Anthropology in the Territory of Rights – Human or Otherwise

Radcliffe-Brown Lecture in Social Anthropology 2009

Professor Lila Abu-Lughod

Travelling between transnational initiatives for Muslim women’s rights and the everyday lives of some village women in Egypt, this lecture will argue that anthropologists and ethno­graphers can bring significant critical insights to bear on the wide-ranging current global discourse on rights – human, women’s, indigenous, etc. It will explore the ways in which this discourse supports and gives life to moral claims, social networks and institutions, variegated practices, international funding agencies, and various forms of expertise.

About the Speaker

Lila Abu-Lughod is the Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social Science in the Department of Anthropology and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Columbia University in New York. She is the author of three ethnographies based on fieldwork in Egypt: Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society; Writing Women’s Worlds: Bedouin Stories; and Dramas of Nationhood: The Politics of Television in Egypt. She is the editor or co-editor of Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, Media Worlds, and Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory. The book project that is currently engaging her, as a Carnegie Scholar, is on the politics and ethics of the international circulation of discourses on Muslim women’s rights.

Radcliffe-Brown Lecture in Social Anthropology 2009

This biennial series was established in 1972 by the Academy and the Association of Social Anthropologists to commemorate Association’s first President, A R Radcliffe-Brown FBA, who was also the first Professor of Social Anthropology in the University of Oxford.

Attendance

5.30-6.30pm, followed by a reception. Registration is not required for this event. Seats will be allocated on arrival.

Illustration: Muslim women in a combination of western and traditional dress: © Joan Hausrath (from http://blog.joanhausrath.com/)