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WORK TITLE: Migrants and Citizens
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1977
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://luc.edu/theology/facultystaff/rajendratisha.shtml * https://luc.edu/media/lucedu/theology/facultystaff/cv/Rajendra%20CV.pdf
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1977.
EDUCATION:Bryn Mawr College, B.A., 1998; Harvard University, M.T.S., 2002; Boston College, Ph.D., 2009.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, assistant professor, 2010-17, associate professor of theology, 2017–. Caritas Labouré College, instructor, 2004-07; Boston College, teaching fellow, 2006-07; University of St. Thomas, assistant professor, 2007-10.
WRITINGS
Contributor to books, including Gabriel Fragnière, Gods, Humans, and Religions, P.I.E.-Peter Lang (Brussels, Belgium), 2006; Stefan Heuser, editor, Political Ethics and International Order, Lit-Verlag (Munster, Germany), 2007; Christine Timmerman et al., Faith-Based Radicalism: Christianity, Islam and Judaism between Constructive Activism and Destructive Fanaticism, P.I.E.-Peter Lang (Brussels, Belgium), 2007; Kevin Ahern et al., editors, Public Theology and the Global Common Good: The Contribution of David Hollenbach SJ, Orbis Books (Maryknoll, NY), 2016. Contributor to periodicals, including Concilium, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Horizons, Journal of Catholic Social Thought, and Political Theology.
SIDELIGHTS
Loyola University Chicago associate professor of theology Tisha M. Rajendra focuses on issues of ethics and religion. Her research, wrote a contributor to the Loyola University Chicago website, “uses Catholic social thought and liberation theology to address questions of migration, human rights and state sovereignty.” She is the author of the monograph Migrants and Citizens: Justice and Responsibility in the Ethics of Immigration.
Migrants and Citizens examines the ways in which we can come to understand the lives and situations of people moving around the globe, whether they leave their homelands for economic reasons or because of political turmoil and war. “As a work in Christian ethics,” wrote Daniel G. Groody, CSC, in his introduction to Migrants and Citizens, “this book is guided by the conviction that each human life is profoundly interconnected with others in a series of overlapping relationships. Rajendra reminds us that we do not live as isolated islands but are embedded with others in a series of overlapping relationships. Rajendra reminds us that we do not live as isolated islands but are embedded into a series of interconnected relationships with God, others, and the natural world. She highlights the need for humanizing activity that leads to right relationships with one’s self, the community … and finally the environment itself.”
The conflict between different interpretations of migrants increased during the election of 2016, which resulted in the accession of an anti-migrant administration in the United States, and significant demonstrations of power by anti-migrant groups in different parts of Europe. “In the United States, exclusionist and inclusionist positions map onto to two different narratives about migrants,” Rajendra explained in Migrants and Citizens. “The exclusionist narrative is that migrants are at best opportunists, and at worst criminals, who take advantage of the wealth and generosity of U.S. citizens. The inclusionist narrative can take two forms: the first is that migrants are vulnerable and poor outsiders fleeing desperate poverty; the second is that migrants have made significant contributions to U.S. society.” “But both of these narratives are false,” Rajendra concluded. “In this book I argue that justice for migrants depends on asking whether such narratives are true to reality.
Critics were impressed by Rajendra’s monograph. Charles R. Strain, reviewing Migrants and Citizens in Reading Religion, found “much to commend in Rajendra’s analysis. I found three topics particularly helpful: (1) the six explanatory frameworks and Rajendra’s evaluation; (2) the grounding of justice as fidelity to relationships in the Hebrew scriptures; and (3) the role of false narratives in reproducing unjust structures. How the meso-level of justice as responsibility to relationships actually intersects with critiques of unjust “structures of sin” remained opaque for me. If Rajendra goes a long way toward clarifying citizens’ responsibilities embedded in their relationships with migrants, the next step surely must be to ask: What must we, the citizens, do?” “Rajendra’s book is an original and significant contribution to the ethics of migration,” wrote Peter C. Phan in the Catholic Books Review. “Her insistence on responsibilities of citizens to defend and promote the rights of migrants within the complex histories of their relationships imparts concreteness and particularity to other theories of justice. The debit side of such prioritizing of historical contingencies is that it leaves the rights of migrants at the mercy of the vagaries of the discernment of the citizens, especially when such discernment is left to individual citizens.” “Rajendra,” stated a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “has a talent for making complex philosophical positions transparent and bringing rarefied debates to earth.” Migrants and Citizens, Phan concluded, “achieves well its goal and bears all the hallmarks of a mature scholar.”
BIOCRIT
BOOKS
Rajendra, Tisha M., Migrants and Citizens: Justice and Responsibility in the Ethics of Immigration, William B. Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, MI), 2017.
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, June 12, 2017, review of Migrants and Citizens, p. 60.
ONLINE
Catholic Books Review, http://catholicbooksreview.org/ (April 18, 2018), Peter C. Phan, review of Migrants and Citizens.
Loyola University Chicago Website, https://luc.edu/ (April 18, 2018), author profile; author curriculum vitae.
Reading Religion, http://readingreligion.org/ (December 5, 2017), Charles R. Strain, review of Migrants and Citizens.
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Tisha M. RajendraAssociate ProfessorDepartment of TheologyLoyola University Chicago1032 W. Sheridan Road Crown Center 300Chicago, IL 60611trajendra@luc.eduEDUCATIONBoston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, 2009 Doctor of Philosophy in Theological Ethics Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 2002Master of Theological Studies Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA, 1998Bachelor of Arts in LinguisticsMinor: MusicBOOK Migrants and Citizens: Justice as Responsibility in the Ethics of Immigration, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Press, 2017. PUBLICATIONS“Ambivalent Solidarity” with Laura Johnston in Ahern et al., eds., Public Theology and the Global Common Good: Essays in honor of David Hollenbach. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2016, 120-130.“The Rational Agent or the Relational Agent: Moving from Freedom to Justice in Migration Systems Ethics.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. 18 (2015): 355-369. “Justice Not Benevolence: Catholic Social Thought, Migration Theory, and the Rights of Migrants.” Political Theology. 15(2014): 290-306. “Migration in Catholic Social Teaching” in Haker et al, eds., Concilium 2011/3: Human Trafficking: 35-44. “Citizenship, Responsibility and Catholic Social Teaching: Forming Consciences for World Citizenship.” Journal of Catholic Social Thought 6 (2009): 397-415.
“Sovereignty as Responsibility: A Model for Confronting the Problems of Irregular Migration,” in Heuser, Stefan, ed. Political Ethics and International Order. Munster: Lit-Verlag, 2007.“’The Tyranny of Caprice’: Absolutism and Relativism in the Thought of Joseph Ratzinger,” in Timmerman, Christine et al. Faith-Based Radicalism: Christianity, Islam and Judaism between Constructive Activism and Destructive Fanaticism. In: Gabriel Fragnière, Gods, Humans, and Religions, P.I.E.-Peter Lang: Brussels, 2006.BOOK REVIEW"Structures of Grace: Catholic Organizations Serving the Global Common Good. By Kevin Ahern . Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2015. 224 Pages. $35.00 (paper)."Horizons44, no. 1 (2017): 238-39. PAPERS“Burdened Solidarity: The Virtue of Solidarity in Diaspora,” Society for Christian Ethics Annual Meeting, Portland, OR, January 4-7, 2018. “A Story of a Border” invited panelist, Catholic Theological Society of America Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM, June 8-11, 2017. “Immigration and Unjust Wages: How Wage Injustice Interrupts Solidarity,” invited presentation, Workshop on Just Wages, Higgins Labor Program, South Bend, IN, March 31, 2017. “Agency and Coercion in the Ethics of Migration,” Plenary paper. Conference on Poverty, Coercion and Human Rights, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, April 13-15, 2012. “Haiti and the United States: Solidarity in the Context of Past Evil,” First Annual Richard J. McCormick, S.J. International Ethics Colloquium, Loyola University Chicago, November 11-12, 2011. “Who has Burdened this Society?: A Critique of John Rawls’ Duty of Assistance,” Society for Christian Ethics Annual Meeting, New Orleans, January 6-10, 2011. “Who is Our Brother’s Keeper?: Responsibility and Solidarity in the Context of Globalization,” Second Conference of Catholic Ethics in the World Church, Trent, Italy, July 24-27, 2010.
“Migration and the Ethics of Responsibility: Negotiating the Local and the Global Common Good,” Convention of the Catholic Theological Society of America, Halifax, 2009. “Global Citizenship and Catholic Social Thought.” Symposium on Catholic Social Teaching and the Law. Citizenship and Catholic Social Teaching, Villanova University School of Law, Villanova, PA, October 11, 2008.“’For You were Strangers’: A Biblical Perspective on Undocumented Workers in the United States.” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Scriptural Reasoning Group, Washington, D.C., November 2006. “Sovereignty as Responsibility: A Model for Confronting the Problems of Irregular Migration.” International Joint Conference of the Society for the Study of Christian Ethics (UK) and Societas Ethica, Political Ethics and International Order, Wadham College, Oxford, UK, August 2006. “Border Control and Alien Admission: State Sovereignty from the Perspective of Catholic Social Teaching.” College Theological Society Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, June 2006.“’The Tyranny of Caprice’: Absolutism and Relativism in the Thought of Joseph Ratzinger,” Universitair Centrum Sint Ignatium Antwerpen Summer Seminar, “Faith-Based Radicalism: Christianity, Judaism, Islam,” Antwerp, Belgium, September 2005.“Distinct from What?: The Distinctiveness of Christian Ethics and Inter-religious Dialogue,” Engaging Particularities II: Comparative Theology Conference, Boston College, March 2004.INVITED PRESENTATIONS “Christian Ethics and the Food System,” Guest Lecture for Solutions to Environmental Problems Course, Loyola University, October 27, 2010 and April 12, 2011.Panelist, “Immigration and Food Justice: A Multi-Faith Dialogue.” Faith Mennonite Chuch, Minneapolis, MN. March 29, 2009.TEACHING EXPERIENCEAssistant Professor, Loyola University Chicago, 2010-2017 Courses Taught:Theo 185: Introduction to Christian EthicsTheo 185: Intro to Christian Ethics, Writing IntensiveTheo 192: Moral Problems: Food Systems
Theo 340: God, Evil and Suffering Theo 340/480: Justice and SolidarityTheo 300/400: Catholic Social ThoughtTheo 340: The Ethics of MigrationTheo 570: Graduate Seminar in Social EthicsISET Doctoral Seminar: Tragedy and AmbiguityHONORS: Moral Responsibility: Theological and Philosophical Perspectives on Justice Assistant Professor, University of St. Thomas, 2007-2010 Courses Taught:THEO 325 Catholic Social TraditionsTHEO 215 Christian Morality, THEO 101 The Christian Theological Tradition,IDSC 480 Honors Seminar: Justice and Scarcity, team taught with Matthew Kim, Department of Economicswith Matthew Kim, Department of EconomicsTeaching Fellow, Boston College, 2006-2007Course Taught: Religious Quest: Islam and ChristianityInstructor, Caritas Labouré College, 2004-2007Course Taught: PH 101 Introduction to Ethics and BioethicsTeaching Assistant, Boston College, 2004-2006Biblical Heritage II: The New Testament under Professor John Darr, Spring 2006Religious Quest: Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism under Professor John McDargh, 2004-2005 GRADUATE ADVISINGMaster Program Advisor , 2017-presentDissertation Committee Service: Rachel Hart Winter (defended 2014), Christopher Porter (defended 2014)UNIVERSITY SERVICELoyola University Chicago:
MA Advisor, Graduate Program Committee, Department of Theology, 2016-2018. Elected Member, Department Advisory Committee, Department of Theology, 2011-2013, 2015-2018. Committee Member, College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Leadership Team for the 2015-2020 University Strategic Plan, Fall 2014. Faculty Member, EVOKE Center Pilgrimage to Rome, Summer 2011 Member, Committee for Intellectual Life, Department of Theology, 2010-presentUniversity of St. Thomas:Co-Moderator, New Faculty Seminar on the University of St. Thomas Mission Statement, 2007-2010 Member, Justice and Peace Council, University of St. Thomas (2008-2010)Member, Assessment Sub-Committee, Justice and Peace Council, (2009-2010)Member, Curriculum Committee, Department of Theology, (2009-2010)Member, Assessment Committee, Department of Theology (2009-2010)PROFESSIONAL SERVICEReferee, Society of Christian Ethics, 2010-2014, 2016-2017. Member, Women’s Council, Catholic Theological Society of America (June 2009-2010)COMMUNITY SERVICEVolunteer Minister, Catholic Chaplaincy, Suffolk County House of Corrections, 2005-2007. Co-Chair, Catholic Students Association, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA 2001-2002 Member, Selection Committee for Divinity School Commencement Speaker, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA 2002
Volunteer English as a Second Language Teacher, Nationalities Services Center, Philadelphia, PA 1998-2000 GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS AND SCHOLARSHIPSSummer Research Stipend, Loyola University Chicago, 2012, 2016Flatley Fellowship in Theological Ethics, Boston College, 2002-2006Ernest Fortin Memorial Foundation Grant for Summer Research, Boston College, 2006Summer Language Study Grant, Boston College, 2004 LANGUAGESFrench (Proficient in Reading and Speaking)German (Adequate Reading)
Tisha Rajendra, PhD
Title/s: Associate Professor
Office #: Crown Center 437
Phone: 773.508.2412
E-mail: trajendra@luc.edu
CV LINK: Rajendra CV.pdf
About
Tisha Rajendra, PhD is an Associate Professor at Loyola University Chicago. She holds a BA from Bryn Mawr College in Linguistics and a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard University. She earned her PhD from Boston College in Theological Ethics. She specializes in Christian ethics and Roman Catholic social thought.
Program Areas
Rajendra’s current work uses Catholic social thought and liberation theology to address questions of migration, human rights and state sovereignty under conditions of globalization.
Research Interests
Catholic social thought, Christian ethics, the ethics of food and food systems, globalization, theories of justice, international relations and political philosophy
Selected Publications
"Migrants and Citizens: Justice as Responsibility in the Ethics of Immigration". Wm. B. Eerdmans Press, 2017.
“Citizenship, Responsibility and Catholic Social Teaching: Forming Consciences for World Citizenship.” Journal of Catholic Social Thought 6 (2009): 397–415.
Migrants and Citizens: Justice and Responsibility in the Ethics of Immigration
Publishers Weekly. 264.24 (June 12, 2017): p60.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Migrants and Citizens: Justice and Responsibility in the Ethics of Immigration
Tisha M. Rajendra. Eerdmans, $25 (176p) ISBN 978-0-8028-6882-4
What if the central question surrounding migrants' rights were not what rights displaced persons have but rather who is responsible for protecting them? The latter is the question Rajendra pursues in this timely work. Arguing against the notion that migrants are isolated, rational actors, she shows how both family and global histories shape the flow of populations. Turning to the Bible, she reads the Hebraic rules regarding resident aliens not as simple guidelines but as emblematic of the type of relationship Christianity calls us to have with strangers. Using this scriptural support, she argues for a relational justice that emphasizes the need for everyday citizens to do their part to minimize harms. Her insistence that we need better, truer narratives about migrants before we can begin to enact this new form of justice is especially persuasive. Although she writes from an academic perspective, Rajendra has a talent for making complex philosophical positions transparent and bringing rarefied debates to earth. Scholars of ethics, theorists of migration, and others grappling with the question of their duties towards migrants will come away with a fresh sense of their obligations. (Aug.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Migrants and Citizens: Justice and Responsibility in the Ethics of Immigration." Publishers Weekly, 12 June 2017, p. 60. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495720727/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=11f055c1. Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A495720727
Migrants and Citizens
Justice and Responsibility in the Ethics of Immigration
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Tisha M. Rajendra
Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. , August 2017. 176 pages.
$25.00. Paperback. ISBN 9780802868824. For other formats: Link to Publisher's Website.
Review
The opening sentence to Tisha M. Rajendra’s Migrants and Citizens itself demonstrates the global dynamics of migration. It refers to the 215 million people living outside their home country. But in the time it took for the book to go to press, that number rose to 244 million. Given that migrants include political refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced people, and economic migrants, Rajendra wisely restricts her analysis to this last group, economic migrants. And in contrast to some examples of a Christian ethics of migration, Rajendra intends to present an ethic primarily focused on justice rather than benevolence or compassion.
Chapter 1 focuses on the inadequacy of human rights theories to protect migrants. “Although a Christian ethics of migration can endlessly repeat that migrants have universal human rights,” Rajendra argues, “the nation-state system is inadequately structured to protect those rights. Human rights are too closely tied to citizen rights” (18). The key question that animates Rajendra’s analysis is who is responsible for guaranteeing migrants’ rights.
The most useful chapter in Migrants and Citizens is, in my judgment, chapter 2. Ethicists need more than data upon which to build their judgments. Explanatory frameworks are essential in making sense of the welter of data. Chapter 2 provides six such frameworks and evaluates each one. Two frameworks focus on migrants as agents. Neoclassical economics provides the familiar view of the migrant as an autonomous individual pursuing self-interest based on a cost-benefit analysis. A modification of this framework suggests that migrants are deeply embedded in their extended families and act to enhance the well-being of their families. In over fourteen years taking students to the Mexican-Arizona borderlands and talking with dozens of migrants, I have met none who fit the neoclassical economic frame. Rather to a person they have indicated that the well-being of their family is their principal reason for making this dangerous journey.
Rajendra next offers three “structure-dominant” theories. Segmented-labor market theories point out that advanced postindustrial societies have a two-tiered labor market with citizens striving to land a position in top-tier, well paid jobs, creating a vacuum that attracts low-skilled immigrant workers to work in agriculture, construction, and other grueling occupations. Historical-structural theories emphasize the continuing impact of colonizing empires, which have established a pattern of draining resources from colonies to meet their own needs. World-systems theories look at the role of multinational corporations in disrupting local economies, leading people to migrate to cities at home or abroad.
The problem with structural theories is that they virtually ignore the role of the migrant as agent. But “migration-systems” theories, Rajendra insists, recognize the importance of both micro and macro analyses while also attending to a meso-level. The history of migration creates grassroots networks linking sending and receiving countries. These significantly ease the challenges of migration, making it more likely that particular groups of migrants will move to particular countries.
Chapter 3 recognizes different kinds of migration systems in operation and specifically studies guest workers in Germany, formerly colonized people in Great Britain, and undocumented immigrants to the United States driven by the forces of global capitalism. Chapter 4 looks at John Rawls’s social contract theory of justice, Onora O”Neill’s deontological theory, and Martha Nussbaum’s capability theory. Rajendra points out the limitations of each of these theories, which offer only abstract universal norms to the the question of what we as citizens owe to migrants. For example, in Rawls’s case, the principles of justice, strictly speaking, pertain to those who are party to the contract. At best nation states have an obligation to “assist” “burdened” societies, apparently leaving both individual citizens and multinational corporations without specific obligations (81-82).
Chapters 5 and 6 develop a relational theory of justice that addresses the messy web of relations in particular migration systems (93). Chapter 5 argues that the Hebrew scriptures offer such a theory, concluding that “living as God’s chosen people requires what could be called a preferential option for the non-Israelite” (107). Chapter 6, focusing on “justice as responsibility to relationships,” argues that this model complements rather than supplants structural theories of justice. Its contributions to an overall justice framework derive from its attention to actual, historically evolved patterns and processes that constitute migration systems. Ultimately, Rajendra insists, unresolved issues regarding guest workers, colonial migrants, and undocumented immigrants derive from a failure of citizens to acknowledge their relationships with migrants (in and through, for example, the food that we eat) and citizens’ adoption of false narratives. For example, debates over “amnesty” are based on the neoclassical economic model which sees the migrant alone carrying moral responsibility for her actions. They cast the liberal citizen as an innocent bystander and ignore the “structures of sin” in which citizens are deeply complicit. The first responsibility of citizens is to put forward more accurate and complex narratives that map our responsibilities based on actual relationships. Rajendra concludes by stating that her argument differs not so much in its implications for policy but in its grounding of citizens’ responsibilities in complex relationships rather than in the “abstract cosmopolitanism” of structural theories of justice (138). However, in appraising any theory of justice we will want to examine the difference that it makes at the level of institutional change.
There is much to commend in Rajendra’s analysis. I found three topics particularly helpful: (1) the six explanatory frameworks and Rajendra’s evaluation; (2) the grounding of justice as fidelity to relationships in the Hebrew scriptures; and (3) the role of false narratives in reproducing unjust structures. How the meso-level of justice as responsibility to relationships actually intersects with critiques of unjust “structures of sin” remained opaque for me. If Rajendra goes a long way toward clarifying citizens’ responsibilities embedded in their relationships with migrants, the next step surely must be to ask: What must we, the citizens, do?
About the Reviewer(s):
Charles R. Strain is professor of religious studies at DePaul Univeristy in Chicago, Illinois.
Date of Review:
December 5, 2017
About the Author(s)/Editor(s)/Translator(s):
Tisha M. Rajendra is assistant professor of theological ethics at Loyola University Chicago.
Tisha RAJENDRA. Migrants and Citizens: Justice and Responsibility in the Ethics of Immigration. Grand Rapids. MI: Eerdmans, 2017. Paper. 168 pp. Reviewed by Peter C. PHAN, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057.
This first book of a professor of Christian ethics at Loyola University Chicago, the seeds of which were sown in her doctoral dissertation at Boston College under the direction of David Hollenbach, attempts to answer, on the basis of insights from Christian ethics, two basic questions in the political philosophy of immigration: “What responsibilities do citizens have toward migrants and potential migrants? What is the basis of such responsibilities?” (6).
Rajendra’s answer to this double question, which she develops in great detail in Chapters 5 and 6, can be succinctly summarized as follows: Given the fact that justice, especially in the legal texts of the Old Testament, consists in fidelity to the demands of one’s relationship with God and with the people with whom one lives, whether fellow citizens or migrants (gerim), the responsibilities of citizens to migrants can only be determined within such specific relationship.
At first blush Rajendra’s thesis may sound straightforward and uncontroversial; after all, are not our specific responsibilities to others rooted in the particular kinds of relationship we have to them? Anyone schooled in the Confucian five-relationship ethics will have no difficulty in acknowledging this truth. However, when this basic ethical norm is applied to migration and migrants, Rajendra claims that her double question has not been given satisfactory answers. Part of the inadequacy of contemporary theories of migration and migration ethics, Rajendra argues, lies in the fact that inadequate approaches have been adopted and wrong questions have been asked, and therein lies her first major contribution to the discussion of the ethics of migration. Most if not all migration ethical theories ask what the rights of migrants are, how they can be philosophically justified, and who are duty-bound to protect them. In contrast, Rajendra maintains, the correct question should be: What are the responsibilities of the citizens to the migrants and what is the basis of such responsibilities? To build up her case Rajendra passes in review current theories of migration and migration ethics.
For those unfamiliar with these Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4 are a welcome boon as they offer a comprehensive and lucid exposition as well as a balanced critique of them. Rajendra discusses the human rights approach and the preferential option for the poor, the two main pillars of Christian ethics of migration, and finds them wanting (Chapter 1). The next chapter evaluates two major theories of migration, namely, agency-dominant and structure-dominant theories, and argues that both of them, each taken by itself, do not provide a full account of why and to which country people choose to migrate. One of the corollaries of Rajendra’s thesis is that ethical theories of migration must be grounded in real-life and accurate narratives of migration and migrants. Chapter 3 challenges the distortive narratives of three migratory movements, namely, guest-worker programs (Germany), colonial migrations (Britain), and foreign investment (Mexico). Chapter 4 expounds three main theories of justice: John Rawl’s contractarian approach, Onora O’Neill’s deontological ethics, and Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach, and notes that all of them, while illuminating one or another aspect of justice toward migrants, such as the necessity of universal moral norms and the important role of just economic, social and political institutions, fail to see migration as a relational reality in which citizens have specific responsibilities to migrants by virtue of their past and current manifold, complex, and messy entanglements in economic, social and political arenas and in which justice is fulfilled by being responsible to these relationships.
In the last two chapters Rajendra elaborates her own understanding of such an ethics of migration, first by examining the legal texts of the Old Testament regarding the responsibilities of Jewish citizens to the gerim (Chapter 5) and secondly by expounding her migration “ethics of responsibility” in which justice is “responsibility to relationships (Chapter 6). Such an ethics of migration, Rajendra hastens to note, does not reject any of the approaches to migration and theories of justice discussed above (especially in Chapters 1 and 4) but seeks to bring together their valid insights to answer the practical questions of which responsibilities toward the migrants, who must fulfill them, and how to do so. Because allocation of responsibilities based on relationships, especially ones that have been formed and transformed in highly complex and ever-changing situations, is an extremely risky and uncertain business, Rajendra recommends realism (117-120) and close attention to narratives (120-123). There are no hard-and-fast rules to determine the kinds of responsibilities that a particular citizen (or groups of citizens) has toward a particular migrant (or groups of migrants) in a particular place and at a specific time. In spite of this conundrum, Rajendra makes a helpful attempt at mapping the responsibilities of the citizens to the migrants, in particular undocumented workers, colonial migrants and their descendants, guest workers and their descendants, and migrants due to foreign investments.
Rajendra’s book is an original and significant contribution to the ethics of migration. Her insistence on responsibilities of citizens to defend and promote the rights of migrants within the complex histories of their relationships imparts concreteness and particularity to other theories of justice. The debit side of such prioritizing of historical contingencies is that it leaves the rights of migrants at the mercy of the vagaries of the discernment of the citizens, especially when such discernment is left to individual citizens. Furthermore, since responsibilities are normally reciprocal, it would have been helpful in the ethics of migration to consider the responsibilities of migrants to citizens. Finally, while the focus of Rajendra’s book is Christian ethics, it is incumbent upon systematic theologians to explore how the basic Christian beliefs can be reformulated from the perspective of migration. These animadversions are no criticism of Rajendra’a work itself, which achieves well its goal and bears all the hallmarks of a mature scholar.