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Care Over Cruelty
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06 July 2026

Care over Cruelty seeks to understand how spaces for participation among newcomers and the US-born population can be expanded. Integrating pacifism, anarchism, and liberation ethics, it contributes to the literature on refugees by arguing that engaging in practices of liberatory care as anti-war and peacemaking political praxis to improve the lives and conditions for newcomers is one way to do so. Moreover, (re)politicizing displacement and practices of resettlement as a form of resistance can point toward alternatives for more peaceful futures.
This book foregrounds opposition to the cruelty of the American state. The research argues that Americans have responsibilities to address the harm done by their government and military. The author argues that refugee resettlement is one way to begin the process of redressing harm, and that we have responsibilities, both general and specific, to others that transcend the boundaries of particular communities into which we were born and/or that we "imagine" we belong to. Moreover, enacting caring practices for and with newcomers can be an articulation of liberatory care as anti-war and peacemaking political praxis.
Dr. Jared (Jake) Keyel is an assistant professor of sociology at Rowan University in New Jersey, USA. His research focuses on war, displacement, and refugee resettlement. He is interested in identifying the responsibilities Americans have for the violence committed by their government and ways to end and ameliorate the harms of that violence. Dr. Keyel’s first book, Resettled Iraqi Refugees in the United States: War, Refuge, Belonging, Participation, and Protest (Berghahn Books, 2023), explores the displacement caused by the American war in Iraq, and opportunities for resettled Iraqi refugees to engage in social and political struggles in the United States. Dr. Keyel is a scholar-practitioner with more than 15 years of experience in nonprofits and community-based organizations. His work has focused on facilitating education, employment, and civic engagement programming for new immigrants, particularly individuals from the Middle East and North Africa. Most recently, from 2016-2022, Dr. Keyel served as a tutor, treasurer, and board member for the Blacksburg Refugee Partnership, a community resettlement initiative in Southwest Virginia, USA.
Dr. Jared (Jake) Keyel is an assistant professor of sociology at Rowan University in New Jersey, USA. His research focuses on war, displacement, and refugee resettlement. He is interested in identifying the responsibilities Americans have for the violence committed by their government and ways to end and ameliorate the harms of that violence. Dr. Keyel’s first book, Resettled Iraqi Refugees in the United States: War, Refuge, Belonging, Participation, and Protest (Berghahn Books, 2023), explores the displacement caused by the American war in Iraq, and opportunities for resettled Iraqi refugees to engage in social and political struggles in the United States. Dr. Keyel is a scholar-practitioner with more than 15 years of experience in nonprofits and community-based organizations. His work has focused on facilitating education, employment, and civic engagement programming for new immigrants, particularly individuals from the Middle East and North Africa. Most recently, from 2016-2022, Dr. Keyel served as a tutor, treasurer, and board member for the Blacksburg Refugee Partnership, a community resettlement initiative in Southwest Virginia, USA.