The Power of Human Rights/The Human Rights of Power

Book Details

• Author: Louiza Odysseos

• Brand: Routledge

• Edition: 1

• Binding: Paperback

• Number of Pages: 256

• Release Date: 13-01-2019

• ISBN: 9780367139544

• Package Dimensions: 9.7 x 7.9 x 0.6 inches

• Languages: English

About the Book

"Human Rights and Power" by Louiza Odysseos explores the complex and multi-layered relationship between human rights and power. This edited volume challenges the traditional approaches to human rights, which often either dismiss them as politically compromised or overly glorify them as tools of resistance. Through an interdisciplinary approach, drawing from social theory and philosophy, this book examines how human rights both shape and are shaped by power relations.

Key Themes:

• Duality and Indeterminacy of Human Rights: The book delves into the often overlooked duality inherent in human rights, which can simultaneously empower and constrain political action. It shows how human rights give rise to new subjects and modes of political action, creating opportunities and challenges in resistance.

• Theoretical and Empirical Approach: The contributors to this volume take an epistemologically distanced approach from purely deductive, theory-driven analyses. Instead, they employ historically specific case studies of rights struggles, offering a nuanced understanding of how power and rights intersect in various global contexts.

• Reexamining the ‘Third World’: The volume proposes a shift in perspective on the Global South, often referred to as the ‘Third World.’ Rather than seeing it merely as a place for fieldwork, the book presents the Third World as a legitimate and necessary site of theorizing, emphasizing the importance of diverse global perspectives in understanding human rights.

• Historical Specificity in Rights Struggles: By focusing on the historical specificity of human rights struggles, the book avoids reifying human rights as a universally applicable concept, recognizing instead the contextual and evolving nature of rights claims across different regions and times.