Universal Human Rights in a World of Difference

A feminist argument in favour of human rights as wide-ranging and universal.

Brooke A. Ackerly (Author)

9780521881265, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 June 2008

388 pages, 2 b/w illus.
23.4 x 15.7 x 2.7 cm, 0.75 kg

'[Universal] Human Rights in a World of Difference is a highly valuable, provocative work that contributes a new way of thinking and talking about universal human rights. … This work should be widely read and discussed by scholars in the fields of human rights and feminist international relations.' Politics and Gender

From the diverse work and often competing insights of women's human rights activists, Brooke Ackerly has written a feminist and a universal theory of human rights that bridges the relativists' concerns about universalizing from particulars and the activists' commitment to justice. Unlike universal theories that rely on shared commitments to divine authority or to an 'enlightened' way of reasoning, Ackerly's theory relies on rigorous methodological attention to difference and disagreement. She sets out human rights as at once a research ethic, a tool for criticism of injustice and a call to recognize our obligations to promote justice through our actions. This book will be of great interest to political theorists, feminist and gender studies scholars and researchers of social movements.

1. Universal human rights in a world of difference: challenging our thinking
Part I. Epistemology, Diversity, and Disagreement in Theory and Practice: 2. Universal human rights?
3. Universalisms and differences
4. Immanent and universal human rights: more legitimate than reasonable
Part II. A Methodology for Immanent Theory: 5. Feminist curb cutting: a methodology for exposing silences and revealing differences: immanent study of universal human rights
6. Listening to the silent voices, hearing dissonance: a methodology for interpretation and analysis
Part III. Immanent Universal Human Rights: Theory and Practice: 7. An immanent and universal theory of human rights: curb cutting in theory
8. Terrain(s) of difficulty: obligation, problem-solving and trust
9. Feminist strategies
10. 'If I can make a circle'.

Subject Areas: Human rights [JPVH], Political science & theory [JPA], Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], Social & political philosophy [HPS]