Rebecca Corn
Freelance Writer, Student of Global Society
Rebecca Corn
rebeccac
Portfolio
Please make contact using the web form, with full details of your commission. Below you will find samples of recent work.
Published work includes -
Corn, R. (2010) "Burma; A communications revolution" 13th February 2010
Corn, R. (2009) Editorial in Critical Perspectives Vol 2 Number 1
Corn, R. (2008) Fibre Optics in Broadcast Networks (CornTarrant: Aylesbury)
Corn, R. (2007) "As I Sit on the bus this morning: Perspectives on a Crisis" 16th December 2006 (Amnesty International: London)
Corn, R. (2006) “A Failure to Act” in Comment is Free, Guardian Unlimited 18th October 2006
Corn, R. (2006) “Shouting for the Students” in Education, Guardian Unlimited, 17th May 2006
Corn, R. (2005) "NGOs and the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda: Is a Politicized Response More Appropriate?" in Global Critics, Vol.1, No.1
All excerpts are copyright protected - Rebecca Corn 2011 (c)
WRITING SAMPLES
Political Philosophy
...Obligations to fellow citizens have come to be distinguished from those to fellow human beings based upon a heavy bias toward the 'statist paradigm', which developed from the Treaty of Westphalia, [1] and has been dominant in the discipline of International Relations (IR) ever since, a major influence in the development of the modern state, and still evident in much of global politics today. Whether this is how the distinction should be made has been contested in academic discourse ever since 1648 however, and most notably during the Enlightenment—a time marked by revolution and preceded by conquest—when the view was proffered that obligations as citizens should be determined by citizens themselves on the basis of reasoned morality, and with fundamental principle of equality in human relations, built on the tradition of Natural Rights. These existential, ontological questions of obligations to one’s state and fellow citizens, as opposed to obligations to humanity have been central to much of IR theory, and certainly critical theory ever since, and are still very much a matter for debate."
Whilst the development of the ‘modern state’ seemed to re-trench realist doctrines of state-centric politics, contemporary political thought displays many echoes of the ideas of the Enlightenment. [2] The last half of the last century, has seen the establishment of the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union and many other both economic and military international organisations; the development of the Universal Human Rights culture, and especially since the end of the Cold War, the 'NGO Revolution'[3]—the dominance of the ‘statist paradigm’ has received renewed challenge, both from the right wing of neo-conservatism,[4] and from the left wing of critical social and emancipative theory.[5]
...
[1] Established by the Treaty of Westphalia, envisioning a world of independent, politically sovereign, homogenous nation-states, each self-contained, power in each centralized, in the hands of one sovereign—ref. Zepp-LaRouche, H. (2001) The Peace of Westphalia (Washington: Schiller Institute)
[2] D’Entraves, A. (1951) Natural Law (London and New York); von Gierke, O. (1934) Natural Law and The Theory of Society (ed. And trs. Barker, E.) (Cambridge), referenced in Reiss, H. (2002) Kant: Political Writings (London: Cambridge University Press), pp.10
[3] For example, Falk, R. (1995) On Humane Governance: Towards a New Global Politics (Cambridge: Polity); Rodenau, J. and Durfee, M. (1995) Thinking Theory Thoroughly: Coherent Approaches to an Incoherent World (Oxford: Westview); Wilson, J. (2004) Wishful Thinking, Wilful Blindness and Artful Amnesia:The UN and the Promotion of Good Governance, Democracy and Human Rights in Africa
[4] Which in turn, of course, echoes many of the theories before them, for example the classical ideas of Aristotle in The Politics.
[5] Annan, K. “SECRETARY-GENERAL EXAMINES 'MEANING OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY' IN ADDRESS TO DPI/NGO CONFERENCE” (United Nations Press Release SG/SM/7133 PI/1176, 17/09/1999); note - NGO = non governmental organisation
....
Political Science
Excerpt from:
Humanitarianism and the Rwandan Genocide - An NGO Revolution?[1]
"In 1994 the world was stunned by the news of genocide in Rwanda. Despite repeated warnings from humanitarian organisations on the ground, the United Nations (UN) was paralysed as between 800 thousand and 1 million people were murdered and 3.9 million people became refugees and internally displaced peoples[2]. Designated as the ‘global conscience’[3], humanitarian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) responded where states would not dare to tread. Ten years on, the international community wrings its hands with guilt, vowing ‘Never Again’.
There are too many examples throughout the world today of peoples excluded from the global dialogue, in humanitarian crisis and unable to effect change, or forced to extreme measures in order to enter the world’s consciousness. Global politics is exploding as never before with a dissonance between evident dialogical structures, and possible dialogical reach. We remain governed by a war-time distribution of power of influence. Crucially, global response to ‘complex emergencies’[4], when necessarily tailored to such a framework, become increasingly inappropriate and dangerously inapplicable. Perhaps as a global community it is time to look to more appropriate structures of representation, that focus on giving voice to the affected, not simply those with the power to effect. And perhaps, a more politicised role for the ‘global conscience’, should be the first step.
[1] Annan, K. “SECRETARY-GENERAL EXAMINES 'MEANING OF INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY' IN ADDRESS TO DPI/NGO CONFERENCE” (United Nations Press Release SG/SM/7133 PI/1176, 17/09/1999)
[2] Wright, N ‘The Hidden Costs of Better Coordination’ in Whitman, J. and Pocock, D. After Rwanda: The Co-ordination of United Nations Humanitarian Assistance (Houndsmill: MacMillan Press ltd, 1996)
[3] Rieff, D. A Bed for the Night : Humanitarianism in Crisis (London: Simon & Schuster, 2003)
[4] Duffield, M. Global governance and the new wars: the merging of development and security (London: Zed Books, 2001)
...
Creative Writing
Imagine a Small Dark Space: Diaries of Imprisonment
"...The space is
dark and very small, not much bigger than the crouching figure cowering
inside.
Four walls just touch a brutally bare skin shivering next to their oppression, searching for meaning in unforgiving hardness.
Cold.
Damp.
Disembodied silence.
Bereft.
A mind reels inside its imprisoned place, clawing
at memory, at time and space and reason, desperately searching for
silent order where there is only fear; a white noise of hopeless chaos..."
Poetry
Feels Like Water...
Coarse sand, reeded bank.
Worthy substance not astounded by the ripples of reaction.
Their gaze enchanted, long grasses claw back the glass with a desperation..
Wishing only passive observance,
The same stone dislodged in clumsy footstep.
Reality loosehold - I must stoop and replace my effect.
Wait - See yet the method of meaning.
....
Political Creative
As I sit on the bus this morning; Perspectives on a crisis
As I sit on the bus this morning, enduring the long trundle trundle trundle in to work. Gazing through the drizzle washed steamed windows into the blinking haze of red and amber, London morning traffic, I wonder how she is.
Is she huddled close with her children, wrapped in the material that is now the only stained remnant of a life once safe, hiding their warmth from harsh Saharan winds? As my chest feels heavy with another city cold, is hers heavy with campfire smoke this morning after a night sleeping close to the embers – no home now, just this patch of scorched earth shared by others from theirs and similar villages, sheltering soulless from the horrors of beyond.
.....
Short Stories
Fairy Steps
... Robin sat, guiltily breathing having spoilt their game and now jealous to have been left out of the new one. Concentrating on breathing, she began the familiar protocol of focusing on a point far away in the room; the ornate chest of drawers on the far wall, hidden between bookcases and what looked to be an old kitchen hatch. Oh, how interesting it looked, with draws pulled out in steps toward the ceiling. Strange, the secret symmetry of this picture, hardly noticeable in an otherwise book-lined room. Why were the draws pulled out in this way? As she concentrated, something began to change...
Rebecca Corn
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