British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Anthropology in the Territory of Rights – Human or Otherwise

Travelling between transnational initiatives for Muslim women’s rights and the everyday lives of some village women in Egypt, Professor Lila Abu-Lughod argues that anthropologists and ethnographers bring significant critical insights to bear on the wide-ranging current global discourse on rights – human, women’s, indigenous, etc. She explores how 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. 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.

This Radcliffe-Brown Lecture in Social Anthropology was delivered at the British Academy on 17 November 2009. It was chaired by Professor Linda Newson FBA, Chair of the Academy's Geography and Social Anthropology Section.

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