British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
PUTTING THE HUMAN INTO HUMAN RIGHTS
British Academy event explores the necessity of anthropology in the current global discourse on rights
Notes
In 2009, Muslim feminists from both 'East' and 'West' launched two well-funded global initiatives to advance women’s human rights. They were inspired by the idea that women's rights should come through interpreting Islamic texts and reforming Islamic family law, not just enforcing or extending standard national and international rights law.
Does the different dialect of rights these Muslim feminists use, or the new transnational circuits for rights work they forge, resolve the dilemmas that critics of other forms of human rights practice have pointed out? Do they close the social distance between rights advocates and the ordinary women on whose behalf they think they are working? Do they avoid the imposition of foreign frameworks on everyday lives?
At a British Academy lecture on Tuesday 17 November 2009, author and leading anthropologist, Lila Abu-Lughood will uncover how anthropologists are using their research into human social and cultural worlds to answer these questions and more. She will show how the discipline, with its close observation of life on the ground, can reveal the possible limits of 'rights' as a way to frame human experience.
Anthropology in the Territory of Rights – Human or Otherwise, the 2009 Radcliffe Brown Lecture takes place at the British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace on 17 November from 5.30-6.30pm each day. The event is free, and is followed by a drinks reception.
Notes
- For further information, interview requests, or press passes for the event, please contact: Kate Turnbull, Press and PR Manager: 0207 969 5263/k.turnbull@britac.ac.uk
- 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.
- The British Academy, established by Royal Charter in 1902, champions and supports the humanities and social sciences. It aims to inspire, recognise and support excellence and high achievement across the UK and internationally. For more information, please visit www.britac.ac.uk