Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives

by Edited by Jane K. Cowan , Marie-Bénédicte Dembour , Richard A. Wilson

• ISBN13: 9780521797351
• ISBN10: 0521797357
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-12-03
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Do people everywhere have the same, or even compatible, ideas about multiculturalism, indigenous rights or women's rights? The authors of this book move beyond the traditional terms of the universalism versus cultural relativism debate. Through detailed case-studies from around the world (Hawaii, France, Thailand, Botswana, Greece, Nepal and Canada) they explore the concrete effects of rights talk and rights institutions on people's lives.

Author Biography

Joseph O'Rourke is Olin Professor and Chair of the Computer Science Department, a Professor of Mathematics, and Director of Arts and Technology at Smith College. His research is in computational geometry, developing algorithms for geometric computations. He has won several awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1987 and the NSF Director's Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars in 2001. He has published more than 150 papers, more than 30 of which were coauthored with undergraduates. He has taught folding and unfolding to students in grade school, middle school, high school, college, and graduate school, and to teachers - of grade school, middle school, and high school - professors, and researchers. This is his sixth book.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

Part I. Setting Universal Rights: 2. Changing rights, changing culture Sally Engle Merry

3. Following the movement of a pendulum: between universalism and relativism Marie-Bé

né

dicte Dembour

4. Imposing rights? - a case study of child prostitution in Thailand Heather Montgomery

5. Gendering culture: towards a plural perspective of Kwena women's rights Anne Griffiths

6. Between universalism and relativism: a critique of the UNESCO concept of culture Thomas Hylland Eriksen

Part II. Claiming Cultural Rights: 7. Ambiguities of an emancipatory discourse: The making of a Macedonian minority in Greece Jane K. Cowan

8. From cultural rights to individual rights and back: Nepalese struggles over culture and identity David Gellner

9. Advancing indigenous claims through the law: Reflections on the Guatemalan peace process Rachel Sieder and Jessica Witchell

10. Rights as the reward for simulated cultural sameness: the Innu in the Canadian colonial context Colin Samson.