The power of human rights/the human rights of power: an introduction

Abstract

The contributions to this volume eschew the long-held approach of either dismissing human rights as politically compromised or glorifying them as a priori progressive in enabling resistance. Drawing on plural social theoretic and philosophical literatures – and a multiplicity of empirical domains – they illuminate the multi-layered and intricate relationship of human rights and power. They highlight human rights’ incitement of new subjects and modes of political action, marked by an often unnoticed duality and indeterminacy. Epistemologically distancing themselves from purely deductive, theory-driven approaches, the contributors explore these linkages through historically specific rights struggles. This, in turn, substantiates the commitment to avoid reifying the ‘Third World’ as merely the terrain of ‘fieldwork’, proposing it, instead, as a legitimate and necessary site of theorising.

Keywords:

• human rights
• power
• rights struggles
• indeterminacy

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the invaluable help of the 36 peer reviewers for their advice, feedback and substantial engagement with individual contributions. We would also like to thank the participants at the first European Workshop in International Studies (EWIS), which took place in Tartu, Estonia in June 2013, and where the majority of the papers were initially presented, for their constructive feedback and innovative contributions. In addition, we would like to express our gratitude to Cynthia Weber for helpfully advising us on the issue and Mustapha Kamal Pasha for his very insightful comments on its core themes. Finally, we are grateful to Shahid Qadir, the Editor of Third World Quarterly for his assistance with, and commitment to, the volume.

Notes

1. Cox, “Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations.”

2. Hopgood, The Endtimes of Human Rights.

3. Dallmayr, “‘Asian Values’.”

4. Burke, Decolonization.

5. Ishay, The History of Human Rights.

6. Tilly, “Where do Rights Come From?”

7. Gregory, The Colonial Present.

8. See, for example, Liebenberg, Socio-economic Rights.

9. See, for example, Mamdani, Citizen and Subject; and Mamdani, Beyond Rights Talk.

10. Rancière, On the Shores of Politics.

11. Coleman, “The Making of Docile Dissent.”

12. Santos, Toward a New Legal Common Sense.

13. Merry, Human Rights and Gender Violence.

14. Strathern, Audit Cultures.

15. Scott, Weapons of the Weak.

16. Rose and Novas, “Biological Citizenship.”

17. Wacquant, “Constructing Neoliberalism.”

18. Golder, “Foucault’s Critical (yet Ambivalent) Affirmation.”