status, laws, etc. United States.; Detention of persons; Detention of unlawful combatants; Haitians Legal status, laws, etc.; Refugees Legal status, laws, etc.; Terrorism Prevention Law and legislation; War and emergency legislation; United States
Abstract: "In this bold book, A. Naomi Paik grapples with the history of U.S. prison camps that have confined people outside the boundaries of legal and civil rights. Removed from the social and political communities that would guarantee fundamental legal protections, these detainees are effectively rightless, stripped of the right even to have rights. Rightless people thus expose an essential paradox: while the United States purports to champion inalienable rights at home and internationally, it has built its global power in part by creating a regime of imprisonment that places certain populations perceived as threats beyond rights. The United States' status as the guardian of rights coincides with, indeed depends on, its creation of rightlessness. Yet rightless people are not silent. Drawing from an expansive testimonial archive of legal proceedings, truth commission records, poetry, and experimental video, Paik shows how rightless people use their imprisonment to protest U.S. state violence. She examines demands for redress for Japanese Americans interned during World War II, testimonies of HIV-positive Haitian refugees detained at Guantánamo in the early 1990s, and appeals by Guantánamo's enemy combatants from the War on Terror. In doing so, she reveals a powerful ongoing contest over the nature and meaning of the law, over civil liberties and global human rights, and over the power of the state in people's lives"--Unedited summary from book cover.
Contents: Internment remains : the 1988 Civil Liberties Act and racism re-formed -- Residues of rightlessness : ghosts and the afterlife of internment -- Just to stay alive : Haitian refugees and Guantánamo's carceral quarantine -- Not a place to live : resisting rightlessness through word and body -- Creating the enemy combatant: performances of justice and realities of rightlessness -- Living in a dying situation: preserving life at Guantánamo -- Conclusion.