Human Rights Discourse in the Post-9/11 Age

This book offers a materialist critique of mainstream human rights discourse in the period following 9/11, examining literary works, critical histories, international declarations, government statutes, NGO manifestos, and a documentary film. The author points out some of the contradictions that emerge in contemporary rights language when material relations are not sufficiently perceived or acknowledged, and he directs attention to the role of some rights talk in maintaining and managing the accelerated global project of capital accumulation. Even as rights discourse points to injustices-for example, injustices related to labor, gender, the citizen's relationship to the state, or the movement of refugees-it can simultaneously maintain systems of oppression. By constructing subjects who are aligned to the interests of capital, by emphasizing individual "empowerment," and/or by containing social disenchantment, it reinforces the process of wealth accumulation, supports neoliberal ideologies, and diminishes the possibility of real transformation through collective struggle. Kanishka Chowdhury is Professor of English and Director of the Program in American Culture and Difference at the University of St. Thomas, MN, USA. His first book, The New India: Citizenship, Subjectivity, and Economic Liberalization, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2011.

Auteur
Kanishka Chowdhury is Professor of English and Director of the Program in American Culture and Difference at the University of St. Thomas, MN, USA. His first book, The New India: Citizenship, Subjectivity, and Economic Liberalization, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2011.

Contenu

1. Introduction: Reading Rights Discourse in a Transnational EconomyHuman Rights Discourse in Our TimeConstructing Human Rights DiscourseHuman Rights Discourse and Wealth AccumulationOverview of the Argument
2. Historicizing Rights Discourse Post-9/11IntroductionDecolonization and the Universal Declaration of Human RightsFetishizing the Politics of Development in the Declarations of the 1990sThe Post-9/11 Landscape of Rights: A Critical ConsiderationNeoliberalism and Rights Discourse
3. Workers' Rights, Exploitation, and the Transactional MomentIntroductionOppression and Exploitation: Some DifferencesMarx's Analysis of the Injustice of Wage LaborUnsettling the Morality of Rights and RegulationsConclusion
4. Gender Rights and the Politics of EmpowermentIntroductionEmpowerment and NeoliberalismNGOs and the Construction of Civil SocietyMicrocredit: Empowerment and DebtNirantar, Gender Rights, and the Challenges of Transformative WorkConclusion
5. Tomorrow There Will Be More of Us: Rights Discourse, The State, and Toxic Capitalism in Indra Sinha's Animal's People*IntroductionThe State and the Struggle for RightsContextualizing *Animal's People in Neoliberal TimesThe Bhopal Disaster and its AftermathLiterature and the Language of Human RightsHope is Not a Fiction: Interrogating Rights Discourse in Indra Sinha's *Animal's People*Conclusion
6. Refugees' Rights: Capital, Óscar Martínez's The Beast, Gianfranco Rosi's Fuocoammare, and the Problem of the Surplus PopulationIntroductionSeeking Refuge in a Global ContextÓscar Martínez's The Beast: Inciting Rage, Generating RespectBeyond the Reach of Political Discourse: Gianfranco Rosi's *Fuocoammare*The Problem of the Surplus PopulationDesignating Crisis, Fixing BordersConclusion
   Chapter 7/Conclusion