Human Rights at the Intersections: Transformation through Local, Global, and Cosmopolitan Challenges

At a time when states are increasingly hostile to the international rights regime, human rights activists have turned to non-state and sub-state actors to begin the implementation of human rights law. This complicates the conventional analysis of relationships between local actors, global norms, and cosmopolitanism. The contributions in this open access collection examine the “lived realities of human rights” and critically engage with debates on gender, sexuality, localism and cosmopolitanism, weaving insights from multiple disciplines into a broader call for interdisciplinary scholarship informed by practice. Overall, the contributors argue that the power of human rights depends on their ability to be continuously broadened and re-imagined in locales around the world. It is only on this basis that human rights can remain relevant and be effectively used to push local, national and international institutions to put in place structural reforms that advance equity and pluralism in these perilous times. The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Table of Contents:
Editor and Contributor Biographies Acknowledgments Foreword: Reimagining Human Rights Cesar Rodriguez-Garavito Introduction: Intersections and Transformations Anthony Tirado Chase, Pardis Mahdavi, and Sofia Gruskin Section 1: Exploding the Global-Local Binary in “Cosmopolitan” Human Rights Introduction Anthony Tirado Chase 1. “A Band Aid on a Bullet Wound:” Cosmopolitan Desire in a Pluriversal World Joe Hoover Snapshot #1: Localism vs Globalism: Authoritarianism’s Battlefield in the Arab Region Bahey eldin Hassan 2. Relishing the Roots: The Promise and Peril of Decentralizing Human Rights Discourse Kristi Heather Kenyon 3. The Future of Human Rights is Local Michael Goodhart Snapshot #2: Global-Local Intersections to Advance Accountability in Post-conflict Côte d’Ivoire Cristian Correa 4. Human Rights at the Intersections of Structural and Cultural Violence LaDawn Haglund 5. Everyday Cosmopolitanism and Human Rights Huss Banai 6. Who Cares? Exclusion, Empathy and Solidarity Shareen Hertel Section 2: Human Rights, the City, and “Local” Actors Introduction Anthony Tirado Chase 1. From Rebels to Rocks: Cities as Anchors in Turbulent Times Gaea Morales Snapshot #3: Global Human Rights Norms and City Policy in Los Angeles Angela Kim and Erin Bromaghim 2. Resourcing Rights: How Sub-state Actors Can Use Local Fiscal Policy to Counteract Democratic Erosion Sergio Chaparro Hernandez and Nelson Camilo Sanchez 3. Truth-in-Los Angeles: “Reimagining and Rejuvenating Global Norms at the City Level” Anthony Tirado Chase Snapshot #4: Racial Justice in Los Angeles: What Can Global Truth-telling Norms Offer? Brenda Shockley and Zita Davis 4. Localizing International Human Rights Norms through Participatory Video with People Affected by Leprosy in Niger, Nigeria, and Mozambique Yohanna Abdou, ShehuSarkin Fada, Paulo E. Hansine, Jone A. Jose, and William Paul Simmons 5. The Complex Intersection of Legacies of Violence and Legacies of Resistance in Montes de María, Colombia Pablo Abitbol Pineiro Section 3: Sexuality, Sexual Rights and Reproductive Rights Introduction Sofia Gruskin 1. Sex, Sexuality, and Sexual and Reproductive Health: The Role of Human Rights? Rajat Khosla and Kate Gilmore Snapshot #5: Global-Local Intersections to Change Politics and Public Policy on Sexuality in Brazil Vera Paiva 2. Navigating Homocolonialism in LGBTQ2+ Rights Strategies: Sexual and Political Possibilities beyond the Current Framing of International Queer Rights Momin Rahman and Adnan Hossain Snapshot #6: Glocalization and Sexual Rights Pascale Allotey 3. Intersex Human Rights in a Time of Instrumentalization and Backlash Morgan Carpenter 4. Eppur si muove. Reflections on Human Rights and Trans Depathologization in ICD-11 Mauro Cabral Grinspan Section 4: Feminism and the “Triple Bind” Introduction Pardis Mahdavi 1. Whose Gender Is It? Inclusion versus Exclusion in Global Feminist Movements Lara Stemple 2. What Can Intersectional Approaches Reveal About Violence? Dolores Trevizo 3. Speaking Feminism to Rights: Intersections of Ethos and Praxis Alison Brysk 4. Why Does Sexual Difference Matter in the Legal Paradigm of Equality? Human Rights Violations of Migrant Women in Immigration Detention in Mexico Alethia Fernandez de la Reguera Ahedo Snapshot #7: Feminism and Its Discontents: A Conversation with Gloria Steinem and Gloria Feldt Pardis Mahdavi Conclusion: Human Rights in Motion Hussein Banai Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Anthony Tirado Chase is a professor at Occidental College, USA, and Chair of its Young Initiative on the Global Political Economy. Pardis Mahdavi is Provost and Executive Vice President of the University of Montana, USA. Hussein "Huss" Banai is an associate professor of International Studies in the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. Sofia Gruskin is a professor in the Keck School of Medicine and Gould School of Law, and Director USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health, University of Southern California, USA.

Review :
This book offers a rich repertoire of theoretical and pragmatic tools to address mounting economic, social, political, cultural, and environmental challenges and crises. It makes a compelling call for the need of innovation, experimentation, cross-sectoral collaboration, and multidisciplinary approaches. A must-read for anyone in civil society, academia, or subnational, regional, and national governments grappling with the need for new solutions and analytical frames. Besides constituting a practical toolkit, the case studies and snapshots from across the globe are also a timely and compelling case for the potential utility of human rights on the ground at a moment in which their relevance and impact are questioned. This volume assembles a diverse array of experience and expertise that compels a re-imagination of human rights to help analysts and practitioners escape conventional boundaries imposed by powerful groups working to divide communities and otherwise preserve the status quo. By questioning state-centrism and the issue silos that compartmentalize policy processes and social movements, contributors address the structural foundations of human rights and point to productive and novel solutions. A range of timely cases shows how human rights advocates are engaging in innovative and replicable strategies to build power, using the largely untapped normative and institutional resources of human rights to respond to deep-seated problems like structural racism, COVID-19, climate change, and austerity. This volume aims high in terms of both substance and structure. And it achieves. The through-lines of “intersections” and “transformations” link chapters grouped around the themes of cosmopolitanism, the city, sexual rights, and feminism. The deft introductions by the editors bring these chapters into illuminating conversation. Short snapshots throughout the volume ground the theoretical discussions in the empirical realities out in the world. At a time when human rights are under stress from a rise in global authoritarianism and rejection of the rule of law, these chapters underscore human rights’ dynamism and resilience. The result is stimulating, essential reading for those interested in navigating the current challenges to human rights theory and practice. Most studies of human rights have been concerned with the vernacularization of the global – that is, with the making of the lingua franca of international human rights and its contested adoption at the local scale. We need to be equally concerned with the globalization of the vernacular – that is, with the legal and political processes whereby local actors, including subaltern groups, introduce modifications and neologisms into the vocabulary and even the grammar of human rights. This volume gives us precisely this type of well-rounded and complex account of human rights. Rather than remaining in the comfort of partial views of the movement, it embraces the messiness of the practice of rights and the possibilities of this transitional moment. And it rekindles our imagination at a time when we need it most.