Human rights, civil rights Books
University of British Columbia Press Messy Ethics in Human Rights Work
Book SynopsisMessy Ethics in Human Rights Work invites readers to engage reflexively in critical human rights practice by admitting discomfort and dilemma into conversations about ethics.Table of ContentsIntroduction, or a Pitch for You to Read this Book / Maritza Felices-LunaPart 1: Ethical Dilemmas When Following the Rules or Doing Business as Usual1 The Ethical Quagmire of Carceral Tours for Prison Education Programs: Are Compromised Ethics an Acceptable Educational Tool? / Sandra Lehalle and Jennifer M. Kilty2 Fascist Logic: Exposé or Propaganda? / Shayna Plaut3 The Politics of Representation and Allyship in Human Rights Policy Work / Christina Clark-Kazak4 Navigating the Ethical Challenges of Work with Detained Migrants and Asylum Seekers in Greece / Jason Phillips5 Are “Ethically Appropriate” Responses the Same for All of Us? A Social Work Practitioner/Researcher’s Dilemma / Neil Bilotta6 Unequal Pay for Equal Work: Ethical Reflections on Exploitation as a Funding Requirement / Maritza Felices-LunaInterlude: Back at you, Joseph Conrad / Juliane Okot BitekPart 2: Ethical Dilemmas When Challenging Business as Usual or When Taking the Unbeaten Path7 “I Want My Name”: Autonomy, Protection, and Attribution in Research Interviews with “Vulnerable” Populations / Kristi Heather Kenyon8 Your Mandates Aren’t Ours / Katsi’tsí:io Splicer, Cougar Kirby, and Sarah Fraser9 When Life Isn’t a Moment: Participatory Photography, Photojournalism, and Documentary Photography / Myrto Papadopoulos and Shayna Plaut10 “But Don’t Believe Me, Believe Sex Workers”: Amplifying Voices, Speaking Out of Turn, and Knowing Your Place / Claudyne Chevrier11 Breaching My Contract to Uphold My Responsibility / Nick Catalano12 The Oral Defence: Speaking Back to the Community / Yuriko Cowper-Smith13 “But Where Is the Violence?”: Reflections on Honouring Relationships and Troubling Academia / Lara Rosenoff GauvinConclusion: Many Questions, Few Answers / Christina Clark-Kazak, Shayna Plaut, Neil Bilotta, Lara Rosenoff Gauvin, and Maritza Felices-LunaIndex
£26.99
University of British Columbia Press From Where I Stand
Book SynopsisJody Wilson-Raybould outlines in impassioned, inspiring prose the actions that must be taken by governments, Indigenous Nations, and all Canadians to achieve true reconciliation in this country.Trade ReviewThe story of this ongoing narrative is of a cultural bridge disrespected in bias against gender and culture and, with her, all of us ingenuous in our optimism, we feel the tragic loss of an opportunity squandered. -- Linda Rogers * The Ormsby Review *Table of ContentsForeword | Senator Murray SinclairIntroductionMoving through the Postcolonial DoorWe Truly Have Come a Long Way ...Idle No More and Recapturing the Spirit and Intent of the Two Row WampumOn the Parallels, and Differences, between Canada and South AfricaOur Shared Histories and the Path of ReconciliationRights and RecognitionFriduciary Gridlock and the Inherent Right of Self-GovernmentTranslating Hard-Fought-For Rights into Practical and Meaningful BenefitsUNDRIP Is the Start, Not the Finishing Line Defining the Path of Reconciliation through Section 35Indigenous Rights Are Human RightsImplementing UNDRIPGovernance in the Post-Indian Act WorldToppling the Indian Act TreeFirst Nations Jurisdiction over CitizenshipHolding and Managing Our LandsOn Accountability and TransparencyDeveloping a New Fiscal RelationshipThe Governance Toolkit and Building on OUR SuccessBuilding Business Relationships and the Duty to ConsultEconomic Development Depends on Self-GovernmentFirst Nations Are Not a Box to Tick OffWho Owns and Is Responsible for the Water?On Certainty and Why It’s ElusiveRestoring Balance, Correcting Injustices, and Remaining VigilantA Litmus Test for Reconciliation Is the Status of WomenPreventing First Contacts with the Criminal Justice SystemOn Sticking Our Necks OutOn Obstruction, Denial, and Canada’s Failure to Uphold the Rule of LawEach of Us, In Our Own Way, Is a Hiligax̱ste’AcknowledgmentsA Note on Terminology and the SpeechesCase Law and Legislation CitedIndex
£18.99
Cornell University Press The Power of Everyday Politics
Book SynopsisOrdinary people's everyday political behavior can have a huge impact on national policy: that is the central conclusion of this book on Vietnam. In telling the story of collectivized agriculture in that country, Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet uncovers a...Trade Review"Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet again enlarges our understanding of subaltern agency and politics. This splendid volume is a great tribute to the capacity of Vietnamese villagers to doggedly defend their basic interests and restrict the options of elites. The Power of Everyday Politics is also a great tribute to Kerkvliet as the political analyst and ethnographer of this important struggle. It is an essential contribution to Southeast Asian studies and to our understanding of socialist bloc agriculture and of the 'other' struggle of the Vietnamese people." -- James C. Scott, Sterling Professor of Political Science and Anthropology and Director, Program in Agrarian Studies, Yale University"The Power of Everyday Politics makes an important contribution to peasant studies by introducing readers to the Vietnamese experience in collective farming. In a superbly researched book, Kerkvliet demonstrates the vital importance of everyday political behavior on the shape of national policy. The result is not only an insightful examination of Vietnamese peasants and collective farming, but also a revised picture of Vietnam's political system and the interactions between state and society." -- Lynne Viola, University of Toronto, author of Peasant Rebels Under Stalin: Collectivization and the Culture of Peasant Resistance
£43.20
Cornell University Press Internal Affairs
Book SynopsisWhy are some international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) more politically salient than others, and why are some NGOs better able to influence the norms of human rights? Internal Affairs shows how the organizational structures of human rights NGOs and their campaigns determine their influence on policy. Drawing on data from seven major international organizationsthe International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Médecins sans Frontières, Oxfam International, Anti-Slavery International, and the International League of Human RightsWendy H. Wong demonstrates that NGOs that choose to centralize agenda-setting and decentralize the implementation of that agenda are more successful in gaining traction in international politics. Challenging the conventional wisdom that the most successful NGOs are those that find the right cause or have the most resources, Wong shows that how NGOs make and implement decisions is critical to their effTrade ReviewOffers fascinating and important insights into the impact of intra-organizational dynamics on international politics. It deserves to be read widely by scholars and students interested in NGOs, advocacy networks and organizational theory. -- Angela M. Crack * Voluntas *Political scientist Wendy Wong's Internal Affairs offers an important empirical approach that focuses on the organizational structure of internationally oriented NGOs all headquartered in the global North to explain why they, and the issues that they do promote, are not equally influential in terms of their impact on human rights.... [Wong] examines a variety of transnational campaigns as a separate unit of observation for comparative analysis, enabling her to independently assess the political salience of the ideas that these organizations sponsor. -- John G. Dale * American Journal of Sociology *What makes a human right relevant on the world stage? Is it its inherent moral value? Or is its relevance a product of marketing, funding, or the magnetic capabilities of a charismatic leader? Internal Affairs suggests we turn our attention to the structural design of NGOs in order to understand what distinguishes those human rights issues that are championed as international concerns from those that barely make a ripple. At the crux of this well written and easily assignable text stands the notion that the success of a rights-campaign hinges on its structure. The book will be a valuable contribution to the scholarly libraries of anthropologists, political scientists, and international relations experts, while also serving as an indispensable tool for rights-based practitioners. -- Erica Bornstein * Human Rights Quarterly *Wong's prose is clear and well organized, her evidence carefully presented, and her argument compelling. Researchers in political science, international relations, sociology, anthropology, and public policy, as well as those engaged in human rights activism will welcome the theoretical and substantive contributions of Internal Affairs. * Mobilization *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Internal Affairs and External Influence1. Salience in Human Rights2. The Importance of Organizational Structure3. Amnesty International: The NGO That Made Human Rights Important4. Other Models of Advocating Change5. Using Campaigns to Examine Organizational and Ideational SalienceConclusionNotes References Index
£35.15
Cornell University Press Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice
Book SynopsisIn the third edition of his classic work, revised extensively and updated to include recent developments on the international scene, Jack Donnelly explains and defends a richly interdisciplinary account of human rights as universal rights. He shows that any conception of human rights—and the idea of human rights itself—is historically specific...Trade ReviewEvery once in a while a book appears that treats the leading issues of a subject in such a clear and challenging manner that it becomes central to understanding that subject. Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice is just such a book. Donnelly's interpretations are clear and argued with zest. * American Political Science Review *This wide-ranging book looks at all aspects of human rights, drawing on political theory, sociology, and international relations as well as international law. * Foreign Affairs *What Donnelly does better than anyone else is to lay before the reader a coherent conceptual framework for an understanding of international human rights as an operative part of international life. The book remains at the top of any bibliography of indispensable books dealing with human rights. * Human Rights & Human Welfare *Table of ContentsPreface to the Third EditionIntroductionPart I. Toward a Theory of Human Rights1. The Concept of Human RightsHow Rights WorkSpecial Features of Human RightsHuman Nature and Human RightsHuman Rights and Related PracticesAnalytic and Substantive TheoriesThe Failure of Foundational AppealsCoping with Contentious Foundations2. The Universal Declaration ModelThe Universal DeclarationThe Universal Declaration ModelHuman Dignity and Human RightsIndividual RightsInterdependence and IndivisibilityThe State and International Human RightsRespecting, Protecting, and Providing Human RightsRealizing Human Rights and Human Dignity3. Economic Rights and Group RightsThe Status of Economic and Social RightsGroup Rights and Human Rights4. Equal Concern and RespectHegemony and Settled NormsAn Overlapping Consensus on International Human RightsMoral Theory, Political Theory, and Human RightsEqual Concern and RespectToward a Liberal Theory of Human RightsConsensus: Overlapping but BoundedPart II. The Universality and Relativity of Human Rights5. A Brief History of Human RightsPolitics and Justice in the Premodern Non-Western WorldThe Premodern WestThe Modern Invention of Human RightsThe American and French RevolutionsApproaching the Universal DeclarationExpanding the Subjects and Substance of Human Rights6. The Relative Universality of Human Rights"Universal" and "Relative"The Universality of Internationally Recognized Human RightsThree Levels of Universality and ParticularityRelative Universality: A Multidimensional Perspective7. Universality in a World of ParticularitiesCulture and the Relativity of Human RightsAdvocating Universality in a World of ParticularitiesPart III. Human Rights and Human Dignity8. Dignity: Particularistic and Universalistic Conceptions in the WestDignitas: The Roman Roots of DignityBiblical Conceptions: Kavod and Imago DeiKantRights and Dignity in the WestDignity and the Foundations of Human Rights9. Humanity, Dignity, and Politics in Confucian ChinaCosmology and EthicsConfucians and the Early Empires“Neo-Confucianism” and Song Imperial RuleTwentieth-Century Encounters with “Rights”Human Rights and Asian Values10. Humans and Society in Hindu South AsiaCosmologySocial PhilosophyCasteHindu UniversalismOpposition to Caste DiscriminationHinduism and Human Rights in Contemporary IndiaPart IV. Human Rights and International Action11. International Human Rights RegimesThe Global Human Rights RegimePolitical Foundations of the Global RegimeRegional Human Rights RegimesSingle-Issue Human Rights RegimesAssessing Multilateral Human Rights MechanismsThe Evolution of Human Rights Regimes12. Human Rights and Foreign PolicyHuman Rights and the National InterestInternational Human Rights and National IdentityMeans and Mechanisms of Bilateral ActionThe Aims of Human Rights PolicyForeign Policy and Human Rights PolicyThe Limits of International ActionAppendix: Arguments against International Human Rights PoliciesPart V. Contemporary Issues13. Human Rights, Democracy, and DevelopmentThe Contemporary Language of LegitimacyDefining DemocracyDemocracy and Human RightsDefining DevelopmentDevelopment-Rights TradeoffsDevelopment and Civil and Political RightsMarkets and Economic and Social RightsThe Liberal Democratic Welfare State14. The West and Economic and Social RightsThe Universal Declaration of Human RightsDomestic Western PracticeThe International Human Rights CovenantsFunctional and Regional OrganizationsFurther Evidence of Western SupportUnderstanding the Sources of the MythWhy Does It Matter?15. Humanitarian Intervention against GenocideIntervention and International LawHumanitarian Intervention and International LawThe Moral Standing of the StatePolitics, Partisanship, and International OrderChanging Conceptions of Security and SovereigntyJustifying the Anti-genocide NormChanging Legal Practices“Justifying” Humanitarian InterventionMixed Motives and ConsistencyPolitics and the Authority to InterveneJudging the Kosovo InterventionDarfur and the Future of Humanitarian Intervention16. Nondiscrimination for All: The Case of Sexual MinoritiesThe Right to NondiscriminationNondiscrimination and Political StruggleDiscrimination against Sexual MinoritiesNature, (Im)morality, and Public MoralsStrategies for InclusionPaths of Incremental ChangeReferencesIndex
£97.20
Cornell University Press The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere
Book SynopsisWilliam Michael Schmidli argues that Argentina emerged as the defining test case of Jimmy Carter's promise to bring human rights to the center of his administration’s foreign policy.Trade ReviewAs a work of diplomatic history, Schmidli's approach is innovative. He weaves state, non-state and high-level actors into a single narrative by profiling a diverse set of characters, taking the time to describe each figure's background, outlook and place in US government or civil society.... The book's textured analysis makes a valuable contribution to the history of human rights and US-Argentine relations during the Cold War. -- John R. Bawden * Journal of Latin American Studies *In his fast-paced, engrossing account, Schmidli chronicles the fierce internal struggles within the White House and the State Department, where political appointees dedicated to transforming Carter's idealism into concrete policies battled career diplomats accustomed to maintaining cordial relations with anticommunist regimes such as Argentina’s. Schmidli concludes that, despite subsequent policy vacillations, the U.S. extracted some important concessions from the Argentine junta, saving many lives. More broadly, the Carter team succeeded in institutionalizing human rights in U.S. foreign policy.... Drawing on declassified documents and personal interviews, Schmidli paints colorful portraits of key players in the policy debates.... This very valuable study also underscores the vital roles of human rights activists and Congress in laying the foundations for Carter’s diplomatic offensive. -- Richard Feinberg * Foreign Affairs, *Schmidli's carefully researched and well-written book explores the Carter administration’s adoption of human rights policies and the attendant tensions, conflicts, failures, and successes this decision generated....[T]his is an excellent book, and one that is highly readable and valuable both to experts on the topic and undergraduates in the ?elds of law, human rights, Latin America, United States foreign policy/diplomatic history, and the 1970s. -- Margaret Powers * Law & History Review *Schmidli's thorough and nuanced use of the documentary evidence, which includes recently declassified official papers and personal interviews, not only adds revealing new details but also makes a strong case for the importance of a range of midlevel actors like F. Allen Tex Harris at the Buenos Aires embassy who, by the sheer tenacity of their convictions, affected the course of events. By skillfully interweaving such personal close-ups at the micro levels of the policymaking process, Schmidli produced an engaging as well as highly readable account of the rise and inner workings of human rights policies during the Carter administration. -- Susan Fitzpatrick-Behrens * Hispanic American Historical Review *Scholars interested in human rights diplomacy will find much of value in William Michael Schmidli's engaging account of the human rights dimension of U.S. president Jimmy Carter's policy toward Argentina.. Engagingly written and conveying the sweep of human rights developments in the 1970s concisely and effectively, the book deserves a wide audience. -- Barbara Keys * TheAmerican Historical Review *This disturbing study examines the US response to Argentina's 'dirty war,' during which the military government tortured and killed (‘disappeared’) thousands of political dissidents.... Even when President Carter emphasized human rights, the State Department was deeply divided.... As Carter hardened his policy toward the Soviet Union, he relaxed his opposition to Argentina's military government. Schmidli argues that despite Carter's retreat and the Reagan administration's friendly attitude toward military dictatorships, human rights had become institutionalized and could no longer be ignored. When Argentina began a reconciliation process in 1983 after the fall of the dictatorship, Reagan embraced it. Summing Up: Highly recommended. * Choice *William Michael Schmidli has made an original contribution by exploring the motives and paradoxes in the inner workings of President Jimmy Carter's human rights practices in Argentina. Underscoring challenges and opportunitiesSchmidli has aptly presented Argentina as the defining test of whether Carter honored his promises to recast U.S. foreign policy with a focus on human rights... His nuanceddetailed analysis concludes that Carter's honest intentions to institutionalize human rights policy partially and temporarily transformed U.S. diplomacy in the Western Hemisphereespecially in Argentinabut that outside pressures minimized that diplomacy's continuity and impact. -- Itai N. Sneh, City University of New York * Journal of American History *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Human Rights and the Cold War1. From Counterinsurgency to State-Sanctioned Terror: Waging the Cold War in Latin America2. The "Third World War": U.S.-Argentine Relations, 1960–19763. "Human Rights Is Suddenly Chic": The Rise of The Movement, 1970–19764. "Total Immersion in All the Horrors of the World": The Carter Administration and Human Rights, 1977–19785. On the Offensive: Human Rights in U.S.-Argentine Relations, 1978–19796. "Tilting against Gray-Flannel Windmills": U.S.-Argentine Relations, 1979–1980Conclusion: Carter, Reagan, and the Human Rights RevolutionNotes Primary Sources Index
£97.20
Cornell University Press The Endtimes of Human Rights
Book SynopsisA passionate and provocative argument that the idea of universal human rights has become not only ill adapted to current realities but also overambitious and unresponsive.Trade Review[R]eadable and brilliantly written, as well as... [rich] in information... and... controversial but challenging ideas. -- Pierre Hassner * Survival *Christian Imperialism is a very welcome addition to the field of both missionary history and the history of the early American republic... For historians of missionsit shows that Americans were deeply involved in global missionary work well before they had officially crafted an overseas empire. For scholars of the early American republicit challenges that customary periodization of empire and demands that we look both within and beyond borders to recognize that the American past was never exclusively American. -- Edward E. Andrews * Journal of Church and State *According to Hopgood, we are witnessing the last gasp of human rights as the prospect of one world under secular human law is receding and thefoundations of universal liberal norms and global governance are crumbling (p. 1). It is from this vantage point that Stephen Hopgood launches into a nuanced and powerful demolition of the normalising metanarrative of the Human Rights agenda.... [T]his is a compelling text as Hopgood grapples with issues of 'who gets to decide global rules' and who gets to define "legitimate exceptions to them" (p. 2). Further, we see Human Rights are not, and never have been, above the fray of national sovereignty as organisations and states have always sought to set the parameters of the political sphere and define who would be excluded from the outset. -- Brian R. Gilbert * Critical Race and Whiteness Studies *Hopgood's point of view, sure to be controversial, is argued with clarity, passion, and verve. Hopgood challenges those concerned with humanitarianism to look beyond Western-led human rights organizations, especially to activists working within their own communities, for hope. It seems certain that this book will cause both celebration and discomfort, even outrage, within the human rights community. Readers with an interest in human rights policy, humanitarianism, and even cultural history more broadly will find much to like in Hopgood's brisk, witty prose, even if they are discomfited by his arguments. * Library Journal *In this scathing indictment of the human rights movement, Stephen Hopgood contends that it has sold out its moral clarity for an alliance with interventionist liberal states.... Hopgood's provocation is powerful, and his privileging of locally and nationally inspired activism rings true. He does an excellent job of drawing together specific incidents to support his controversial views.... The Endtimes of Human Rights is a bracing alert for human rights professionals and all who care about global ethics. Scholars, practitioners, and NGO contributors will need to reckon with this important book. -- Clifford Bob * Ethics & International Affairs *This is a provocative, angry book–and an important one.... The book is particularly good on the link between human rights and liberalism, and how the larger the human rights non-governmental organization is, the greater the likelihood that it has been tamed by capital, existing to raise money rather than raising money to exist.... This is a disturbing read, the anger driving the narrative, the passion evident in every paragraph. -- Conor Gearty * Times Higher Education Supplement *Table of ContentsPreface1. Moral Authority in a Godless World2. The Church of Human Rights3. The Holocaust Metanarrative4. The Moral Architecture of Suffering5. Human Rights and American Power6. Human Rights Empire7. Of Gods and Nations8. The Neo-Westphalian World
£22.79
Cornell University Press Life and Death in Captivity
Book SynopsisWhy are prisoners horribly abused in some wars but humanely cared for in others? In Life and Death in Captivity, Geoffrey P. R. Wallace explores the profound differences in the ways captives are treated during armed conflict. Wallace focuses on the dual role played by regime type and the nature of the conflict in determining whether captor states opt for brutality or mercy. Integrating original data on prisoner treatment during the last century of interstate warfare with in-depth historical cases, Wallace demonstrates how domestic constraints and external incentives shape the fate of captured enemy combatants. Both Russia and Japan, for example, treated prisoners very differently in the Russo-Japanese War of 19045 and in World War II; the behavior of any given country is liable to vary from conflict to conflict and even within the same war.Democracies may be more likely to treat their captives humanely, yet this benevolence is rooted less in liberal norms of nonviolencTrade ReviewGeoffrey Wallace suggests a new theoretical framework to examine wartime conduct and political violence in armed conflicts. * Canadian Military History *Table of ContentsIntroduction1. Repertoires of Violence against Prisoners2. The Captor's Dilemma3. Prisoners by the Numbers4. World War II, Democracies, and the (Mis)Treatment of Prisoners5. Territorial Conquest and the Katyn Massacre in PerspectiveConclusion: Explaining the Treatment of Prisoners during WarAppendix Notes References Index
£37.05
Cornell University Press Internal Affairs
Book SynopsisWhy are some international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) more politically salient than others, and why are some NGOs better able to influence the norms of human rights? Internal Affairs shows how the organizational structures of human rights NGOs and their campaigns determine their influence on policy. Drawing on data from seven major international organizationsthe International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Médecins sans Frontières, Oxfam International, Anti-Slavery International, and the International League of Human RightsWendy H. Wong demonstrates that NGOs that choose to centralize agenda-setting and decentralize the implementation of that agenda are more successful in gaining traction in international politics. Challenging the conventional wisdom that the most successful NGOs are those that find the right cause or have the most resources, Wong shows that how NGOs make and implement decisions is critical to their effTrade ReviewOffers fascinating and important insights into the impact of intra-organizational dynamics on international politics. It deserves to be read widely by scholars and students interested in NGOs, advocacy networks and organizational theory. -- Angela M. Crack * Voluntas *Political scientist Wendy Wong's Internal Affairs offers an important empirical approach that focuses on the organizational structure of internationally oriented NGOs all headquartered in the global North to explain why they, and the issues that they do promote, are not equally influential in terms of their impact on human rights.... [Wong] examines a variety of transnational campaigns as a separate unit of observation for comparative analysis, enabling her to independently assess the political salience of the ideas that these organizations sponsor. -- John G. Dale * American Journal of Sociology *What makes a human right relevant on the world stage? Is it its inherent moral value? Or is its relevance a product of marketing, funding, or the magnetic capabilities of a charismatic leader? Internal Affairs suggests we turn our attention to the structural design of NGOs in order to understand what distinguishes those human rights issues that are championed as international concerns from those that barely make a ripple. At the crux of this well written and easily assignable text stands the notion that the success of a rights-campaign hinges on its structure. The book will be a valuable contribution to the scholarly libraries of anthropologists, political scientists, and international relations experts, while also serving as an indispensable tool for rights-based practitioners. -- Erica Bornstein * Human Rights Quarterly *Wong's prose is clear and well organized, her evidence carefully presented, and her argument compelling. Researchers in political science, international relations, sociology, anthropology, and public policy, as well as those engaged in human rights activism will welcome the theoretical and substantive contributions of Internal Affairs. * Mobilization *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Internal Affairs and External Influence1. Salience in Human Rights2. The Importance of Organizational Structure3. Amnesty International: The NGO That Made Human Rights Important4. Other Models of Advocating Change5. Using Campaigns to Examine Organizational and Ideational SalienceConclusionNotes References Index
£22.39
Cornell University Press Activists beyond Borders Advocacy Networks in
Book SynopsisIn Activists beyond Borders, Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink examine a type of pressure group that has been largely ignored by political analysts: networks of activists that coalesce and operate across national frontiers. Their targets may be...Trade ReviewActivists beyond Borders is one of the finest books on global social activism to come our in recent years. It breaks new ground by offering a theory of grassroots international activism.... The book is chalked full of lessons for labor and other social activists.... The book is inspiring. * Dollars and Sense *Valuable reading for anyone concerned with contemporary dynamics of social change. * International Affairs *An important new contribution.... The challenge the authors set for themselves is a valuable one, and this book helps navigate these largely uncharted practical and theoretical waters. * Canadian Journal of Political Science *For Keck and Sikkink, the webs of connections human rights groups have formed constitute the heart of their story. In showing why these networks succeed, they have advanced theoretical analysis.... An essential addition to the libraries of all interested in human rights. * Human Rights Quarterly *Keck and Sikkink are masters at blurring disciplinary boundaries, melding theory on international relations with a broad range of theories on the formation of domestic social movements. They also do an impressive job of tracing the origins of these networks historically, including case studies of the mid-nineteenth-century antislavery movement and the movement for female suffrage. * Latin American Research Review *Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink's Activists beyond Borders has been extremely influential in studies of transnational collective action. Building on firsthand experiences, fieldwork, and a vast secondary literature on social movement activity, they highlight the rising prevalence and influence of transnational actors in domestic political exchange and international relations. To demonstrate this phenomenon they introduce a database, constructed by Jackie Smith, on international nongovernmental social change organizations. They also present three qualitative case studies of networks working for human rights, the environment, and women's freedom from violence. The case studies are particularly noteworthy insofar as 'approximately half of all international nongovernmental social change organizations work on these three issues.' Their conceptual innovations, grounded theory, and illustrative case studies have broken new ground and have become a touchstone for studies on transnational collective action. * Comparative Politics *Offers valuable descriptive accounts of the role played by nonstate actors in the global issues arena, mostly in areas relating to human rights and the environment. * The American Journal of International Law *Table of Contents1. Transnational Advocacy Networks in International Politics: Introduction 2. Historical Precursors to Modern Transnational Advocacy Networks 3. Human Rights Advocacy Networks in Latin America 4. Environmental Advocacy Networks 5. Transnational Networks on Violence against Women 6. ConclusionsIndex
£14.99
Cornell University Press Making All the Difference
Book SynopsisMartha Minow takes a hard look at the way our legal system functions in dealing with people on the basis of race, gender, age, ethnicity, religion, and disability.Trade ReviewIn a work that evidences both powerful analytic skills and a compassionate regard for the problems devalued persons confront in their daily lives, Minow makes it incontrovertibly clear that the legal issues she explores are social and moral issues as well. Her book is a masterful example of the demythologizing of law; it should be of great interest not only to sociologists who study the legal system, but also to all those whose work focuses on stigmatizing processes and stigmatized populations. -- Edwin M. Schur * Contemporary Sociology *Minow wants to change our understanding of difference, to dislodge the oppressive meaning of difference as deviance from the norm and challenge the unstated reference point by which difference is defined. Much of Minow's book is devoted to tracing the intellectual origins of the social relations approach. Her wide-ranging summary of intellectual trends, from deconstruction to interpretative anthropology to pragmatism in philosophy, invest the social relations approach with a rich history. -- Martha Chamallas * Signs *Minow's thesis challenges the very basis of legal reasoning. Categorical thinking, she admits, may even be a psychological imperative to simplify a complex world. But she argues persuasively the a society that takes the problem of inequality seriously must abandon trying to fit people into categories and instead make decisions based on the complexity of our social problems. -- Debbie Ratterman * Off Our Backs *
£27.54
Hopkins Fulfillment Service Beyond Westphalia
Book SynopsisWeiss.Trade ReviewCan scholars and students of international relations and world politics concentrate their studies on a different set of theoretical questions than those that were preeminent from 1648 until the end of the Cold War? This book does an excellent job of raising that very issue, with significant contributions from case studies and, more important, interesting theoretical essays. American Political Science ReviewTable of ContentsPreface and AcknoledgmentsAbbreviationsChapter 1. Introduction: INternational Intervention, State Sovereignty, and the Future of International SocietyPart I. ConceptsChapter 2. Sovereignty as Dominium: Is There a Right of Humanitarian Intervention?Chapter 3, Interveention for the Common GoodChapter 4. International COmmunity beyond the Cold WarPart II. CasesChapter 5. Sovereignty under Siege: From Intervention to Humanitarian SpaceChapter 6. State Sovereignty and International Intervention: The Case of Human RightsChapter 7. Environmental Protection, International Norms, and State Sovereignty: The Case of the Brazilian AmazonChapter 8. Sovereignty and Collective Intervention: Controlling Weapons of Mass DestructionPart III. SynthesesChapter 9. Sovereignty in a Turbulent WorldChapter 10. Sovereignty and InterventionChapter 11. State Sovereignty and International Intervention: Reflections on the Present and Prospects for the FutureNotesContributorsIndex
£25.20
University of Toronto Press The Constitutional Protection of Freedom of
Book SynopsisMoon argues that recognition of the social dynamic of communication is critical to understanding the potential value and harm of language and to addressing questions about the scope and limits on one's rights to freedom of expression.
£68.85
University of Toronto Press The Hateful and the Obscene
Book SynopsisIn a series of landmark decisions since 1990, Canadian courts have shaped a distinctive approach to the regulation of obscenity, hate literature, and child pornography. Missing from the debate, however, has been any attempt to determine whether the legal status quo can be justified by reference to a framework of moral/political principles. The Hateful and the Obscene is intended to fill that gap.L.W. Sumner brings philosophical depth and theoretical rigour to some of the most important and difficult questions concerning free expression. Building on a framework set out by J.S. Mill – that a legal restriction of expression is justified only when the expression in question is harmful to others and when the benefits of the restriction will exceed its costs – Sumner shows how the Canadian courts have replicated Mill's framework in their interpretation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.The Hateful and the Obscene is a compelTrade Review"'L.W. Sumner's balanced and careful book will become an important and controversial lodestar in Canadian debates about freedom of speech under the Charter... This is a contribution of such seriousness and argumentative power that all opponents will need to consider it very carefully.' Frederick Schauer, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University"
£31.50
University of Toronto Press Childrens Rights
Book SynopsisThe United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was incorporated into international law in 1989. Since its adoption, it has been ratified by nearly all member nations. An outline of the basic rights of all persons under the age of 18, the Convention has various implications and its importance cannot be contested. This collection focuses on children's rights as defined by the U.N. Convention, and their relevance in both national and international contexts.The contributors discuss the Convention from different disciplinary perspectives, but are united in the belief that it is a tool to be utilized and contextualized by individuals, institutions, and communities. If there is a single conviction to be found throughout Children's Rights it is that the rights of the child are far too important to be left to states alone to provide and protect. To paint a detailed picture of the subject as a whole, the volume looks at situations in which the basic rights of childre
£31.50
University of Nebraska Press Quilts and Human Rights
Book SynopsisOffers a new understanding of the history of global human rights through textiles of awareness and activism. Of all the textile forms linked to human rights activities, one form the quilt - has proven an especially potent and popular form for individuals, working alone or as part of organised groups, to subversively or overtly act for human rights.Trade Review"Highly recommended for all audiences, Quilts and Human Rights would illuminate any library."—Kathy Edwards, ARLIS/NA Reviews"A remarkable addition to quilt studies."—Shane Rasmussen, Journal of Folklore Research"This moving and important book chronicles the work of countless quilt artists who have used their talent and passion to address an array of human rights issues. Photos of the quilts are accompanied by detailed artist's statements that thoughtfully explain the genesis of each piece. Telling these stories in cloth is a powerful and effective means of expression to spotlight critical human rights issues."—Diane Rusin Doran, Machine Quilting“This well-researched and important book sheds new light on the work of thousands of quilt artists who have used needle, thread, and cloth for advocacy, education, and reflection on human rights.”—Rev. Canon Mpho Tutu, executive director of the Desmond and Leah Tutu Foundation “Beautifully written, with a venerable combination of straightforward expression and intellectual sophistication, Quilts and Human Rights successfully bridges the fields of women’s studies and visual arts with a brilliant survey of national and international human rights quilts.”—Carolyn L. Mazloomi, founder and director of the Women of Color Quilters Network “Quilts and Human Rights tells superbly scaffolded stories about the powerful intersection of threats and threads.”—Patricia A. Turner, author of Crafted Lives: Stories and Studies of African American Quilters Table of ContentsList of IllustrationsForeword by Archbishop Desmond TutuPrefaceAcknowledgmentsA Quilted ConscienceA Gallery of QuiltsNotesBibliographyIndex
£27.90
Stanford University Press Human Rights for the 21st Century
Book SynopsisA new moral, ethical, and legal framework is needed for international human rights law. Never in human history has there been such an elaborate international system for human rights, yet from massive disasters, such as the Darfur genocide, to everyday tragedies, such as female genital mutilation, human rights abuses continue at an alarming rate. As the world population increases and global trade brings new wealth as well as new problems, international law can and should respond better to those who live in fear of violence, neglect, or harm.Modern critiques global human rights fall into three categories: sovereignty, culture, and civil society. These are not new problems, but have long been debated as part of the legal philosophical tradition. Taking lessons from tradition and recasting them in contemporary light, Helen Stacy proposes new approaches to fill the gaps in current approaches: relational sovereignty, reciprocal adjudication, and regional human rights. She forcefullTrade Review"This book is a great addition to human rights, law and society, international and comparative law literature- not only as the bridging point between ethical and empirical realities, but for the practical solutions it offers to the development of a conceptual understanding of human rights." -- Sanghamitra Padhy * The Law and Politics Book Review. *"This accessible overview of human rights institutions and current international law dilemmas uses historical, normative, and practical analyses to offer fresh responses to standard critiques. A worthy counterpoint to other recent scholarship, it advances original arguments for conceptualizing and institutionalizing international human rights." -- Martha Minow * Harvard University *"This fundamental and timely book responds to the pressing need among international lawyers and human rights advocates for a stronger theoretical foundation to support international human rights law. With its incorporation of both recent and ongoing controversies, it may be expected to have an influence on the actual resolution of existing disagreements." -- M.N.S. Sellers * University of Baltimore *"This immensely valuable overview of human rights theory and practice offers imaginative recommendations for further developing institutions, including regional human rights regimes and 'hybrid' courts. Stacy confronts head on the principal challenges to human rights development in the 21st Century and displays an amazing grasp of the diverse roles of international human rights initiatives from both a political and a legal perspective." -- Tom Campbell, Charles Sturt University * Australia *
£81.90
Stanford University Press Human Rights Matters
Book SynopsisAmong human rights advocates, dominant wisdom holds that the promotion and protection of human rights relies not on international efforts, but on domestic action. International institutions may capture news headlines, but it is national groups that effectively shape local expectations and ultimately make human rights matter.Through a series of case studies and an extensive range of interviews with the administrators and constituencies of national human rights institutions, Julie Mertus offers a close look at the day-to-day workings of these groups. She presents an unusual and lively set of European casesexamining Bosnia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, and Northern Irelandto illustrate how local culture matters in promoting human rights. But even with the obvious successes of these institutions, Mertus offers a cautionary tale. National institutions are incredibly difficult to design and operate, and they are only as good as the domestic political and economic faTrade Review"The main merit of the book lies in the rich comparative analysis and the practical recommendations offered by the author. Excellent and coherent. . . By ending each chapter with an assessment of the NHRI and its political context, Mertus successfully combines the best of the two worlds: academic critique with practical policy recommendations. This makes Mertus' comparative analysis of NHRIs an encouraging encounter in an academic world where human rights are frequently studied either as legal-philosophical entries, disengaged from practice, or as unique local struggles, disconnected from comparison." -- Freek Van Der Vet * Suomen Antropologi *"As to the question of why human rights matter, for many people around the globe it is evident that the full enjoyment of human rights is the difference between despair and hope. Mertus offers many hopeful possibilities by making a strong case for the crucial role that stakeholder participation plays in responding to community interests and values. That insight is perhaps the greatest virtue of her book." -- Mahmood Monshipouri * San Francisco State University, Human Rights Quarterly *"Human Rights Matters offers insights and illustrations to highlight the effects of NHRIs, contributing to the large volume of descriptive and prescriptive work on the subject. Mertus asserts productively that the local context both shapes and is shaped by NHRIs." -- Sonia Cardenas * H-Net Reviews *"This insightful work makes a strong case that domestic human rights institutions are essential for understanding the diffusion and implementation of human rights, perhaps more important than the international institutions that have received the lion's share of scholarly attention. As interest in domestic human rights institutions continues to grow, Mertus's richly detailed findings will spark lively discussion and help to fill a considerable gap in the literature." -- Michael Goodhart * University of Pittsburgh *"Julie Mertus has recently enlightened readers on such subjects as human rights and the United States, and human rights and the United Nations. Here she provides a well considered and well crafted study of National Human Rights Institutions in five western countries, with passing reference to other situations. Her study of how these national organizations interact with their local environment as they try to translate international norms into local human rights improvements breaks new ground. Given the proliferation of such organizations around the world, this is an important and insightful study." -- David P. Forsythe * University of Nebraska *"With her usual rigor and flair, Julie Mertus profiles an increasingly important layer of the international human rights regime. This careful analysis of the record and potential of national institutions is an essential reference." -- Alison Brysk, University of California * Irvine *"Mertus adeptly shows the value of empirical analysis in answering the central questions of International Law. Both our legal theory and policy-makers have much to learn." -- Michael Likosky * University of London *"Mertus tackles a central but understudied issue: the contribution of national human rights institutions to the realization of internationally recognized human rights. In a series of lively and engaging European case-studies—Denmark, Germany, Northern Ireland, the Czech Republic, and Bosnia-Herzegovina—she provides not only new information about but valuable insight into the range of achievements and limitations of this increasingly popular mechanism for improving the realization of human rights." -- Jack Donnelly * University of Denver *Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgments xxx Abbreviations xxx 1 Operationalizing Human Rights at the Local Level 1 2 "Opinion Doctors" and "Can Openers": Demark 000 3 "The Toughest Job I Ever Had": Northern Ireland 000 4 Counting in Threes: Bosnia-Herzegovina 000 5 When Less is More: The Czech Republic 000 6 Straddling Checkpoint Charlie: Germany 000 7 Conclusion 000 Appendix I: Comparison of Tasks Performed by NHRIs 000 Appendix II: Selected Provisions of Paris Principles 000 Notes 000 Bibliography 000 Interviewees 000 Index 000
£20.89
Stanford University Press Human Rights for the 21st Century
Book SynopsisA new moral, ethical, and legal framework is needed for international human rights law. Never in human history has there been such an elaborate international system for human rights, yet from massive disasters, such as the Darfur genocide, to everyday tragedies, such as female genital mutilation, human rights abuses continue at an alarming rate. As the world population increases and global trade brings new wealth as well as new problems, international law can and should respond better to those who live in fear of violence, neglect, or harm.Modern critiques global human rights fall into three categories: sovereignty, culture, and civil society. These are not new problems, but have long been debated as part of the legal philosophical tradition. Taking lessons from tradition and recasting them in contemporary light, Helen Stacy proposes new approaches to fill the gaps in current approaches: relational sovereignty, reciprocal adjudication, and regional human rights. She forcefullTrade Review"This book is a great addition to human rights, law and society, international and comparative law literature- not only as the bridging point between ethical and empirical realities, but for the practical solutions it offers to the development of a conceptual understanding of human rights." -- Sanghamitra Padhy * The Law and Politics Book Review. *"This accessible overview of human rights institutions and current international law dilemmas uses historical, normative, and practical analyses to offer fresh responses to standard critiques. A worthy counterpoint to other recent scholarship, it advances original arguments for conceptualizing and institutionalizing international human rights." -- Martha Minow * Harvard University *"This fundamental and timely book responds to the pressing need among international lawyers and human rights advocates for a stronger theoretical foundation to support international human rights law. With its incorporation of both recent and ongoing controversies, it may be expected to have an influence on the actual resolution of existing disagreements." -- M.N.S. Sellers * University of Baltimore *"This immensely valuable overview of human rights theory and practice offers imaginative recommendations for further developing institutions, including regional human rights regimes and 'hybrid' courts. Stacy confronts head on the principal challenges to human rights development in the 21st Century and displays an amazing grasp of the diverse roles of international human rights initiatives from both a political and a legal perspective." -- Tom Campbell, Charles Sturt University * Australia *
£19.79
Stanford University Press Stones of Hope
Book SynopsisMany human rights advocates agree that conventional advocacy tools reporting abuses to international tribunals or shaming the perpetrators of human rights violationshave proven ineffective. Increasingly, social justice advocates are looking to social and economic rights strategies as promising avenues for change. However, widespread skepticism remains as to how to make such rights real on the ground. Stones of Hope engages with the work of remarkable African advocates who have broken out of the conventional boundaries of human rights practice to challenge radical poverty. Through a sequence of case studies and interpretive essays, it illustrates how human rights can be harnessed to generate democratic institutional innovations. Ultimately, this book brings the reader down from the heights of official human rights forums to the ground level of advocacy. It is a must-read for human rights advocates, development practitioners, students, educators, and all others inTrade Review"Stones of Hope is a terrific book that should be required reading for anyone interested in pragmatic advocacy for economic and social rights . . . [It] provides the rare experience of reading a book that is simultaneously inspiring, analytical, and provocative. Above all, it demonstrates that the effort to make human rights relevant to the world's billion people in poverty is a worthwhile and realistic struggle."—Dan Chong, Human Rights Quarterly"Stones of Hope is a foundational contribution to the law and social change field. The book is impressive for both what it does . . . and how it does it . . . [Stones of Hope is] a stunning achievement that lives up to its brilliantly evocative title. It is, in my view, essential reading not only for those who care about the sociology of law, but for all students and practitioners who care about using law to make the world more just and humane. In this sense, Stones of Hope is a model of what legal scholarship should be: academically rigorous and—most importantly—deeply engaged in the project of social justice. That is the stone that we all should carry forth."—Scott L. Cummings, Journal of Legal Education"[A]n optimistic and progressive book . . . innovative . . . Some book reviews take it as their objective to convince their audience to read the book under review. This is one of those."—Jonathan Klaaren, South African Journal on Human Rights"[White and Perelman's] introduction, two theoretical essays, and epilogue underscore common strands in strategies, norm-building innovations, and the generation of institutional renovation rooted in ESR. Not unexpectedly, the case studies reveal very diverse contexts, experiences, and outcomes, not a general model of public agitation and government response. Nevertheless, the essays find creative local strategies and offer new insights into the roles of lawbreaking and lawmaking in the process of social change and public policy evolution . . . Recommended."—J. P. Smaldone, CHOICE"Stones of Hope presents an unusual set of case studies and theoretical essays on innovative human rights activism arising from Africa. The material on the innovative civil society initiatives in the legal and educational spheres to implement a right of access to health care in South Africa is extremely impressive and, on its own, makes this volume required reading."—Albie Sachs, human rights activist, former member of South Africa's Constitutional Court"A breakthrough text. This important work profoundly alters the way scholars and lawyers conceive of strategies for economic and social rights practice. Through sustained collaboration between leading human rights scholars and African lawyers and activists, this volume theorizes the crucial issues facing the field in original and illuminating ways. Stones of Hope is a must read, and one that has set a new standard for collaborative analysis and thought-provoking inquiry."—Caroline Elkins, Harvard University, author of Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya"When I am asked to identify the most serious human rights violation in the world today, my reply is consistent: extreme poverty. Though international human rights standards are often criticized for being ineffective in the face of global poverty, creative human rights practice can offer new strategies for tackling this seemingly intractable problem. Stones of Hope shows how this promise is indeed being realized, in sub-Saharan Africa, on the ground. This remarkably timed, methodologically innovative, and illuminating collection of case studies and essays by leading activists and scholars in the socio-economic rights field, demonstrates how human rights strategies can have a sustainable impact on the livelihoods and well-being of the world's most marginalized people. The volume is a must-read for all of those interested in making rights real and working towards an ethical globalization."—Mary Robinson, President of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and President of the Republic of Ireland"Stones of Hope could not have come at a better time. Between high theory and descriptive case studies, this field needed solidly researched, theoretically anchored, and empirically rich scholarship. This volume delivers it, and is a must-read for anyone interested in how to make economic, social and cultural rights real. And it provides inspiration for a better world on top of it."— Peter Uvin, Tufts University
£77.35
Stanford University Press Refugees of the Revolution
Book SynopsisSome sixty-five years after 750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homeland, the popular conception of Palestinian refugees still emphasizes their fierce commitment to exercising their right of return. Exile has come to seem a kind of historical amber, preserving refugees in a way of life that ended abruptly with the catastrophe of 1948 and their campsinhabited now for four generationsas mere zones of waiting. While reducing refugees to symbols of steadfast single-mindedness has been politically expedient to both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict it comes at a tremendous cost for refugees themselves, overlooking their individual memories and aspirations and obscuring their collective culture in exile.Refugees of the Revolution is an evocative and provocative examination of everyday life in Shatila, a refugee camp in Beirut. Challenging common assumptions about Palestinian identity and nationalist politics, Diana Allan provides an immersive account of caTrade Review"[This] book provides a compelling testimony of the day-to-day struggles in Shatila . . . Allan's carefully crafted ethnography avoids reducing the camp to the prevailing sense of hopelessness and despair that has been constitutive for the Palestinian experience and instead delivers a thought-provoking, self-critical reflection on the paradoxes and limits of camp research." -- Monika Halkort * Journal of Palestine Studies *"Allan's book is the key for anyone who wants to understand one of the most dramatic strands of sixty-plus years of Palestinian dispossession." -- Victoria Brittain * The Political Quarterly *"Diana Allan has finally produced the book on Palestinian refugees in Lebanon that should have been written twenty-plus years ago . . . Brilliantly employing a phenomenological approach, Allan richly portrays the complexities and the frustratingly intricate negotiations among refugees, and between them and Palestinian power sectors as well as Lebanese national institutions, to secure services and meet personal obligations . . . Allan's meticulous research and insightful observations combine with her articulate writing style to produce extraordinary clarity. She brings to life the constant horrors and dilemmas of Palestinian refugee life in Lebanon by providing the contexts and allowing refugees to speak for themselves. . . . Refugees of the Revolution is a groundbreaking book that should be read by all serious scholars of Palestinian studies and solidarity activists who can draw from its pages fresh thinking in how to support Palestinian rights." -- Elaine C. Hagopian * Race and Class *"Overall, Refugees of the Revolution is a compelling contribution to the fields of Palestine and refugee studies, and an exemplar for political-economic studies of subaltern groups." -- Rana B. Khoury * Journal of Refugee Studies *"Diana Allan, a British anthropologist and activist, has written an important, provocative, and compelling account . . . This is an honest and provocative book that demands close reading and clear understanding of what the author describes and writes about. Allan is a very careful and introspective writer, acutely aware of every word she writes. She understands how easily these words can be misconstrued and misinterpreted. A compassionate sympathizer with the Palestinian predicament, she nevertheless places her duty as an ethnographer and anthropologist above her personal commitments as an activist . . . [R]ichly researched, amply annotated, and theoretically grounded . . . This book should be read by anyone interested in the question of Palestine and the Palestinian people, especially by politicians and diplomats who debate and negotiate the future of the Palestinians as refugees, as a people, and as a nation." -- Bassam Abed * H-Net *"Anthropologist Allan's first major publication is a breakthrough study of life in Shatila, the Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut. The book provides powerful insight into notions of nation, exile, homeland, and return through a detailed and provoking study that forces readers to reassess notions about what it means to be a Palestinian refugee." -- The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs"In this intriguing study, anthropologist Allan provides a fascinating study of Palestinian identity in exile . . . Identity, Allan therefore argues, lies in the local, wherein emotions and cognitions of sociability mark felt experiences of embodied practices. Allan's methodology of 'ethnographies of the particular' underlines this everyday aspect of lived experiences and, in many ways, identifies the book's major contribution to anthropology and Middle Eastern studies . . . Highly recommended." -- B. Rahimi * CHOICE *"Diana Allan's ethnographic study provides insight into the day-to-day struggles of the residents of the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp in southern Beirut. Through her direct experience in the camp and extensive interactions with the refugees, Allan applies a phenomenological lens to create a collection of narratives based on qualitative research. Refugees of the Revolution weaves stories of the pragmatic survival of Shatila's refugees, to highlight the wider implications of marginalization. Allan's work provides a well-grounded insight into the interdisciplinary effects of refugee life without imposing policy." -- Middle East Journal"This beautifully written ethnography provides a powerful account of the Palestinian refugee experience in Lebanon. Basing her analysis in the complexities of refugee lives, rather than on received frameworks, Diana Allan has produced a work whose ethnographic richness is matched by its theoretical acumen. Refugees of the Revolution should be read by anyone interested in structural poverty or long-term displacement." -- Ilana Feldman * George Washington University *"In an ethnography marked by analytical subtlety, empathy, and political courage, Diana Allan raises questions around the way that activists and researchers working in Palestinian refugee camps focus on the national past, neglecting everyday poverty, survival economies, hopes for the future, individual memories. Her careful attention to the words and lives of Shatila people has produced a study that makes us think again." -- Rosemary Sayigh * author of The Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries *"With intelligence and compassion, Diana Allan has captured the experience of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon today. An outstanding book, and an important reminder that there can be no just settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that overlooks the rights of refugees." -- Eugene Rogan * author of The Arabs: A History *"The presumed primacy of economic deprivation over nationalist ideology is among the hottest topics not only in contemporary Palestine studies but also in much of the anthropology of social suffering. For that, and for its excellent ethnographic quality, Allan's timely book has been among the most debated novel works in the field since its release." -- Leonardo Schiocchet * American Anthropologist *"By combining ethnographic observations with quotations from informal interactions and formal narrative interviews, [Allan] reveals that daily life in the camp constitutes a struggle that is economic and existential, as well as political." -- Helen Taylor * Refuge *
£77.35
Stanford University Press Refugees of the Revolution
Book SynopsisSet in a Palestinian camp in Lebanon, Refugees of the Revolution is both an ethnography of everyday life and a provocative critique of nationalism, exploring how material realities and evolving solidarity networks are reconstituting identity and political belonging in exile.Trade Review"[This] book provides a compelling testimony of the day-to-day struggles in Shatila . . . Allan's carefully crafted ethnography avoids reducing the camp to the prevailing sense of hopelessness and despair that has been constitutive for the Palestinian experience and instead delivers a thought-provoking, self-critical reflection on the paradoxes and limits of camp research." -- Monika Halkort * Journal of Palestine Studies *"Allan's book is the key for anyone who wants to understand one of the most dramatic strands of sixty-plus years of Palestinian dispossession." -- Victoria Brittain * The Political Quarterly *"Diana Allan has finally produced the book on Palestinian refugees in Lebanon that should have been written twenty-plus years ago . . . Brilliantly employing a phenomenological approach, Allan richly portrays the complexities and the frustratingly intricate negotiations among refugees, and between them and Palestinian power sectors as well as Lebanese national institutions, to secure services and meet personal obligations . . . Allan's meticulous research and insightful observations combine with her articulate writing style to produce extraordinary clarity. She brings to life the constant horrors and dilemmas of Palestinian refugee life in Lebanon by providing the contexts and allowing refugees to speak for themselves. . . . Refugees of the Revolution is a groundbreaking book that should be read by all serious scholars of Palestinian studies and solidarity activists who can draw from its pages fresh thinking in how to support Palestinian rights." -- Elaine C. Hagopian * Race and Class *"Overall, Refugees of the Revolution is a compelling contribution to the fields of Palestine and refugee studies, and an exemplar for political-economic studies of subaltern groups." -- Rana B. Khoury * Journal of Refugee Studies *"Diana Allan, a British anthropologist and activist, has written an important, provocative, and compelling account . . . This is an honest and provocative book that demands close reading and clear understanding of what the author describes and writes about. Allan is a very careful and introspective writer, acutely aware of every word she writes. She understands how easily these words can be misconstrued and misinterpreted. A compassionate sympathizer with the Palestinian predicament, she nevertheless places her duty as an ethnographer and anthropologist above her personal commitments as an activist . . . [R]ichly researched, amply annotated, and theoretically grounded . . . This book should be read by anyone interested in the question of Palestine and the Palestinian people, especially by politicians and diplomats who debate and negotiate the future of the Palestinians as refugees, as a people, and as a nation." -- Bassam Abed * H-Net *"Anthropologist Allan's first major publication is a breakthrough study of life in Shatila, the Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut. The book provides powerful insight into notions of nation, exile, homeland, and return through a detailed and provoking study that forces readers to reassess notions about what it means to be a Palestinian refugee." -- The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs"In this intriguing study, anthropologist Allan provides a fascinating study of Palestinian identity in exile . . . Identity, Allan therefore argues, lies in the local, wherein emotions and cognitions of sociability mark felt experiences of embodied practices. Allan's methodology of 'ethnographies of the particular' underlines this everyday aspect of lived experiences and, in many ways, identifies the book's major contribution to anthropology and Middle Eastern studies . . . Highly recommended." -- B. Rahimi * CHOICE *"Diana Allan's ethnographic study provides insight into the day-to-day struggles of the residents of the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp in southern Beirut. Through her direct experience in the camp and extensive interactions with the refugees, Allan applies a phenomenological lens to create a collection of narratives based on qualitative research. Refugees of the Revolution weaves stories of the pragmatic survival of Shatila's refugees, to highlight the wider implications of marginalization. Allan's work provides a well-grounded insight into the interdisciplinary effects of refugee life without imposing policy." -- Middle East Journal"This beautifully written ethnography provides a powerful account of the Palestinian refugee experience in Lebanon. Basing her analysis in the complexities of refugee lives, rather than on received frameworks, Diana Allan has produced a work whose ethnographic richness is matched by its theoretical acumen. Refugees of the Revolution should be read by anyone interested in structural poverty or long-term displacement." -- Ilana Feldman * George Washington University *"In an ethnography marked by analytical subtlety, empathy, and political courage, Diana Allan raises questions around the way that activists and researchers working in Palestinian refugee camps focus on the national past, neglecting everyday poverty, survival economies, hopes for the future, individual memories. Her careful attention to the words and lives of Shatila people has produced a study that makes us think again." -- Rosemary Sayigh * author of The Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries *"With intelligence and compassion, Diana Allan has captured the experience of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon today. An outstanding book, and an important reminder that there can be no just settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that overlooks the rights of refugees." -- Eugene Rogan * author of The Arabs: A History *"The presumed primacy of economic deprivation over nationalist ideology is among the hottest topics not only in contemporary Palestine studies but also in much of the anthropology of social suffering. For that, and for its excellent ethnographic quality, Allan's timely book has been among the most debated novel works in the field since its release." -- Leonardo Schiocchet * American Anthropologist *"By combining ethnographic observations with quotations from informal interactions and formal narrative interviews, [Allan] reveals that daily life in the camp constitutes a struggle that is economic and existential, as well as political." -- Helen Taylor * Refuge *
£19.79
Stanford University Press Digging for the Disappeared
Book SynopsisTrade Review"This scholarly, richly documented work is written with great compassion for victims of human rights abuses. Rosenblatt delineates the norms, ethical issues, and complex politics that are relevant when forensic teams investigate gravesites after mass violence has occurred . . . A template for international, multidisciplinary, and volunteer teams with norms of enhanced sensitivity to cultural and political realities has clearly emerged . . . Recommended." -- P.G. Conway * CHOICE *"Digging for the Disappeared is an easy to read text which takes you on a journey in forensic anthropology, archaeology, and human rights work from its insurgence in Latin America and growth in the field thanks to the influence of luminaries such as the late Clyde Snow and Bill Haglund . . . [I]t carries its weight when it comes to the contents, detailed discussion on various themes including the merging human rights movement, transitional governments, and tribunals." -- Keith K. Silica * Staffordshire University *"A work of heart and mind, Digging for the Disappeared is a fascinating, much-needed critique of international forensic ethics and human rights. Rosenblatt rightly calls for a more humanistic approach to the medico-legal examination and care of mortal remains in the wake of mass atrocities and disasters. Required reading for anyone interested in the promotion of justice and social reconstruction in post-war societies." -- Eric Stover * coauthor of The Graves: Srebrencia and Vukovar *"Digging for the Disappeared chronicles an unavoidable chapter in the contemporary struggle for human rights—the search for the remains of the victims of the heinous crime of forced 'disappearances' and the inspiring efforts to train new generations of forensic scientists. It is a moving, thoroughly researched, essential book." -- José Zalaquett * University of Chile *"Digging for the Disappeared opens up the world of forensic investigations of human rights violations to reveal its political, practical, and philosophical complexities. Moving from Argentina to Poland, former Yugoslavia to Rwanda and beyond, Rosenblatt invites us to consider the rights of the dead alongside the politics of the living. The result is a compassionate, compelling call to understand the logics underwriting efforts to recover and name the missing." -- Sarah Wagner * George Washington University *"This book is as bottomless and as urgent as the grief of those whose loved ones lie in mass graves." -- Elaine Scarry * Harvard University *"Adam Rosenblatt's compelling narrative and searing analysis ensure that this book is not only an essential addition to the shelf but also a thoroughly engaging read. His is a perfectly timed analysis of why forensic science is done and the questions that should always be asked, written with a depth of compassion that is unexpected. The simple and accessible approach in parts belies a fiery critical analysis and personalised knowledge . . . The narrative style is a model for forensic writing and analysis that should be highly prized going forward." -- Lucy Easthope and Stephanie Armstrong * Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences *"Despite dealing with subtle and challenging concepts, the book is engaging, self-reflective and surprisingly accessible; Rosenblatt's most significant achievement could, in fact, be the ability to make an academic book on a highly technical subject a page-turner for a broad readership The innovative scope of the book, the unique questions it raises and comprehensively addresses, and its accessibility make it a must-read for anyone interested in human rights, transitional justice, and post-conflict studies more broadly." -- Iosif Kovras * Human Rights Review *"To conclude, Adam Rosenblatt wrote a highly urgent book about the use of forensic science after atrocity. He clearly articulates the politics and contingencies of such humanitarian practices, and makes a persuasive argument for a holistic, victim and mourners centric approach. As such, the book does not necessarily articulate a new approach to forensic practice, yet Rosenblatt's contribution is that he is one of the first authors to eloquently pose the "big" moral, ethical and philosophical questions that human rights workers face during their work. In that sense, the book is an astonishing achievement and should become mandatory reading for anyone interested in human rights, transitional justice, victim identification operations after atrocity and disaster, or forensic science." -- Victor Toom * Journal of Human Rights *"Digging for the Disappeared is an informative, moving, and enriching read, well written and perceptive. This book will serve as a great student introduction to the politics and ethics of exhumation, as it manages to be highly readable and accessible, without glossing over the complexity of these investigations in the real world. It will also be helpful to scientific and forensic practitioners, offering a more reflective perspective than those standard case reports that emphasize protocol and best practice. For those working in dead-body politics, it is a key text, which will stimulate further debate." -- Layla Renshaw * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute_______________________________________________________________________ *Table of ContentsContents and Abstracts1The Stakeholders in International Forensic Investigations chapter abstractThis chapter analyzes the politics of mass graves through the lens of three major stakeholders: courts and war crimes tribunals, transitional governments, and families of the missing. It argues for the necessity of an international perspective based on common dynamics around mass gravesites, the global circulation of forensic experts, and the construction of ethics in the field. Mid-1990s exhumations in Bosnia and Kosovo are described as a "formative controversy" pitting the pressure to collect evidence quickly against the needs of families of the missing. The chapter also looks at two ways of framing the purposes of forensic investigations and the needs of stakeholders: creating a historical record backed by science and building capacity in post-conflict nations. The chapter concludes with a look at the process of identifying Chile's "disappeared," which illustrates how scientific and political realities can complicate simple narratives of collective memory and capacity-building. 2The Politics of Grief chapter abstractAn early and enduring objection to mass grave exhumation is that in offering "closure" to individuals, it undercuts political demands for justice. This perspective was voiced most famously by some of Argentina's famous human rights activists, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, whose opposing views on exhumation eventually fueled a schism in their ranks. This chapter argues that the Madres' views must be understood within the context of Argentina's particular transitional justice history, as well as for their subsequent impact on families of the missing globally. In contrast to other scholarship, the chapter pays equal attention to the pro-exhumation perspective of the "Línea Fundadora" group of Madres, generally written off as more straightforward and less radical than their peers. Their stance, it argues, is founded on compelling views of the political impact of exhumations, duties to the children of the "disappeared," and the care of the dead. 3Forensics of the Sacred chapter abstractThis chapter examines another important reason some mass graves have not been exhumed: the belief that graves and dead bodies are sacred, and that to disturb them is a desecration. Using halted exhumations of Holocaust-era graves of Jews in Jedwabne, Poland and of massacred refugees in Congo as examples, it argues that the dynamics at these gravesites should not be viewed as clashes between international justice and "local culture" because the interests fueling religious objections are neither exclusively local nor solely religious. The chapter looks at recommendations that have been provided to forensic teams for handling these highly charged situations, and finds that they share a longstanding discomfort—present since the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—with how the idea of the sacred interacts with the language and imperatives of human rights in both theory and practice. 4Dead to Rights chapter abstractThe rights of the dead, rarely invoked by forensic experts, are a last frontier for a field that has already embraced new human rights to truth, knowledge, and even mourning. Yet this frontier of human rights is essential to understanding forensic teams as political communities, the ways their successes and failures are measured, and what role the dead themselves play in the global project of exhumation. This chapter argues that violence against the dead, unlike that directed towards the living, may render them permanently rightless—and that human rights are thus a poor way to understand what exhumation and identification do for the dead. The chapter begins a more modest, concrete description of the changes forensic experts make to dead bodies by detailing the three major types of violence inflicted upon the bodies in mass graves—destruction of identity, placement in an unchosen location, and deprivation of care. 5Caring for the Dead chapter abstractThis chapter offers a care perspective on international forensic investigations and a definition of care in the context of mass graves. It presents care ethics as a way of focusing on relationships and processes over abstract principles, and argues for their importance in describing the relationships between forensic experts, dead bodies, and mourners. Rather than a replacement for human rights or recipe for paternalism, care can also illuminate the dangers and delicate balances of forensic work. The chapter uses examples from memoirs and interviews to show how care and its absence are felt in the field—including in the relationships between forensic investigators. It ends with a call to combine the strands of science and humanism present in forensic investigation by seeing dead bodies as part of a wider landscape of "precious things" and of professions that have dedicated themselves to the repair and maintenance of those things. IntroductionBorn at the Graves: A Human Rights Movement Takes Shape chapter abstractThis chapter provides a historical overview of how forensic science came to be used in the service of human rights causes, beginning with the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo's request for help from American forensic experts to conduct scientific exhumations of Argentina's "disappeared" and aid in the search for their kidnapped grandchildren. It describes forensic investigations as an increasingly institutionalized part of the international response to conflict—a global project of unearthing the dead—which has challenged traditional notions of the purposes of forensic science and required significant adaptation to unforeseen conditions on the ground. The book introduces some of the disciplines involved in forensic investigation, and then outlines four ethical tenets shared by organizations that conduct these investigations through a human rights lens: science as a privileged form of truth, political autonomy, moral universalism, and a focus on the needs of victims and mourners.
£78.30
Stanford University Press Foucault and the Politics of Rights
Book SynopsisThis book proposes an original interpretation of the French philosopher Michel Foucault's late work on rights and human rights and relates this interpretation to current developments in contemporary political theory.Trade Review"Even though I've now seen him do it, I'm still amazed that Golder has been able to pull off such a powerful and fresh rereading of Foucault, one so relevant for contemporary debates in theory and politics. I haven't been this excited about a new work on Foucault since I read David Halperin's tour de force, Saint Foucault, and that was almost twenty years ago. This is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in Foucault or in rights, and that is a huge swath of people."—Samuel Chambers, The Johns Hopkins University"This crucial project makes an impact at once scholarly and political with respect to the fraught status of contemporary rights discourse. By traversing political theory, critical legal theory, continental philosophy, and the voluminous literature on Michel Foucault, Ben Golder stakes out a novel account of how we should go about defending rights in a post-foundational era."—Colin Koopman, University of Oregon"This is a book which is not only beautifully conceived but gracefully written and through which Golder has made a remarkable intervention into the field of Foucault studies, human rights and political theory. I can see it being of immense value to researchers and students of Foucault on rights and on Foucauldian critique alike."—Bal Sokhi-Bulley, Theory & Event"Foucault and the Politics of Rights offers a methodical and close reading of Foucault's critical appropriation of rights thinking. It provides a persuasive exegesis, deftly showing how his specific critiques of political conditions evoked indeterminate rights to help resist particular forms of conduct. ... This book will appeal to students and scholars seeking an in-depth discussion of Foucault's broader framings of critique and power, as well as his later elicitations of ethics, subjects and rights. It also provides political activists with a reflexive, critical view of how human rights might be tactically or strategically envisaged within particular political struggles. For those tempted to yawn at the prospect of yet another tome on Foucault, I would recommend suppressing the urge: read the book and become submerged in a gathering of texts not often interpreted together. Its insightful probes will reward readers with absorbing ways to think differently about human rights that are now the lingua franca of dominant liberal political horizons." —George Pavlich, Law and Society Review"I really enjoyed this book. To the Foucault scholar, it presents a series of close readings of late texts that are generous, penetrating, and persuasive. To the critical lawyer, it offers a thoughtful Foucauldian appraisal of Verges' strategy of rupture in legal practice as theorized by Emilios Christodoulidis and others. To the scholar with an interest in human rights, it puts forward an important and thorough analysis of Foucault's practice and thinking on rights, and through discussion with Foucault and other thinkers it proposes some ideas and cautions for making use of rights in political practice. Written in clear, engaging English, with a rhythm and an excitement that draws you through to the end, it is an accessible and fascinating book on subjects of wide interest to us all."—David Thomas, Law, Culture and the Humanities"Ben Golder offers an invigorating new political defense of rights grounded in the works of Michel Foucault...this book offers a revitalized reading of Foucault's work in relation to rights and secondary Foucauldian scholars more generally. Foucault and the Politics of Rights is a meaningful contribution for both advocates and critics of Foucault alike due to its resistance to resort to a normative (liberal) definition of rights while still advocating that rights do something, and, accordingly, should not be overlooked by anyone in conversation with rights, politics and power. "—Garrett Lecoq, Social & Legal Studies "Golder clearly and convincingly responds to critics who would find in this late work a relinquishing of critique or collaboration with a quiescent liberalism. Very carefully drawing on Foucault's writings and lectures, Golder lucidly articulates Foucault's view of critique and shows how even when Foucault endorses a 'right to suicide' or argues against the death penalty, he considers rights discourse to be a tactic, deployed (or not) within a broader strategy of political aims... Golder's readings are scholarly, painstaking, and correct. His argument is an invaluable contribution to discussions that seek Foucault's legacy in theory (rather than looking, as some might, in the directions that Foucault's students have taken)."—Marianne Constable, Canadian Journal of Law and Society"Michel Foucault, a political actor and rights advocate? Making claims for the right to die, the rights of the governed, and rights to sexuality? This is a most unfamiliar Foucault for many, but it is the focus of Ben Golder's Foucault and the Politics of Rights. Breathing new life into somewhat stale debates about the political character of Foucault's work, Golder reveals a thinker and activist deeply committed to rights politics as well as to critiques of power and subjectivity. ... With this provocative account, Golder's work certainly deepens our understanding of Foucault's ideas in important ways. But so too does it shed light on the ongoing value of rights for contemporary politics, shaking up both the liberal faith in and the postmodern skepticism of rights in the process."—Karen Zivi, Contemporary Political Theory"Foucault and the Politics of Rights is an important book addressing important topics. Golder provides clear interpretations of central Foucauldian concerns and timely refutations of prominent misinterpretations of Foucault on rights. More importantly, Golder compellingly argues for the continuing relevance of Foucault's approach to rights, aside from any historical interest. For all of this, Foucault and the Politics of Rights is to be highly recommended."—Jack Blaiklock Marx and Philosophy Review of Books ________________________________________"Ben Golder's new book on Foucault and the Politics of Rights is a landmark text that engages with one of the most intriguing questions regarding Foucault's later work: did his turn to human rights represent a capitulation to the liberal project? Golder's answer is a resounding 'No' Golder's book is an innovative book and an exemplary contribution to Foucault studies, critical legal theory and human rights scholarship. It is a beautifully crafted and powerfully argued text that brings an important, original dimension to Foucault's work and his approach to human rights."—Ratna Kapur, UNSW Law Journal "Golder's argument unfolds over four chapters, framed by substantive introductory and concluding chapters[His] interpretative method offers us a strong model for Foucauldian analytics, beyond Foucault's own immediate concerns. This is Foucault studies at its best: using Foucault to go beyond Foucault."—Andrew Dilts Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews"In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Michel Foucault appealed to a truly astounding, if not dizzying, array of rights: the rights of prisoners, the right to asylum, human rights, the right to suicide, the rights of the governed, and relational rights. How are we to make sense of his appeals to these rights? What do they tell us about Foucault's commitments? How can they illuminate rights talk more generally? One of the many merits of Ben Golder's Foucault and the Politics of Rights is that it pursues these questions with an unparalleled depth, rigor, and eloquence... Golder not only masterfully distances Foucault's late rights talk from his putative embrace of liberalism, but also convincingly demonstrates that Foucault heralded a whole new praxis of rights."—Marcelo Hoffman, New Political Science"Foucault and the Politics of Rights is an excellent piece of scholarship that deserves the consideration of everyone interested in Foucault's work and in human rights."—Ladelle McWhorter, Journal of Political Power"Golder is one of the most original and innovative legal theorists working in Australia. His books and numerous essays demonstrate a consistent commitment to scholarly rigour and reflection on contemporary political problems. His work encapsulates Edward Said's idea of the intellectual as someone who accepts the responsibility to raise difficult questions, to confront orthodoxy and dogma (rather than to reproduce them) and who is prepared to challenge conventional wisdom...Golder's book is a major intervention in Foucauldian studies and research into the legalphilosophical dimensions of rights. It deserves to be read and to be taken seriously by legal scholars, including those unfamiliar with Foucault."—Peter D. Burdon, Adelaide Law Review "Did Foucault simply turn into a liberal humanist? Golder mounts a vigorous critique of this thesis. Not only is there more continuity with the earlier critiques of humanism and liberalism, but this continuity also tells us something about Foucault's very particular engagement with rights politicsBut, as Golder notes, we should be wary of drifting from an exposure of contingency into the assertion of the limitless malleability of rights. This is where the author takes the argument beyond much of the radical left literature on the subject"—Christiaan Boonen, Political Studies Review Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractThe Introduction lays out the central issues discussed in the book and summarizes its general thesis: that Foucault's late political thinking on rights represents neither a return, nor a capitulation, to liberalism, but a critical (yet ambivalent) engagement with it. It contextualizes the book's argument within previous interpretations of Foucault's late work and argues for the wider importance of the way in which these texts should be understood. It concludes with some methodological observations and by mapping the chapter structure of the book. 1Critical Counter-Conducts chapter abstractThis chapter details three things: first, it addresses Foucault's understanding of critique via a discussion of his methods of genealogy and archaeology; secondly, it provides a discussion of his critical analyses of subjectivity and sovereignty made in work of the 1970s; and, finally, it addresses his particular notion of the 'counter-conduct' introduced into his work in the late 1970s via his lectures at the Collège de France. This largely expository material is vital for an understanding of the arguments made in the following chapters, each of which develops a reading of a different dimension of Foucault's rights politics. 2Who Is the Subject of (Foucault's) Human Rights? chapter abstractThis chapter develops an account of the first dimension of Foucault's politics of rights; namely, their contingent and ungrounded character. By this is meant that when Foucault makes rights claims in his late work he consciously disavows the conventional normative grounds of rights (reason, will, intention, and so forth) in favor of an undetermined conception of subjectivity. On this view, rights become a promising site where competing and contingent claims about the subject of rights are made but can never ultimately be resolved or determined. The chapter starts with an examination of the status of the subject in Foucault's late work on ethics, which is then related to his anti-essentialist advocacy of human rights (such as in Cold-War-era Poland and postrevolutionary Iran), as well as his advocacy of the 'rights of the governed' in the context of global politics and humanitarianism. 3The Ambivalence of Rights chapter abstractThis chapter develops an account of the second dimension of Foucault's politics of rights; namely, his appreciation (and negotiation) of their ambivalence. Rights are ambivalent for Foucault in the sense that they are vehicles both of empowerment and regulation. Rights allow for claimants to expand and protect their sphere of action but they also subjectify and regulate those claimants even as they assert rights on their own behalf. The present chapter pursues this theme through a reading of the work of the political theorist Wendy Brown on rights to 'identity' as well as of Foucault's own advocacy of rights to sexual choice in his late work (and his related conceptions of friendship and of relational rights). It concludes with a reflection on the possible meaning of freedom in the context of Foucault's ambivalent account of rights. 4Rights Between Tactics and Strategy chapter abstractThis chapter develops an account of the third and final dimension of Foucault's politics of rights; namely, their tactical and strategic deployment. By 'tactical' is meant an instrumental appropriation of rights for political purposes beyond, or subversive of, the demands of a liberal democratic system. By 'strategic' is meant the use of rights to challenge wider structures and relations of power. The chapter assesses whether Foucault's rights claims can be called strategic in the sense just given (ultimately concluding that they can) by examining his deployment of rights in two different yet related contexts. These contexts are linked by the broader theme of the biopolitical management of life. The first context is Foucault's assertion of a right to die and the second is his opposition to the death penalty. Conclusion chapter abstractThis concluding chapter performs two tasks. The first task is to situate the preceding interpretation of Foucault within an evolving historical debate about the origin of contemporary human rights discourse—a debate catalyzed by the work of Samuel Moyn. According to Moyn's revisionist understanding, the turn to human rights in the late 1970s reflects a general turning away from revolution in the Western political imaginary (and the embrace of liberal utopias instead). The chapter argues that Foucault's ambivalent deployment of rights cannot be reduced to this shift but is more critical of liberalism. The second task is to relate Foucault's engagement with rights in the late 1970s and early 1980s to the contemporary fascination with human rights and to pose (yet not ultimately resolve) the question of whether his approach counsels a continued engagement with human rights or a strategic withdrawal from them.
£81.90
Stanford University Press If God Were a Human Rights Activist
Book SynopsisWe live in a time when the most appalling social injustices and unjust human sufferings no longer seem to generate the moral indignation and the political will needed both to combat them effectively and to create a more just and fair society. If God Were a Human Rights Activist aims to strengthen the organization and the determination of all those who have not given up the struggle for a better society, and specifically those that have done so under the banner of human rights. It discusses the challenges to human rights arising from religious movements and political theologies that claim the presence of religion in the public sphere. Increasingly globalized, such movements and the theologies sustaining them promote discourses of human dignity that rival, and often contradict, the one underlying secular human rights. Conventional or hegemonic human rights thinking lacks the necessary theoretical and analytical tools to position itself in relation to such movements and tTrade Review"Santos's task is to point to a 'counterhegemonic' conception of human rights, the grounds for which he finds in progressive theologies that, he posits, exist ' with certain nuances' in all major religions . . . [H]is challenges are worth confronting, and the intellectual journey he provides is worth taking . . . Recommended." -- W.F. Schulz * CHOICE *"Boaventura de Sousa Santos is one of the most influential critical thinkers of our times. God may not be a human rights activist, but many religious and believing people are also at the forefront of the struggle for human dignity and emancipation. However, their conception of human rights is counter-hegemonic, distinct from the established Western modern version, and sometimes, as in Liberation theology, inspired by a radical anti-capitalist perspective. Our understanding of human rights is profoundly expanded and enriched by Santos' remarkable new book." -- Michael Löwy, Emeritus Research Director, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique * Paris *"This tantalizingly-named book challenges readers to view human rights from the perspective of 'God' and to ask whether human rights derive from 'God.' We are all invited to follow Boaventura de Sousa Santos as he expertly explores this perspective and urges readers to consider future possibilities for human rights." -- Mogobe Bernard Ramose * University of South Africa *"Using his characteristic irony, erudition, and wit, Santos argues that western notions of human 'rights' are meant to espouse the dignity of humankind, yet they are also being advanced for the facilitation of imperialism and the proliferation of misery. Through an appeal to secularism, these notions of human rights render themselves incapable of responding to the lived realities of peoples of the global south—those left in the abyssal realm of imperial damnation. A must-read for those interested in the question of human rights and the complicated task of building law beyond its current, dominating and degrading paradigms." -- Lewis Gordon * Professor, University of Connecticut, author of What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction to His Life and Thought *Table of ContentsContents and Abstracts2The globalization of political theologies chapter abstractClaiming religion as a constitutive element of public life is a phenomenon that has been increasingly gaining worldwide relevance in the past few decades. It challenges secularism, the paradigm of religion and state relations which is at the core of western-centric modernity and has spread across the globe through colonialism and globalization. According to this paradigm, Christian values are recognized as "universal" but institutional Christianity activism is relegated to the private sphere. This resolution of the "religious question" is being challenged in many parts of the world, the western world included, by political theologies for which the distinction between the public sphere and the private sphere is not valid. This chapter distinguishes different types of theology (pluralist and fundamentalist; progressive and traditionalist) showing that the relations among political theologies, forms of globalization, secularism and human rights are not univocal or monolithic. 3The case of Islamic fundamentalism chapter abstractThis chapter analyzes the globalization of some forms of Islamic political theology commonly designated as Islamic fundamentalism. This is a minefield in which claims of conceptual difficulty are often mixed with implicit or even explicit assumptions about real or imagined political threats. It is thus imperative to counter the monolithic conceptions of Islam prevalent in the West today. Even when militantly anti-Western, the different Islamic political theologies differ as to what it means to be anti-Western, as the rejection of Western modernity as a cultural imperial project may or may not involve the rejection of global capitalism. This chapter gives special attention to the relations between Islam, and particularly fundamentalist Islam, on the one hand, and women's rights and the struggle against sexual discrimination, on the other. 4The case of Christian fundamentalism chapter abstractThis chapter analyzes the globalization of some forms of Christian political theology commonly designated as Christian fundamentalism, especially in its Protestant strain. The expansion of Christian fundamentalist movements throughout the world, whether by means of proselytizing missions or through electronic resources, has significant political impact. It tends to strengthen political conservatism, if not far right politics. While liberation theologies tend to valorize grassroots, popular culture, Christian fundamentalism is becoming a mass culture phenomenon, mixing the alien and the familiar, the ancestral and the hypermodern, as if they were homogeneous components of the same religious artifact. Although a fierce defender of global capitalism, it rejects the Western society for having "liberalized" the family, education, sexual and reproductive rights, which they consider a betrayal of Christian values. 5Human rights in the contact zones with political theologies chapter abstractPolitical theologies promote conceptions of human dignity, social regulation and social transformation that often contradict those conventionally associated with human rights. New contact zones among rival conceptions are thereby generated and, with them, new forms of political, cultural, and ideological turbulence. This chapter analyzes the following dimensions and manifestations of such turbulence: the turbulence among rival principles; the turbulence between roots and options; and the turbulence between the sacred and the profane, the religious and the secular, the transcendent and the immanent. This analysis sheds new light on the limits of conventional human rights politics on a global scale and calls for a deep reconstruction, or even reinvention, of human rights, if they are to provide credible answers to the strong questions raised by global injustice. 6Toward a post-secularist conception of human rights: counter-hegemonic human rights and progressive theologies chapter abstractThis chapter discusses the possibilities for mutually enriching interactions between counter-hegemonic conceptions and practices of human rights and liberation theologies. Since the 1960s, pluralist, progressive theologies and community-based religious practices have emerged, for which God seems to be revealed in unjust human suffering, in the life experiences of all the victims of domination, oppression, and discrimination. As a consequence, to bear witness to this God means to denounce such suffering and to struggle against it. If both revelation and redemption take place in this world, a contact zone is thereby generated with the ideals of social and political liberation underlying the utopia that another more just and free world is possible. One of the paths towards counter-hegemonic human rights lies in the possibility of connecting the return of God to a trans-modern, concrete insurgent humanism. Conclusion chapter abstractThis book identifies the major challenges that the rise of political theologies pose to human rights with the objective of exploring the possibility of transforming human rights into a much stronger instrument of emancipatory politics in an unjust, globalized, but resiliently intercultural world. In the background of the arguments developed in this book is the concrete experience of the World Social Forum in which converge activists in social struggles for socio-economic, historical, sexual, racial, cultural, and postcolonial justice who base their activism and their claims on Christian, Islamic, Judaic, Hindu, Buddhist, and indigenous religious beliefs and spiritualities. They represent a political inter-subjectivity that seems to have deserted conventional secular critical thinking and political action: the combination of creative effervescence and intense and passionate energy, on one side, with a pluralistic, open-ended, non-violent and yet radical conception of struggle, on the other. 1Human Rights: a fragile hegemony chapter abstractThis chapter briefly traces the genealogy of the western-centric human rights conception. Nowadays, there seems to be no question about the global hegemony of human rights as a discourse of human dignity. Yet, a large majority of the world's inhabitants are not the subjects of human rights, but rather objects of human rights discourses. Thus the question is: are human rights helping the struggles of the excluded, the exploited, and the discriminated against, or, on the contrary, making these struggles more difficult? The hegemony enjoyed by human rights is commonly viewed as the product of an historic linear trajectory towards their consecration as the ruling principle of a just society. The chapter challenges this view by identifying four illusions underlying it: teleology, triumphalism, decontextualization, and monolithism. Being widely shared, such illusions constitute the common sense of conventional human rights.
£62.90
Stanford University Press Digging for the Disappeared
Book SynopsisThe mass graves from our long human history of genocide, massacres, and violent conflict form an underground map of atrocity that stretches across the planet''s surface. In the past few decades, due to rapidly developing technologies and a powerful global human rights movement, the scientific study of those graves has become a standard facet of post-conflict international assistance. Digging for the Disappeared provides readers with a window into this growing but little-understood form of human rights work, including the dangers and sometimes unexpected complications that arise as evidence is gathered and the dead are named.Adam Rosenblatt examines the ethical, political, and historical foundations of the rapidly growing field of forensic investigation, from the graves of the disappeared in Latin America to genocides in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia to postSaddam Hussein Iraq. In the process, he illustrates how forensic teams strive to balance the needs of war crimeTrade Review"This scholarly, richly documented work is written with great compassion for victims of human rights abuses. Rosenblatt delineates the norms, ethical issues, and complex politics that are relevant when forensic teams investigate gravesites after mass violence has occurred . . . A template for international, multidisciplinary, and volunteer teams with norms of enhanced sensitivity to cultural and political realities has clearly emerged . . . Recommended." -- P.G. Conway * CHOICE *"Digging for the Disappeared is an easy to read text which takes you on a journey in forensic anthropology, archaeology, and human rights work from its insurgence in Latin America and growth in the field thanks to the influence of luminaries such as the late Clyde Snow and Bill Haglund . . . [I]t carries its weight when it comes to the contents, detailed discussion on various themes including the merging human rights movement, transitional governments, and tribunals." -- Keith K. Silica * Staffordshire University *"A work of heart and mind, Digging for the Disappeared is a fascinating, much-needed critique of international forensic ethics and human rights. Rosenblatt rightly calls for a more humanistic approach to the medico-legal examination and care of mortal remains in the wake of mass atrocities and disasters. Required reading for anyone interested in the promotion of justice and social reconstruction in post-war societies." -- Eric Stover * coauthor of The Graves: Srebrencia and Vukovar *"Digging for the Disappeared chronicles an unavoidable chapter in the contemporary struggle for human rights—the search for the remains of the victims of the heinous crime of forced 'disappearances' and the inspiring efforts to train new generations of forensic scientists. It is a moving, thoroughly researched, essential book." -- José Zalaquett * University of Chile *"Digging for the Disappeared opens up the world of forensic investigations of human rights violations to reveal its political, practical, and philosophical complexities. Moving from Argentina to Poland, former Yugoslavia to Rwanda and beyond, Rosenblatt invites us to consider the rights of the dead alongside the politics of the living. The result is a compassionate, compelling call to understand the logics underwriting efforts to recover and name the missing." -- Sarah Wagner * George Washington University *"This book is as bottomless and as urgent as the grief of those whose loved ones lie in mass graves." -- Elaine Scarry * Harvard University *"Adam Rosenblatt's compelling narrative and searing analysis ensure that this book is not only an essential addition to the shelf but also a thoroughly engaging read. His is a perfectly timed analysis of why forensic science is done and the questions that should always be asked, written with a depth of compassion that is unexpected. The simple and accessible approach in parts belies a fiery critical analysis and personalised knowledge . . . The narrative style is a model for forensic writing and analysis that should be highly prized going forward." -- Lucy Easthope and Stephanie Armstrong * Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences *"Despite dealing with subtle and challenging concepts, the book is engaging, self-reflective and surprisingly accessible; Rosenblatt's most significant achievement could, in fact, be the ability to make an academic book on a highly technical subject a page-turner for a broad readership The innovative scope of the book, the unique questions it raises and comprehensively addresses, and its accessibility make it a must-read for anyone interested in human rights, transitional justice, and post-conflict studies more broadly." -- Iosif Kovras * Human Rights Review *"To conclude, Adam Rosenblatt wrote a highly urgent book about the use of forensic science after atrocity. He clearly articulates the politics and contingencies of such humanitarian practices, and makes a persuasive argument for a holistic, victim and mourners centric approach. As such, the book does not necessarily articulate a new approach to forensic practice, yet Rosenblatt's contribution is that he is one of the first authors to eloquently pose the "big" moral, ethical and philosophical questions that human rights workers face during their work. In that sense, the book is an astonishing achievement and should become mandatory reading for anyone interested in human rights, transitional justice, victim identification operations after atrocity and disaster, or forensic science." -- Victor Toom * Journal of Human Rights *"Digging for the Disappeared is an informative, moving, and enriching read, well written and perceptive. This book will serve as a great student introduction to the politics and ethics of exhumation, as it manages to be highly readable and accessible, without glossing over the complexity of these investigations in the real world. It will also be helpful to scientific and forensic practitioners, offering a more reflective perspective than those standard case reports that emphasize protocol and best practice. For those working in dead-body politics, it is a key text, which will stimulate further debate." -- Layla Renshaw * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute_______________________________________________________________________ *Table of ContentsContents and Abstracts1The Stakeholders in International Forensic Investigations chapter abstractThis chapter analyzes the politics of mass graves through the lens of three major stakeholders: courts and war crimes tribunals, transitional governments, and families of the missing. It argues for the necessity of an international perspective based on common dynamics around mass gravesites, the global circulation of forensic experts, and the construction of ethics in the field. Mid-1990s exhumations in Bosnia and Kosovo are described as a "formative controversy" pitting the pressure to collect evidence quickly against the needs of families of the missing. The chapter also looks at two ways of framing the purposes of forensic investigations and the needs of stakeholders: creating a historical record backed by science and building capacity in post-conflict nations. The chapter concludes with a look at the process of identifying Chile's "disappeared," which illustrates how scientific and political realities can complicate simple narratives of collective memory and capacity-building. 2The Politics of Grief chapter abstractAn early and enduring objection to mass grave exhumation is that in offering "closure" to individuals, it undercuts political demands for justice. This perspective was voiced most famously by some of Argentina's famous human rights activists, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, whose opposing views on exhumation eventually fueled a schism in their ranks. This chapter argues that the Madres' views must be understood within the context of Argentina's particular transitional justice history, as well as for their subsequent impact on families of the missing globally. In contrast to other scholarship, the chapter pays equal attention to the pro-exhumation perspective of the "Línea Fundadora" group of Madres, generally written off as more straightforward and less radical than their peers. Their stance, it argues, is founded on compelling views of the political impact of exhumations, duties to the children of the "disappeared," and the care of the dead. 3Forensics of the Sacred chapter abstractThis chapter examines another important reason some mass graves have not been exhumed: the belief that graves and dead bodies are sacred, and that to disturb them is a desecration. Using halted exhumations of Holocaust-era graves of Jews in Jedwabne, Poland and of massacred refugees in Congo as examples, it argues that the dynamics at these gravesites should not be viewed as clashes between international justice and "local culture" because the interests fueling religious objections are neither exclusively local nor solely religious. The chapter looks at recommendations that have been provided to forensic teams for handling these highly charged situations, and finds that they share a longstanding discomfort—present since the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—with how the idea of the sacred interacts with the language and imperatives of human rights in both theory and practice. 4Dead to Rights chapter abstractThe rights of the dead, rarely invoked by forensic experts, are a last frontier for a field that has already embraced new human rights to truth, knowledge, and even mourning. Yet this frontier of human rights is essential to understanding forensic teams as political communities, the ways their successes and failures are measured, and what role the dead themselves play in the global project of exhumation. This chapter argues that violence against the dead, unlike that directed towards the living, may render them permanently rightless—and that human rights are thus a poor way to understand what exhumation and identification do for the dead. The chapter begins a more modest, concrete description of the changes forensic experts make to dead bodies by detailing the three major types of violence inflicted upon the bodies in mass graves—destruction of identity, placement in an unchosen location, and deprivation of care. 5Caring for the Dead chapter abstractThis chapter offers a care perspective on international forensic investigations and a definition of care in the context of mass graves. It presents care ethics as a way of focusing on relationships and processes over abstract principles, and argues for their importance in describing the relationships between forensic experts, dead bodies, and mourners. Rather than a replacement for human rights or recipe for paternalism, care can also illuminate the dangers and delicate balances of forensic work. The chapter uses examples from memoirs and interviews to show how care and its absence are felt in the field—including in the relationships between forensic investigators. It ends with a call to combine the strands of science and humanism present in forensic investigation by seeing dead bodies as part of a wider landscape of "precious things" and of professions that have dedicated themselves to the repair and maintenance of those things. IntroductionBorn at the Graves: A Human Rights Movement Takes Shape chapter abstractThis chapter provides a historical overview of how forensic science came to be used in the service of human rights causes, beginning with the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo's request for help from American forensic experts to conduct scientific exhumations of Argentina's "disappeared" and aid in the search for their kidnapped grandchildren. It describes forensic investigations as an increasingly institutionalized part of the international response to conflict—a global project of unearthing the dead—which has challenged traditional notions of the purposes of forensic science and required significant adaptation to unforeseen conditions on the ground. The book introduces some of the disciplines involved in forensic investigation, and then outlines four ethical tenets shared by organizations that conduct these investigations through a human rights lens: science as a privileged form of truth, political autonomy, moral universalism, and a focus on the needs of victims and mourners.
£18.89
Stanford University Press If God Were a Human Rights Activist
Book SynopsisHuman rights must be profoundly reconstructed, if not reinvented, if they are to confront successfully the challenges posed by the rise of political theologies and their rival conceptions of human dignity.Trade Review"Santos's task is to point to a 'counterhegemonic' conception of human rights, the grounds for which he finds in progressive theologies that, he posits, exist ' with certain nuances' in all major religions . . . [H]is challenges are worth confronting, and the intellectual journey he provides is worth taking . . . Recommended." -- W.F. Schulz * CHOICE *"Boaventura de Sousa Santos is one of the most influential critical thinkers of our times. God may not be a human rights activist, but many religious and believing people are also at the forefront of the struggle for human dignity and emancipation. However, their conception of human rights is counter-hegemonic, distinct from the established Western modern version, and sometimes, as in Liberation theology, inspired by a radical anti-capitalist perspective. Our understanding of human rights is profoundly expanded and enriched by Santos' remarkable new book." -- Michael Löwy, Emeritus Research Director, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique * Paris *"This tantalizingly-named book challenges readers to view human rights from the perspective of 'God' and to ask whether human rights derive from 'God.' We are all invited to follow Boaventura de Sousa Santos as he expertly explores this perspective and urges readers to consider future possibilities for human rights." -- Mogobe Bernard Ramose * University of South Africa *"Using his characteristic irony, erudition, and wit, Santos argues that western notions of human 'rights' are meant to espouse the dignity of humankind, yet they are also being advanced for the facilitation of imperialism and the proliferation of misery. Through an appeal to secularism, these notions of human rights render themselves incapable of responding to the lived realities of peoples of the global south—those left in the abyssal realm of imperial damnation. A must-read for those interested in the question of human rights and the complicated task of building law beyond its current, dominating and degrading paradigms." -- Lewis Gordon * Professor, University of Connecticut, author of What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction to His Life and Thought *Table of ContentsContents and Abstracts2The globalization of political theologies chapter abstractClaiming religion as a constitutive element of public life is a phenomenon that has been increasingly gaining worldwide relevance in the past few decades. It challenges secularism, the paradigm of religion and state relations which is at the core of western-centric modernity and has spread across the globe through colonialism and globalization. According to this paradigm, Christian values are recognized as "universal" but institutional Christianity activism is relegated to the private sphere. This resolution of the "religious question" is being challenged in many parts of the world, the western world included, by political theologies for which the distinction between the public sphere and the private sphere is not valid. This chapter distinguishes different types of theology (pluralist and fundamentalist; progressive and traditionalist) showing that the relations among political theologies, forms of globalization, secularism and human rights are not univocal or monolithic. 3The case of Islamic fundamentalism chapter abstractThis chapter analyzes the globalization of some forms of Islamic political theology commonly designated as Islamic fundamentalism. This is a minefield in which claims of conceptual difficulty are often mixed with implicit or even explicit assumptions about real or imagined political threats. It is thus imperative to counter the monolithic conceptions of Islam prevalent in the West today. Even when militantly anti-Western, the different Islamic political theologies differ as to what it means to be anti-Western, as the rejection of Western modernity as a cultural imperial project may or may not involve the rejection of global capitalism. This chapter gives special attention to the relations between Islam, and particularly fundamentalist Islam, on the one hand, and women's rights and the struggle against sexual discrimination, on the other. 4The case of Christian fundamentalism chapter abstractThis chapter analyzes the globalization of some forms of Christian political theology commonly designated as Christian fundamentalism, especially in its Protestant strain. The expansion of Christian fundamentalist movements throughout the world, whether by means of proselytizing missions or through electronic resources, has significant political impact. It tends to strengthen political conservatism, if not far right politics. While liberation theologies tend to valorize grassroots, popular culture, Christian fundamentalism is becoming a mass culture phenomenon, mixing the alien and the familiar, the ancestral and the hypermodern, as if they were homogeneous components of the same religious artifact. Although a fierce defender of global capitalism, it rejects the Western society for having "liberalized" the family, education, sexual and reproductive rights, which they consider a betrayal of Christian values. 5Human rights in the contact zones with political theologies chapter abstractPolitical theologies promote conceptions of human dignity, social regulation and social transformation that often contradict those conventionally associated with human rights. New contact zones among rival conceptions are thereby generated and, with them, new forms of political, cultural, and ideological turbulence. This chapter analyzes the following dimensions and manifestations of such turbulence: the turbulence among rival principles; the turbulence between roots and options; and the turbulence between the sacred and the profane, the religious and the secular, the transcendent and the immanent. This analysis sheds new light on the limits of conventional human rights politics on a global scale and calls for a deep reconstruction, or even reinvention, of human rights, if they are to provide credible answers to the strong questions raised by global injustice. 6Toward a post-secularist conception of human rights: counter-hegemonic human rights and progressive theologies chapter abstractThis chapter discusses the possibilities for mutually enriching interactions between counter-hegemonic conceptions and practices of human rights and liberation theologies. Since the 1960s, pluralist, progressive theologies and community-based religious practices have emerged, for which God seems to be revealed in unjust human suffering, in the life experiences of all the victims of domination, oppression, and discrimination. As a consequence, to bear witness to this God means to denounce such suffering and to struggle against it. If both revelation and redemption take place in this world, a contact zone is thereby generated with the ideals of social and political liberation underlying the utopia that another more just and free world is possible. One of the paths towards counter-hegemonic human rights lies in the possibility of connecting the return of God to a trans-modern, concrete insurgent humanism. Conclusion chapter abstractThis book identifies the major challenges that the rise of political theologies pose to human rights with the objective of exploring the possibility of transforming human rights into a much stronger instrument of emancipatory politics in an unjust, globalized, but resiliently intercultural world. In the background of the arguments developed in this book is the concrete experience of the World Social Forum in which converge activists in social struggles for socio-economic, historical, sexual, racial, cultural, and postcolonial justice who base their activism and their claims on Christian, Islamic, Judaic, Hindu, Buddhist, and indigenous religious beliefs and spiritualities. They represent a political inter-subjectivity that seems to have deserted conventional secular critical thinking and political action: the combination of creative effervescence and intense and passionate energy, on one side, with a pluralistic, open-ended, non-violent and yet radical conception of struggle, on the other. 1Human Rights: a fragile hegemony chapter abstractThis chapter briefly traces the genealogy of the western-centric human rights conception. Nowadays, there seems to be no question about the global hegemony of human rights as a discourse of human dignity. Yet, a large majority of the world's inhabitants are not the subjects of human rights, but rather objects of human rights discourses. Thus the question is: are human rights helping the struggles of the excluded, the exploited, and the discriminated against, or, on the contrary, making these struggles more difficult? The hegemony enjoyed by human rights is commonly viewed as the product of an historic linear trajectory towards their consecration as the ruling principle of a just society. The chapter challenges this view by identifying four illusions underlying it: teleology, triumphalism, decontextualization, and monolithism. Being widely shared, such illusions constitute the common sense of conventional human rights.
£16.14
Stanford University Press Bodies of Truth
Book SynopsisBodies of Truth offers an intimate account of how apartheid victims deal with the long-term effects of violence, focusing on the intertwined themes of embodiment, injury, victimhood, and memory. In 2002, victims of apartheid-era violence filed suit against multinational corporations, accusing them of aiding and abetting the security forces of the apartheid regime. While the litigation made its way through the U.S. courts, thousands of victims of gross human rights violations have had to cope with painful memories of violence. They have also confronted an official discourse claiming that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of the 1990s sufficiently addressed past injuries. This book shows victims'' attempts to emancipate from their experiences by participating in legal actions, but also by creating new forms of sociality among themselves and in relation to broader South African society.Rita Kesselring''s ethnography draws on long-term research with members of the viTrade Review"Bodies of Truth is essential reading for all those interested in the twenty-year aftermath of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Kesselring's innovative ethnography with victims seeking redress in the South African and U.S. Courts examines the limits of law and also makes a powerful case for the transformative potential of new forms of shared sociality. The imaginative combination of the anthropology of law and the body to understand the after-effects of violence in people's lives makes this a ground-breaking work." -- Richard Ashby Wilson * author of The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa *"Deeply serious and imaginative, Bodies of Truth connects anthropology of law and anthropology of the body. Rita Kesselring reveals that even when much is achieved legally in the struggle for transitional justice, bodily experiences of victimhood continue to haunt the victims, and endemic, systematic violence continues to shape the political sphere long after it has ended. Kesselring presents readers with ways in which liberation from habitual victimhood might be achieved." -- Paul Connerton * University of Cambridge *"In capturing the difficulty of understanding pain, Kesselring's subtle, challenging ethnography will make essential reading for any scholar trying to understand the challenges of coming to terms with victimhood and its aftermath and will be particularly important reading for scholars of apartheid and its wake." -- Nicholas Rush Smith * Anthropological Quarterly *"Bodies of Truth is essential reading for anyone interested in victims' quests for financial reparations since the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission finalized its work in 1998. Grounded in extensive transnational ethnography with a national victims' group that participated in class action lawsuits in the South African and US courts, Rita Kesselring's inventive monograph identifies the limits of law in recognizing and ameliorating harms committed by official agents of the avowedly racist apartheid government....Crucially, because Bodies of Truth integrates recent developments in the anthropology of the body with long-standing concerns about vernacular understandings of the law, this imaginative combination makes it a ground-breaking work." -- Richard Ashby Wilson * American Ethnologist *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractThe introduction provides an overview of how the political and social environment has changed for apartheid-era victims in South Africa since apartheid rule formally ended. Although the question of apartheid victimhood was prominent in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, since then, victims have experienced a stark decline in attention and support. Yet for most victims, the past lingers on in their lives and in their bodies. The chapter provides an overview of the two strands of analysis—the law and the body—through which the book examines the legacy of apartheid and the impact of the TRC on victims' social standing today. It presents the main theme of the book: how legal avenues and embodied memories of violence shape the possibility for new forms of sociality in a postconflict society. 1Apartheid Victimhood before the Courts chapter abstractThis chapter documents the emergence of a victims' subject position during the TRC hearings, in post-TRC politics, and in the legal cases filed in South African and US courts. It outlines the gradual formation of a victims' consciousness around the Khulumani Support Group, a victims' advocacy group established in the early 1990s. In contrast to the reconciliatory approach of the TRC, there has been a juridification of the issue of apartheid victimhood. In reaction to the Mbeki administration's lack of interest in matters of victimhood and its preoccupation with pardoning the perpetrators, civil society has brought victimhood back to the attention of the state and the broader society through prominent civil lawsuits. Focusing on national and international politics, the chapter details how the apartheid litigations, which allege that multinational companies aided and abetted the apartheid regime, came to be filed under the Alien Tort Statute, and evaluates their significance. 2Reparation, Representation, and Class Actions chapter abstractThis chapter looks at the actual workings of both South African and US courts hearing class actions. For plaintiffs, class actions offer the opportunity to make their claims heard as a collective. The law, however, needs to personalize an act of injury in order to adjudicate it. In South Africa, class actions are an emerging legal means. The chapter shows that both the judges and the victims who submit their shared social concerns to the courts must grapple with the tension between structural injury and individual injury. Although the law provides a discourse for articulating experiences vis-à-vis a public, drawing on the logic of the law may also break up a social collective. This force the law derives from a societal postconflict situation in which being different potentially makes one suspect and a target for accusations of witchcraft. 3Embodied Memory and the Social chapter abstractThe chapter explores the different ways in which apartheid victims seek to make their victimhood social by communicating it to others. Many victims suffer from chronic pain or injuries. Chronic pain is particular, because it becomes part of a person's habituated being. It is unpredictable, because it is a restless habit that constantly threatens to disrupt one's life. The ethnographic data suggest that there is a real risk in speaking publicly about one's experiences. Society offers victims a limited number of social roles to occupy and to claim. However, victims' experiences of pain are not always malleable enough to adapt to these roles. As a result, victims' injured personhood often turns them into suspicious subjects in the eyes of the society. Silence is thus a solution for many victims to protect their painful memories. 4The Formation of the Political chapter abstractThe TRC was a governing institution that has had lasting effects for victims and their standing in society. Ever since it completed its work victims have to relate their personhood to the strong discourses shaped by the TRC. This chapter looks at how a new discourse can emerge in a hardened political and legalized environment. Employing several ethnographic vignettes, it shows that victims have to emancipate themselves from the bodily dimension of their victimhood to some degree in order to be politically effective. When people with similar experiences recognize one another in their subjectivities, collective political action may come about. Lawyers, precisely because their professional mandate is limited, play a key role in the emergence of a critical political mass. 5Emancipation from Victimhood chapter abstractThe chapter addresses the question of how social change can happen if experiences of structural and socioeconomic violations of human rights are embodied. What kind of responses do people develop to routinized forms of suffering? It presents ethnographic data on the reconcilability of the body and outlines the social conditions that make it possible to change an injured personhood. Through new social and sensory experiences, people try to add new layers of habit memories to their subjective and social being. The tentative forms of sociality that emerge may help them to assume a new social position. Broader society needs to be receptive to these practices for them to be successful, though. 6Ethnographic Experience and Anthropological Knowledge chapter abstractThis chapter is a methodological postscript to the book. Ethnographies originate in everyday interactions with others, but anthropologists' analysis and interpretation of people's social world is often restricted to their words and identifiable actions. As is the case in every social setting, much of the knowledge we acquire during fieldwork remains unarticulated and habitual. We often lack the tools to even become aware of it, let alone to bring it into the predicated realm. Still, its existence is the only basis we have for recognizing unarticulated experiences of others. Anthropologists have become very interested in bodily experiences but have tended either to cognitively interpret the experience of others or to privilege their own experiences as a basis for ethnography. The chapter argues that we should instead use our own bodily experiences to intersubjectively recognize those of others, and proposes avenues for doing so. Conclusion: The Embodiment of Experiences of Violence as Seeds of New Forms of Sociality chapter abstractThe conclusion revises the anthropology of the law and suggests new avenues for the study of the body. In post-apartheid South Africa, ordinary victims do not have sufficiently differentiated public acknowledgment that will allow them to claim their victimhood in a positive way. As a result, there is a schism between persons who struggle to overcome their victimhood and those who have managed to reap the harvest of the "new South Africa." Legal developments in post-apartheid South Africa are manifestations of this tension. The chapter evaluates transitional justice mechanisms, which often work by proxy but fail to address lived experience. In contrast, the mundane and unspectacular practices of victims are emancipatory in the sense that they explore new forms of sociality based on lived experiences not directly related to dominant discourses.
£91.80
Stanford University Press Bodies of Truth
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Bodies of Truth is essential reading for all those interested in the twenty-year aftermath of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Kesselring's innovative ethnography with victims seeking redress in the South African and U.S. Courts examines the limits of law and also makes a powerful case for the transformative potential of new forms of shared sociality. The imaginative combination of the anthropology of law and the body to understand the after-effects of violence in people's lives makes this a ground-breaking work." -- Richard Ashby Wilson * author of The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa *"Deeply serious and imaginative, Bodies of Truth connects anthropology of law and anthropology of the body. Rita Kesselring reveals that even when much is achieved legally in the struggle for transitional justice, bodily experiences of victimhood continue to haunt the victims, and endemic, systematic violence continues to shape the political sphere long after it has ended. Kesselring presents readers with ways in which liberation from habitual victimhood might be achieved." -- Paul Connerton * University of Cambridge *"In capturing the difficulty of understanding pain, Kesselring's subtle, challenging ethnography will make essential reading for any scholar trying to understand the challenges of coming to terms with victimhood and its aftermath and will be particularly important reading for scholars of apartheid and its wake." -- Nicholas Rush Smith * Anthropological Quarterly *"Bodies of Truth is essential reading for anyone interested in victims' quests for financial reparations since the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission finalized its work in 1998. Grounded in extensive transnational ethnography with a national victims' group that participated in class action lawsuits in the South African and US courts, Rita Kesselring's inventive monograph identifies the limits of law in recognizing and ameliorating harms committed by official agents of the avowedly racist apartheid government....Crucially, because Bodies of Truth integrates recent developments in the anthropology of the body with long-standing concerns about vernacular understandings of the law, this imaginative combination makes it a ground-breaking work." -- Richard Ashby Wilson * American Ethnologist *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractThe introduction provides an overview of how the political and social environment has changed for apartheid-era victims in South Africa since apartheid rule formally ended. Although the question of apartheid victimhood was prominent in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, since then, victims have experienced a stark decline in attention and support. Yet for most victims, the past lingers on in their lives and in their bodies. The chapter provides an overview of the two strands of analysis—the law and the body—through which the book examines the legacy of apartheid and the impact of the TRC on victims' social standing today. It presents the main theme of the book: how legal avenues and embodied memories of violence shape the possibility for new forms of sociality in a postconflict society. 1Apartheid Victimhood before the Courts chapter abstractThis chapter documents the emergence of a victims' subject position during the TRC hearings, in post-TRC politics, and in the legal cases filed in South African and US courts. It outlines the gradual formation of a victims' consciousness around the Khulumani Support Group, a victims' advocacy group established in the early 1990s. In contrast to the reconciliatory approach of the TRC, there has been a juridification of the issue of apartheid victimhood. In reaction to the Mbeki administration's lack of interest in matters of victimhood and its preoccupation with pardoning the perpetrators, civil society has brought victimhood back to the attention of the state and the broader society through prominent civil lawsuits. Focusing on national and international politics, the chapter details how the apartheid litigations, which allege that multinational companies aided and abetted the apartheid regime, came to be filed under the Alien Tort Statute, and evaluates their significance. 2Reparation, Representation, and Class Actions chapter abstractThis chapter looks at the actual workings of both South African and US courts hearing class actions. For plaintiffs, class actions offer the opportunity to make their claims heard as a collective. The law, however, needs to personalize an act of injury in order to adjudicate it. In South Africa, class actions are an emerging legal means. The chapter shows that both the judges and the victims who submit their shared social concerns to the courts must grapple with the tension between structural injury and individual injury. Although the law provides a discourse for articulating experiences vis-à-vis a public, drawing on the logic of the law may also break up a social collective. This force the law derives from a societal postconflict situation in which being different potentially makes one suspect and a target for accusations of witchcraft. 3Embodied Memory and the Social chapter abstractThe chapter explores the different ways in which apartheid victims seek to make their victimhood social by communicating it to others. Many victims suffer from chronic pain or injuries. Chronic pain is particular, because it becomes part of a person's habituated being. It is unpredictable, because it is a restless habit that constantly threatens to disrupt one's life. The ethnographic data suggest that there is a real risk in speaking publicly about one's experiences. Society offers victims a limited number of social roles to occupy and to claim. However, victims' experiences of pain are not always malleable enough to adapt to these roles. As a result, victims' injured personhood often turns them into suspicious subjects in the eyes of the society. Silence is thus a solution for many victims to protect their painful memories. 4The Formation of the Political chapter abstractThe TRC was a governing institution that has had lasting effects for victims and their standing in society. Ever since it completed its work victims have to relate their personhood to the strong discourses shaped by the TRC. This chapter looks at how a new discourse can emerge in a hardened political and legalized environment. Employing several ethnographic vignettes, it shows that victims have to emancipate themselves from the bodily dimension of their victimhood to some degree in order to be politically effective. When people with similar experiences recognize one another in their subjectivities, collective political action may come about. Lawyers, precisely because their professional mandate is limited, play a key role in the emergence of a critical political mass. 5Emancipation from Victimhood chapter abstractThe chapter addresses the question of how social change can happen if experiences of structural and socioeconomic violations of human rights are embodied. What kind of responses do people develop to routinized forms of suffering? It presents ethnographic data on the reconcilability of the body and outlines the social conditions that make it possible to change an injured personhood. Through new social and sensory experiences, people try to add new layers of habit memories to their subjective and social being. The tentative forms of sociality that emerge may help them to assume a new social position. Broader society needs to be receptive to these practices for them to be successful, though. 6Ethnographic Experience and Anthropological Knowledge chapter abstractThis chapter is a methodological postscript to the book. Ethnographies originate in everyday interactions with others, but anthropologists' analysis and interpretation of people's social world is often restricted to their words and identifiable actions. As is the case in every social setting, much of the knowledge we acquire during fieldwork remains unarticulated and habitual. We often lack the tools to even become aware of it, let alone to bring it into the predicated realm. Still, its existence is the only basis we have for recognizing unarticulated experiences of others. Anthropologists have become very interested in bodily experiences but have tended either to cognitively interpret the experience of others or to privilege their own experiences as a basis for ethnography. The chapter argues that we should instead use our own bodily experiences to intersubjectively recognize those of others, and proposes avenues for doing so. Conclusion: The Embodiment of Experiences of Violence as Seeds of New Forms of Sociality chapter abstractThe conclusion revises the anthropology of the law and suggests new avenues for the study of the body. In post-apartheid South Africa, ordinary victims do not have sufficiently differentiated public acknowledgment that will allow them to claim their victimhood in a positive way. As a result, there is a schism between persons who struggle to overcome their victimhood and those who have managed to reap the harvest of the "new South Africa." Legal developments in post-apartheid South Africa are manifestations of this tension. The chapter evaluates transitional justice mechanisms, which often work by proxy but fail to address lived experience. In contrast, the mundane and unspectacular practices of victims are emancipatory in the sense that they explore new forms of sociality based on lived experiences not directly related to dominant discourses.
£22.49
LSU Press Human Rights Fact Or Fancy
Book SynopsisIn his provocative and highly readable study, Human Rights: Fact or Fancy?, Henry B. Veatch finds the basis for human rights in natural law. He builds his argument step by step, carefully laying the foundation for his central assertion that our basic rights are discoverable directly in the facts of nature.
£17.95
Louisiana State University Press The Mississippi Civil Rights Movement and the Kennedy Administration 19601964 A History in Documents
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£39.91
Teachers' College Press Critical Race Theory and Its Critics
Book SynopsisWhat and who is behind the attacks on Critical Race Theory? Why are attacks on the teaching of racism happening now and what can be done about them? In this book, Lopez and Sleeter answer these questions in an effort to intentionally and strategically provide readers with sustainable tools for teaching toward an equitable future.Trade Review"(A) relevant and timely text for education leaders today. . . . masterfully written."—NASSP Principal Leadership "(A) brilliant and well-researched exploration of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and those opposed to it, as well as the policy and historical ramifications of sensationalized racial discourse, that includes viable strategies for countering attacks against Critical Race Theory and antiracist teaching."—Teachers College Record
£27.54
John Wiley & Sons Critical Race Theory and Its Critics
Book SynopsisWhat and who is behind the attacks on Critical Race Theory? Why are attacks on the teaching of racism happening now and what can be done about them? In this book, Lopez and Sleeter answer these questions in an effort to intentionally and strategically provide readers with sustainable tools for teaching toward an equitable future.Trade Review"(A) relevant and timely text for education leaders today. . . . masterfully written."—NASSP Principal Leadership "(A) brilliant and well-researched exploration of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and those opposed to it, as well as the policy and historical ramifications of sensationalized racial discourse, that includes viable strategies for countering attacks against Critical Race Theory and antiracist teaching."—Teachers College Record
£74.70
Northwestern University Press Subjects of Affection
Book SynopsisOffers an alternative to the modern model of human rights in an unexpected archive: the monarchist tragedies that shaped Louis XIV's absolutist France. Through fresh insights and incisive readings, this volume explores a form of political subjectivity that locates political power in connection to others.Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction 1: Affective Evidence 2: The Mourner 3: The Rebel 4: The Hero 5: The Savior Conclusion: The Subject of Rights Notes Bibliography Index
£31.46
University of Pennsylvania Press Behind the Disappearances Argentinas Dirty War Against Human Rights and the United Nations Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights
Book SynopsisDrawing on confidential Argentinian documents and memoranda, Behind the Disappearances documents a seven-year diplomatic war by one of the twentieth century''s most brutal regimes. It relates how, starting in 1976, Argentina''s military government tried to cripple the UN''s human rights machinery in an effort to prevent international condemnation of its policy of disappearances. Initially this attempt succeeded, but in 1980—with encouragement from the Carter administration—UN officials regained the initiative and created a special working group on disappearances that rejuvenated the UN''s efforts. This progress was abruptly halted in 1981 when the Reagan administration sided with the Argentinian regime. The result, claims the author, not only undercut the UN''s actions against disappearances but also weakened its chances of playing a positive role in aiding Latin America''s transition from dictatorship to democracy.Trade Review"One of the best and most interesting treatments of the human rights movement, and of the dynamics of the United Nations human rights system, written to date." * Human Rights Quarterly *"Truth is more chilling than fiction. And when the tale is spun by an adroit writer, the truth is more compelling still. . . . Guest develops a suspenseful plot, making Behind the Disappearances truly an educational page turner." * Clifton Magazine *
£42.50
University of Pennsylvania Press Human Rights in CrossCultural Perspectives
Book SynopsisHuman rights violations are perpetrated in all parts of the world, and the universal reaction to such atrocities is overwhelmingly one of horror and sadness. Yet, as Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na''im and his contributors attest, our viewpoint is clouded and biased by the expectations native to our own culture. How do other cultures view human rights issues? Can an analysis of these issues through multiple viewpoints, both cross-cultural and indigenous, help us reinterpret and reconstruct prevailing theories of human rights?Trade Review"The contributors have done an outstanding job of illuminating complex problems, offering thoroughly researched, probing analyses and expositions that are both well written and extensively documented. The book contains excellent case studies that examine the coexistence and clashes of different cultures as they impinge on human rights issues, as well as thoughtful critiques of philosophical position. . . . This is a work that can be recommended highly, both to those pursuing the study of cross-cultural validity of rights and to persons with more general interests." * Human Rights Quarterly *"Eloquent explorations of the charge that human rights advocacy is but thinly disguised cultural imperialism." * American Political Science Review *"A valuable addition to an important blossoming of literature on this topic." * American Journal of International Law *"All the contributions are interesting and, from their own different perspectives, throw light on the different aspects of the vexed question of human rights." * Political Studies *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction —Abdullahi A. An-Na'im SECTION I.GENERAL ISSUES OF A CROSS-CULTURAL APPROACH TO HUMAN RIGHTS 1. Toward a Cross-Cultural Approach to Defining International Standards of Human Rights: The Meaning of Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment —Abdullahi A. An-Na'im 2. Cultural Foundations for the International Protection of Human Rights —Richard Falk 3. Making a Goddess of Democracy from Loose Sand: Thoughts on Human Rights in the People's Republic of China —William P. Alford 4. Dignity, Community, and Human Rights —Rhoda E. Howard SECTION II.PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF ALTERNATIVE CULTURAL INTERPRETATION 5. Postliberal Strands in Western Human Rights Theory: Personalist-Communitarian Perspectives —Virginia A. Leary 6. Should Communities Have Rights? Reflections on Liberal Individualism —Michael McDonald 7. A Marxian Approach to Human Rights —Richard Nordahl SECTION III.REGIONAL AND INDIGENOUS CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES ON HUMAN RIGHTS 8. North American Indian Perspectives on Human Rights —James W. Zion 9. Aboriginal Communities, Aboriginal Rights, and the Human Rights System in Canada —Allan McChesney 10. Political Culture and Gross Human Rights Violations in Latin America —Hugo Fruhling 11. Custom Is Not a Thing, It Is a Path: Reflections on the Brazilian Indian Case —Manuela Carneiro da Cunha 12. Cultural Legitimacy in the Formulation and Implementation of Human Rights Law and Policy in Australia —Patricia Hyndman 13. Considering Gender: Are Human Rights for Women, Too? An Australian Case —Diane Bell 14. Right to Self-Determination: A Basic Human Right Concerning Cultural Survival. The Case of the Sami and the Scandinavian State —Tom G. Svensson SECTION IV.PROSPECTS FOR A CROSS-CULTURAL APPROACH TO HUMAN RIGHTS 15. Prospects for Research on the Cultural Legitimacy of Human Rights: The Cases of Liberalism and Marxism —Tore Lindholm Conclusion —Abdullahi A. An-Na'im Bibliography Contributors Index
£27.90
University of Pennsylvania Press Human Rights Education for the TwentyFirst
Book SynopsisHuman Rights Education for the Twenty-First Century is a comprehensive resource for training, education, and raising awareness in a wide variety of settings, both formal and informal. A diverse group of contributors—experienced activists, education experts, and representatives of several international governmental organizations—provides a rich potpourri of ideas and real-world approaches to initiating, planning, and implementing programs for teaching people about their human rights and fundamental freedoms. This volume has been developed for a global audience of educators, scholars in many disciplines, nongovernmental organizations, and foundation officers.Trade Review"The significance of this book cannot be overstated. . . . It is written for a global audience of educators at all levels, scholars in all disciplines, policy makers, and foundation officers." * Human Rights Quarterly *"This book, as a well-targeted, insightful, and accessible source, offers comprehensive conceptual and practical observations and recommendations that will serve the international human rights community for many years to come. Intergovernmental bodies, NGOs, activists, teachers, and others (including governments) will continue to use this book . . . well into the 21st century." * Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights *
£42.50
University of Pennsylvania Press Unraveling Somalia
Book Synopsis"Besteman's well-written and important book is a fine example of how careful scholarship can expose the realities behind widely held beliefs."-ChoiceTrade Review"Besteman's well-written and important book is a fine example of how careful scholarship can expose the realities behind widely held beliefs." * Choice *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments PT. I. INTRODUCTION 1. Somalia from the Margins: An Alternative Approach 2. Fieldwork, Surprises, and Historical Anthropology PT. II. THE HISTORICAL CREATION OF THE GOSHA 3. Slavery and the Jubba Valley Frontier 4. The Settlement of the Upper Gosha, 1895-1988 PT. III. THE GOSHA SPACE IN SOMALI SOCIETY 5. Hard Hair: Somali Constructions of Gosha Inferiority 6. Between Domination and Collusion: The Ambiguity of Gosha Life 7. Negotiating Hegemony and Producing Culture PT. IV. VIOLENCE AND THE STATE 8. The Political Economy of Subordination 9. Conclusion Epilogue Glossary Notes Bibliography Index
£999.99
University of Pennsylvania Press Women and Power in the Middle East
Book SynopsisContains essays which analyze the social, political, economic, and cultural forces that shape gender systems in the Middle East and North Africa. This volume includes essays that also analyze Arab disillusionment with the radical nationalisms of the 1950s and 1960s and with leftist ideologies, as well as the rise of political Islamist movements.Trade Review"Challenges many current theories about women's political participation in the Middle East and North Africa, and how the countries of the MENA region have dealt with women striving to make their voices heard." * Middle East Journal *Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION —Suad Joseph and Susan Slyomovics OVERVIEWS Women's Activism in the Middle East: A Historical Perspective —Sarah Graham-Brown Women and Politics in the Middle East —Suad Joseph Women and Work in the Arab World —Nadia Hijab The Politics of Gender and the Conundrums of Citizenship —Deniz Kandiyoti COUNTRY CASE STUDIES: WEST TO EAST State and Gender in the Maghrib —M. M. Charrad Sex, Lies, and Television: Algerian and Moroccan Caricatures of the Gulf War —Susan Slyomovics An Interview with Heb Ra'Uf Ezzat —Karem El-Gawhary Women on Women: Television Feminism and Village Lives —Lila Abu-Lughod Sudanese Women and the Islamist State —Ellen Gruenbaum For the Common Good? Gender and Social Citizenship in Palestine —Rita Giacaman, Islah Jad, and Penny Johnson Women and the Palestinian Movement: No Going Back? —Julie Peteet Searching for Strategies: The Palestine Women's Movement in the New Era —Rita Giacaman and Penny Johnson Gender and Citizenship: Considerations on the Turkish Experience —Yesim Arat Women in Saudi Arabia: Between Breadwinner and Domestic Icon? —Eleanor Doumato Women's Organizations in Kuwait —Haya Al-Mughni The Dialectics of Gender and Politicism: Yemen —Sheila Carapico The Political Economy of Female Employment in Postrevolutionary Iran —Fatemeh Etemad Moghadam
£25.19
University of Pennsylvania Press Human Rights Labor Rights and International Trade
Book Synopsis"A significant contribution to current legal, political, and economic discourse on workers in the global economy."-International and Comparative Law QuarterlyTrade Review"Stimulating." * Foreign Affairs *"A significant contribution to current legal, political, and economic discourse on workers in the global economy." * International and Comparative Law Quarterly *
£25.19
University of Pennsylvania Press Karaoke Fascism
Book SynopsisTo come to Burma, one of the few places where despotism still dominates, is to take both a physical and an emotional journey and, like most Burmese, to become caught up in the daily management of fear. Based on Monique Skidmore''s experiences living in the capital city of Rangoon, Karaoke Fascism is the first ethnography of fear in Burma and provides a sobering look at the psychological strategies employed by the Burmese people in order to survive under a military dictatorship that seeks to invade and dominate every aspect of life.Skidmore looks at the psychology and politics of fear under the SLORC and SPDC regimes. Encompassing the period of antijunta student street protests, her work describes a project of authoritarian modernity, where Burmese people are conscripted as army porters and must attend mass rallies, chant slogans, construct roads, and engage in other forms of forced labor. In a harrowing portrayal of life deep within an authoritarian state, recovering hTrade Review"Skidmore captures perfectly how even the passing visitor to Burma absorbs the atmosphere of fear and internalises the vulnerability and precariousness of a life under a military dictatorship. It is rare for an academic work to be so captivating." * Australian Journal of Anthropology *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface 1. Rangoon: End of Strife 2. Bombs, Barricades, and the Urban Battlefield 3. Darker Than Midnight: Fear, Vulnerability, and Terror-Making 4. Sometimes a Cigar Is Just a Cigar 5. The Veneer of Modernity 6. The Veneer of Conformity 7. The Tension of Absurdity 8. Fragments of Misery: The People of the New Fields 9. The Forest of Time 10. Going to Sleep with Karaoke Culture Notes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments
£25.19
University of Pennsylvania Press The Performance of Human Rights in Morocco
Book SynopsisThe Performance of Human Rights in Morocco is a unique distillation of politics, anthropology, and performance, offering both a clear picture of the present state of human rights and a vision of a possible future for public protest and dissidence in Morocco.Trade Review"An important contribution to scholarship on an area of the world that receives relatively little attention . . . as well as an important contribution to what is fast becoming a fifth subfield for anthropology: legal anthropology." * Journal of Folklore Research *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface Chapter 1: Law and Custom Chapter 2: Disappearance Chapter 3: Prison Chapter 4: The 1981 Casablanca Uprising and Its Aftermath Chapter 5: Rani nimhik: Women and Testimony Chapter 6: Islamist Political Prisoners Chapter 7: Hatta la yatakarrar hadha: Never This Again Notes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments
£999.99
University of Pennsylvania Press The Phenomenon of Torture
Book SynopsisTorture is the most widespread human rights crime in the modern world, practiced in more than one hundred countries, including the United States. How could something so brutal, almost unthinkable, be so prevalent? The Phenomenon of Torture: Readings and Commentary is designed to answer that question and many others. Beginning with a sweeping view of torture in Western history, the book examines questions such as these: Can anyone be turned into a torturer? What exactly is the psychological relationship between a torturer and his victim? Are certain societies more prone to use torture? Are there any circumstances under which torture is justified—to procure critical information in order to save innocent lives, for example? How can torture be stopped or at least its incidence be reduced?Edited and with an introduction by the former Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, The Phenomenon of Torture draws on the writings of torture victims themselves, suTrade Review"A sober, astutely assembled compilation and a much-needed contribution to modern-day discussions of government policy." * Midwest Book Review *"A uniquely thoughtful and comprehensive exploration of the topic." * Choice *Table of ContentsForeword, by Juan E. Mendez xiii Introduction 1 1. TORTURE IN WESTERN HISTORY Torture and Truth 13 The Torture of Jesus 16 Torture and the Law of Proof 19 Torture 27 Discipline and Punish 30 An Essay on Crimes and Punishments 34 On Torture and Capital Punishment 36 Preventing Torture 38 2. BEING TORTURED The Railway Man 49 And Night Fell 53 Statement by Abu Ghraib detainee 60 The Gulag Archipelago 63 A Miracle, a Universe 66 The Method 71 Torture 80 Against Our Will 88 Report Uzbekistan 95 Prison of Women 97 3. WHO ARE THE TORTURERS? King Leopold's Ghost 101 The Torturer's Tale 104 The Perils of Obedience 110 The Official Torturer 120 Ritual Abuse 124 Hidden Terrors 127 The Winter Soldier Investigation 132 Torture 134 The Torturers' Notebooks 136 The Battle of the Casbah 137 The Wretched of the Earth 139 In Their Own Words 141 4. THE DYNAMICS OF TORTURE Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual 155 The Politics of Cruelty 163 Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number 167 The Body in Pain 172 What's Wrong with Torture 178 Intimate Terror 180 5. THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF TORTURE Torture 195 The Origins of Totalitarianism 196 Republic of Fear 201 The Psychology and Culture of Torture and Torturers 204 How to Make a Torturer 210 Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People 215 6. THE ETHICS OF TORTURE Of Torture 221 The Case for Torture 227 Kidnapping Has Germans Debating Police Torture 230 Why Terrorism Works 233 Torture 241 Suggestions for Japanese Interpreters 249 Does Torture Work? 255 Tainted Legacy 260 Landau Commission Report 267 Supreme Court of Israel Judgment 275 7. HEALING THE VICTIMS, STOPPING THE TORTURE Treatment of Victims of Torture 285 Police Officers Convicted of Torturing Man in Detention 297 Torture Spoken Here 299 Aydin v. Turkey 304 International Criminal Court Q & A Sheet 308 An End to Impunity 311 The Case of General Pinochet 314 Filartiga v. Pena-Irala 325 The Contribution of Truth Commissions 333 Human Rights Education for the Police 347 EXCERPTS FROM DOCUMENTS 357 UN Convention against Torture 357 International Standards Against Torture 360 U.S. Army Field Manual 363 How to Get Involved 365 Notes 367 Bibliography 377 Acknowledgments 381 Credits and Permissions 383
£49.30
University of Pennsylvania Press Up South
Book SynopsisUp South traces the efforts of two generations of black Philadelphians to turn the City of Brotherly Love into a place of promise and opportunity for all. Although Philadelphia rarely appears in histories of the modern civil rights struggle, the city was home to a vibrant and groundbreaking movement for racial justice in the years between World War II and the 1970s. By broadening the chronological and geographic parameters of the civil rights movement, Up South explores the origins of civil rights liberalism, the failure of the liberal program of antidiscrimination legislation and interracial coalition-building to deliver on its promise of racial equality, and the subsequent rise of the Black Power movement.The Philadelphia movement occurred in three stages. During the 1940s and 1950s, liberal civil rights groups in the city successfully campaigned for Philadelphia''s new City Charter to be the first in the nation to include a ban on racial discrimination in muniTrade Review"Matthew Countryman has presented us with a real treasure house in his history of Civil Rights and Black Power in the urban North." * Komozi Woodard, author of A Nation Within a Nation: Amiri Baraka and Black Power Politics *"Up South is deeply researched, original, and important. It will be impossible to write about Northern Civil Rights and Black Power without grappling with Countryman's powerful book." * Thomas Sugrue, author of The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit *"A marvelous book . . . of enormous accomplishment. It challenges historians to rethink the periodization of the civil rights movement and . . . forces us out of the southern success/northern decline framework for understanding movement politics." * Robert O. Self, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography *"Well argued, extremely well documented, and persuasive. . . . An excellent contribution to the study of how local black leaders reshaped civil rights in the postwar urban North." * American Historical Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Liberalism, Civil Rights, and Black Nationalism in the Urban North PART I. RACE, RIGHTS, AND POSTWAR LIBERALISM 1. Civil Rights Liberalism in Philadelphia 2. The Other Philadelphia Story PART II. A NORTHERN PROTEST MOVEMENT 3. Don't Buy Where You Can't Work 4. A False Democracy 5. Black Power and the Organizing Tradition PART III. BLACK POWER IN THE POSTINDUSTRIAL CITY 6. Community Control of the Schools 7. The Gender Politics of Movement Leadership 8. From Protest to Politics Conclusion Notes Index Acknowledgments
£27.90
University of Pennsylvania Press Bringing Human Rights Home
Book SynopsisThroughout its history, America''s policies have alternatively embraced human rights, regarded them with ambivalence, or rejected them out of hand. The essays in Bringing Human Rights Home: A History of Human Rights in the United States put these shifting political winds into a larger historical perspective, from the country''s very beginnings to the present day.The contributing writers examine the global influences on early American attitudes toward human rights and, reviewing the twentieth century, note the high-water mark of human rights acceptance during Franklin Delano Roosevelt''s presidency. They examine the domestic tensions between civil and political rights on the one hand, and economic, social, and cultural rights on the other. Taking the long view, many of the contributors emphasize the role played by social movements and grassroots activists in pressing a human rights agenda from the bottom up.The essays examine the centrality of human rights in the eTable of ContentsPreface —Cynthia Soohoo, Martha F. Davis, and Catherine Albisa PART I: A HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES Introduction to Part I —Martha F. Davis Chapter 1. A Human Rights Lens on U.S. History: Human Rights at Home and Human Rights Abroad —Paul Gordon Lauren Chapter 2. FDR's Four Freedoms and Wartime Transformations in America's Discourse of Rights —Elizabeth Borgwardt Chapter 3. A "Hollow Mockery": African Americans, White Supremacy, and the Development of Human Rights in the United States —Carol Anderson Chapter 4. "New" Human Rights? U.S. Ambivalence Toward the International Economic and Social Rights Framework —Hope Lewis PART II: FROM CIVIL RIGHTS TO HUMAN RIGHTS Introduction to Part II —Catherine Albisa Chapter 5. Against American Supremacy: Rebuilding Human Rights Culture in the United States —Dorothy Q. Thomas Chapter 6. Economic and Social Rights in the United States: Six Rights, One Promise —Catherine Albisa Chapter 7. Human Rights and the Transformation of the "Civil Rights" and "Civil Liberties" Lawyer —Cynthia Soohoo Chapter 8. "Going Global": Appeals to International and Regional Human Rights Bodies —Margaret Huang Chapter 9. Thinking Globally, Acting Locally: States, Municipalities, and International Human Rights —Martha F. Davis Chapter 10. The Impact of September 11 and the Struggle Against Terrorism on the U.S. Domestic Human Rights Movement —Wendy Patten Chapter 11. Bush Administration Noncompliance with the Prohibition on Torture and Cruel and Degrading Treatment —Kathryn Sikkink Chapter 12. Trade Unions and Human Rights —Lance Compa About the Editors and Contributors Index Acknowledgments
£31.50
University of Pennsylvania Press Womens Human Rights The International and Comparative Law Casebook Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights
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£56.10
University of Pennsylvania Press International Human Rights Law An Introduction
Book SynopsisInternational Human Rights Law is a comprehensive introductory treatise, intended for all concerned about this critical area of international law, including students, lawyers, other advocates, teachers, and academics.
£42.50
University of Pennsylvania Press Conflict and Compliance
Book SynopsisInternational human rights pressure has been applied to numerous states with varying results. In Conflict and Compliance, Sonia Cardenas examines responses to such pressure and challenges conventional views of the reasons states do—or do not—comply with international law. Data from disparate bodies of research suggest that more pressure to comply with human rights standards is not necessarily more effective and that international policies are more efficient when they target the root causes of state oppression.Cardenas surveys a broad array of evidence to support these conclusions, including Latin American cases that incorporate recent important declassified materials, a statistical analysis of all the countries in the world, and a set of secondary cases from Eastern Europe, South Africa, China, and Cuba. The views of human rights skeptics and optimists are surveyed to illustrate how state rhetoric and behavior can be interpreted differently depending on one'Trade Review"Finally, a book showing that compliance is not an all-or-nothing affair. Cardenas unpacks compliance and makes a compelling case that domestic politics are a big part of the story, two invaluable contributions to the field of human rights. Read the book!" * Emilie M. Hafner-Burton, University of California, San Diego *"This is an excellent look at why states comply-or not-with international human rights norms, and will be a valuable reference on the bookshelf of students of human rights as well as, hopefully, policymakers responsible for crafting and implementing pressure for human rights compliance." * Human Rights and Human Welfare *Table of ContentsPreface 1. Introduction: Compliance Revisited 2. Human Rights Pressure and State Violations 3. Skeptics Under Fire: Human Rights Change in the Southern Cone 4. Bounded Optimism: The Limits of Human Rights Influence 5. State Responses in Global Perspective 6. Compliance and Resistance in International Politics Appendix: Measuring Human Rights Determinants Notes Index
£21.59
