Interpreting Human Rights In recent decades, human rights have come to occupy an apparently unshakable position as a key and pervasive feature of contemporary global public culture. At the same time, human rights have become a central focus of research in the social sciences, embracing distinctive analytical and empirical agendas for the study of rights. This volume gathers together original social-scientific research on human rights, and in doing so situates them in an open intellectual terrain, thereby respond- ing to the complexity and scope of meanings, practices, and institutions associated with such rights. Chapters in the book examine diverse theoretical perspectives and explore such issues as health, indigenous peoples’ rights, cultural politics, the United Nations, women and violence, the role of corporations and labour law. Written by leading scholars in the field and from a range of disciplines across the social sciences, this volume combines new empirical research with both established and innovative social theory. Rhiannon Morgan is Lecturer in Political Sociology at Oxford Brookes University. From 2004 to 2007 she was an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. Her publications include (2004) ‘Advancing Indigenous Rights at the United Nations: Strategic Framing and its Impact on the Normative Development of International Law’, Social and Legal Studies 13(4): 481–501 and (2007) ‘On Political Institutions and Social Movement Dynamics: The Case of the United Nations and the Global Indigenous Movement’, International Political Science Review 28(3): 273–92. She is also author of Transforming Law and Institution: Indigenous Peoples, the United Nations, and Human Rights (Ashgate, forthcoming, 2009). Professor Bryan S. Turner is currently Alona Evans Distinguished Visiting Professor of Sociology at Wellesley College, USA. He is the research leader of the cluster on religion and globalisation in ARI, and is currently writing a study of the sociology of religion for Cambridge University Press. He edited the Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology (2006) and Vulnerability and Human Rights (Penn State University Press, 2006). Professor Turner is a research associate of GEMAS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris), an honorary professor of Deakin University, and an adjunct professor of Murdoch University Australia. He is the founding editor of the journal Citizenship Studies and, with John O’Neill, co-founder of the Journal of Classical Sociology. Routledge Advances in Sociology 1 Virtual Globalization 7 Immigrant Life in the U.S. Virtual spaces / Tourist Multi-disciplinary perspectives spaces Edited by Donna R. Gabaccia and Edited by David Holmes Colin Wayne Leach 2 The Criminal Spectre in Law, 8 Rave Culture and Religion Literature and Aesthetics Edited by Graham St. John Peter Hutchings 9 Creation and Returns of Social 3 Immigrants and National Capital Identity in Europe A new research program Anna Triandafyllidou Edited by Henk Flap and Beate Völker 4 Constructing Risk and Safety in Technological Practice 10 Self-Care Edited by Jane Summerton and Embodiment, personal autonomy Boel Berner and the shaping of health consciousness 5 Europeanisation, National Christopher Ziguras Identities and Migration Changes in boundary constructions 11 Mechanisms of Cooperation between Western and Eastern Werner Raub and Jeroen Weesie Europe Willfried Spohn and Anna 12 After the Bell Triandafyllidou Educational success, public policy and family background 6 Language, Identity and Edited by Dalton Conley and Conflict Karen Albright A comparative study of language in ethnic conflict in Europe 13 Youth Crime and Youth Culture and Eurasia in the Inner City Diarmait Mac Giolla Chr’ost Bill Sanders 14 Emotions and Social Movements 23 Media Bias in Reporting Social Edited by Helena Flam and Research? Debra King The case of reviewing ethnic inequalities in education 15 Globalization, Uncertainty and Martyn Hammersley Youth in Society Edited by Hans-Peter Blossfeld, 24 A General Theory of Emotions Erik Klijzing, Melinda Mills and and Social Life Karin Kurz Warren D. TenHouten 16 Love, Heterosexuality and 25 Sociology, Religion and Society Grace Paul Johnson Arpad Szakolczai 17 Agricultural Governance 26 Youth Cultures Globalization and the new politics Scenes, subcultures and of regulation tribes Edited by Vaughan Higgins and Edited by Paul Hodkinson and Geoffrey Lawrence Wolfgang Deicke 18 Challenging Hegemonic 27 The Obituary as Collective Masculinity Memory Richard Howson Bridget Fowler 19 Social Isolation in Modern 28 Tocqueville’s Virus Society Utopia and dystopia in Roelof Hortulanus, Anja Machielse Western social and political and Ludwien Meeuwesen thought Mark Featherstone 20 Weber and the Persistence of Religion 29 Jewish Eating and Identity Social theory, capitalism and the Through the Ages sublime David Kraemer Joseph W. H. Lough 30 The Institutionalization of 21 Globalization, Uncertainty and Social Welfare Late Careers in Society A study of medicalizing Edited by Hans-Peter Blossfeld, management Sandra Buchholz and Dirk Mikael Holmqvist Hofäcker 31 The Role of Religion in 22 Bourdieu’s Politics Modern Societies Problems and possibilities Edited by Detlef Pollack and Jeremy F. Lane Daniel V. A. Olson 32 Sex Research and Sex Therapy 40 European Integration as an Elite A sociological analysis of Masters Process and Johnson The failure of a dream? Ross Morrow Max Haller 33 A Crisis of Waste? 41 Queer Political Performance and Understanding the rubbish society Protest Martin O’Brien Benjamin Shepard 34 Globalization and 42 Cosmopolitan Spaces Transformations of Local Europe, globalization, theory Socioeconomic Practices Chris Rumford Edited by Ulrike Schuerkens 43 Contexts of Social Capital 35 The Culture of Welfare Social networks in communities, Markets markets and organizations The international recasting of Edited by Ray-May Hsung, Nan pension and care systems Lin and Ronald Breiger Ingo Bode 44 Feminism, Domesticity and 36 Cohabitation, Family and Popular Culture Society Edited by Stacy Gillis and Joanne Tiziana Nazio Hollows 37 Latin America and 45 Changing Relationships Contemporary Modernity Edited by John Ermisch and A sociological interpretation Malcolm Brynin José Maur’zio Domingues 46 Formal and Informal Work 38 Exploring the Networked The hidden work regime in Europe Worlds of Popular Music Edited by Birgit Pfau-Effinger, Milieu cultures Lluis Flaquer and Per H. Jensen Peter Webb 47 Interpreting Human Rights 39 The Cultural Significance of the Social science perspectives Child Star Edited by Rhiannon Morgan and Jane O’Connor Bryan S. Turner Interpreting Human Rights Social science perspectives Edited by Rhiannon Morgan and Bryan S. Turner First published 2009 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2009 Rhiannon Morgan and Bryan S. Turner, selection and editorial matter; individual contributors, their contributions All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-88053-6 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 10: 0-415-48615-7 (hbk) ISBN 10: 0-203-88053-6 (ebk) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-48615-6 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-203-88053-1 (ebk) Contents List of contributors ix Acknowledgements xii 1 Introduction: human rights research and the social sciences 1 RHIANNON MORGAN 2 Political science and human rights 23 TODD LANDMAN 3 The right to health 44 MICHAEL FREEMAN 4 Indigenous peoples’ rights: anthropology and the right to culture 68 COLIN SAMSON 5 Democratic human rights 87 KATE NASH 6 Taking the sociology of human rights seriously 104 ANTHONY WOODIWISS 7 Forging indigenous rights at the United Nations: a social constructionist account 121 RHIANNON MORGAN 8 The new humanism: beyond modernity and postmodernity 141 JUDITH BLAU AND ALBERTO MONCADA 9 Corporations and human rights 157 GIDEON SJOBERG viii Contents 10 A sociology of citizenship and human rights: does social theory still exist? 177 BRYAN S. TURNER Index 200 List of contributors Judith Blau is Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, US, and president of the US chapter of Sociologists without Borders. She has published books on the sociology of architecture, arts in America, urban planning, economy and society, race in American public schools, and is editor of The Blackwell Companion to Sociology (2004). During the past five years she has been working in the area of human rights, and is co-author with Alberto Moncada of Human Rights: Beyond the Liberal Vision (2005), Justice in the United States: Human Rights and the U.S. Constitution (2006), and Freedom and Solidarities (2007), published by Rowman & Littlefield.