The Legal Anthropology of Human Rights: A Canvass of Approaches to Explain the Same Reality

2008 ◽  
pp. 1-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stijn Deklerck ◽  
Ellen Desmet ◽  
Marie–Claire Foblets ◽  
Joke Kusters ◽  
Jogchum Vrielink

Author(s):  
Diego Iturralde

Este artículo aplica un enfoque de antropología jurídica a la exploración y desarrollo de nuevas prácticas de investigación en el campo de los derechos humanos, a partir de la experiencia acumulada en los últimos años en el Instituto Interamericano de Derechos Humanos. El proceso ha implicado revisar y reorientar las tendencias de investigación en este tema para favorecer, de una parte, un camino de salida al privilegio que han tenido los análisis sobre violación de los derechos e incorporar otros senderos de exploración que atienden las variaciones en su promoción y protección; y, de otra parte, un balance adecuado entre la perspectiva jurídica y las perspectivas políticas y sociales de los fenómenos relativos a los derechos humanos y la democracia. Se muestran encuadres sobre el desarrollo de la antropología jurídica y de los enfoques de investigación en derechos humanos, ejemplos de algunas aplicaciones que han implicado adecuaciones en la definición del objeto, en las aplicaciones metodológicas y en el tipo de resultados, además de una reflexión sobre el punto de encuentro entre estas dos tradiciones. ABSTRACT This article applies a legal anthropology approach to exploration and development of new research practices in the human rights field, based on the experience accumulated in recent years by the Inter-American Institute on Human Rights. The process has included the review and reorientation of research trends in this theme, with the purpose, on one hand, of steering toward departure from the privileged role held by analyses of rights violations, in favor of the incorporation of other paths of exploration that address variations in their promotion and protection. And, on the other hand, to favor an adequate balance between the legal perspective and the political and social perspectives of phenomena related to human rights and democracy. The article presents frameworks on the development of legal anthropology and approaches to human rights research, as well as examples of some applications that have implied adaptations in the definition of the object, in methodological applications, and in types of results, as well as a reflection on the meeting point between these two traditions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-116
Author(s):  
Benjamin O. L. Bowles

Goldstein, D. M. (2012), Outlawed: Between Security and Rights in a Bolivian City (Durham: Duke University Press), 344 pp., 9 photographs, 1 map, ISBN: 978-0-8223-5311-9 (paperback).Daniel M. Goldstein’s Outlawed: Between Security and Rights in a Bolivian City (2012) is a thickly described and richly detailed ethnography of uncertainty in the barrios of Cochabamba, Bolivia. It holds important insights for legal anthropology, particularly where the sub-discipline intersects with the anthropology of the state and the anthropology of human rights. The ethnographic detail is exemplary, with the work here having serious implications for anthropological theory and opening up several avenues for further investigation. That it opens new debates more than it offers cohesive answers – as is, admittedly, possibly fitting for the ‘uncertain anthropology’ that Goldstein advocates – both is the prime strength of the work and can be offered as a gentle critique. I consider this to be because of the ambitious breadth of the work to the extent that directions that were implied were ultimately left somewhat unexplored. This review article is an attempt to consider the prime contributions of Outlawed and to tentatively map some of these implied connections.


2001 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Eberhard

The aim of the article is to present to a predominantly Anglophone audience current work in French/Quebecois legal anthropology. This work attempts to build an epistemology for an intercultural legal theory and is opening up a dialogical approach to Law, which goes beyond the mere project of an intercultural legal theory. In order to do so, the article presents the LAJP's (Laboratory of Legal Anthropology of Paris) move towards a non-ethnocentric science of Law followed by a presentation of Panikkar's and Vachon's contributions on the 'dialogical method' which clarify the epistemological foundations of a pluralist approach to Law and lead to a presentation of Etienne Le Roy's theory of 'multilegalism' [multijuridisme]. The whole approach and its relevance are then illustrated through examples on the local, national and global planes in the fields of youth justice, French legal cooperation, land law and human rights and international penal law.


2019 ◽  
pp. 41-61
Author(s):  
Benjamin Thorne ◽  
Julia Viebach

Building on legal anthropology and performance studies, this chapter analyses the Gacaca law talk and performances to evidence the wider context of changes in Rwanda post-1994 due to national and international pressures. The Rwandan government legally mandated Rwandans to actively participate in the gacaca courts from 2004 to 2012 for crimes committed during the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi. Every citizen was required to attend the local level courts to provide testimony and to serve as judge, witness and testifier on a weekly basis. In total, 15,300 courts ruled over nearly two million cases. Based on a 'kaleidoscopic' reading of optical illusions, or a slight shift in perspective to integrate the multiplicity of performances within the gacaca system, we demonstrate the dramaturgic nature of gacaca through gacaca law, policy and practices. Ultimately, such visual metaphors provide important interpretative tools to grasp how gacaca scripts were performed for different audiences with different effects and functions depending on micro to macro politics, and the resulting performances of competing narratives and the variances within the gacaca system.


2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramesh Kumar Tiwari
Keyword(s):  

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