WHEN HUMAN RIGHTS FAIL: THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Credit Hours: 3 · Undergraduate Upper-Level

Who has human rights and why do they have them? This is a question that has plagued lawyers, anthropologists, political scientists, governments, and philosophers both before and after the start of the modern human rights movement in the 1940s. These questions are still relevant today, as people around the world claim that their human rights have been violated. The general consensus is that human rights are important because they protect us against abuse and harm, but what might it mean to consider that human rights are not always good? How might we have to reconceptualize the use, utility, and possibility of human rights when they are used to reinforce inequality, persecute vulnerable populations, or support nativist rhetoric and policy? We will ultimately ask who is human enough to deserve human rights? We will do so through primary source documents, ethnographic scholarship, and a variety of media. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: ANTH 630 . Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for ANTH 430 if student has credit for ANTH 630 .