Open AccessHuman rights and cultural rights: An anthropological critique
Author(s) -
Jelena Vasiljević
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
filozofija i društvo
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.116
H-Index - 1
eISSN - 2334-8577
pISSN - 0353-5738
DOI - 10.2298/fid1403267v
Subject(s) - human rights , universality (dynamical systems) , universalism , cultural rights , sociology , fundamental rights , cultural relativism , linguistic rights , international human rights law , right to property , political science , environmental ethics , epistemology , law and economics , law , philosophy , politics , physics , quantum mechanics
The paper starts by examining some of the key conceptual problems related to the idea of human rights, as well as some key arguments raised in defence of human rights as universal and emacipatory modern project. This is followed by a discussion on cultural rights, sometimes understood as a correction of human rights’ universalism, at other times taken as their „logical extension“; it will be shown how human rights have gradually begun to be amalgamated with cultural and collective rights. The third section of the paper continues with an overview of anthropological critique of cultural (and collective) rights, with an emphasis on ethnographies critically examining the domination of the „rights talk“ in perceptions and self-perceptions of various local „cultural“ struggles. Finally, the issue of the universality of human rights is reexamined from the perspective of the particularity of citizens’ rights with the aim of questioning the validity of their conceptual demarcation. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 43007 i br. 41004