A world characterized by ethno-nationalist struggles, civil wars, and political violence has led anthropologists to examine in more detail the relationships between state violence, ideas about "culture", and the activities of human rights organizations. This text considers recent theoretical insights into the politics of identity and traces the concrete interconnections created by the globalization of human rights. Drawing on case studies from around the world - Guatemala, Mauritius, Amazonia, Hawaii, Iran, the United States and Mexico - this collection documents how transnational human rights discourses and legal institutions are materialized, imposed, resisted and transformed in a variety of contexts.
A world characterized by ethno-nationalist struggles, civil wars, and political violence has led anthropologists to examine in more detail the relationships between state violence, ideas about "culture", and the activities of human rights organizations. This text considers recent theoretical insights into the politics of identity and traces the concrete interconnections created by the globalization of human rights. Drawing on case studies from around the world - Guatemala, Mauritius, Amazonia, Hawaii, Iran, the United States and Mexico - this collection documents how transnational human rights discourses and legal institutions are materialized, imposed, resisted and transformed in a variety of contexts.
Acknowledgements
Notes on contributors
1. Introduction: Human Rights, Culture and Context by Richard A.
Wilson, Sussex Univerisity
2. Legal Pluralism and Transnational Culture: The Ka
Ho'okolokolonui Kanaka Maoli Tribunal, Hawai'i, 1993 by Sally Engle
Merry, Wellesley College
3. Multiculturalism, Individualism and Human Rights: Romanticism,
the Enlightenment and Lessons from Mauritius by Thomas Hylland
Eriksen, University of Oslo
4. Liberalism, Socio-economic Rights and the Politics of Identity:
from Moral Economy to Indigenous Rights by John Gledhill,
University College, London
5. On Torture, or Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment by Talal
Asad, New School, NYU
6. Representing Human Rights Violations: Social Contexts and
Subjectivities by Richard A. Wilson, Sussex University
7. Universal and Sustainable Human Rights? Special Tribunals in
Guatemala by Jenny Schirmer, Harvard University
8. To Whom Should We Listen? Human Rights Activism in Two
Guatemalan Land Disputes by David Stoll
Bibliography
Index
Richard Wilson has carried out extensive research on the relationship between political violence, religion and ethnicity in Guatemala. He is the author of Maya Resurgence in Guatemala: Q'egchi Experiences (1995, University of Oklahoma Press) At present he is making comparative studies of truth commissions in Latin America and South Africa.Together with Thomas Eriksen, he is the series editor of the Anthropology, Culture and Society series (Pluto Press).
'By establishing a link between normative and empirical analysis,
this book offers valuable insights into human rights discourse'
*International Affairs*
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