1st Edition
Religious Ethics and Migration Doing Justice to Undocumented Workers
What does it mean to provide justice for undocumented workers who have been living among us without proper legal documentation? How can we do justice to the undocumented migrants who have been doing the low-skilled, low-paid jobs unwanted by citizens? Why should we even try to do justice for people who violate the laws of the society?
Religious Ethics and Migration: Doing Justice to Undocumented Workers addresses these questions from a distinctive religious ethical perspective: the Christian theology of forgiveness and radical hospitality. In answering these questions, the author employs in-depth interdisciplinary dialogues with other relevant disciplines such as immigration history, global economics, political science, legal philosophy, and social theory. He argues that the political appropriation of a Christian theology of forgiveness and the radical hospitality modeled after it are the most practical and justifiable solutions to the current immigration crisis in North America. Critical and interdisciplinary in its approach, this book offers a unique, comprehensive, and balanced perspective regarding the urgent immigration crisis.
Introduction Part I: Theory 1. Economy of Invisible Debt and Ethics of Radical Hospitality: Toward a Paradigm Change of Hospitality from "Gift" to "Forgiveness" 2. Forgiveness as the Political Responsibility: Iris Marion Young’s Social Connection Model and the Case of Undocumented Migration 3. Documenting Justice for Undocumented Migrants: Having a Critical Discourse with Contemporary Theories of Justice from Rawls to Nussbaum Part II: Issues 4. The Democratic Inclusion of the Other and the Case of Arizona Immigration Law: Habermas, Derrida, and a Christian Ethical Response 5. Reconstructing the Religious Right to Express Compassion: The Employer Sanctions Law and a Theological Critique 6. Specters of Racism in the U.S. History of Immigration: Foucault on Denaturalizing the Biopolitics of State Racism 7. Theology and Universal Solidarity: Allen, Hauerwas, and Cavanaugh on the Theological Connection Model of Responsibility
Biography
Ilsup Ahn is Carl I. Lindberg Associate Professor of Philosophy at North Park University, US
"Ahn’s book is an important contribution to the Christian debate on immigration. For those looking for a rigorous theoretical framework from which to enter the U.S. immigration debate, Ahn’s book will be intellectually rewarding. While the density of moral and political theorizing can often muddle calls to social justice, Ahn’s book proves that theory, at its best, can animate life toward solidarity, hospitality, and compassion." –Ki Joo Choi, Seton Hall University, USA
