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In this powerful, timely study Ronald Niezen examines the processes by which cultural concepts are conceived and collective rights are defended in international law. Niezen argues that cultivating support on behalf of those experiencing human rights violations often calls for strategic representations of injustice and suffering to distant audiences. The positive impulse behind public responses to political abuse can be found in the satisfaction of justice done. But the fact that oppressed peoples and their supporters from around the world are competing for public attention is actually a profound source of global difference, stemming from differential capacities to appeal to a remote, unknown public. Niezen's discussion of the impact of public opinion on law provides fresh insights into the importance of legally-constructed identity and the changing pathways through which it is being shaped - crucial issues for all those with an interest in anthropology, politics and human rights law.
The original edition of Truth and Indignation offered the first close and critical assessment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as it was unfolding. Niezen used testimonies, texts, and visual materials produced by the Commission as well as interviews with survivors, priests, and nuns to raise important questions about the TRC process. He asked what the TRC meant for reconciliation, transitional justice, and conceptions of traumatic memory. In this updated edition, Niezen discusses the Final Report and Calls to Action bringing the book up to date and making it a valuable text for teaching about transitional justice, colonialism and redress, public anthropology, and human rights. Thoughtful, provocative, and uncompromising in the need to tell the "truth" as he sees it, Niezen offers an important contribution to understanding truth and reconciliation processes in general, and the Canadian experience in particular.
"International indigenism" may sound like a contradiction in terms, but it is indeed a global phenomenon and a growing form of activism. In his fluent and accessible narrative, Ronald Niezen examines the ways the relatively recent emergence of an internationally recognized identity—"indigenous peoples"—intersects with another relatively recent international movement—the development of universal human rights laws and principles. This movement makes use of human rights instruments and the international organizations of states to resist the political, cultural, and economic incursions of individual states. The concept "indigenous peoples" gained currency in the social reform efforts of th...
This book assembles a range of work by researchers who have entered the social worlds of global organizations.
This volume assembles in one place the work of scholars who are making key contributions to a new approach to the United Nations, and to global organizations and international law more generally. Anthropology has in recent years taken on global organizations as a legitimate source of its subject matter. The research that is being done in this field gives a human face to these world-reforming institutions. Palaces of Hope demonstrates that these institutions are not monolithic or uniform, even though loosely connected by a common organizational network. They vary above all in their powers and forms of public engagement. Yet there are common threads that run through the studies included here: the actions of global institutions in practice, everyday forms of hope and their frustration, and the will to improve confronted with the realities of nationalism, neoliberalism, and the structures of international power.
A World Beyond Difference unpacks the globalizationliterature and offers a valuable critique: one that is forthright,yet balanced, and draws on the local work of ethnographers tocounter relativist and globalist discourses. Presents a lively conceptual and historical map of how we thinkabout the emerging socio-political world, and above all how wethink politically about human cultural differences Interprets, criticizes, and frames responses to worldculture Draws from the work of recent major social theorists, comparingthem to classical social theorists in an instructive manner Grounds critique of theory in years of ethnographicresearch
"Niezen's fascinating analysis explores indigenism as a key concept of present-day international relations."—Jean-Loup amselle, author of Mestizo Logics: Anthropology of Identity in Africa and Elsewhere
Indigenous peoples' struggle for justice and selfhood in an integrating world.
"Social justice claims, and the human rights movement in particular, are entering a new phase. Social media, algorithms, and artificial intelligence (AI) are reshaping the practices of advocacy and compliance. In this new era, technicians, lawmakers and advocates, sometimes in collaboration with the private sector, have increasingly gravitated toward the possibilities and dangers inherent in the non-human. Algorithms and automated data processing are unpredictable and opaque. The use of algorithms and artificial intelligence may be advancing the protection of human rights in some ways, but new technologically-enhanced forms of human rights abuse have emerged alongside these new protections. ...
A World Beyond Difference unpacks the globalization literature and offers a valuable critique: one that is forthright, yet balanced, and draws on the local work of ethnographers to counter relativist and globalist discourses. Presents a lively conceptual and historical map of how we think about the emerging socio-political world, and above all how we think politically about human cultural differences Interprets, criticizes, and frames responses to world culture Draws from the work of recent major social theorists, comparing them to classical social theorists in an instructive manner Grounds critique of theory in years of ethnographic research