The banality of good: The UN’s Global Fight against Human Trafficking / LIEBA FAIER

This book takes this col­lec­tion of pro­to­cols as the object of its analy- sis, ethno­graph­i­cal­ly exam­in­ing their every­day enact­ment in Japan’s offi­cial counter–human traf­fick­ing cam­paign. It exam­ines what hap­pens when an in- tent to “do good” and address human suf­fer­ing meets the bureau­crat­ic forms and every­day pro­ce­dures of glob­al governance.

In The Banal­i­ty of Good, 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, 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. 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, 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.