Lecture 13

Question 1

what is Umoja: The Village Where Men Are Forbidden

Answer 1

a French documentary film about the Kenyan village Umoja. For nearly 30 years, hundreds of women living in Umoja say they were raped by British soldiers in northern Kenya. Accused of having brought shame on their community, they are beaten by their husbands and divorce. A handful of them created Umoja, the village prohibits men who became the refuge of Samburu women. Jealous men regularly attack the village and cause problems to its founder Rebecca Lolosoli.
local camping for justice that emerged in Kenya

Question 2

are males in Umoja

Answer 2

created this village that consisted sole of female
males to work for firewood and stuff, but they were not permanent residents
basically a women’s shelter on a big scale

Question 3

what are the 3 paradoxes in Sally Merry’s Human Rights and Gender Violence

Answer 3

1.Culture as source of abuse v. cultural heritage.
2. Universalism of law v. local context.
3. Ambitious, “deep” goals of social change v. local vernacularization and acceptance

change occurs in human rights processes in glacial paces; because of the way international agencies work and the challenges of translating values into local context and having an impact on the way people see and practice

Question 4

Paradox 1: Culture as source of abuse v. culture heritage, who critiques this

Answer 4

UNICEF

Question 5

what does UNICEF say about paradox 1

Answer 5

“violence against women is a product of traditional cultural practices, which must be changed, but cultural heritage is something to treasure” (Merry, 11).

Question 6

Women’s rights are often opposed by who

Answer 6

Women’s rights are often opposed by those who claim to defend culture. Challenging women’s subordinate position in the family or the workplace threatens to disrupt a wide range of patriarchal privileges

Question 7

what is the solution to paradox 1

Answer 7

Culture as Contentious

Question 8

what is Culture as Contentious

Answer 8

“This conception emphasizes the active making of culture, society, and institutions and the grounding of this action in specific places and moments” (15).
“When a group’s failure to abide by human rights principles is blamed on its ‘traditional culture’, this ignores the complex and dynamic nature of culture” (15).

Question 9

what is Paradox 2:

Answer 9

Law v. local context (see Englund)

Question 10

what is meant by Law v. local context

Answer 10

“As a legal system, human rights law endeavors to apply universal principles to all situations uniformly . . . Local context is ignored in order to establish global principles” (103).
“There is a struggle between the generalizing strategies of transnational actors and the particularistic techniques of activists working with local contexts” (103).

Question 11

what is the solution to paradox 2

Answer 11

Ethnographically sensitive intervention

Question 12

what is Ethnographically sensitive intervention

Answer 12

“A more anthropological view of culture could highlight changes in the sociocultural life of village communities or urban neighborhoods. The cash economy, state bureaucracy, media, and warfare, for example, have penetrated deep into most rural and remote places” (132).
“There are embedded in local communities alternative visions of social justice that are not founded on conceptions of rights but on ideas such as sharing, reconciliation, or mutual responsibility” (133).

Question 13

what is Paradox 3:

Answer 13

local vernacularization and acceptance v. “deep,” ambitious goals of change

Question 14

what is meant by local vernacularization and acceptance v. “deep,” ambitious goals of change

Answer 14

“This is the paradox of making human rights in the vernacular: in order to be accepted, they have to be tailored to the local context and resonate with the local cultural framework. However, in order to be part of the human rights system, they must emphasize individualism, autonomy, choice, bodily integrity, and equality, ideas embedded in the legal documents that constitute human rights law” (

Question 15

wha is the solution to paradox 3

Answer 15

Translation and appropriation by local actors

Question 16

what is Translation and appropriation by local actors

Answer 16

“Intermediaries such as NGO and social movement activists play a critical role in interpreting the cultural world of transnational modernity for local claimants . . . Activists often participate in two cultural spheres at the same time, translating between them with a kind of double consciousness” (3).
Understanding appropriation and translation illuminates the less elite dimensions of the norm change process and highlights areas where norms and ideas are resisted or only temporarily and tentatively adopted” (222).

Question 17

what is Hegemony

Answer 17

The rule of law and the primacy of rights, as John and Jean Comaroff argue, are emphasized, “even when both the spirit and the letter of that law are violated, offended, distended, purloined (2006: 23)

Question 18

who came up with “lawfare”

Answer 18

Hegemony: The rule of law and the primacy of rights, as John and Jean Comaroff argue, are emphasized, “even when both the spirit and the letter of that law are violated, offended, distended, purloined (2006: 23). This recourse to what the Comaroff’s refer to as “lawfare”

Question 19

what is lawfare

Answer 19

the use of law as an instrument of political leverage or coercion—“becomes most readily visible when those who act in the name of the state conjure with legalities to act against some or all of its citizens”

Question 20

what is Counter-Hegemonic Globalization

Answer 20

Boaventura de Sousa Santos and César Rodríguez-Garavito call for more attention to be given to an “unprecedented effervescence of debate and experimentation in bottom up legal reform and new international legal regimes” (2). In their view a “subaltern cosmopolitan legality” is upending the common assumption that those on the margins lack political and legal agency. These once-excluded actors are now the beneficiaries of “new forms of global politics and legality” (9). Socio-legal research is able to undertake a “genealogical expedition” to reveal the power struggles and strategies through which hegemonic power structures are asserted; and it is at the same time able to bring into view the myriad actors who work with NGOs and progressive elites to secure their local rights as they mobilize resistance to “neoliberal legality” (