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Human Rights : A Political and Cultural Critique / Makau Mutua.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Pennsylvania Studies in Human RightsPublisher: Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2013]Copyright date: ©2002Description: 1 online resource (264 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780812220490
  • 9780812204155
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 323.06/0676
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Human Rights as a Metaphor -- Chapter 2. Human Rights as an Ideology -- Chapter 3. Human Rights and the African Fingerprint -- Chapter 4. Human Rights, Religion, and Proselytism -- Chapter 5. The African State, Human Rights, and Religion -- Chapter 6. The Limits of Rights Discourse -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Index -- Acknowledgments
Summary: In 1948 the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and with it a profusion of norms, processes, and institutions to define, promote, and protect human rights. Today virtually every cause seeks to cloak itself in the righteous language of rights. But even so, this universal reliance on the rights idiom has not succeeded in creating common ground and deep agreement as to the scope, content, and philosophical bases for human rights.Makau Mutua argues that the human rights enterprise inappropriately presents itself as a guarantor of eternal truths without which human civilization is impossible. Mutua contends that in fact the human rights corpus, though well meaning, is a Eurocentric construct for the reconstitution of non-Western societies and peoples with a set of culturally biased norms and practices.Mutua maintains that if the human rights movement is to succeed, it must move away from Eurocentrism as a civilizing crusade and attack on non-European peoples. Only a genuine multicultural approach to human rights can make it truly universal. Indigenous, non-European traditions of Asia, Africa, the Pacific, and the Americas must be deployed to deconstruct-and to reconstruct-a universal bundle of rights that all human societies can claim as theirs.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780812204155

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Human Rights as a Metaphor -- Chapter 2. Human Rights as an Ideology -- Chapter 3. Human Rights and the African Fingerprint -- Chapter 4. Human Rights, Religion, and Proselytism -- Chapter 5. The African State, Human Rights, and Religion -- Chapter 6. The Limits of Rights Discourse -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Index -- Acknowledgments

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

In 1948 the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and with it a profusion of norms, processes, and institutions to define, promote, and protect human rights. Today virtually every cause seeks to cloak itself in the righteous language of rights. But even so, this universal reliance on the rights idiom has not succeeded in creating common ground and deep agreement as to the scope, content, and philosophical bases for human rights.Makau Mutua argues that the human rights enterprise inappropriately presents itself as a guarantor of eternal truths without which human civilization is impossible. Mutua contends that in fact the human rights corpus, though well meaning, is a Eurocentric construct for the reconstitution of non-Western societies and peoples with a set of culturally biased norms and practices.Mutua maintains that if the human rights movement is to succeed, it must move away from Eurocentrism as a civilizing crusade and attack on non-European peoples. Only a genuine multicultural approach to human rights can make it truly universal. Indigenous, non-European traditions of Asia, Africa, the Pacific, and the Americas must be deployed to deconstruct-and to reconstruct-a universal bundle of rights that all human societies can claim as theirs.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2022)