lecture 8 Flashcards
define “Culture” according to the dictionary
I. The cultivation of land, and derived senses.
7. a. The distinctive ideas, customs, social behaviour, products, or way of life of a particular nation, society, people, or period. Hence: a society or group characterized by such customs, etc
how is culture an anthropological issue
idea of cultures as bounded entities and this has been a problem for anthropology and anthropology of law
because the study of island societies done by malinowski
we saw the idea f distinct customary tradition was problematic because sometimes the legal traditions are influenced by dominant colonial powers and shaped by legislated… cannot be seen as reflecting a particular paradigm or set of values
what does Jane Cowan say about rights and culture
Within the efflorescence [i.e. blossoming] of rights discourse, we were particularly struck by the increasing deployment of talk about “culture,” including culture as an object of rights.
basically; main point: the problematic nature of culture has not presented culture form being picked up by rights discourse
while culture has been problematized in anthropology in terms of law, it is also seen as a way to liberate and be diverse
what s the Basic contradiction in anthropology concerning culture and rights
“First, since the early 1980s, anthropologists had subjected anthropological understandings of culture to a thorough critique. Many anthropologists had railed against tendencies to treat the “culture” concept as fixed, bounded, and static.”
But:
“No sooner had anthropology emerged from this critique than anthropologists found their informants taking up with renewed gusto just such essentialized notions of “culture” in their own political talk.”
the idea of culture has been subjected to critique— what does this mean
anthropologists have rejected culture as fixed and such— culture does not exist in the billiard ball analogy (each culture as a different ball, a solid entity, that when they collide they just bounce off eachother… but in reality they merge and collide and such) anthropologists recognize the influence of colonialism and how it influences culture, recognition that societies are hybrid and influence and interpenetrate one another, they are not fixed and bounded and static
Jane Cowan; We identified four distinctive conjunctions between “rights” and “culture” what are they
(1) rights versus culture, (2) the right to culture, (3) rights as culture, and (4) culture as “analytic” to rights.
what is rights v culture
Rights versus culture: the approach to right and culture that emerged when it became apparent to some that culture was being used as an excuse to violate people’s rights— we do this because it is our right. the idea of collective senses of belonging and sacred adherence to practices that are case as sacred becomes a source of the violation of rights. Eg. Female genital mutilation.
what is right to culture
Right to culture: e.g the right to wear a burke, the right to exercise culture. A whole range gf claims about rights to culture that have become a part of human rights discourse, there sia shift in emphasis; protecting the individual from a society that is imposing its practices on an individual TO the right t be nurtured my a cultural mildew that is important as ones development as a person. Stressing the notion that no individual can grow up alone and they need people around them
what is rights as culture
Rights as Culture:some anthropologists look at experts who practice law as subjects of anthropology. Idea of law as having distinct customs, behaviour, etc. Becomes challenging task of anthropologists in this field to figure out how lawyers think and come to conclusions. The court room can become a site of ethnography; it is an ethnographic field site. Relatively new (past 20 yers) and there are particular impediments which have as much to do with access (permission from higher authority) with regimes of secrecy as they often have, it is pretty hard for these anthropologists to get the access they need. Looking at institutions, not JUST lawyers and such.
what is culture as analytic to rights
Culture as analytic to rights: some are skeptical as the idea of rights to culture. The idea of using tools of anthropology to make a study of rights systems. Simply using the tools of anthropology to study the culture. People are convinced that there is a distinct culture at the base of rights.
what case is related to rights v culture
Honour killings’
talk about right to culture
e.g of rights to culture
takes many forms, pops up unexpectedly,
notion fo the class of civilizations that the UN was reacting to; in order to combat the worst impulses of people who were willing to commit violence on behalf of their ideologies we have to counter is by engaging in a better management of diversity; this involves asserting the paradigm of culture in a different way— we need to bring about a dialog or alliance of civilizations
when you assign rights to a culture; you then have to define it with great precision e.g. when you do a class action lawsuit, you have a certain number of people that are parties to that legal actions. Cannot just have a vague understanding of the people involved, the laws require knowing exactly who each person is. If you are going to have rights we need to know that those rights are, who is going to get them exactly, etc. What this means is that when people make collective rights claims, lawyers engage in something that anthropology hates— law not only makes claims that there are boundaries but they seeks out proof which goes against what anthropologists believe that there is do boundaries!
what is rights as culture
idea that the culture of rights as a culture is extending,
there is this idea that there is this increasing use of rights as a way of defending political communities movements and political opposition… they are framing political struggles as rights and they turn to courts to defend them. The idea that there is a historical shift to greater recourse to rights and foundation of law.
e.g. Dakota access pipeline movement. Legal struggles becomes the next phase of a political struggle.
what is Juridification
entails not only the application of state law against the state, but also the mobilization of different legal orders, such as international human rights law, customary law, and “travelling models” of conflict resolution
basically; the idea that people can bring a rights claim from one context into another and have differing degrees of success
e.g. the harrow rights claims against germany for a genocide that happened in germany southwest aftrica. their rights claims were being ignored domestically— they took there model and travelled to germany where they hooked up with a group of post colonial activists. In the modern awareness of post colonial issues and colonialism, the government took their side.
what is depoliticization
Juridification has since the coining of the term thus pointed to a process of depoliticization; with juridification a vast array of social conflicts that were once sorted out by political means—in bodies of elected representatives or through strikes, boycotts, protests and demonstrations—are ever more mediated through the judicial system . . . In this perspective political decision making is reduced to the application of existing law, thereby increasing the power of definition and decision making of the judiciary and legally trained experts
basically; tricky notion of weather or not rights claims become depoliticized through their process of going to court. Does it happen that when you engage in a court room battle, the courts have an effect of emptying the political momentum, the courts take over the cause and in the process of making a decision it refers the problem neutral or overt. Social conflate sorted out through political means (street activism),w went hey go to courts all of that visible stuff disappears and then it is further assumed that when this happens, political decision is reduced to the application of law. the language of the law is very much unlike the language of activism and activists as they are engaged in street protests. It takes away the momentum and passion.
This may not go on in each and every case. One thing that may happen is that the court itself may try to protect themselves from politics and activism entering the court room.
