Sylvanna Martina Falcón
University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY
JAN. 2015
Sylvanna M Falcón, Department of Latin American and Latino Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. Email: smfalcon (at) ucsc.edu
ABSTRACT:
This article explores the production of human rights discourse by
examining the organization and social actors involved in
its construction. The author proposes a triad
constellation configuration for situating the varied engagements of
human rights
by different constituencies at the United Nations
level: dominant understandings, counterpublic approaches, and social
praxis.
Dominant understandings are affiliated with the
Western-legal apparatus, counterpublic approaches embrace antiracist and
feminist
epistemologies, and social praxis is about the
mediation between the first two constellations. This article argues that
the
social praxis constellation is where the discourse
of human rights can be inventive and dynamic because an envisioning of
human rights moves beyond the rubric of civil,
political, social, economic, and cultural rights.
READ THIS ARTICLE......
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Human rights 'progress' hailed
China Daily - December 24, 2014
China has been working effectively
toward goals set by the National Human Rights Action Plan (2012-15),
with most quantitative targets at least half fulfilled in the past two
years, a senior official said on Tuesday.
"China has made considerable progress in
human rights protection," said Cai Mingzhao, director of the State
Council Information Office, at a meeting during which an interim review
of the action plan was conducted.
Last year, the disposable income of
urban residents grew by 7 percent, while per capita net income of rural
residents rose by 9.3 percent, and the country's poor rural population
decreased by 16.5 million compared with 2012, according to Cai.
In 2013, the ratio of elected deputies
to represented population in the National People's Congress, the
national legislature, was the same for rural and urban areas for the
first time.
Meanwhile, the interests and rights of
ethnic minorities, women, children, the elderly and disabled have been
better protected, and international exchanges and cooperation in the
field of human rights have also progressed, Cai said.
READ MORE....
Monday, December 22, 2014
Argentine court extends human right to freedom to orangutan
Russia Today - December 22, 2014
In an unprecedented decision, an Argentine court has ruled that the
Sumatran orangutan 'Sandra', who has spent 20 years at the zoo in
Argentina's capital Buenos Aires, should be recognized as a person with a
right to freedom.
The ruling, signed by the judges unanimously, would see Sandra freed from captivity and transferred to a nature sanctuary in Brazil after a court recognized the primate as a "non-human person" which has some basic human rights. The Buenos Aires zoo has 10 working days to seek an appeal.
The "habeas corpus" ruling in favor of the orangutan was requested last November by the Association of Professional Lawyers for Animal Rights (AFADA) alleging that Sandra suffered "unjustified confinement of an animal with proven cognitive ability."
READ MORE....
The ruling, signed by the judges unanimously, would see Sandra freed from captivity and transferred to a nature sanctuary in Brazil after a court recognized the primate as a "non-human person" which has some basic human rights. The Buenos Aires zoo has 10 working days to seek an appeal.
The "habeas corpus" ruling in favor of the orangutan was requested last November by the Association of Professional Lawyers for Animal Rights (AFADA) alleging that Sandra suffered "unjustified confinement of an animal with proven cognitive ability."
READ MORE....
Saturday, December 20, 2014
A second response to Meredith Tax - straw men make poor argument By Saadia Toor
Open Democracy - 19 December 2014
Tax's misleading interpretation of my arguments do little to counter the central realities - that liberals and imperialist feminists have been prominent supporters of authoritarianism and state violence.
In November we published Deepa Kumar's widely read essay, 'Imperialist Feminism and Liberalism'. In response, 5050 published an essay by Meredith Tax, 'The Antis - anti-imperialist or anti-feminist?' Deepa Kumar's response to Tax can be read here. This second response is from Saadia Toor.
Meredith Tax’s response is exactly what one would have expected it to be. It exemplifies the ‘straw man’ style of argumentation, and of necessity misrepresents our arguments, our critique and our politics. I say ‘of necessity’ because it is only through misrepresentation that Tax can get away with not actually having to address the actual substance of our critique and answer our charges against today’s imperialist feminists.
I’d like to begin by addressing some of Tax’s claims before moving on to articulating the substance of our critique of imperialist feminism.
Tax caricatures our argument when she claims that we ‘reduce the problems of women to side effects of "capitalism and imperialism"’. I have never made the absurd claim that women’s problems are either side-effects or even products of capitalism or imperialism alone. But I do hold, following in the footsteps of socialist/Marxist/materialist feminists, that to fail to pay attention to political economy when discussing gender/sexuality is to commit a huge error. Women’s ‘problems… involving the family, cultural traditions, religious institutions, and systematic institutionalized sexism’ do not simply ‘[predate] capitalism’ or imperialism, as Tax helpfully points out. They are transformed by them, even as capitalism and imperialism create new problems for women and feminist politics. It is especially important to invoke political economy when discussing women’s status and issues within the context of Pakistan specifically, and the ‘Muslim world’ generally, precisely because it tends to be absent from feminist analysis pertaining to this region. Tax’s charge of reductionism is ironic given that in fact it is liberal/imperialist feminists who tend to reduce the various issues faced by Muslim women (especially in Muslim majority countries) to ‘Islam’, and/or ‘Islamic fundamentalism’.
READ MORE....
Tax's misleading interpretation of my arguments do little to counter the central realities - that liberals and imperialist feminists have been prominent supporters of authoritarianism and state violence.
In November we published Deepa Kumar's widely read essay, 'Imperialist Feminism and Liberalism'. In response, 5050 published an essay by Meredith Tax, 'The Antis - anti-imperialist or anti-feminist?' Deepa Kumar's response to Tax can be read here. This second response is from Saadia Toor.
Meredith Tax’s response is exactly what one would have expected it to be. It exemplifies the ‘straw man’ style of argumentation, and of necessity misrepresents our arguments, our critique and our politics. I say ‘of necessity’ because it is only through misrepresentation that Tax can get away with not actually having to address the actual substance of our critique and answer our charges against today’s imperialist feminists.
I’d like to begin by addressing some of Tax’s claims before moving on to articulating the substance of our critique of imperialist feminism.
Tax caricatures our argument when she claims that we ‘reduce the problems of women to side effects of "capitalism and imperialism"’. I have never made the absurd claim that women’s problems are either side-effects or even products of capitalism or imperialism alone. But I do hold, following in the footsteps of socialist/Marxist/materialist feminists, that to fail to pay attention to political economy when discussing gender/sexuality is to commit a huge error. Women’s ‘problems… involving the family, cultural traditions, religious institutions, and systematic institutionalized sexism’ do not simply ‘[predate] capitalism’ or imperialism, as Tax helpfully points out. They are transformed by them, even as capitalism and imperialism create new problems for women and feminist politics. It is especially important to invoke political economy when discussing women’s status and issues within the context of Pakistan specifically, and the ‘Muslim world’ generally, precisely because it tends to be absent from feminist analysis pertaining to this region. Tax’s charge of reductionism is ironic given that in fact it is liberal/imperialist feminists who tend to reduce the various issues faced by Muslim women (especially in Muslim majority countries) to ‘Islam’, and/or ‘Islamic fundamentalism’.
READ MORE....
Imperialist feminism: a response to Meredith Tax By Deepa Kumar
Open Democracy - 17 December 2014
A new generation of thinkers and activists are actively seeking a larger framework than the one liberals such as Tax can provide.
Meredith Tax seems very keen to discredit my arguments about Imperialist Feminism. In her essay on the “Antis”—a term she coins to describe me, Saadia Toor, and our ilk—she charges us with being anti-feminist, sectarian, and reductionist. She further states that we are largely irrelevant, since “few will read us,” but that we are nevertheless dangerous because we focus our “attack exclusively on liberal feminism” and don’t understand how to fight against fundamentalism and for women’s rights.
Before I debunk Tax’s various distortions of my arguments, let me state clearly where I stand on the question of Imperialist Feminism.
As I described in my essay titled “Imperialist feminism and liberalism,” the key focus of Tax’s attack, the framework of Imperialist Feminism is “based on the appropriation of women’s rights in the service of empire.” This framework has a long history that goes back to the 19th century. A range of scholars such as Lila Abu-Lughod, Reina Lewis, Leila Ahmed, Marnia Lazreg, Rana Khabani, Saba Mahmood, Lata Mani, and others have written extensively about what has variously been called colonial feminism, gendered Orientalism and imperial feminism. If Gayatri Spivak coined the phrase “White-men-saving-brown-women-from-brown-men,” to describe this phenomenon, Abu-Lughod in her recent book Do Muslim Women Need Saving analyzes the development of imperial feminism since then. She argues that since the Afghan war a new ubiquitous commonsense has emerged that sees militarism as the means to advance women’s rights.
READ MORE....
A new generation of thinkers and activists are actively seeking a larger framework than the one liberals such as Tax can provide.
Meredith Tax seems very keen to discredit my arguments about Imperialist Feminism. In her essay on the “Antis”—a term she coins to describe me, Saadia Toor, and our ilk—she charges us with being anti-feminist, sectarian, and reductionist. She further states that we are largely irrelevant, since “few will read us,” but that we are nevertheless dangerous because we focus our “attack exclusively on liberal feminism” and don’t understand how to fight against fundamentalism and for women’s rights.
Before I debunk Tax’s various distortions of my arguments, let me state clearly where I stand on the question of Imperialist Feminism.
As I described in my essay titled “Imperialist feminism and liberalism,” the key focus of Tax’s attack, the framework of Imperialist Feminism is “based on the appropriation of women’s rights in the service of empire.” This framework has a long history that goes back to the 19th century. A range of scholars such as Lila Abu-Lughod, Reina Lewis, Leila Ahmed, Marnia Lazreg, Rana Khabani, Saba Mahmood, Lata Mani, and others have written extensively about what has variously been called colonial feminism, gendered Orientalism and imperial feminism. If Gayatri Spivak coined the phrase “White-men-saving-brown-women-from-brown-men,” to describe this phenomenon, Abu-Lughod in her recent book Do Muslim Women Need Saving analyzes the development of imperial feminism since then. She argues that since the Afghan war a new ubiquitous commonsense has emerged that sees militarism as the means to advance women’s rights.
READ MORE....
The Antis: anti-imperialist or anti-feminist? By Meredith Tax
Open Democracy - 19 November 2014
A recent article on "imperialist feminism" accuses the US women's movement of being a cheerleader for American empire from the war in Afghanistan to the present. Is this a sectarian strategy that misses the target and attacks the liberals instead of the right?
A leftwing analysis that blames the suffering of women in Muslim-majority countries on the feminist movement - variously identified as "white feminists", "liberal feminists", or "colonial feminists" and their "native informants" or "comprador intellectuals in the South" - has become influential in US academic feminist circles. While its proponents call themselves "anti-imperialist feminists", in the interests of brevity I will call them simply the Antis, in tribute to the anti-suffrage leftists who considered women's rights a bourgeois distraction from socialist revolution.
A recent article by Deepa Kumar titled "Imperialist feminism and liberalism" argues that US liberals and feminists supported the invasion of Afghanistan and ignored the victims of the war in Iraq because of their "ubiquitous, taken-for-granted ideological framework that has been developed over two centuries in the West...based on the appropriation of women’s rights in the service of empire".
READ MORE....
A recent article on "imperialist feminism" accuses the US women's movement of being a cheerleader for American empire from the war in Afghanistan to the present. Is this a sectarian strategy that misses the target and attacks the liberals instead of the right?
A leftwing analysis that blames the suffering of women in Muslim-majority countries on the feminist movement - variously identified as "white feminists", "liberal feminists", or "colonial feminists" and their "native informants" or "comprador intellectuals in the South" - has become influential in US academic feminist circles. While its proponents call themselves "anti-imperialist feminists", in the interests of brevity I will call them simply the Antis, in tribute to the anti-suffrage leftists who considered women's rights a bourgeois distraction from socialist revolution.
A recent article by Deepa Kumar titled "Imperialist feminism and liberalism" argues that US liberals and feminists supported the invasion of Afghanistan and ignored the victims of the war in Iraq because of their "ubiquitous, taken-for-granted ideological framework that has been developed over two centuries in the West...based on the appropriation of women’s rights in the service of empire".
READ MORE....
Imperialist feminism and liberalism By Deepa Kumar
Open Democracy - 6 November 2014
Colonial feminism is based on the appropriation of women’s rights in the service of empire and has been widely utilised in justifying aggression in the Middle East. But is it liberal?
In a recent CNN interview, religion scholar Reza Aslan was asked by journalist Alisyn Camerota if Islam is violent given the “primitive treatment in Muslim countries of women and other minorities.” Aslan responded by stating that the conditions for women in Muslim majority countries vary. While women cannot drive in Saudi Arabia, elsewhere in various Muslim majority countries, women have been elected heads of states 7 times. But, before he could finish his sentence pointing out that the US is yet to elect a woman as president, he was interrupted by co-host Don Lemon who declared: “Be honest though, Reza, for the most part it is not a free and open society for women in those states.”
How is it that people like Camerota and Lemon, who very likely have never travelled to “free and open” Turkey, Lebanon or Bangladesh, or read the scholarship on women’s rights struggles in Morocco, Iran and Egypt, seem to know with complete certainty that women are treated “primitively” in “Muslim countries”? On what basis does Lemon believe that he has the authority to call Aslan out for supposed dishonesty? How is it that with little or no empirical evidence on women’s rights in Muslim majority countries (which vary widely based on country, regions within a country, social class, the history and nature of national liberation movements, the part played by Islam in political movements etc.) Western commentators routinely make such proclamations about women and Islam?
READ MORE.....
Colonial feminism is based on the appropriation of women’s rights in the service of empire and has been widely utilised in justifying aggression in the Middle East. But is it liberal?
In a recent CNN interview, religion scholar Reza Aslan was asked by journalist Alisyn Camerota if Islam is violent given the “primitive treatment in Muslim countries of women and other minorities.” Aslan responded by stating that the conditions for women in Muslim majority countries vary. While women cannot drive in Saudi Arabia, elsewhere in various Muslim majority countries, women have been elected heads of states 7 times. But, before he could finish his sentence pointing out that the US is yet to elect a woman as president, he was interrupted by co-host Don Lemon who declared: “Be honest though, Reza, for the most part it is not a free and open society for women in those states.”
How is it that people like Camerota and Lemon, who very likely have never travelled to “free and open” Turkey, Lebanon or Bangladesh, or read the scholarship on women’s rights struggles in Morocco, Iran and Egypt, seem to know with complete certainty that women are treated “primitively” in “Muslim countries”? On what basis does Lemon believe that he has the authority to call Aslan out for supposed dishonesty? How is it that with little or no empirical evidence on women’s rights in Muslim majority countries (which vary widely based on country, regions within a country, social class, the history and nature of national liberation movements, the part played by Islam in political movements etc.) Western commentators routinely make such proclamations about women and Islam?
READ MORE.....
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