Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives

by Marie-Benedicte Dembour (Editor), Jane K. Cowan (Editor), Richard A. Wilson (Editor)

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.

Genres: Anthropology

274 pages, Paperback

First published November 29, 2001

Reviews

[Dara B · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading several chapters in this book: Marie-Benedicte Dembour's article on female genital cutting and French legal system (#3), Heather Montgomery's piece on child prostitution in Thailand (#4, probably my favorite in this volume despite the hard subject matter), Thomas Eriksen's critique of the UNESCO concept of culture and the concept of culture as such in the contemporary world (#6) and Colin Samson's chapter on the Innu's rights to land in Canada (#10). So, the book was definitely worth reading.

Overall though, I couldn't give it more than 3 stars. The entire volume deals with the problem of universalism versus cultural relativism in the human rights discourse, which is interesting at first but gets old after a while when you encounter a universalism-relativism bit in every chapter. Also, I found the introduction to be unnecessarily lengthy and complicated. I mean, is it really necessary to go on for twenty pages and invoke four pages worth of references to come to conclusion that universalism and relativism are not necessarily antonymous and mutually exclusive? I think that Dembour's concept of a pendulum motion from universalism to relativism and back (chapter 3) explains it all. Or at least it does for me.