Human Rights and The Politics of Culture 2016

UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX
MA in HUMAN RIGHTS
Autumn Term 2016
Human Rights and The Politics of Culture
Module Tutor: Dr. Nigel Eltringham
C250
Ext. 8039
n.p.eltringham@sussex.ac.uk
The module will introduce you to debates in the politics of difference as they relate to human rights. We begin
by examining the genealogy of the concept of culture in the twentieth-century and look at the diverse political uses
to which it has been put, from being part of the discourse of the European far-right to granting greater rights for
minorities that were previously politically marginalised. We consider the cultural relativist challenge to universal
human rights which asserts the distinctiveness of each culture and that universal human rights instruments are,
therefore, inappropriate. We then assess the view that globalisation in general, and especially the globalisation of
a human rights discourse, means that relativist views of societal distinctiveness no longer hold in an increasingly
interconnected world. Subsequent weeks are concerned with specific instances of rights and difference, including
childrens rights, indigenous rights and womens human rights. We conclude by returning to the liberal tradition
to ask whether or not revised forms of liberalism (multiculturalism) can provide the answer to the problem of
difference in contemporary societies.
Learning Outcomes
1. A comprehensive understanding of the contribution that anthropological knowledge makes to understanding
the relation between human rights as legal rules and their circulation in diverse social contexts.
2. A systematic of knowledge, and a critical awareness of current problems and/or new insights, relating to
current anthropological understandings of culture and how they relate to the employment of strategic essentialism
in identity politics.
3. Develop a detailed practical understanding of how anthropological approaches to human rights (with their
particular attention to context) relate to other approaches (law, international relations etc.).
4. Enhance students independent research skills and use of primary sources, as well as students ability to
effectively
Seminar Participation
All students will be required to participate fully in the discussion and to show that they are able engage with the
subject of that seminar.
At the beginning of the module, the groups will be split into four reading groups. Each group will read and discuss
the reading assigned to them. The reading group should come to the seminar prepared to talk about the readings
with other members of the seminar group. Bear in mind the questions that are provided for each seminar and ask:
-
Do you agree with what the author(s) assert?

Do they make assumptions with which you disagree with?
Can you think of examples from your own experience or knowledge that support or contest their
assertions?
Assessment
2
This module is assessed by 5,000 word term paper due in Assessment Block 1 (after Christmas).
Evaluation
This module will be evaluated by means of an online questionnaire at the end of the module.
Key Texts (you may wish to buy two)
Cowan, J., M. B. Dembour and R. Wilson (eds) (2001) Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives
(Cambridge: CUP).
Donnelly, J. (2002) Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice 2nd ed. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).
Freeman, M. (2002) Human Rights: An Interdisciplinary Approach. (Oxford: Polity).
Goodale, M. and S. E. Merry (eds) (2007) The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law Between the Global and
the Local. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Wilson, R. (ed.) (1997) Human Rights, Culture and Context, Anthropological Perspectives (London: Pluto Press).
Human Rights Instruments
All international human rights instruments can be found in Ghandi, P. R. (ed.) (2000) International Human Rights
Documents. 2nd ed. (London: Blackstone) or online at <http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/ainstls1.htm>.
Module Outline
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12
The International Human Rights System

The Politics of Culture
Universalism, Relativism and Human Rights
The Globalization of Human Rights
Childrens Rights
Consolidation Week (no seminar)
Media, Human Rights and Advocacy
Indigenous Rights
Gender and Rights
Multiculturalism
Assessment workshop
End of term tutorial
Introductory Article
Ishay, M. (2004) What are human rights? Six historical controversies, Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 3, No. 3.
Available electronically through the library website.
Week 1: The International Human Rights System

This week we will look in detail at the human rights instruments developed under the auspices of the United
Nations and discuss the extent of their effectiveness. With a foundation in the UN Charter (1945) and the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the UN has gradually expanded human rights law to encompass
specific standards for women, minorities, indigenous peoples and other groups. These instruments are monitored
and
enforced
through
a
complex
and
often
ineffectual
system
(see
http://www.ohchr.org/en/hrbodies/Pages/HumanRightsBodies.aspx). Like the UN itself, the Human Rights system
3
remains state-centric. If the notion of human rights is primarily intended to hold states to account, to what extent
can a state-centric institution protect human rights and condemn violations wherever they occur?
1)
2)
3)
Reflecting on the UN experience what would you say is the best way of protecting human rights?
Discuss the claim that, in terms of human rights, the UN has been more than a whimper but less than a
roar (Farer 1992.)
While UN human rights instruments may have rhetorical power, the lack of sufficient enforcement
provisions seriously undermines their value. Discuss.
General: United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights http://www.ohchr.org/english/

Everyone should read:
*
United
Nations
(1948)
Universal
Declaration
of
Human
Rights.
Available
online
at
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/b1udhr.htm
* United Nations (1966) International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Available online at
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/b3ccpr.htm
* United Nations (1966) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Available online at
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/b2esc.htm
*
United
Nations
(1993)
Vienna
Declaration
on
Human
Rights.
Available
online
at
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/l1viedec.html
and at least one of the following:
Waltz, S. (2002) 'Reclaiming and rebuilding the history of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights', Third
World Quarterly, Vol. 23 No. 3. Available electronically through the library website
Cowan, J. K. & J. Billaud (2015) Between learning and schooling: the politics of human rights monitoring at the
Universal Periodic Review, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 6. Available electronically through the
library website.
Subedi, S. P. (2011) 'The UN human rights mandate in Cambodia: the challenge of a country in transition and the
experience of the special rapporteur for the country', The International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 15 No. 2.
Available electronically through the library website
Kelly, T. (2009) The UN Committee Against Torture: Human Rights Monitoring and the Legal Recognition of
Cruelty, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Further Reading
Addo, M. K. (2010) 'Practice of United Nations Human Rights Treaty Bodies in the Reconciliation of Cultural
Diversity with Universal Respect for Human Rights', Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 32 No. 3. Available
electronically through the library website.
Alston, P. (1994) The UNs Human Rights Record: From San Francisco to Vienna and Beyond, Human Rights
Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 2. In Faculty Reserve.
Alston, P. and J. Crawford (eds) (2000) The Future of UN Human Rights Treaty Monitoring (Cambridge: CUP).
Bailey, S. D. (1994) The United Nations Security Council and Human Rights (New York: St Martins Press).
4
Bayefsky.com How To Complain About Human Rights Treaty Violations Introduction to Complaints Procedures
Available online at http://www.bayefsky.com/complain/9_procedures.php/pfriendly/1
Camp Keith, L. (1999) The United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: Does It Make a
Difference in Human Rights Behavior?, Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 36, No. 1. Available electronically
through the library website.
Cole, W. M. (2012) Institutionalizing shame: The Effect of Human Rights Committee Rulings on Abuse 19812007, Social Science Research, Vol. 41, No. 3. Available electronically through the library website.
Cook, H. (1996) Amnesty International at the United Nations in Willetts, P. (ed.) The Conscience of the World:
The Influence of Non-Governmental Organisations in the UN (London: Hurst).
Craven, C. R. (1998) The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights: A Perspective on its
Development (Oxford: Clarendon).
Farer, T. (1992) The UN and Human Rights: More than a Whimper, Less than a Roar in Claude, R. P. and B. H.
Weston (eds) Human Rights in the World Community (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press). [Also in
Roberts, A. and B. Kingsbury (eds) (1988) United Nations, Divided World: The UNs Roles in International
Relations (Oxford: OUP)].
Farer, T. J. and F. Gaer (1993) The UN and Human Rights: At the End of the Beginning in Roberts, A. and K.
Benedict (eds) United Nations, Divided World: The UNs role in International Relations (Oxford: OUP).
Flood, P. J. (1998) The Effectiveness of United Nations Human Rights Institutions (Westport Conn: Praeger).
Freedman, R. (2015) The United Nations Human Rights Council: A Critique and Early Assessment (London:
Routledge).
Gaer F. (1995) Reality Check: Human Rights Non-governmental Organisations Confront Governments at the
United Nations, Third World Quarterly
Vol. 16, No. 3. Available electronically through the library
website.
Gaer, F. (2003) Implementing international human rights norms: UN human rights treaty bodies and NGOs,
Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 2, No. 3. Available electronically through the library website.
Golay, H. et al (2011) The Impact of UN Special Procedures on the development and implementation of
economic, social and cultural rights, The International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 15, No.2. Available
Greenhill, B. (2016) Transmitting Rights: International Organizations and the Diffusion of Human Rights Practices
(Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Gutter, J. (2007) 'Special Procedures and the Human Rights Council: Achievements and Challenges Ahead',
Human Rights Law Review, Vol. 7 No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Heyns, C. and F. Viljoen. (2001) The Impact of the United Nations Human Rights Treaties on the Domestic
Level, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 23. Available electronically through the library website.
Hopgood, S. (2013) The Endtimes of Human Rights (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).
Humphrey, J. (1984) Human Rights and the United Nations: A Great Adventure (Dobbs Ferry: Transnational
Publications).
5
Hunt, L. A. (2007). Inventing Human Rights : A History. New York ; London, W. W. Norton.
Kabasakal Arat, Z. F. (2006) 'Forging A Global Culture of Human Rights: Origins and Prospects of the
International Bill of Rights.' Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 28 No. 2. Available electronically through the
library website.
Korey, W. (1998) NGOs and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "a curious grapevine". (Basingstoke:
Macmillan).
Lauren, P. G. (2007) '"To Preserve and Build on its Achievements and to Redress its Shortcomings": The Journey
from the Commission on Human Rights to the Human Rights Council', Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 29 No. 2.
Mertus, J. (2009) The United Nations and Human Rights: A Guide for a New Era (London: Routledge).
Morsink, J. (2000) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting, and Intent (University of
Pennsylvania Press).
Piccone, T, (2011) The Contribution of the UNs special procedures to national level implementation of Human
Rights norms, The International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 15, No. 2. Available electronically through
the library website.
Naples-Mitchell, J. (2011) Perscpectives of UN Special Rapporteurs on their role: inherent tensions and
contributions to human rights, The International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 15, No.2. Available
Oberleitner, G. (2007) Global Human Rights Institutions: Between Remedy and Ritual. Oxford, Polity Press.
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights The United Nations Human Rights Treaty
System An introduction to the core human rights treaties and the treaty bodies. Available online at
http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/docs/OHCHR-FactSheet30.pdf
Reinbold, J (2011) Political Myth and the Sacred Center of Human Rights: The Universal Declaration and the
Narrative of Inherent Human Dignity, Human Rights Review, Vol. 12. Available electronically through the
library website.
Richardson, L. (2015) Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (and Beyond) in the UN Human Rights Council,
Human Rights Law Review, Vol. 15.
Samny, A. A. (1993) Human Rights as International Consensus: The Making of the Universal Declaration of
Human
Rights,
1945-1948.
Bergen:
Chr.
Michelsen
Institute.
Available
online
at
http://bora.cmi.no/dspace/bitstream/10202/369/1/R1993.4%20%C3%85shild-07182007_5.pdf
Genser, J and B. S. Ugarte (eds) (2014) The United Nations Security Council in the age of human rights
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Subedi, S. P. (2011) 'Protection of Human Rights through the Mechanism of UN Special Rapporteurs', Human
Rights Quarterly, Vol. 33 No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Subedi, S. P., et al (2011) 'The role of the special rapporteurs of the United Nations Human Rights Council in the
development and promotion of international human rights norms', The International Journal of Human Rights,
Vol. 15 No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Regional Mechanisms
African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights http://www.achpr.org/
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights http://www.cidh.org/
European Court of Human Rights http://www.echr.coe.int/echr
Week 2: The Politics of Culture

Claims to rights have increasingly been made in the language of culture, such as indigenous peoples claiming
rights to live in a particular environment as a cultural right. In this session, we will consider the concept of culture,
from its use in the mid-twentieth century to denote a bounded, fixed and shared set of beliefs and practices of a
group of people, to more recent positions which emphasises the emergent, contested, evolving and fragmented
nature of cultural practices and ideas.
Questions:
1)
2)
3)
Is culture a meaningful concept?

To what political uses has the concept of culture been put over time?
What accounts for the choice to employ one or the other view of culture in contemporary political debates?
Everyone Should Read

Merry, S. E. (2003) 'Human Rights Law and the Demonization of Culture (And Anthropology Along the Way)',
PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, Vol. 26 No. 1. Available electronically through the
library website.
Reading Group 1
Eriksen, T. H. (1993) 'In which sense do cultural islands exist?, Social Anthropology, Vol. 1 No. 1b. Available
Reading Group 2
N'guessan, K. (2014) The bureaucratic making of national culture in North-Western Ghana, The Journal of
Modern African Studies, Vol. 52, No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Reading Group 3
Hamid, W. (2015) 'Bindi-fying the Self: Cultural Identity among Diasporic South Asians', South Asia Research,
Reading Group 4
Weaver, H. N. (2001) 'Indigenous Identity: What Is It and Who Really Has It?' American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 25
No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Further reading:
Baumann, G. (1996) Contesting Culture: Discourses of Identity in Multi-Ethnic London (Cambridge: CUP).
Benhabib, S. (2015) The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era (Princeton: Princeton
University Press).
7
Brumann, C. (1999) Writing for Culture: Why a Successful Concept Should not be Discarded, Current
Anthropology, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Supplement) Also read responses and authors reply. Available electronically
Cowan, J. K. (2006) Culture and Rights after Culture and Rights, American Anthropologist Vol. 108, No. 1).
Cowan, J., M. Dembour and R. Wilson (2001) Introduction in Cowan, J., M. Dembour and R. Wilson Culture
and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives (Cambridge: CUP).
Douglas, M. (2004) Traditional Culture Lets Hear No More About it, in Rao, V. and M. Walton (eds) Culture
and Public Action (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press).
Eriksen, T. H. (2001) Between universalism and relativism: a critique of the UNESCO concept of culture in
Cowan, J., M. Dembour and R. Wilson Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives (Cambridge: CUP).
Falk, R. (1992) Cultural foundations for the International Protection of Human Rights in An-Naim, A. A. (ed.)
Human Rights in Cross-Cultural Perspective (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press).
Grillo, R. D. (2003) 'Cultural Essentialism and Cultural Anxiety', Anthropological Theory, Vol. 3 No. 2. Available
Hildyard, N. (1999) Blood and Culture: Ethnic Conflict and the Authoritarian Right Available online at
<www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/briefing/11blood.html>.
Kahane, D. (2003) Dispute Resolution and the Politics of Cultural Generalization, Negotiation Journal, Vol. 19,
Robins, S. (2001) NGOs, Bushmen and Double Vision: The Khomani San Land Claim and the Cultural Politics
of Community and Development in the Kalahari, Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4.
Rosaldo, R. (1993) Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis (Boston: Beacon Press).
Stolcke, V. (1995)
Talking culture: new boundaries, new rhetorics of exclusion in Europe, Current
Anthropology, Vol. 36, No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Street, B. (1993) Culture as a Verb: Anthropological Aspects of Language and Cultural Processes in Graddol, D.
Thompson, L. and M. Byram (eds) Language and Culture (London: BAAL and Multilingual Matters).
Werbner, R. (1996) Multiple identities, Plural Arenas in Werbner, R. and T. Ranger (eds) Postcolonial Identities
in Africa (London: Zed).
Williams, R. (1976) Culture in Williams, R. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (London: Fontana)
Available online at <http://pubpages.unh.edu/~dml3/880williams.htm>.
Wilson, R. (1997) Human Rights, Culture and Context: An Introduction Wilson, R. (ed.) Human Rights, Culture
and Context, Anthropological Perspectives (London: Pluto Press).
Wright, S. (1998) The Politicisation of culture, Anthropology Today, Vol. 14, No. 1. Available electronically
Week 3: Universalism, Relativism and Human Rights

Drawing upon a mid-twentieth century idea of cultures as bounded units, it has been argued that human rights are
moral constructs rooted in specific cultural contexts. As a consequence, there could be no transcendental or
universal idea of rights and international human rights are at best just an ideology of western individualism and at
worst a disguised instrument of post-colonial domination. On the other hand, proponents of international human
rights argue that human rights spring from the recognition of and respect for the dignity of every human person,
and therefore are (or should be) universal. We will examine the various arguments along the spectrum between
relative universality (Donnelley) and cultural absolutism (Howard). We will give special attention to the
argument that human rights rely on a metaphor savages-victims-saviours (Mutua) which generates a salvationist
discourse (Abu-Lughod) which portrays those who suffer human rights violations as helpless victims of culture
in need of saving.
Questions
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Are there shared universal understandings of rights or are rights inherently contingent on socio-cultural
context?
What are the difficulties inherent in seeing rights as the product of a distinct society or culture.
Is cultural relativism itself a culturally specific idea claiming universal application?
Is there a valid concern in the relativists arguments or are they simply apologists for authoritarian rule in
specific countries of Africa and Asia?
Is the cultural relativist position less important that what people actually do with rights talk.

Donnelly, J. (2007) The relative universality of human rights, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 2..
Available electronically through the library website. [See also responses in Human Rights Quarterly Vol.
30, No. 1].
Reading Group 1
Abu-Lughod, L. (2002) 'Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural
Relativism and Its Others:', American Anthropologist, Vol. 104 No. 3. Available electronically through the
library website.
Reading Group 2
Siddiqi, D. M. (2009) Do Bangladeshi Factory Workers Need Saving?, Sisterhood in the Post-Sweatshop Era,
Feminist Review, Vol. 91. Available electronically through the library website.
Reading Group 3
Archambault, C. S. (2011) 'Ethnographic Empathy and the Social Context of Rights: Rescuing Maasai Girls
from Early Marriage', American Anthropologist, Vol. 113 No. 4. Available electronically through the library
website.
Reading Group 4
Addo, M. K. (2010) 'Practice of United Nations Human Rights Treaty Bodies in the Reconciliation of Cultural
Diversity with Universal Respect for Human Rights', Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 32 No. 3. Available
Further Reading
9
Relativist Arguments:
American Anthropological Association (1947) Statement on Human Rights, American Anthropologist, Vol. 49,
No. 4. [Read: Washburn, W. (1987)
Cultural Relativism, Human Rights and the AAA, American
Anthropologist, Vol. 89, No. 4;].

Brown, C. (1999) Universal Human Rights: A Critique, in Dunne, T. and N. J. Wheeler (eds) Human Rights in
Global Politics (Cambridge: CUP).
Hatch, E. (1997) The good side of relativism, Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 53, No. 3.
The Universalist Arguments
Donnelly, J. (2002) Chapter 6: Cultural Relativism and Universal Human Rights in Donnelly, J. Universal
Human Rights in Theory and Practice (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).
Howard, R. E. (1995) Human Rights and the Search for Community (Boulder: Westview Press). Chapter 1.
Advocates of Intercultural Dialogue
An Naim, A. A. (1990) Problems of Universal Cultural Legitimacy for Human Rights in An-Naim, A. A. and
F. M. Deng (eds) Human Rights in Africa: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (Washington DC: Brookings Institute).
An-Naim, A. A. (1992) Toward a Cross-Cultural Approach to Defining International Standards of Human
Rights: The Meaning of Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, in An-Naim, A. A. (ed.)
Human Rights in Cross-Cultural Perspectives: A Quest for Consensus (Philadelphia: University of
de Sousa Santos, B. (1999) Towards a Multicultural Conception of Human Rights in Featherstone, M. and S.
Lash, (eds) Spaces of Culture: City, Nation and World (London: Sage).
Farrag, A. (1990) Human Rights and Liberties in Islam, in Berting, J et al (eds) Human Rights in a Pluralist
World, Individuals and Collectivities (Westport: Meckler).
Hicks, N. (2002)
Does Islamist Human Rights Activism Offer a Remedy to the Crisis of Human Rights
Implementation in the Middle East?, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 24. Available electronically through the
library website.
Renteln, A. D. (1988) Relativism and the Search for Human Rights, American Anthropologist, Vol. 90, No. 1.
Renteln, A. D. (1990) International Human Rights: Universalism vs Relativism (London: Sage).
General
Chandler, D. (2001) Universal Ethics and Elite Politics: the Limits of Normative Human Rights Theory,
International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 5, No. 4. Available electronically through the library website.
Cohen, R. (1989)
Human Rights and Cultural Relativism: The Need for a New Approach, American
Anthropologist, Vol. 91, No. 4. Available electronically through the library website.
10
Dembour, M. B. (1996)
Human rights talk and anthropological ambivalence: The particular context of
universal claims in Harris, O. (ed.) Inside and Outside the Law : Anthropological Studies of Authority and
Ambiguity (London: Routledge).
Dembour, M. B. (2001) Following the Movement of a Pendulum: Between Universalism and Relativism in
Cowan, J., M. Dembour and R. Wilson (eds) Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives (Cambridge:
CUP).
Engelke, M. (1999) We Wondered What Human Rights He was talking About: human rights, homosexuality and
the Zimbabwean International Book Fair, Critique of Anthropology Vol. 19, No. 3. Available electronically
Engle, K. (2001) From Skepticism to Embrace: Human Rights and the American Anthropological Association
from 1947-1999, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3. Available electronically through the library
website.
Evans, T. (1997) Universal Human Rights: Imposing Values in Thomas, C. and P. Wilkin (eds) Globalization
and The South (Basingstoke: Macmillan).
Geertz, C. (1984) Anti Anti-relativism, American Anthropologist, Vol. 86, No. 2. Available electronically
Gellner, E. (1982) Relativism and Universals in Hollis, M. and S. Lukes (eds) Rationality and Relativism
(Oxford: Blackwell).
Goodhart, M. (2003) 'Origins and Universality in the Human Rights Debates: Cultural Essentialism and the
Challenge of Globalization', Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 25 No. 4. Available electronically through the
library website.
Harris-Short, S. (2003) 'International Human Rights Law: Imperialist, Inept and Ineffective? Cultural Relativism
and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child', Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 25 No. 1. Available
Hirst, P. (1985) Is it rational to reject relativism? in Overing, J. (1985) Introduction in Overing, J. (ed.) Reason
and Morality (London: Tavistock).
Hoffman, D. (2012) Saving children, saving Haiti? Child vulnerability and narratives of the nation, Childhood.
Vol. 19, No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Hollis, M. (1999) Is Universalism Ethnocentric? in Joppke, C and S. Lukes (eds.) Multicultural Questions
(Oxford: OUP).
Howard, R. E. (1995) Chapter 3: Cultural Absolutism and Nostalgia for Community in Howard, R. E. Human
Rights and the Search for Community (Boulder: Westview Press).
Jackson, M. (2005) 'Chapter 10: Whose Human Rights?' in M. Jackson (eds) Existential Anthropology: Events,
Exigencies, and Effects. (New York ; Oxford: Berghahn).
Messer, E. (1993) Anthropology and Human Rights, Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 22. Available
Mutua, M. (2002) Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania).
11
Mutua, M. (2001) 'Savages, Victims and Saviors: The Metaphor of Human Rights', Harvard International Law
Journal, Vol. 42. Available electronically through the library website.
Nagengast, C. (1997) Women, minorities, and indigenous peoples: universalism and cultural relativity, Journal
of Anthropological Research, Vol. 53, No. 3.
Pannikar, R. (1992) Is the Notion of Human Rights a Western Concept? in Sack, P. and J. Aleck (eds) Law and
Anthropology (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing Co). [Also in Diogenes Vol. 30, No. 120 (1982) Available
electronically through the library website].
Perry, M. J. (1997) Are Human Rights Universal? The Relativist Challenge and Related Matters, Human Rights
Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 3. Available electronically through the library website.
Pollis, A. (1996)
Cultural relativism revisited, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 2. Available

Pollis, A. (2000) A New Universalism in Pollis, A. and P. Schwab (eds) Human Rights: New Perspectives, New
Realities (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner).
Pollis, A. and P. Schwab (1979) Human Rights: a western construct with limited applicability in Pollis, A. and
P. Schwab (eds) Human Rights: Cultural and Ideological Perspectives (New York: Praeger).
Spiro, M. (1992) Cultural Relativism and the Future of Anthropology in Marcus, G. (ed.) Rereading Cultural
Anthropology (Durham: Duke University Press).
Tilly, J. T. (2000) Cultural Relativism, Human Rights Quarterly Vol. 22, No. 2. Available electronically
Turner, T. (1997) Human Rights, Human Difference: Anthropology's Contribution to an Emancipatory Cultural
Politics, Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 53, No. 3. Available electronically through the library
website.
Waltz, S. E. (2004) 'Universal Human Rights: The Contribution of Muslim States', Human Rights Quarterly, Vol.
26 No. 4. Available electronically through the library website.
Wilson, R. (1997) Human Rights, Culture and Context: An Introduction Wilson, R. (ed.) Human Rights, Culture
and Context, Anthropological Perspectives (London: Pluto Press).
Zechenter, E. M. (1997) In the name of culture: Cultural relativism and the abuse of the individual, Journal of
Anthropological Research, Vol. 53, No. 3. Available electronically through the library website.
Week 4: The Globalization of Human Rights

It is argued that human rights are the first truly global ideology, yet how global are they really? The assertion
that there is a newly globalised political culture challenges us to rethink notions of culture, the nation-state and
how they relate to human rights. Globalisation has undermined the basic premises of both the relativist and
universalist positions, respectively that societies are different on the basis of their isolation from one another and
that a particular historically contingent formulation of human rights can be transplanted universally without
resistance or objection.
Questions
12
1)
2)
3)
To what extent are human rights truly a force in global politics?

In what concrete ways has the process of rapid global integration in the 20th century changed the debate on
human rights and culture?
What new human rights challenges have arisen from the various aspects of globalization?
Everyone Should Read:
Merry S. E. (2006) Transnational human rights and local activism: mapping the middle, American
Reading Group 1
Bob, C. (2007) '"Dalit Rights are Human Rights": Caste Discrimination, International Activism, and the
Construction of a New Human Rights Issue', Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 29 No. 1. Available electronically
through the library website
Reading Group 2
Cheng, S. (2011) The Paradox of Vernacularization: Women's Human Rights and the Gendering of Nationhood,
Anthropological Quarterly , Vol. 84, No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Reading Group 3
Ledgerwood, J. and K. Un (2003) Global concepts and local meaning: human rights and Buddhism in Cambodia,
Reading Group 4
Tagliarinaa, D. (2015) Power, privilege and rights: how the powerful and powerless create a vernacular of rights,
Third World Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 6. Available electronically through the library website.
Further reading
An-Na'im, A. A., and J. Hammond (2002) 'Cultural Transformation and Human Rights in African Societies', in A.
A. An-Na'im (eds) Cultural Transformation and Human Rights in Africa. (London: Zed Books).
Appadurai, A. (1990) Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy in Featherstone, M. (ed.)
Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity (London: Sage).
Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press).
Archibald, S. and P. Richards (2002) Converts to Human Rights? Popular Debate About War and justice in Rural
Central Sierra Leone, Africa, Vol. 72, No. 3. Available electronically through the library website.
Brysk, A. (2002) Globalization and Human Rights. London: University of California Press.
Enguland, H. (2012) Human Rights and Village Headmen in Malawi: Translation beyond Vernacularization. In J.
Eckert, B. Donahoe, C. Strmpell and Z. zlem Biner (eds) Law against the State: Ethnographic Forays into
Laws Transformations. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Goldstein, D. (2007) 'Human Rights as Culprit, Human Rights as Victim: Rights and Security in the State of
Exception', in M. Goodale and S. E. Merry (eds) The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law Between the
Global and the Local. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
13
Goldstein, D. (2012) Whose Venacular? Translating Human Rights in Local Context, in Goodale M. (ed.)
Human Rights at the Crossroads (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Goodale, M. (2007) Locating Rights, Envisioning Law Between the Global and the Local, in Goodale, M. and S.
E. Merry (eds) The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law Between the Global and the Local. Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press.
Howell, S. (2003) 'The Diffusion of Moral Values in a Global Perspective', in T. H. Eriksen (eds) Globalisation:
Studies in Anthropology. (London: Pluto).
Ibhawoh, B. (2000) Between Culture and Constitution: Evaluating the Cultural Legitimacy of Human Rights in
the African State, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 3. Available electronically through the library
website.
Madhok, S. (2009) Five notions of Haq: Exploring Vernacular Rights in South Asia, Working Paper, LSE Gender
Institute. Available at http://www.lse.ac.uk/genderInstitute/pdf/SumiGIWP.pdf
McCorquodale, R. and R. Fairbrother (1999) Globalization and Human Rights, Human Rights Quarterly Vol.
21, No. 3. Available electronically through the library website.
McGrew, A. G. (1998) Human rights in a global age: Coming to terms with globalisation in Evans, T. (ed.)
Human Rights Fifty Years On: A Reappraisal (Manchester: MUP).
Merry, S. and R. Stern (2005) The Female Inheritance Movement in Hong Kong: Theorizing the Local/Global
Interface, Current Anthropology, Vol. 46, No. 3.
Merry, S. E. (1997) Legal Pluralism and Transnational Culture: The Ka Hookolokolonui Kanaka Maoli Tribunal,
Hawaii, 1993 in Wilson, R. (ed.) Human Rights, Culture and Context (London: Pluto).
Murray, D. A. B. (2006) 'Who's right? Human rights, sexual rights and social change in Barbados', Culture, Health
& Sexuality, Vol. 8 No. 3. Available electronically through the library website.
Orr, Z. (2012) The Adaptation of Human Rights Norms in Local Settings: Intersections of Local and Bureaucratic
Knowledge in an Israeli NGO, Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 11, No. 2. Available electronically through
Pollis, A. and P. Schwab (2000) Globalizations Impact on Human Rights in Pollis, A. and P. Schwab (eds)
Human Rights: New Perspectives, New Realities (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner).
Preis, A. (1996) Human Rights as Cultural Practice: An Anthropological Critique, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol.
Schuller, M. (2009) 'Gluing Globalization: NGOs as Intermediaries in Haiti', PoLAR: Political and Legal
Anthropology Review, Vol. 32 No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Thomas, F. (2007) 'Global Rights, Local Realities: Negotiating Gender Equality and Sexual Rights in the Caprivi
Region, Namibia', Culture, Health & Sexuality, Vol. 9 No. 6. Available electronically through the library
website.
Zwart, T. (2012) Using Local Culture to Further the Implementation of International Human Rights: The Receptor
Approach, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
14
Week 5: Childrens Rights

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was first ratified in 1989 and has since been
ratified by countries across the globe with the exclusion of the USA and Somalia. Within the Convention children
are given a voice to express individual concerns and to lay claim over particular aspects of their lives, including
the right to an education, to good health and a satisfactory family life. In this session we examine the position of
children in different societies and discuss the extent to which it is possible for such rights to be managed and
supported.
1)
2)
3)
4)
Is the UNCRC universally applicable?

Childhood should be a time of innocence and no child should take part in armed conflict.
Irrespective of age work and the choice to enter the work force should be a human right.
To what extent do children have participatory rights?
For the seminar you will need to read your assigned articles AND also familiarize yourselves with the UNCRC.
Burr, R. (2002) 'Global and Local Approaches to Childrens Rights in Vietnam', Childhood, Vol. 9 No. 1.
Reading group 1
Davies, M. (2008) A Childish Culture?: Shared understandings, agency and intervention: an anthropological study
of street children in northwest Kenya, Childhood, Vol. 15, No. 3. Available electronically through the
library website.
Reading group 2
Drybread, K. (2013) 'Social Life and the Deaths of Brazilian Street Children', The Journal of Latin American and
Caribbean Anthropology, Vol. 18 No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Reading group 3
Shaw, R. (2014) The TRC, the NGO and the child: young people and post-conflict futures in Sierra Leone,
Social Anthropology, Vol 22, No 3. Available electronically through the library website.
Reading group 4
Shepler, S. (2005) 'The Rites of the Child: Global Discourses of Youth and Reintegrating Child Soldiers in Sierra
Leone', Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 4 No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Further Reading:
Alston, P. (1994) The best interests principle: Towards a reconciliation of culture and Human Rights,
International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, Vol, 8, No. 1. Available electronically through the
library website.
Archard, D. (2004) Children : rights and childhood (London: Routledge).
Aries, P., and R. Baldick (1973) Centuries of childhood. [Translated ... by Robert Baldick.]: Harmondsworth:
Penguin.
15
Bernat, J. C. (1999) 'Children and the politics of violence in Haitian context: statis violence, scarcity and street
child agency in Port-au-Prince', Critique of anthropology, Vol. 19 No. 2. Available electronically through the
library website.
Burman, E. (1995) Local, global or globalised childhood? Child development and international child rights
legislation, Childhood, 3 (1) pp 45-66. Available electronically through the library website.
Burr, R. (2006) Vietnam's children in a changing world (London: Rutgers University Press).
Burr, R. (2014) The complexity of morality: Being a good child in Vietnam?, Journal of Moral Education, Vol.
43, No. 2.
Davis, R. A. (2011) Brilliance of Fire: Innocence, experience and the theory of childhood, Journal of Philosophy
of Education, Vol. 45, No. 2.
Delahook, A., R. Frankenberg, and I. Robinson (2000) 'Countering Essentialism in Behavioural Social Science:
The example of the vulnerable child ethnographically examined', Sociological Review, Vol. 40 No. 4.
Grugel, J., and E. Peruzzotti (2007) 'Claiming rights under global governance: children's rights in Argentina',
Global Governance, Vol. 13 No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Hoang, L. A. and Yeoh, B. S. (2015) Childrens agency and its contradictions in the context of transnational
labour migration from Vietnam, Global Networks, Vol. 15, No. 2.
Montgomery, H. (2001) Imposing Rights? A Case Study of Child Prostitution in Thailand in Cowan, J., M.
Dembour and R. Wilson Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives (Cambridge: CUP).
Montgomery, H. (2008) Buying innocence: Child-sex tourists in Thailand, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 29, No.
5.
Oswell, D. (2013) The Agency of Children: From Family to Global Human Rights. (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press).
Panter-Brick, C., and M. T. Smith (2000) Abandoned children : anthropological and historical perspectives. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Prout, A. (2005) The Future of Childhood : Towards the Interdisciplinary Study of Children. London: Routledge
Falmer.
Scheper-Hughes N, Sargent CF. (1998) Small wars : the cultural politics of childhood. Berkeley, Calif. ; London:
University of California Press.
Scheper-Hughes, N. (1992) Death without Weeping : The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley ; Oxford:
Schwartzman H. B. (2001) Children and anthropology : perspectives for the 21st century (Westport, CT: Bergin &
Garvey).
Stephens S. (1995) Children and The Politics of Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
Valentin, K. and Meinert, L. (2009) The adult North and the young South: Reflections on the civilizing mission of
children's rights Anthropology Today, Vol. 25, No. 3. Available electronically through the library website.
Wyness, M. G. (2000) Contesting Childhood. London: Falmer Press.
16
Child Soldiers
Berry, J. d. (2001) 'Child soldiers and the Convention on the Rights of the Child', Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 1 No. 575. Available electronically through the library
website.
Breen, C. (2003) 'The Role of NGOs in the Formulation of and Compliance with the Optional Protocol to the
Convention on the Rights of the Child on Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict', Human Rights
Quarterly, Vol. 25 No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Burman, E. (1994) 'Innocents Abroad: Western Fantasies of Childhood and the Iconography of Emergencies',
Disasters, Vol. 18 No. 3. Available electronically through the library website.
Denov, M. (2008) 'Girl Soldiers and Human Rights: Lessons from Angola, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and
Northern Uganda', The International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 12 No. 5. Available electronically
Dickson-Gomez, J. (2002) 'Growing up in guerrilla camps: the long-term impact of being a child soldier in El
Salvador's civil war', Ethos, Vol. 30 No. 4. Available electronically through the library website.
Ferme, M. C. (2013) Archetypes of Humanitarian Discourse: Child Soldiers, Forced Marriage, and the Framing of
Communities in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone, Humanity, Vol. 4, No. 1. Available electronically through the
library website.
Francis, D. J. (2007) ''Paper protection' mechanisms: child soldiers and the international protection of children in
Africa's conflict zones', Journal of modern African studies, Vol. 45 No. 2. Available electronically through
Geske, M. B., and M. Ensalaco (2005) 'Three prints in the dirt: child soldiers and human rights', in M. Ensalaco
and L. C. Majka (eds) Children's human rights: progress and challenges for children worldwide. (Lanham MD:
Rowman & Littlefield).
Hoffman, D. (2003) 'Like beasts in the bush: synonyms of childhood and youth in Sierra Leone', Postcolonial
Studies, Vol. 6 No. 3.
Hoffman, D. (2003) 'Like beasts in the bush: synonyms of childhood and youth in Sierra Leone', Postcolonial
Studies, Vol. 63 No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Hoffman, D. (2011) The War Machines: Young Men and Violence in Sierra Leone and Liberia (Duke: Duke
University Press).
Honwana, A. (2000) 'Innocent and guilty. Child-soldiers as interstitial and tactical agents', Politique africaine, Vol.
Honwana, A. (2005) Child Soldiers in Africa (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press).
Joanne, N. C. (2008) 'Returning home: resettlement of formerly abducted children in Northern Uganda', Disasters,
Kelsall, T. (2009) Culture Under Cross-Examination: International Justice and the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Chapter 5.
17
Maxted, J. (2003) 'Youth and war in Sierra Leone', African Identities, Vol. 1 No. 1. Available electronically
Moynaugh, M. (2011) Human Rights, Child Soldier Narratives, and the Problem of Form, Research in African
Literatures, Vol. 42, No. 4. Available electronically through the library website.
Murphy, W. P. (2003) 'Military Patrimonialism and Child Soldier Clientalism in the Liberian and Sierra Leonean
Civil Wars', African Studies Review, Vol. 46 No. 2.
Musila, G. M. (2005) 'Challenges in establishing the accountability of child soldiers for human rights violations:
restorative justice as an option', African human rights law journal, Vol. 5 No. 2. Available electronically
Rosen, D. (2004) 'Child Rites and the International Community', Anthropology News, Vol. 49 No. 4. Available
Rosen, D. M. (2007) 'Child soldiers, international humanitarian law, and the globalization of childhood', American
Anthropologist, Vol. 109 No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Rosen, D. M. (2005) Armies of the Young: Child Soldiers in War and Terrorism (London: Rutgers University
Press).
Shepler, S. (2014) Childhood Deployed: Remaking Child Soldiers in Sierra Leone (New York: NYU Press.).
Smith, A. (2004) 'Child Recruitment and the Special Court for Sierra Leone', Journal of International Criminal
Justice, Vol. 2 No. 4. Available electronically through the library website.
Utas, M. (2005) 'West-African Warscapes: Victimcy, Girlfriending, Soldiering: Tactic Agency in a Young
Woman's Social Navigation of the Liberian War Zone', Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 78 No. 2. Available
Utas, M., and M. Jrgela (2008) 'The West Side Boys: military navigation in the Sierra Leone civil war', The
Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 46 No. 3. Available electronically through the library website.
Wilson R. (2001) Children and War in Sierra Leone: A West African Diary, Anthropology Today, Vol. 12, No. 5.
Street Children
Bordonaroa, L. I. (2012) Agency does not mean freedom. Cape Verdean street children and the politics of
children's agency, Childrens Geographies, Vol. 10, No. 4. Available electronically through the library
website.
Grugel, J. and F. Ferreira (2012) Street Working Children, Children's Agency And The Challenge Of Children's
Rights: Evidence From Minas Gerais, Brazil, Journal of International Development, Vol. 24, No. 7. Available
Hecht, T. (1998) At home in the street: street children of Northeast Brazil (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press).
Niewenhuys, O. (2001) By the sweat of their Brow? Street children, NGOs and childrens rights in Addis
Ababa, Africa, Vol, 71, No. 4. Available electronically through the library website.
18
Panter-Brick, C. (2001) 'Street Children, human rights and public health: A critique and future directions', Annual
Review Of Anthropology, Vol. 31 No. 147-171. Available electronically through the library website.
Week 6: Consolidation Week (no seminar)

Week 7: Media, Human Rights and Advocacy
New communication technologies (email, the internet, documentary) have contributed enormously to the
globalisation of Human Rights and the awareness of human rights violations. Certain authors have, however,
commented on the severe decontextualisation of human rights violations if they are to be translated in to a form
that is internationally understood (see Wilson 1997). Others have commented on the ways in which extensive
coverage of one context in which human rights are being consistently violated may distract attention from other
contexts (see McLagan 2006). In preparation for the session, you should take a look at http://www.witness.org/ ;
http://www.irinnews.org/filmtv.aspx ; http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/films and at human rights reports at
http://www.amnesty.org.uk and http://www.hrw.org. Please bring any videos (or the url of videos) that you
would like to share with the class.
In preparation for the discussion, you should read at least two of the following readings.
Allen, L. A. (2009) 'Martyr Bodies in the Media: Human Rights, Aesthetics, and the Politics of Immediation in the
Palestinian Intifada', American Ethnologist, Vol. 36 No. 1. Available electronically through the library
website.
Andreopoulos, G. J., Z. F. Kabasakal Arat, and P. H. Juviler Non-state actors in the human rights universe.
Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.
Apodaca, C. (2007) The Whole World Could Be Watching: Human Rights and the Media, Journal of Human
Rights Vol. 6, No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Avni, R. (2006) Mobilizing Hope: Beyond the Shame-Based Model in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, American
Baxi, U. (2000). Human Rights: Suffering Between Movements and Markets. In Global Social Movements (eds) R.
Cohen and S. Rai. London: Athlone Press.
Bell, D. and J. H. Carens (2004) 'The Ethical Dilemmas of International Human Rights and Humanitarian NGOs:
Reflections on a Dialogue Between Practitioners and Theorists', Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 26 No. 2.
Bell, D. and J.-M. Coicaud. (2007) Ethics in Action : The Ethical Challenges of International Human Rights
Nongovernmental Organizations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Bob, C. (2002) Merchants of Morality, Foreign Policy, Vol. 129. Available electronically through the library
website.
Bob, C. (2002) 'Globalization and the Social Construction of Human Rights Campaigns', in A. Brysk (eds)
Globalization and Human Rights. (Berkeley: University of California Press).
Cohen S. (2001) States of Denial: Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering. Cambridge: Polity.
19
Cohen, S. (1996) Government responses to human rights reports: claims, denials, and counterclaims, Human
Rights Quarterly, Vol. 18. Available electronically through the library website.
Conklin B. (1997) Body paint, feathers, and VCRs: aesthetics and authenticity in Amazonian activism, American
Ethnologist, 24, No. 4. Available electronically through the library website.
Dudai , R. (2006) 'Advocacy with Footnotes: The Human Rights Report as a Literary Genre'. Human Rights
Ekine, S. (2010) SMS Uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa (Oxford: Pambazuka Press).
Fassin, D. (2008) 'The Humanitarian Politics of Testimony: Subjectification through Trauma in the Israeli
Palestinian Conflict', Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 23 No. 3. Available electronically through the library
website.
Ginsburg, F. (2006) Screen Memories: Resignifying the Traditional in Indigenous Media, in F. Ginsburg, L.
Abu-Lughod, B. Larkin & A. Cavanagh (eds) Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain. Berkeley:
Gregory, S. (2005) Video for Change: A Guide for Advocacy and Activism. (London: Pluto Press in association
with Witness).
Gregory, S. (2006) Transnational Storytelling: Human Rights, WITNESS, and Video Advocacy, American
Anthropologist Vol. 108, No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Gregory, S. (2010) 'Cameras Everywhere: Ubiquitous Video Documentation of Human Rights, New Forms of
Video Advocacy, and Considerations of Safety, Security, Dignity and Consent', Journal of Human Rights
Practice, Vol. 2 No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Guerin, F. and R. Hallas (2007) The Image and the Witness : Trauma, Memory and Visual Culture. (London:
Wallflower).
Hale, C. R. (2006) Activist Research v. Cultural Critique: Indigenous Land Rights and the Contradictions of
Politically Engaged Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 21, No. 1. Available electronically through
Hastrup K. (2003) Violence, suffering and human rights: anthropological reflections, Anthropological Theory,
Hesford, W. S., and W. Kozol (2005) Just Advocacy? : Women's Human Rights, Transnational Feminisms, and the
Politics of Representation (Piscataway, N.J.: Rutgers University Press).
Hopgood, S.(2013) Keepers of the Flame: Understanding Amnesty International. (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
Press).
Howland, T. (2008) 'How El Rescate, a Small Nongovernmental Organization, Contributed to the Transformation
of the Human Rights Situation in El Salvador', Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 30 No. 3. Available
Keck, M. and K. Sikkink (1998) Activists Beyond Borders (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).
Keenan T. (2004) Mobilizing Shame, The South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 103. No. 2-3. Available electronically
20
Kennedy D. (2002) The International Human Rights Movement: Part of the Problem?, Harvard Human Rights
Journal,
Vol.
15.
Available
online
at
<http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/hrj/iss15/kennedy.shtml>.
Kennedy, D. (2004) The Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism (Princeton N.J:
Princeton University Press).
Madison, S. D. (2012) Acts of Activism: Human Rights as Radical Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press).
Malkki L H, (1996) "Speechless emissaries: refugees, humanitarianism, and dehistoricization" Cultural
Marcus, G. E. (2005) 'The Anthropologist As Witness in Contemporary Regimes of Intervention', Cultural
Politics: an International Journal, Vol. 1 No. Available online through the University Library Website.
Margaret, E. K., and S. Kathryn (1999) 'Transnational advocacy networks in international and regional politics',
International Social Science Journal, Vol. 51 No. 159. Available electronically through the library website.
Martens, K. (2004) 'An Appraisal of Amnesty International's Work at the United Nations: Established Areas of
Activities and Shifting Priorities Since the 1990s.' Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 26 No. 4. Available
McLagan M. (2005) Circuits of suffering, PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, Vol. 28, No. 2.
McLagan, M. (2003) Principles, publicity, and politics: notes on human rights media, American Anthropologist,
Vol. 105, No.3. Available electronically through the library website.
McLagan, M. (2006). Spectacles of Difference: Cultural Activism and the Mass Mediation of Tibet, in F.
Ginsburg, L. Abu-Lughod, B. Larkin & A. Cavanagh (eds) Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
McLagan, M. (2006) Introduction: Making Human Rights Claims Public. American Anthropologist, Vol. 108, No.
1. Available electronically through the library website.
Meernik, J. et al (2012) The Impact of Human Rights Organizations on Naming and Shaming Campaigns,
Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 56.
Mihr, A., and H. P. Schmitz (2007) 'Human Rights Education (HRE) and Transnational Activism', Human Rights
Moeller, S. D. (1999) Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War, and Death (London:
Routledge).
Nelson, P. J., and E. Dorsey (2008) New Rights Advocacy: Changing Strategies of Development and Human
Rights NGOs. (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press).
Orentlicher, D. F. (1990) 'Bearing Witness: the Art and Science of Human Rights Fact-Finding', Harvard Human
Rights Journal, Vol. 83
Robinson, P. (2002) Global Television and Conflict Resolution: Defining the Limits of the CNN Effect, Eytan
Gilboa (ed.) Media and Conflict: framing issues, making policy, shaping opinions. .Trannational Publishers.
21
Rorty, R. (1998) Human Rights, Rationality and sentimentality in Rorty, R. Truth and Progress (Cambridge:
CUP) [Also in Shute S. and S. Hurley (eds) (1993) On Human Rights: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 1993
(London: Basic Books). Available online at < http://www.usm.maine.edu/~bcj/issues/three/rorty.html>.
Ross F. (2003) On Having a Voice and Being Heard. Anthropological Theory, Vol. 3, No. 3.
Sally Engle, M. (2005) 'Anthropology and Activism', Political and Legal Anthropology Review, Vol. 28 No. 2.
Schaffer, K., and S. Smith (2004) Human Rights and Narrated Lives: The Ethics of Recognition. New York ;
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Slim, H. (2002) By What Authority? The Legitimacy and Accountability of Non-governmental Organisations.
International Council on Human Rights Policy. Available online at http://www.jha.ac/articles/a082.htm.
Smith, J et al (1998) Globalizing Human Rights: The Work of Transnational Human Rights NGOs in the 1990s,
Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Speed, S. (2006) At the crossroads of human rights and anthropology: toward a critically engaged activist
research, American Anthropologist, Vol. 108, No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Tamm, I. J. (2004) Dangerous Appetites: Human Rights Activism and Conflict Commodities, Human Rights
Tate, W. (2007) Counting the Dead : The Culture and Politics of Human Rights Activism in Colombia. Berkeley,
Calif. ; London: University of California Press.
Thoolen, H., and B. Verstappen (1986) Human Rights Missions : A Study of the Fact-Finding Practice of NonGovernmental Organizations. Dordrecht ; Boston: M. Nijhoff.
Turner, T. (2006) Representation, Politics, and Cultural Imagination in Indigenous Video: General Points and
Kayapo Example, in F. Ginsburg, L. Abu-Lughod, B. Larkin & A. Cavanagh (eds) Media Worlds:
Anthropology on New Terrain. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Welch, C. E. (2000) NGOs and Human Rights: Promise and Performance. (Philadelphia: University of
Wilson, R. (1997) Representing Human Rights Violations: Social Contexts and Subjectivities in Wilson, R. (ed.)
Human Rights, Culture and Context, Anthropological Perspectives (London: Pluto Press).
Week 8: Indigenous Rights

Steps have been made toward granting specific rights to indigenous peoples under international as well as national
law. We will look at how the concept of indigenous people has been constructed in human rights discourse and
what the consequences have been of couching political and economic claims in the language of rights. We will
give special attention to the notion of strategic essentialism (Spivak) and the relationship between authenticity
and the creative, instrumental performance of culture.
Questions
1)
Is the new language of indigenous rights genuinely empowering or does it simply facilitate integration
within what remain highly asymmetrical power relations?
22
2)
What explains why some indigenous communities have been successful in deploying indigenous peoples
rights to establish claims and others have not?
Everyone should read (at http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/ainstls1.htm):

1981 OAU African [Banjul] Charter on Human and Peoples Rights
1991 ILO Convention Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries
1993 Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious or Linguistic Minorities
2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
See: United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
Everyone Should Read:
Jones P. N. (1999) Human rights, group rights and peoples rights, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 1.
Reading Group 1
Barret, G (2013) Markets of exceptionalism: Peace Parks in Southern Africa, Journal of Contemporary African
Studies, Vol. 31, No. 3. Available electronically through the library website
Reading Group 2
Kuper, A. (2003) The Return of the Native, Current Anthropology, Vol. 44, No. 3. Available electronically
through the library website. [See Kenrick, J., and J. Lewis (2004) 'Indigenous Peoples' Rights and the Politics
of the Term 'Indigenous'', Anthropology Today, Vol. 20 No. 2. Available electronically through the library
website.]
Reading Group 3
Conklin B. (1997) Body paint, feathers, and VCRs: aesthetics and authenticity in Amazonian activism, American
Ethnologist, 24, No. 4. Available electronically through the library website.
Reading Group 4
Hanson, A. (1989) 'The Making of the Maori: Culture Invention and Its Logic', American Anthropologist, Vol. 91
Further reading
Anaya, J. and T. Crider (1996) Indigenous Peoples, the Environment and Commercial Forestry in Developing
Countries: The Case of Awas Tingni, Nicaragua, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 2.
Available

Barnard, A. (2006) Kalahari revisionism, Vienna and the indigenous peoples debate, Social Anthropology,
Volume 14, No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Barsh, R. L. (1996) Indigenous Peoples and the UN Commission on Human Rights: A Case of the Immovable
Object and the Irresistible Force, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 4. Available electronically through
23
Biolsi, T. (1995) Bringing the Law Back in: legal rights and the regulation of Indian-White relations on Rosebud
Reservation, Current Anthropology, Vol. 36, No. 4. [Also read comments]. Available electronically through
Bowen J. R. (2000) Should we have a universal concept of "Indigenous People's" Rights?: Ethnicity and
essentialism in the twenty-first century, Anthropology Today, Vol. 16, No. 4 Available electronically through
Brosius J, Peter. (1999) Locations and representations: writing in the political present in Sarawak, East Malaysia,
Identities, Vol. 6, No. 2-3.. Available electronically through the library website.
Brown, M. F. (1998) Can Culture Be Copyrighted?, Current Anthropology, Vol. 39, No. 2. Available
Brulotte, R. (2009) Yo soy nativo de aqu: The Ambiguities of Race and Indigeneity in Oaxacan Craft
Tourism, The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology Vol. 14, No. 2. Available
Chernela J. (2006) Recent Advances and Retreats in Indigenous Rights in Brazil, Journal of Latin American
Clifford, J. (1988)
Identity in Mashpee in Clifford, J. The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century
Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge: Harvard University Press).

Clifford, J. (2000) Taking Identity Politics Seriously in, Hall. P. Gilroy, L. Grossberg, and A. McRobbie, eds.
Without Guarantees: In Honour of Stuart. London Verso.
Colchester M. (2002) Indigenous Rights and the Collective Consciousness, Anthropology Today 18:1-3.
Combe, R. (1996) Embodied Trademarks: Mimesis and Alterity on American Commercial Frontiers, Cultural
Conklin B A. (2002) Shamans versus pirates in the amazonian treasure chest, American anthropologist Vol. 104,
Conklin B. A. and L. R. Graham (1995) The shifting middle ground: Amazonian Indians and eco-politics,
American Anthropologist, Vol. 97, No. 4.. Available electronically through the library website.
Corntassel, J. (2008) Towards Sustainable Self-Determination: Rethinking the Contemporary Indigenous Rights
Discourse, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, Vol. 33, No. 1. Available electronically through the
library website.
French, J. F. (2002) Dancing for Land: Law-Making and Cultural Performance in Northeastern Brazil, PoLAR:
Political and Legal Anthropology Review Vol. 25, No. 1. Available electronically through the library
website.
Gledhill, J. (1997) 'Liberalism, Socio-Economic Rights and the Politics of Identity: From Moral Economy to
Indigenous Rights' Richard Wilson (ed) Human Rights, Culture and Context: Anthropological Approaches.
(London: Pluto).
24
Goggin, S. (2011) 'Human rights and primitive culture: misrepresentations of indigenous life', The International
Grnewald, R. d. A. (2002) 'Tourism and cultural revival', Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 29 No. 4. Available
Guenther M, Kenrick J, Kuper A, Plaice E, Thuen T, et al. (2006) Discussion: the concept of indigeneity, Social
Anthropology Vol. 14, No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Handler, R. (1986) 'Authenticity', Anthropology Today, Vol. 2 No. 1. Available electronically through the
library website.
Hill, R. P. (1995) Blackfellas and Whitefellas: Aboriginal Land Rights, the Mabo Decision, and the Meaning of
Land, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Hodgson D. (2002) Precarious alliances: the cultural politics and structural predicaments of the indigenous rights
movement in Tanzania, American Anthropologist, Vol. 104, No. 4.Available electronically through the
library website.
Hodgson, D. (2002) Comparative Perspectives on the Indigenous Rights Movement in Africa and the Americas,
American Anthropologist, Vol. 104. No. 4. Available electronically through the library website.
Holder, C. L. and J. J. Corntassel (2002) Indigenous Peoples and Multicultural Citizenship: Bridging Collective
and Individual Rights, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 1. Available electronically through the library
website.
Jackson, J. E. (2007) Rights to Indigenous Culture in Colombia, in Goodale, M. and S. E. Merry (eds) The
Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law Between the Global and the Local. Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press.
Jung C. (2004) The politics of indigenous identity: neoliberalism, cultural rights, and the Mexican Zapatistas,
Social Research, Vol. 70, No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Karlsson B G. (2003) Anthropology and the 'Indigenous Slot': Claims to and Debates about Indigenous Peoples'
Status in India, Critique of Anthropology, Vol. 23, No. 4. Available electronically through the library
website.
Kenrick, J. and J. Lewis (2004) "Indigenous peoples' rights and the politics of the term 'indigenous'.", in
Anthropology Today, Vol. 20. No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Kuper, A. (2005) The Reinvention of Primitive Society: Transformations of a Myth, 2nd ed. edition. (London:
Routledge).
Lee R. B. (2006) Twenty-first century indigenism, Anthropological Theory, Vol. 6, No. 4. Available
Li, T, M. (2000) Articulating Indigenous Identity in Indonesia: Resource Politics and the Tribal Slot Available
online at http://repositories.cdlib.org/iis/bwep/WP00-7-Li/
McIntosh I, Colchester M, Bowen J, Rosngren D. (2002) Defining oneself. and being defined as, indigenous,
Anthropology Today, Vol. 18, No. 6. Available electronically through the library website.
25
Muehlebach A. (2001) Making place at the United Nations: indigenous cultural politics at the U.N. working
group on indigenous populations, Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 16, No. 3.. Available electronically through
Niezen, R. (2003) The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Identity. (Berkeley ; London:
University of California Press)
Oakdale S. (2004) The culture-conscious Brazilian Indian: representing and reworking Indianness in Kayabi
political discourse, American Ethnologist, Vol. 31, No. 1. Available electronically through the library
website.
Parker E. (1992) Forest islands and Kayapo resource management in Amazonia - a reappraisal of the Apete,
American Anthropologist, Vol. 94, No. 2.. Available electronically through the library website.
Povinelli, E. A. (2002) The Cunning of Recognition: Indigenous Alterities and the Making of Australian
Multiculturalism. (Durham: Duke University Press).
Samson, C. (2001) Rights as the Reward for Simulated Cultural Sameness: the Innu in the Canadian Colonial
Context in Cowan, J., M. Dembour and R. Wilson Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives
(Cambridge: CUP).
Short, D. (2007) 'The Social Construction of Indigenous `Native Title' Land Rights in Australia', Current
Sociology, Vol. 55 No. 6. Available electronically through the library website.
Sissons, J. (1993) 'The Systematisation of Tradition: Maori Culture as a Strategic Resource', Oceania, Vol. 64.
Speed, S. (2007). Rights in Rebellion: Indigenous Struggle and Human Rights in Chiapas (Stanford: Stanford
University Press).
Sylvain, R. (2015) 'Foragers and fictions in the Kalahari: Indigenous identities and the politics of deconstruction',
Anthropological Theory, Vol. 15 No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Turner, T. (1991)
Representing, resisting, rethinking: Historical Transformations of Kayapo Culture and
Anthropological Consciousness in Stocking, G. (ed.) Colonial Situations: History of Anthropology (Madison:

University of Wisconin Press).
Turner, T. (1999) 'Indigenous Rights, Environmental Protection and the struggle over forest resources in the
Amazon: the case of the Brazilian Kayapo', in J. K. Conway, K. Keniston and L. Marx (eds) Earth, air, fire,
water: Humanistic Studies of the Environment. (Amherst, Mass: University of Massachusetts Press).
Weiner, J. F. (1999) Culture in a Sealed Envelope: The Concealment of Australian Aboriginal Heritage and
Tradition in the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Affair, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 5,
Cultural Genocide
Moses, A. D. (2002) 'Conceptual blockages and definitional dilemmas in the 'racial century': genocides of
indigenous peoples and the Holocaust', Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 36 No. 4. Available electronically through
26
Short, D. (2010) 'Cultural genocide and indigenous peoples: a sociological approach', The International Journal of
Human Rights, Vol. 14 No. 6. Available electronically through the library website.
Totten, S. (2002) 'Confronting Genocide and Ethnocide of Indigenous Peoples: An Interdisciplinary Approach to
Definition, Intervention, Prevention, and Adequacy', in A. L. Hinton (eds) Annihilating Difference: The
Anthropology of Genocide. (Berkeley: University of California Press). Available electronically through the
library website.
van Krieken, R. (1999) 'The barbarism of civilization: cultural genocide and the stolen generations', The British
Journal of Sociology, Vol. 50 No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Week 9: Gender and Rights

Gender has been at the centre of the debate on cultural difference and human rights. Issues of womens rights have
often been the arena on which various battles on multiculturalist policies have been fought (e.g. the veil). Like
any social movement and political tradition, feminism is divided on the question of human rights. In the human
rights field, many feminists are universalists, and therefore see human rights as a potentially useful instrument in
the struggle for gender equality. This has led them to view any defence of cultural particularity as an obstacle to
the achievement of womens human rights. Yet some feminists attach great significance to the intersection of
gender with other axes of difference (racial, ethnic, cultural, religious), and have therefore taken a more
ambivalent approach to the universalisability of womens rights.
Questions
1)
2)
3)
4)
What has been the contribution of feminist theory to the question of difference and rights?
What explains why gender has featured so centrally in debates on human rights and culture?
What effect has this focus on gender had on the debates, and on the prospects for resolution of the
contested issues?
Is culture (or religion) a bar to the realisation of womens full human rights?
Everyone should read:

*
United
Nations
(1954) Convention
on
the Political
Rights
of
Women.
Available online at
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/e2cprw.htm
* United Nations (1979) Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
Available online at http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/e1cedaw.htm
* United Nations (1993) Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women. Available online at
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/e4devw.htm
* United Nations (1999) Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society
to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Available online at
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/Res_53_144.html.
Minow, M. (2000) About Women, About Culture: About Them, About Us, Daedalus, Vol. 129. Available
27
Reading Group 1
Stephen, L. (1995) Women's rights are human rights: the merging of feminine and feminist interests among El
Savador's mothers of the disappeared (CO-MADRES), American Ethnologist, Vol. 22, No. 4. Available
Reading Group 2
Madhoka, S. M. Unnithanb and C. Heitmeyer (2014) On reproductive justice: domestic violence, rights and the
law in India, Culture, Health & Sexuality, Vol. 16, No. 10. Available electronically through the library
website.
Reading Group 3
Koomen, J. (2014) 'Global governance and the politics of culture: campaigns against female circumcision in East
Africa', Gender, Place & Culture, Vol. 21, No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Reading Group 4
Akbult, Z. (2015) Veiling as self-disciplining: Muslim Women, Islamic Discourses and the Headscarf Ban in
Turkey, Contemporary Islam, Vol. 9, No. 3. Available electronically through the library website.
Further Reading
Abramowitz, S. and M. H. Moran (2012) International Human Rights, Gender-Based Violence, and Local
Discourses of Abuse in Postconflict Liberia: A Problem of Culture?, African Studies Review, Vol. 55, No. 2.
Abusharaf, A. (2006) 'Women in Islamic Communities: The Quest for Gender Justice Research', Human rights
quarterly, Vol. 28 No. 3. Available electronically through the library website.
Afary, J. (2004) The human rights of Middle Eastern & Muslim women: a project for the 21st century, Human
Rights Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Afkhami, M. (2001) Gender Apartheid and the Discourse of Relativity of Rights in Muslim Societies in
Howland, C. W. (ed.) Religious Fundamentalisms and the Human Rights of Women (New York: Palgrave).
Agosn, M. (ed.) (2001) Women, Gender, and Human Rights: A Global Perspective (New Brunswick, N.J. :
Rutgers University Press).
Arnirthalingham, K. (2005) Womens rights, International Norms and Domestic Violence: Asian Perspectives,
Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Ashworth, G. (1999) The silencing of women in Dunne, T and N. J. Wheeler (eds) Human Rights in Global
Perspective (Cambridge: CUP).
Banda, F. (2005) Women, Law and Human Rights : An African Perspective (Oxford: Hart Publishing).
Bennett, L. R., S. Andajani-Sutjahjo, and N. I. Idrus (2011) 'Domestic Violence in Nusa Tenggara Barat,
Indonesia: Married Women's Definitions and Experiences of Violence in the Home', The Asia Pacific Journal
of Anthropology, Vol. 12 No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Binion, G. (1995) Human Rights: a feminist perspective, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 3. Available
28
Brems, E. (1997) Enemies or Allies? Feminism and Cultural Relativism as Dissident Voices in Human Rights
Discourse, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Brown, K. (2006) 'Realising Muslim women's rights: The role of Islamic identity among British Muslim women',
Women's Studies International Forum, Vol. 29 No. 4. Available electronically through the library website.
Burchianti, M. (2004) 'Building bridges of memory: the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the cultural politics of
maternal memories', History and Anthropology, Vol. 15 No. 2. Available electronically through the library
website.
Charlesworth, H. (1995) Worlds Apart: Public/Private Distinctions in International Law in Motiejunaite, Jurate
(ed.) (2005) Womens Rights: The Public/Private Dichotomy (Idea: New York).
Conaghan, J. and Millns, S. (2005) Special Issue: Gender, Sexuality and Human Rights, Feminist Legal Studies,
Vol. 13. Available electronically through the library website
Cook, R. (ed.) (1994) Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives (Philadelphia, Pa.:
University of Pennsylvania Press).
Cook, R. J. and Dicken, B (2003) Human Rights Dynamics of Abortion Law Reform, Human Rights Quarterly,
Fraser, A. S. (1999) Becoming Human: The Origins and Development of Women's Human Rights, Human
Rights Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 4. Available electronically through the library website.
Hardwig, J. (1990) Should Women Think in Terms of Rights? in Sunstein, C. R.(ed.) Feminism and Political
Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
Johnstone, R. (2006) 'Feminist Influences on the United Nations Human Rights Treaty Bodies', Human Rights
Kapur, R. (2002) The Tragedy of Victimisation Rhetoric: Resurrecting the Native Subject in International/PostColonial Feminist Legal Politics, Harvard Human Rights Journal, Vol. 15.
Available online at
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/hrj/iss15/kapur.shtml
Koshan, J. (2005) Sounds of Silence: The Public/Private Dichotomy, Violence, and Aboriginal Women in
Motiejunaite, J. (ed.) Womens Rights: The Public Private Dichotomy (Idea: New York).
Merry, S. E. (2003) 'Rights Talk and the Experience of Law: Implementing Women's Human Rights to Protection
from Violence', Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 25 No. 2. Available electronically through the library
website.
Nagel, T. (1995) Personal Rights and Public Space, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 24, No. 2. Available
O Hare, U. (1999) Realising Human Rights for Women, Human Rights Quarterly Vol. 2 1, No. 2. Available
Peters, J. and A. Wolper (eds) (1995) Womens Rights, Human Rights, International Feminist Perspectives
(London: Routledge).
Pollitt, K. (1999) Whose Culture? in Cohen, J et al (eds.) Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? (Princeton:
29
Reilly, N. (2009) Women's Human Rights: Seeking Gender Justice in a Globalizing Age. (Cambridge: Polity).
Romany, C. (1994)
Responsibility Goes Private: A Feminist Critique of the Public/Private Distinction in
International Human Rights Law in Cook, R. (ed.) Human Rights of Women: National and International
Perspectives (Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press). In Faculty Reserve.
Shah, N. A. (2006) 'Women's Human Rights in the Koran: An Interpretive Approach', Human rights quarterly,
Singer, M. (2001) Relativism, Culture, Religion, and Identity, in Howland, C. W. (ed.) Religious
Fundamentalisms and the Human Rights of Women (New York: Palgrave).
Snajdr, E. (2007) 'Ethnicizing the subject: domestic violence and the politics of primordialism in Kazakhstan',
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 13 No. 3. Available electronically through the library
website.
Spike Peterson, V. and L. Parisi (1998) Are women human? Its not an academic question in Evans, T. (ed.).
(1998) Human Rights Fifty Years On: A Reappraisal (Manchester: MUP).
Stephen, L. (1995) Women's rights are human rights: the merging of feminine and feminist interests among El
Savador's mothers of the disappeared (CO-MADRES), American Ethnologist, Vol. 22, No. 4. Available
Sullivan, D. (1995) The Public/Private Distinction in International Human Rights Law in Peters, J. and A.
Wolper (eds) (1995) Womens Rights, Human Rights, International Feminist Perspectives (London:
Routledge). In Faculty Reserve.
Wollstonecraft, M. (1792) A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Various editions in library.
Female Genital Circumcision/Mutilation
Abusharaf, R. M. (2006). Female Circumcision : Multicultural Perspectives (Philadelphia, Pa., University of
Ahlberg, B. M. et al (2004) Its only a tradition: Making sense of eradication interventions and the persistence
of female circumcision within a Swedish context, Critical Social Policy, Vol. 24, No. 1. Available
Bell, K. (2005) Genital Cutting and Western Discourse on Sexuality, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Vol. 19,
Carpenter, C. R. (2001) The Female Circumcision Controversy: An Anthropological Perspective, Human Rights
Dalal, K. et al (2010) Womens attitudes towards discontinuation of female genital mutilation in Egypt, Journal
of Injury and Violence, Vol. 2, No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Fernandez, S. (2009) The crusade over the bodies of women, Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 43, No. 3. Available
Galeotti, A. E. (2007). "Relativism, Universalism, and Applied Ethics: The Case of Female Circumcision."
Constellations 14(1): 91-111. Available electronically through the library website.
30
Gilman, S. L. (1999) Barbaric Rituals?, in Cohen, J, et al (eds.) Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? (Princeton:
Ginsburg, F. (1991)
What Do Women Want?: Feminist Anthropology Confronts Clitoridectomy, Medical
Anthropology Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Gordon, D. (1991) Female Circumcision and Genital Operations in Egypt and the Sudan: A Dilemma for Medical
Anthropology, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 1. Available electronically through the library
website.
Gruenbaum, E. (1996) The Cultural Debate over Female Circumcision: The Sudanese Are Arguing This One out
for Themselves, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 4. Available electronically through the
library website.
Gruenbaum, E. (2001) The Female Circumcision Controversy: An Anthropological Perspective. Philadelphia, Pa:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Honig, B. (1999) My Culture Made Me Do It in Cohen, J et al (eds.) Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?
(Princeton: Princeton University Press).
Lightfoot-Klein, H. (1989) Prisoners of Ritual: An Odyssey into Female Genital Circumcision in Africa (New
York: Haworth Press).
Mackie, G. (2003) Female genital cutting: a harmless practice?, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Vol. 17, No.
2. Available electronically through the library website.
Nnaemeka, O. (2005). Female circumcision and the politics of knowledge : African women in imperialist
discourses. (London: Praeger).
Obermeyer, C. (1999) Female genital surgeries: The known, the unknown, and the unknowable, Medical
Anthropology Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Rahman, A. and N. Toubia (eds) (2002) Female Genital Mutilation: A Guide to Laws and Policies Worldwide
(London: Zed).
Sheldon, S., and S. Wilkinson (1998) 'Female genital mutilation and cosmetic surgery: regulating non-therapeutic
body modification', Bioethics, Vol. 12 No. 4. Available electronically through the library website.
Shell-Duncan, B. (2008) From Health to Human Rights: Female Genital Cutting and the Politics of Intervention,
American Anthropologist Vol. 110. No. 2. Available electronically through the library website
Walley, C. J. (1997) Searching for Voices: Feminism, Anthropology, and the Global Debate over Female genital
Operations, Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 3. Available electronically through the library website.
Wangila, M. N. (2007) Beyond Facts to Reality: Confronting the Situation of Women in Female Circumcising
Communities, Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 6, No. 4. Available electronically through the library website.
Veiling
Bennoune, K. (2007) Secularism and Human Rights: A contextual analysis of headscarves, religious expression
and womens equality under international law, Colombia Journal of Transnational Law, Vol. 45, No. 2.
31
Bilge, S. (2010) Beyond subordination versus resistance: an intersectional approach to the agency of veiled
Muslim women, Journal of Intercultural Studies, Vol 31. No. 1. Available electronically through the library
website.
Billaud, J. (2009) Visible Under the Veil: Dissimulation, Performance and Agency in an Islamic Public Space,
Journal
of
International
Womens
Studies,
Vol.
11,
No.
1.
Available
online
at
http://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol11/iss1/9/.
Bruck, G. v. (2008) 'Naturalising, neutralising women's bodies: the "headscarf affair" and the politics of
representation', Identities, Vol. 15 No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Chakraborti, N. and Zempi, I. (2012) The Veil under attack: Gendered dimensions of Islamophobic victimization,
International Review of Victimology, Vol. 18, No.3. Available electronically through the library website.
Clark, S. (2007) 'Female Subjects of International Human Rights Law: The Hijab Debate and the Exotic Other
Female', Global Change, Peace & Security, Vol. 19 No. 1. Available electronically through the library
website.
Dwyer, C. (1999) Veiled meanings: young British Muslim women and the negotiation of differences. Gender,
Place and Culture Vol. 6, No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Hoekstraa, M. and M. Verkuytenb (2015) To be a true Muslim: online discussions on the headscarf among
Moroccan-Dutch women, Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, Vol. 22, No. 9.
Available electronically through the library website
Khiabany, G. and M. Williamson (2008) Veiled bodies and naked racism: culture, politics and race in The Sun,
Race and Class, Vol. 50, No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Listerborna, C. (2015) Geographies of the veil: violent encounters in urban public spaces in Malm, Sweden,
Social & Cultural Geography, Vol 16, No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Marshall, J. (2008) 'Conditions for Freedom?: European Human Rights Law and the Islamic Headscarf Debate',
Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 30 No. 3. Available electronically through the library website.
McGoldrick, D. (2006) Human Rights and Religion : The Islamic Headscarf Debate in Europe.(Oxford: Hart Pub).
Shively, K. (2014) Entangled ethics: Piety and agency in Turkey, Anthropological Theory, Vol. 14, No. 4.
Tarlo, E. (2007) Hijab in London: metamorphosis, resonance and effects, Journal of Material Culture, Vol. 12,
Ticktin, M. (1999) 'Selling Suffering in The Courtroom and Marketplace: An Analysis of the Autobiography of
Kiranjit Ahluwalia', PoLAR: Political & Legal Anthropology Review, Vol. 22 No. 1.
Wagner, W. et al (2012) The veil and Muslim womens identity: Cultural pressures and resistance to
stereotyping, Culture and Psychology, Vol. 18, No. 4. Available electronically through the library website.
Werbner, P. (2007) Veiled interventions in purse space: honour, shame and embodied struggles among Muslims
in Britain and France, Theory, Culture and Society, Vol. 24, No. 2. Available electronically through the
library website.
32
See:
Womens Human Rights Net: http://www.whrnet.org/
Week 10: Multiculturalism

Generally speaking, multiculturalism challenges the (invisible) cultural hegemony of dominant groups in western
countries by demanding equal recognition, in education and the media, of cultural expressions by non-hegemonic
(previously silenced) groups. Multiculturalism appears to contain a contradiction, arguing for collective rights on
the basis of the individual right to be different. Once collective rights are attained, what status would individual
rights within a group enjoy? Multiculturalism argues for polycultural distinction against hegemonic culture, but
does this by means of a hegemonic cultural value the belief that individuals have a right to be different. Terrence
Turner injects nuance into this debate by making a distinction between difference multiculturalism (premised on
a reified notion of a static culture = identity) and critical multiculturalism. The latter deconstructs all claims to
cultural homogeneity (including dominant cultures), demonstrating that all identity is multiple, unstable and
permeable. It uses cultural diversity as a means to challenge the use of the notion of culture by both dominant
and minority groups, demonstrating that all cultures (dominant or dominated) are the product of (and in the
process of) hybridisation. By problematising the notion of culture in this way, critical multiculturalism
challenges the dominance of hegemonic culture, while also challenging the process (and assumptions) by which
marginalised groups seek to acquire a reified culture.
Questions
1)
2)
3)
To what extent does difference multiculturalism depend on self-appointed spokespersons defining our
culture?
Does difference multiculturalism obscure the reality of hybridisation?
To what extent should the right to be different be about the right not to be associated with a particular
culture as the right to be associated with a particular culture?

Heath, A. and N. Demireva (2014) Has multiculturalism failed in Britain?, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol.37,
No.1. Available electronically through the library website.
Reading Group 1
Lewis, H. (2015) Music, dancing and clothing as belonging and freedom among people seeking asylum in the
UK, Leisure Studies, Vol. 34, No. 1. Available electronically through the library website.
Reading Group 2
Olwig, K. F. (2014) 'The duplicity of diversity: Caribbean immigrants in Denmark', Ethnic and Racial Studies,
Reading Group 3
Colombo, E. (2010) 'Crossing Differences: How Young Children of Immigrants Keep Everyday Multiculturalism
Alive', Journal of Intercultural Studies, Vol. 31 No. 5. Available electronically through the library website.
Reading Group 4
Nagle, J. (2008) 'Multiculturalism's double bind', Ethnicities, Vol. 8 No. 2. Available electronically through the
library website.
33
Further reading
Barry, B. (2000) Culture and Equality: An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism (Cambridge: Polity).
Barry, B. (2001) The Muddles of Multiculturalism, New Left Review, Vol 8. Available electronically through
Bauman, Z. (2000) Community : Seeking Safety in an Insecure World (Cambridge: Polity).
Baumann, G. (1996) Contesting Culture: Ethnicity and Community in West London. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Baumann, G. (1999) The Multicultural Riddle: Rethinking National, Ethnic and Religious Identities. (New York,
London: Routledge).
Baumann, G., and T. Sunier. (1995) Post-Migration Ethnicity: De-essentializing Cohesion, Commitments and
Comparison (Amsterdam: Spinhuis).
Eriksen, T. H. (1997) Multiculturalism, Individualism and Human Rights: Romanticism, the Enlightenment and
Lessons from Mauritius in Wilson, R. (ed.) Human Rights, Culture and Context, Anthropological Perspectives
(London: Pluto Press).
Fortier, A.-M. (2005) 'Pride politics and multiculturalist citizenship', Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 28 No. 3.
Gilroy, P. (1993)
The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge Mass: Harvard
University Press).
Gilroy, P. (2000) Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color Line (Cambridge Mass: Harvard
University Press).
Goldberg, D. T. (1994) Multiculturalism: A Critical Reader (Oxford: Blackwell).
Grillo, R. (2007) 'An excess of alterity? Debating difference in a multicultural society', Ethnic and Racial Studies,
Hale, C. (2002) 'Does Multiculturalism Menace? Governance, Cultural Rights and the Politics of Identity in
Guatemala', Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 34 No. 3. Available electronically through the library
website.
Jacoby, R. (1994) The Myth of Multiculturalism, New Left Review, Vol 208. Available electronically through
Kastoryano, R. (2003) 'France, Germany and Islam: Negotiating Identities', Immigrants and Minorities, Vol. 22
Kelly, P. J. (2002) Multiculturalism reconsidered: 'Culture and equality' and its critics. (Oxford: Polity).
Kundani, A. (2012) Multiculturalism and its discontents: Left, Right and Liberal, European Journal of Cultural
Studies, Vol. 15, No. 2. Available electronically through the library website.
Kuper, A. (1999) Chapter 7: Culture, Difference and Identity in Kuper, A. Culture: The Anthropologists
Account (Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press).
Kymlicka, W. (1995) Chapter 3: Individual Rights and Collective Rights and Chapter 5: Freedom and Culture
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34
Kymlicka, W. (ed.) (1995) The Rights of Minority Cultures (Oxford: OUP). Chapter by van Dyke.
Mavrommatis, G. (2010) 'A Racial Archaeology of Space: A Journey through the Political Imaginings of Brixton
and Brick Lane, London', Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 36 No. 4. Available electronically
May, S. (1999) "Critical Multiculturalism and Cultural Difference: Avoiding Essentialism," in Critical
Multiculturalism: Rethinking Multicultural and Antiracist Education. Edited by S. May. London: Falmer.
Meer, N., and T. Modood (2009) 'The Multicultural State We're In: Muslims, Multiculture and the Civic Rebalancing of British Multiculturalism', Political Studies, Vol. 57 No. 3. Available electronically through the
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Werbner (eds.) The Politics of Multiculturalism in the New Europe: Racism, Identity and Community (London:
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Modood, T. (1998) 'Anti-Essentialism, Multiculturalism and the Recognition of Religious Groups', Journal of
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http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-terrorism/multiculturalism_2879.jsp.
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Modood, T. and F. Ahmad (2007) British Muslim Perspectives on Multiculturalism, Theory, Culture and Society,
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The Equality and Human Rights Commission (UK) http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/
Week 11: Assessment workshop

An opportunity to discuss how to plan and structure the assessment, discuss the assessment criteria etc..
Week 12: Individual Tutorial

You will have an individual tutorial.

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UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX

Do you agree with what the author(s) assert?

The International Human Rights System

Week 1: The International Human Rights System

General: United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights http://www.ohchr.org/english/

Vol. 16, No. 3. Available electronically through the library

Week 2: The Politics of Culture

Is culture a meaningful concept?

Everyone Should Read

Talking culture: new boundaries, new rhetorics of exclusion in Europe, Current

Week 3: Universalism, Relativism and Human Rights

Everyone Should Read

Cultural Relativism, Human Rights and the AAA, American

Anthropologist, Vol. 89, No. 4;].

Human rights talk and anthropological ambivalence: The particular context of

electronically through the library website.

Week 4: The Globalization of Human Rights

To what extent are human rights truly a force in global politics?

Everyone Should Read:

Week 5: Childrens Rights

Is the UNCRC universally applicable?

Week 6: Consolidation Week (no seminar)

Week 8: Indigenous Rights

Everyone should read (at http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/ainstls1.htm):

electronically through the library website.

Identity in Mashpee in Clifford, J. The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century

Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge: Harvard University Press).

Representing, resisting, rethinking: Historical Transformations of Kayapo Culture and

Anthropological Consciousness in Stocking, G. (ed.) Colonial Situations: History of Anthropology (Madison:

Week 9: Gender and Rights

Everyone should read:

Responsibility Goes Private: A Feminist Critique of the Public/Private Distinction in

What Do Women Want?: Feminist Anthropology Confronts Clitoridectomy, Medical

Week 10: Multiculturalism

Everyone Should Read

Week 11: Assessment workshop

Week 12: Individual Tutorial

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