Fall 2015
Monday-Wednesday 2-3:15
GCASL 275
Sally Engle Merry
Silver Professor of Anthropology
Office: 25 Waverly Place, Department of Anthropology, 603
Office hours Wed. 10-12 and by appointment
Email: sally.merry@nyu.edu
Teaching Assistant: Vijayanka Nair
Email: vn361@nyu.edu
This course offers an overview of the human rights system, looking at its basic elements and studying how it works. It focuses on the tensions and translations between human rights and culture. Human rights campaigns frequently encounter resistance in the name of protecting cultural differences. This is particularly common with issues concerning women, children, and the family. This course explores several issues which raise questions of human rights and culture, such as female genital cutting, honor killing, trafficking of persons, and indigenous people’s rights to culture. Using these examples, we will consider how the human rights system deals with political and conceptual conflicts between global standards and local ways of life. It examines how human rights and culture are conceptualized in these debates and shows the implications of adopting an anthropological analysis of these situations. The goal of the course is developing an understanding of human rights in practice.
Students are expected to do the readings and come to class prepared to discuss them.
There will be one or two in-class quizzes and two 2- page reaction papers as well as two
7-8 page papers based on the course material and a final 9-page take-home exam due
Friday, December 18 by 5 PM in my mailbox in the Dept of Anthropology, 25 Waverly
Place (The office closes at 5, so you need to turn the paper in before that.) Grades are based on the papers and final exam (30% each), the quizzes and reaction papers (5%), and class participation (5%). Books are available in the bookstore and articles are posted on NYU Classes or available online through the research tab of NYU Home. Journal articles can be located by typing the name of the journal in the box for journals on the research page, then locating the specific volume and issue for the journal. I am happy to help if this is difficult.
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Required texts:
Farmer, Paul 2003. Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor.
Jane K. Cowan, Marie- Bénédicte Dembour and Richard A. Wilson, eds. 2001.
Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives . Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Power, Samantha. 2003. A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.
Harper.
Merry, Sally Engle. 2006 . Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International
Law into Local Justice.
Univ. of Chicago Press.
Adam Hochschild. 1999.
King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Mariner Books.
September 2-9: Introduction: Human Rights Law and Social Movements
Human rights as law, as a social movement, and as a way of making abuses known
Origins of human rights ideas
Development in post WW II period, recent expansion post cold war
Farmer, Paul. Pathologies of Power. Introduction and Chapters 1 and 2.
Read the Universal Declaration on Human Rights , 1948. http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
Merry, Sally Engle, Peggy Levitt, Mihaela Serban Rosen, and Diana H. Yoon. 2010.
“Law from Below: Women’s Human Rights and Social Movements in New York
City.” Law and Society Review 44 (1):101- 128. Available online.
September 14: Human Rights and Social Justice
Paul Farmer, Pathologies of Power, chapters 5 and 6.
Recommended: read the rest of the book.
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September 16-21: The First Human Rights Movement: Belgium and Campaign against Forced Labor in the Congo Free State, 1880s-1910
Adam Hochschild. 1999.
King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa.
September 16: pp. 1-74.
September 21: pp. 158-224.
Additional Reading : Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness and the rest of
King Leopold’s
Ghost.
Sept. 21: Reaction paper due: What were the most successful strategies activists used against Leopold’s policies in the Congo? 2 pp.
September 23- 28: What are human rights and how do they work?
Rights as modes of achieving social justice. Opposition to the state but focus on state action. Move to incorporate non-state actors as violators. Social construction of rights and changes in what rights do.
Shift from civil and political to social, economic, and cultural rights. Concepts of culture in human rights
Donnelley, Jack. Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice
, Part I “Toward a
Universal Theory of Human Rights.” Pp. 7-70, chapters 1-4. (on NYU Classes, chs 1-5 are available in one file. Only read the first four; we will read ch 5 later).
September 30- October 5: The Human Rights Conventions and Treaty Body System
Read the two core human rights conventions that, together with the UDHR, make up the
International Bill of Human Rights. Then read three of the other major human rights conventions and come to class prepared to discuss the first two and at least one of the other ones in detail with your classmates. I will circulate a list September 23 and you will sign up for one of these other core treaties. After a short discussion with your group in class, each group will present the key features of the treaty it has discussed and what it considers its most important contributions.
All the treaties are available at: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CoreInstruments.aspx
The two major treaties are the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR) and International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights,
(ICESCR).
Other core treaties:
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Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW)
International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD)
Convention against Torture (CAT)
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CPRD)
International Convention on Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers (ICRMW)
Convention on Enforced Disappearances (CED)
Reaction paper: 2 pages. Due in class October 5. What are the basic principles you see in the treaties you read? Which provisions do you think are most important and why?
Start reading A Problem from Hell for the week of Sept. 13.
October 7: Critiques of the International Human Rights System
Cowan, Jane. 2001. “Ambiguities of an Emancipatory Discourse: The Making of a
Macedonian Minority in Greece.” Pp. 152-176 in Culture and Rights: Anthropological
Perspectives , ed. Jane K. Cowan, Marie- Bénédicte Dembour and Richard A. Wilson.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kennedy, David. 2002. “The International Human Rights Movement: Part of the
Problem?”
Harvard Human Rights Journal 15: 101 – 125. (online at Heinonline.)
Hopgood, Stephen. 2013. The Endtimes of Human Rights. Chapter 1, pp. 1-24. On
NYU Classes.
October 13 -14: Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention
October13: Genocide: The Creation of an Idea
Samantha Power, 2003. A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.
Harper. Chs. 1-5.
October 14: Genocide Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect
Samantha Power, 2003. A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. Harper.
Chs. 6-10, 13.
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October 19-21: Universalism and Relativism
On October 19 there will be a brief quiz in which you should describe the two positions.
On October 21, we will hold a debate about whether human rights are universal and whether it is possible to forge a middle ground between these positions. Students will be expected to develop a position to advocate in the class discussion.
October 19: Establishing Positions
Donnelly, Jack. 2003. Chapters 5 and 6 in Universal Human Rights in Theory and
Practice, second edition. (in NYU Classes. Chapter 5 is in the Donnelly reading labeled 1-5. Chapter 6 is separate)
Donnelly, Jack. 1999. “Human Rights and Asian Values: A Defense of ‘Western
Universalism.” In The East Asian Challenge to Human Rights. Available through Google Scholar
American Anthropological Association. 1947. “Statement on Human Rights.” American
Anthropologist 49 (4): 539-43. NYU Classes: AAA 1947 Statement, Barnett
1948, Steward 1948.
Statement of the American Anthropological Association on Human Rights, 1999. http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/humanrts.htm
October 21: Is a Compromise Possible? Concepts of Culture in Human
Rights Discourse
Dembour, Marie-Bénédicte. 2001. “Following the Movement of a Pendulum: Between
Universalism and Relativism.” Chapter 3 in Cowan, Dembour, and Wilson.
Merry, Sally Engle. 2001. “Changing Rights, Changing Culture.” Chapter 2 in Cowan,
Dembour, and Wilson
Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. 2001. “Between Universalism and Relativism: A Critique of the UNESCO Concept of Culture.” Chapter 6 in Cowan, Dembour, and Wilson.
An-Na'im, Abdullahi. 1992. "Toward a Cross-Cultural Approach to Defining
International Standards of Human Rights: The Meaning of Cruel, Inhuman, or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment." Pp. 19- 44 in Human Rights in Cross-
Cultural Perspectives: A Quest for Consensus . Edited by Abdullahi Ahmed An-
Na'im. Phila: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press. (NYU Classes)
Paper due Oct 21: Anthropologists insist on tolerance for cultural practices and human rights activists insist on the importance of a universal standard of
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behavior. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each position?
Would you advocate either position or a middle ground, and what would this look like? Use examples to support your argument. 7-8 pp.
October 26: Making a Human Rights Issue: The Case of Violence against Women
Sally Engle Merry. 2006. Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International
Law into Local Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chs. 1-2.
October 28: Monitoring Violations of Women’s Human Rights: How does it work?
Sally Engle Merry. 2006. Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International
Law into Local Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chs. 3-4.
November 2: NGOs, Networks and the Vernacularization of Human Rights
How do NGOs and governments work together to promote human rights? Why do they form an uneasy symbiosis? How are human rights reinterpreted in the vernacular?
Merry, Human Rights and Gender Violence chs 5-7.
November 4-9: The Issue of Female Genital Cutting
November 4: “Violent ‘Cultural’ Practices in the Family.” Chapter 6 of Gender
Violence: A Cultural Perspective. 2009. Pp. 127-155. On NYU Classes.
Lewis, Hope , Female Genital Mutilation and Female Genital Cutting. Encyclopedia of
Human Rights, Vol. 2, pp. 200-213, 2009 ; Northeastern University School of Law
Research Paper No. 40-2009. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1480323 ( on
NYU Classes.)
UN Fact Sheet 23: Harmful Traditional Practices affecting the Health of Women and
Children. 1995 ( www.refworld.org/docid/479477410.html
)
November 9: Anthropological Perspectives
Ahmadu, Fuambai. 2000. “Rites and Wrongs: An Insider/Outsider Reflects on Power and Excision." in Bettina Shell-Duncan and Ylva Hernlund, eds.. Female
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"Circumcision" in Africa: Culture, Controversy, and Change . Boulder, Colo.: Lynne
Rienner. (On NYU Classes).
Walley, Christine J. 1997. "Searching for "Voices": Feminism, Anthropology, and the
Global Debate over Female Genital Operations." Cultural Anthropology 12 (3): 405-438.
(On NYU Classes).
November 11: Transitional Justice: Reconciliation and Punishment after
Authoritarian Regimes
What are the debates between those who advocate restorative, conciliatory approaches and those advocating criminal models and punishment?
There are currently several models of transitional justice that combine punishment, healing, and amnesty in various ways.
Wilson, Richard A. 2000. Reconciliation and Revenge in Post-Apartheid South Africa:
Rethinking Legal Pluralism and Human Rights. Current Anthropology 41: 75-98.
(online)
Hagan, John and Ron Levi. 2005. “Crimes of War and the Force of Law.”
Social
Forces 83 (4): 1499-1534. (online).
November 16-23: Trafficking as a Human Rights Violation
November 16: The Legal Regulation of Trafficking and the Fight over
Sex Work/Prostitution
How has trafficking been defined as a human rights violation? What kinds of remedies are proposed?
Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and
Children, supplementing the United Nations. Convention against Transnational
Organized crime (UN Palermo Protocol). 2003. www.unodc.org
Read the principles of the US State Department approach, overview and rankings in US
State Department Trafficking in Persons Report, 2015 . http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/
Guinn, David E. 2008. “Defining the Problem of Trafficking: The Interplay of US Law,
Donor, and NGO Engagement and the Local Context in Latin America.”
Human
Rights Quarterly Volume 30, Number 1: 119-145. (online)
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Weitzer, Ronald. 2007. “The Social Construction of Sex Trafficking: Ideology and
Institutionalization of a Moral Crusade.”
Politics & Society Vol. 35: 447-475.
(online)
November 18: No class. American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings
November 23 : Sex Work and the Regulation of Trafficking : Issues of Consent,
Feminism, and Human Rights
Miller, Ali. 2004. “Sexuality, Violence Against Women, and Human Rights:
Women Make Demands and Ladies Get Protection.”
Health and Human
Rights 7 (2): 17-47. Online.
Soderland, Gretchen. 2005. “Running from the Rescuers: New US Crusades against Sex Trafficking and the Rhetoric of Abolition.” NWSA Journal,
Volume 17, No. 3 (Autumn 2005), States of Insecurity and the Gendered
Politics of Fear: 64-87. (online)
OHCHR Report, 2002: Recommended Principles and Guidelines on Human
Rights and Human Trafficking. http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/Traffickingen.pdf
Read three country narratives in the 2015 TIP Report as well as the front matter to see how the problem is framed. What does the report emphasize? How is this approach different from the human rights approach of the OHCHR?
November 30: Unpacking the Global Anti-trafficking Campaign:
Anthropological Perspectives
Heather Montgomery, chapter 4 in Cowan, Dembour, and Wilson.
Warren, Kay B. 2012. “Troubling the Victim/Trafficker Dichotomy in Efforts to Combat
Human Trafficking: The Unintended Consequences of Moralizing Labor
Migration.”
Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies , Volume 19, Number 1
(Winter 2012): 105-120.
Sharma, Nandita. 2005. “Anti-Trafficking Rhetoric and the Making of a Global
Apartheid.” NWSA Journal Volume 17, No. 3: 88-111.
Additional Reading : There are several book-length ethnographic studies of trafficking that take an anthropological perspective:
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Augustin, Laura Maria. 2007. Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets, and the Rescue Industry. London and New York: Zed Books.
Berman, Denise. 2014. Life Interrupted: Trafficking into Forced Labor in the United
States. Duke Univ. Press.
Cheng, Sealing. 2010. On the Move for Love: Migrant Entertainers and the US Military in South Korea. Philadelphia: Univ of Penn Press.
Molland, Sverre. 2012. The Perfect Business?: Anti-trafficking and the Sex Trade along the Mekong.
Honolulu: Univ. of Hawai’i Press.
Montgomery, Heather. 2001. Modern Babylon? Prostituting Children in Thailand.
Berghahn Books.
Second Paper. Due November 30: What do you think the human rights system should do about practices such as FGC and trafficking? Should these practices be seen as human rights violations and if so, what mode of intervention would you recommend? Are these two activities different kinds of human rights violations? 7-8 pages.
December 2 - 7: Indigenous Rights
How are human rights used by indigenous communities? To what extent are they effective? What kinds of responses have indigenous communities received from the human rights system?
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 2007. Available on the web.
Chernela, Janet M. 2005. “The UN and Indigenous Peoples.”
Anthropology News, In
Focus section, pp. 13-14, Sept. 2005. on NYU Classes.
Oliver-Smith, Anthony. 2005. “Ethnographic Snapshot of the UN Permanent Forum.”
Anthropology News, p. 15. on NYU Classes.
Cowan, Dembour, and Wilson, chapters 8-10.
Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice , chapter 12. on NYU Classes
December 9-14: Bringing Human Rights to the USA
In NYU Classes as: Bringing Human Rights Home: Volume 1.
2008. Cynthia Soohoo,
Catherine Albisa, and Martha Davis, eds. Prager.
Paul Gordon Lauren, “A Human Rights Lens on US History: Human Rights at
Home and Human Rights Abroad.” Pp. 1-30
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Carol Anderson, “A ‘Hollow Mockery’: African Americans, White Supremacy, and the Development of Human Rights in the United States.” Pp. 75-102.
Hope Lewis. “New” Human Rights: US Ambivalence Toward the International
Economic and Social Rights Framework,” pp. 103-144.
Take Home Final Due December 18 to my mailbox in the Anthropology Dept., 25
Waverly Place, by 5 PM. 8-10 pages.
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