Human Rights in Global Perspective - Anthropological Studies of Rights, Claims and Entitlements (Paperback, Second)

The West often pays lip-service to universal notions of human rights without considering how these work in local contexts and across diverse cultural and ethical structures. Do human rights agendas helpfully address the problems people face, or are they more often seen as the imposition of Western values onto largely non-Western communities?
The aim of this volume is to understand, from an anthropological perspective, the consequences of the rise of rights discussions and institutions in both local and global politics. Its chapters develop what could be termed a social critique of rights agendas and the legal process, examining how these construct certain types of subjects, such as victims and perpetrators, and certain types of act, such as common crimes versus crimes against humanity. Bringing ethnographic perspectives from Europe, North America, India and South Africa, this volume restores the social dimension to rights processes, and suggests some ethical alternatives to current practice.