Critical Analysis of Law Workshop: Ashwini Vasanthakumar

Critical Analysis of Law Workshop 

Presents:

 Ashwini Vasanthakumar
Queen's Law 

Exiles as Stakeholders

 Tuesday February 25, 2020 
12:30pm - 2pm
Falconer Hall, 84 Queen's Park,
Solarium, FA2

Abstract: Exiles' political involvement in their countries of origin is often dismissed as interference from without, and exile diasporas as armchair revolutionaries who pursue a morally hazardous politics from afar. In this chapter, I examine the question of whether exiles are entitled to a say in the homeland, in what matters, and to what extent. This is a version of the general boundary problem in democratic theory. I introduce the boundary problem and discuss prominent solutions provided in the literature. I develop one such solution--Rainer Baubock's 'stakeholder principle'--and apply it to the context of exile and diaspora politics more generally. 

Ashwini Vasanthakumar is Queen’s National Scholar in Legal and Political Philosophy at Queen’s Law School and a researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm. She holds an A.B from Harvard; an M.A from the University of Toronto; a J.D from Yale Law School; and a DPhil from Oxford, where she studied as a Canadian Rhodes Scholar. She comes to Queen’s from the School of Law, King’s College London. Her current research examines political authority and membership in the context of migration, focusing in particular on the relationship between migrants and the political communities they have left. Her monograph, The Ethics of Exile: a political theory of diaspora, is under contract with Oxford University Press. Related research explores the boundary problem in democratic theory, privatisation, and victims’ and bystanders’ duties in the context of oppression. She also has research interests in comparative constitutionalism, especially in the ‘global South,’ and in global governance and non-state actors.

For further information contact events.law@utoronto.ca