E-Book Content
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 responding 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 Virtual spaces / Tourist spaces Edited by David Holmes 7 Immigrant Life in the U.S. Multi-disciplinary perspectives Edited by Donna R. Gabaccia and Colin Wayne Leach 2 The Criminal Spectre in Law, Literature and Aesthetics Peter Hutchings 8 Rave Culture and Religion Edited by Graham St. John 3 Immigrants and National Identity in Europe Anna Triandafyllidou 4 Constructing Risk and Safety in Technological Practice Edited by Jane Summerton and Boel Berner 5 Europeanisation, National Identities and Migration Changes in boundary constructions between Western and Eastern Europe Willfried Spohn and Anna Triandafyllidou 6 Language, Identity and Conflict A comparative study of language in ethnic conflict in Europe and Eurasia Diarmait Mac Giolla Chr’ost 9 Creation and Returns of Social Capital A new research program Edited by Henk Flap and Beate Völker 10 Self-Care Embodiment, personal autonomy and the shaping of health consciousness Christopher Ziguras 11 Mechanisms of Cooperation Werner Raub and Jeroen Weesie 12 After the Bell Educational success, public policy and family background Edited by Dalton Conley and Karen Albright 13 Youth Crime and Youth Culture in the Inner City Bill Sanders 14 Emotions and Social Movements Edited by