The trouble with frames: Insights from India on the challenge of using collective action frames to persuade state agents

ABSTRACT

Collective action frames are a key strategy of human rights activists and educators, and central to this strategy is the ability to connect frames to a population's extant beliefs. But two dilemmas plague framing efforts directed at state agents such as police officers, who are seen as potential violators of rights. First, these actors may be less likely than members of the general public to share the beliefs in terms of which human rights workers frame rights; and second, frames by their very nature simplify reality, and fail to take into account factors that constrain state agents' actions. This article explores these issues through a case study of human rights education involving police officers in India. Educators may be able to mitigate such obstacles by basing their framing efforts on research on the specific populations with which they are working, and using frames as only one part of an approach that takes into account the limited ability of frames to encompass all aspects of the situations in which violations occur.

Acknowledgements

I extend my sincere thanks to the Economic and Social Rights Group at the Human Rights Institute of the University of Connecticut, which gave me the opportunity to workshop this article. In particular, I thank Michael Goodhart, the article's discussant at the workshop, as well as workshop organizers David Richards and Kathryn Libal. Their comments much improved the article.

Funding

I am grateful for the funding provided by the Shearwater Grant from New York University and the David L. Boren National Security Education Program Fellowship.

Notes on contributor

Rachel Wahl is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Leadership, Foundations, and Policy at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. She was previously a Research Scientist at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University, where she received her PhD, and a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University.

Notes

1. Formerly known as “untouchables” who traditionally were considered to fall outside the lower end of the caste system.

2. See “Killing India's Poor With Impunity” (Zoyab 2010).

3. I explore how these factors undermine trust in the legal system in Wahl (2014).

4. The use of this term (“the poor”) and related terms is not intended to suggest that people who have fewer economic, political, or social resources can be generalized without significant differentiation within such categories. Instead, it is a rhetorical concept that the police employ.

5. I concur with the widespread contention among contemporary anthropologists (e.g., Merry 2001) and political theorists (e.g., Benhabib 2002) that “culture” reflects not a homogenous or well-defined set of beliefs and values but rather a contested, fluid, and heterogeneous terrain. Indeed, although I do not have the space to make this argument here, I believe my data lend strong support to this view. I use terms such as “cultural beliefs” to describe educators' efforts to connect to what they view as prevailing beliefs within a society.

6. By “conceptions of justice,” I do not mean that police articulate a fully formed, explicit philosophy. I use the term to describe the principles they reference and the reasoning they display when explaining why they believe actions are right or wrong.

7. For a more detailed exploration of these themes, see Wahl (2014).

8. This perception was ubiquitous in interviews, informal conversations, and media during the period of my fieldwork (2010–2012).

9. Religious festival.

10. Religious ascetic.

11. This information is based on an interview with Anna Noonan, Senior Project Manager at the University of Sydney Torture Prevention Project (February 18, 2014), as well as on training materials and reports produced by the project.

12. In Wahl (2013a), I document this impression held by the police and military and examine the obstacle it presents for human rights education.

13. I explore this perception in Wahl (2014).