Why are activists and activist scholars unable to 'let go' of human rights? Why do indigenous peoples find the need to invoke the UN Declaration on Rights of Indigenous People to make their claims sound reasonable? Are rights in the 20th and 21st centuries the same as rights in the 17th and 18th centuries? This book examines what is entailed in reducing rights to 'human' rights and in the argument 'our understandings of rights are better than theirs' that is popular within social movements and in critical scholarship. Through mapping the rights discourse and the transformations in transnational finance capitalism since the world wars, and interrogating the connections between the two, the book examines contemporary rights in theory and practice through the lens of the struggles of the people of the Third World, their experiences of national liberation and socialism and their aspirations for emancipation and freedom.
Praise for ‘What’s wrong with rights’
“A gloriously dripping clutch of miniatures, like glimpses through keyholes into unknowable place-times where people pursue curious tasks and succumb to occult intensities.”
—Sally O’Reilly
“Short, fantastic choreographies of bodies, land, and water that embrace the constant motion of aqueous encounters as the sea levels rise, membranes become permeable, and everyday life adjusts to a fluid world.”
—Tim Creswell
“Despite their urgency, these mesmerising encounters between humans and other bodies of water have a deep stillness which lures the reader ever deeper into a surreal and mutable underworld.”
—Nancy Campbell
The wonder of water is alive in these pages, not in raging storms or deep sea expeditions, but in a quotidian magical realism, where gardens become floatation tanks and paragraphs are wet words to swallow.
—Astrida Neimanis
An opera to life told through the myriad of small gestures made by humans and many others. This writing captures the beauty of aimlessness that leads to the making of an enchanting world.
—Ursula Biemann