Description
Book SynopsisVirtuous institutions, such as human rights ones, have been neglected by securitization theory’s focus on the national state apparatus as the key driver of security politics. This book challenges this assumption, showing the ways institutional human rights, deemed the most progressive of rights, have been complicit in rendering the body vulnerable. While the book principally focuses on the treatment of the veiled woman, it also considers wider cases involving torture: the ultimate removal of control over one’s body and biggest transgression of human rights’ supposed foundational commitment to bodily integrity.
Trade ReviewThe entanglements between human rights, the politics of security and embodiment are the key preoccupations of this book. It is a must-read for all who want to think more clearly about the conditionality of human rights in the world around us. With characteristic rigour and clarity, Edmunds’s intervention is timely and combative. — John Solomos, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick
Against the burgeoning literature on human rights, Aneira Edmunds offers a unique sociological perspective on rights, vulnerability and the body. In the process, she brings into sharp focus security, feminism, governance and post-colonialism, while exposing the “virtuous” reputation of the judicial apparatus. An indispensable guide to feminist debates about human rights and covered Muslim women. — Bryan S. Turner, Australian Catholic University
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements; Introduction: An Outline; 1. Sociology, Human Rights and the Body; 2. Securing Undesirable Bodies; 3. Virtuous Institutions and the Securitisation of Women’s Bodies; 4. The Conditionality of Human Rights; Conclusion: Desecuritising Human Rights; Bibliography; Index
