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Oral Presentation Session
Reviewed by: Association for Political and Legal Anthropology
Of interest to: Practicing and Applied Anthropologists, Teachers of Anthropology in Community Colleges, Students, Those Involved in Mentoring Activities
Primary Theme: Policy
Secondary Theme: Inclusivity
In a post WWII order, a series of transnational institutions (UN, WTO, ISO) and NGOs have emerged with the aim of developing, administering, and enforcing international standards with the pretext of establishing a universal moral good. Such standards are often disseminated through legal and bureaucratic means (Riles 2006). The prevalence of such discourse creates a sense that global populations and economies are more integrated than ever before. Such projects are often meant to promote inclusiveness, equality, and more just treatment among humans, animals, commodities, and the environment. However such institutions often face challenges when implementing programs targeted at subsuming social and material life under their universalist visions (Merry 2016, Goodale and Merry 2007, Mutua 2001).
This panel investigates the processes by which these discourses and/or frameworks are understood and negotiated. How do communities understand these universalist projects and make meaning out of them? What difficulties do people face when translating such concepts into reality? At what points do these projects lose their grip? How can projects of universality actually commit violence, erasure or exclusion? How do projects of universality with different historical origins come together or conflict?
This panel examines a wide range of universalist projects such as human rights, environmental protection, and international trade. We explore the various methodological strategies and tools that anthropologists have used in examining these questions at different scales and contexts. The papers in this panel approach these questions from “above” and/or “below” or in between in order to discuss how our ethnographic positionings both limit and shape our abilities to theorize the translation of universalist projects.
*Works Cited
Goodale, Mark and Sally Engle Merry. 2007. The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law between the Global and the Local
Merry, Sally Engle. 2016. The Seductions of Quantification: Measuring Human Rights, Gender Violence, and Sex Trafficking
Mutua, Makau. 2001. Human Rights as a Metaphor: Savages, Victims, and Saviors?
Riles, Annelise. 2006. Documents: Artifacts of Modern Knowledge. Ann Arbor: Univ of Michigan Press.
Amarilys Estrella
Ph.D. Candidate
New York University
Amarilys Estrella
Ph.D. Candidate
New York University
Amarilys Estrella
Ph.D. Candidate
New York University
Schuyler Marquez
PhD Candidate
New York University
Schuyler Marquez
PhD Candidate
New York University
Schuyler Marquez
PhD Candidate
New York University
Lizzy Hare
Scripps College
Luisa Rollins
University of Illinois at Chicago
Colin Hoag
Assistant Professor
Smith College