Beyond Complicity

Why We Blame Each Other Instead of Systems

Francine Banner

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2024
• ISBN:
  9780520394247
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

An ambitious study of our obsession with complicity that shows how we can all become "good accomplices." Beyond Complicity is a fascinating cultural diagnosis that identifies our obsession with complicity as a symptom of a deeply divided society. The questions surrounding what it means to be legally complicit are the same ones we may ask ourselves as we evaluate our own and others'responsibility for inherited and ongoing harms, such as racism, sexism, and climate change: What does it mean that someone "knew" they were contributing to wrongdoing? How much involvement must a person have in orderto becomplicit? At what point are we obligated to intervene? Francine Banner ties together pop culture, politics, law, and social movements to provide a framework forthinking about what we know intuitively: that our society is defined by crisis, risk, and the quest to root out hazards at all costs. Engaging withlegal cases, historical examples, and contemporary case studies, Beyond Complicity unfolds the complex role that complicity plays in USlaw and society today, offering suggestions for how to shift focus away from blame and toward positive, lasting systemic change.

Table of contents

• Title
• Copyright
• Subvention
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Blood on Our Hands: Accomplices to Racism
• 2. Enabling, Laundering, Greenwashing: Complicity in Addiction, Sexual Misconduct, and Climate Change
• 3. Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire: Criminal Accomplices
• 4. Accessories: White Women and Complicity
• 5. Assumptions of Risk
• 6. Beyond Complicity
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index