2022—2023

Christine Hobden

Ethics and Public Governance, University of the Witwatersrand

Christine Hobden is a political theorist within the analytic tradition. Since May 2021, she has held a senior lectureship in ethics and public governance at the Wits School of Governance. Before joining Wits, she held a lectureship and senior lectureship in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Fort Hare. Her doctoral studies were undertaken at Nuffield College, University of Oxford and her postdoctoral research with the Max Weber Programme at the European University Institute.

Christine Hobden’s research explores the intersections of citizenship and global injustice. Her monograph Citizenship in a Globalised World (Routledge, 2021) conceptualises a state-based but globally-oriented democratic citizenship. Core themes of her research include citizens’ collective and individual responsibilities, duties between states, and methods of political theory.

During her HIAS fellowship, Christine Hobden will be working on a project titled “What we owe to each other when others owe us so much: global injustice and inter-state duties in the Global South.”

This research project will theorise international relations between actors in the Global South, interrogating what states owe to each other in their interactions and collaborations with each other.  While it is essential to explore what is owed to the Global South by those who have gained their advantage through colonialism, empire, and modern-day exploitation, this project argues for the additional importance and value of considering normative guidelines from and for interactions within the Global South. The project will draw upon Hobden’s existing philosophical account of duties between states and bring it into dialogue with the literature of African Philosophy and an analysis of the normative principles evident within existing practice of South-South interaction.

Her collaboration partner is Peter Niesen, professor for Political Theory at the Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences at Universität Hamburg.

Christine Hobden is holding an Iso Lomso Fellowship provided by the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS). As part of the programme, Christine Hobden is granted a Residency Fellowship at HIAS. Her HIAS Fellowship is funded by the ZEIT STIFTUNG BUCERIUS.

Website

Christine Hobden

Funding

ZEIT STIFTUNG BUCERIUS

& Iso Lomso Fellowship des Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study

Tandem

Peter Niesen, professor for Political Theory, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, Universität Hamburg