Lieba Faier, a Professor at UCLA specializing in geography and gender studies, explores the complexities of the UN’s fight against human trafficking. She critiques the ineffectiveness of these well-funded campaigns, particularly in Japan's approach to assisting Filipina migrants. Faier introduces the concept of the 'banality of good,' revealing how bureaucratic protocols often neglect the voices of the very individuals they aim to help. The discussion includes disparities in global narratives and highlights the need for grassroots solutions over top-down strategies in combating trafficking.
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Research Origins in Japan
Lieba Faier started researching human trafficking through her ethnographic work with Filipina migrants in Japan's hostess bars.
She observed contradictions between NGO hopes and feminist critiques about anti-trafficking efforts labeling sex workers only as victims.
insights INSIGHT
Transformation of Anti-Trafficking Movement
The global US-led anti-trafficking movement transformed critical grassroots Asian feminist efforts into a broader fight against global patriarchy.
This shift obscured regional anti-capitalist and anti-racist concerns in favor of a universal human rights framing.
insights INSIGHT
UN's Criminal Justice Focus
The UN approach to human trafficking is shaped by a criminal justice frame tied to transnational organized crime conventions.
Feminists welcomed attention to trafficking but criticized deprioritizing human rights in favor of criminalization.
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Principles for Navigating the Big Debt Cycle, Where We Are Headed, and What We Should Do
Ray Dalio
In this book, Ray Dalio provides a groundbreaking analysis of the Big Debt Cycle, addressing critical questions about debt growth, the potential for a major reserve currency country like the US to go broke, and how to identify and mitigate debt-related risks. Dalio draws on his experience as a global macro investor and his study of 35 historical cases of governments facing financial crises over the past 100 years. He offers a template for identifying and managing debt problems, which he has discussed with treasury secretaries and central bankers worldwide. The book explains the mechanics of debt sustainability, potential government debt reduction strategies, and the role of central bank interventions in managing debt crises.
In The Banality of Good: The UN’s Global Fight against Human Trafficking (Duke University Press, 2024), Dr. Lieba Faier examines why contemporary efforts to curb human trafficking have fallen so spectacularly short of their stated goals despite well-funded campaigns by the United Nations and its member-state governments. Focusing on Japan’s efforts to enact the UN’s counter-trafficking protocol and assist Filipina migrants working in Japan’s sex industry, Dr. Faier draws from interviews with NGO caseworkers and government officials to demonstrate how these efforts disregard the needs and perspectives of those they are designed to help. She finds that these campaigns tend to privilege bureaucracies and institutional compliance, resulting in the compromised quality of life, repatriation, and even criminalization of human trafficking survivors.
Dr. Faier expands on Hannah Arendt’s idea of the “banality of evil” by coining the titular “banality of good” to describe the reality of the UN’s fight against human trafficking. Detailing the protocols that have been put in place and evaluating their enactment, Dr. Faier reveals how the continued failure of humanitarian institutions to address structural inequities and colonial history ultimately reinforces the violent status quo they claim to be working to change.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.
New Books in Sociology 