Questions, Issues and Dilemmas: Teaching Human Rights in Anthropology Departments
G. N. Appell
The Scope of Human Rights
1. What are human rights? What has been the evolution of human rights concepts?
2. Is the present interest in human rights issues a phenomenon of the social and intellectual history of western Europe or does it represent a developmental stage in the political and economic evolution of human societies?
3. Compare the various human rights declarations and covenants to analyze the different viewpoints on the locus of human rights, i.e. whether the individual or the collectivity. Also compare the various human rights documents to identify rights that are given priority over other rights and how they differ in the various documents. What are considered the most fundamental of human rights?
4. How does the issue of sovereignty affect the response of governments to human rights violations? This includes not only violations by the government itself to indigenous peoples, but also violations perpetrated by any sector of the population on a disadvantaged group.
5. What is the difference between a declaration and a covenant?
6. Under what conditions will a government bring complaints about the human rights violations perpetrated by another government? Why are human rights issues subordinated to political and economic relations and the fear of offending governments so that these relations are affected?
7. How are claims of human rights violations used for political purposes? How are human rights violations overlooked for political purposes?
8. Have claims of human rights violations been used to advance economic protectionism?
9. Are violations of human rights only perpetrated by governments?
10. What is the distinction between protecting and promoting human rights?
11. Do the various protocols, declarations, and other documents by the United Nations and governments consider adequately the rights of indigenous peoples? If not, why not, and what can be done?
12. Do the various human rights statements adequately protect gender-specific rights? What are these?
13. Do the various human rights statements adequately protect the rights of those who choose to deviate from the societal norms in terms of religion, gender-specific behavior, sexual orientation, etc.?
14. Can the concept of group rights result in the violation of an individual's rights? For example, there are cultural norms which are protected by the concept of group rights but which violate the rights of the individual. What are the examples of this?
15. Are freedom from starvation and access to employment, medical services, and education adequately promoted in various human rights documents?
16. Many rights, including the above, have come to be interpreted as entitlements. Who is to provide these? Does this require a strong central government? Aren't freedoms more important that claims to rights? What distinguishes rights from freedoms?
17. What human rights declarations has the United States failed to ratify and why?
18. Why is it always the other who perpetrates human right violations? What human rights violations are being perpetrated in the United States? Is the extent of child poverty in America a violation of human rights? Is the current treatment of the American Indian population by the government violating any human rights?
19. Are there conflicts between the rights of women and the rights of the child? For example, does child care such as breast feeding interfere with the rights of the woman to follow her own interests?
20. Who are the recipients of rights, individuals or collectivities, and what effect does this have?
21. Do rights differ from entitlement?
Cultural Relativism and Human Rights
1. Are human rights universal or are they culturally relative and applicable only under certain cultural environments? Are human rights the product of the period of Western enlightenment or are there universal human rights?
2. How can the issue of cultural relativism be resolved so that the conflict over the legal practices of other cultures that violate human rights declarations and covenants be resolved?
3. Can the issue of cultural relativism be resolved so that respect
for other cultures does not result in sanctioning practices that are
repugnant, such as genital mutilation, infanticide, etc.?
(Cohen 1989, Renteln 1988, and Washburn 1987.)
4. Can a culture-free human rights protocol be built on those aspects of cultural behavior that are found to be universal to all societies? Are there aspects of most cultures that violate human rights? Will such a construction of human rights have any substance?
5. What does anthropology have to contribute to the debate on human rights? In what ways are anthropology and human rights mutually relevant? What anthropological criticisms and recommendations can be made to contribute to the further development of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as other declarations and protocols?
6. Do the various protocols and documents on human rights reflect principles based upon anthropological knowledge?
7. Should human rights standards be imposed from outside or should the focus be on helping local interest groups within a society or country work for their development? Under what conditions are one or the other approach most effective?
8. During the 19th century and that part of the colonial period of the 20th century, the west imposed its values on indigenous peoples with regard to cannibalism, headhunting, human sacrifice, slavery, polygyny, partial nudity, communal ownership, etc. Many nonwestern nations believe that the international human rights documents are a continuing form of cultural imperialism by the west. This in particular pertains to the emphasis on individual rights to the detriment of the community, and also pertains to women's rights and the rights of children. What rights in the human rights documents protect women, and children? How do the human rights documents privilege the individual at the cost of the community? Compare the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with other human rights documents such as the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights.
Development and Human Rights
1. Do development and economic rights have priority over basic human
rights, as argued by various African and Asian nations? Which comes
first, development or human rights? What human rights statements have
precedence over others? If economic development has priority over human
rights, how are the benefits of economic development realized? By a
narrow elite or the whole population? Does development promote or violate
the rights of indigenous peoples?
(Cohen 1989.)
2. What are the internal conflicts within the human rights documents and between documents? Do the rights to schooling, health, and economic development conflict with the rights to cultural integrity? How can the conflict between development and progress and the right of indigenous peoples to practice their own culture be resolved?
3. Indigenous peoples, minority groups, and peripheral peoples are frequently perceived as backward. How does the cultural theme of progress and its economic imperative result in violations of the human rights of these peoples?
4. Development results in major social change, which has health consequences. What can be done to mitigate the health consequences of social change? Does a government in the process of developing an economy have the right to impose a level of stress on a population that produces health impairments? How does imposed social change precipitate social bereavement and its concomitant health impairments? Is health impairment resulting from imposed social change a violation of human rights?
The Rights of Indigenous Peoples
1. What is the difference between self-determination and political autonomy? In the political arena is political autonomy likely to be more acceptable than self-determination? To what degree is self-determination or political autonomy possible for indigenous people? Are either feasible solutions for endangered peoples?
2. What is the relationship between group rights and individual rights in international law? What rights pertain to individuals and what rights pertain to groups or communities? If the latter, does this not result in discrimination? Is it possible for group rights to be exercised without the tyranny of the majority threatening the freedoms and rights of the minorities?
3. Property Rights of Indigenous Peoples: How are the land rights of indigenous peoples protected? Are the property rights of indigenous peoples violated by taking their cultivars and their medicines for commercial use without compensation? Do these have adequate protection under the current human rights declarations and covenants?
4. If a population is not compensated for the takings by a government in the exercise of its rights of eminent domain, is this a violation of human rights?
5. The various human rights documents guarantee access to an individual's culture, his religion, and his language. How can these rights be exercised except in terms of membership in a group or community, which entails group or community rights? How can these be maintained in the face of development and education as defined by the central government? How can these be maintained by a community or indigenous group if it wants to participate economically and politically in the world economy?
6. Can resettlement projects result in violations of human rights? What rights?
7. How are human rights to be promoted or protected when the perpetrators of violations and the victims are unaware of international human rights agreements?
8. Do the U.S. State Department's yearly reports on the status of human rights in each country adequately consider the human rights of indigenous and minority peoples? The rights of women?
9. What are the tensions between environmental activists and human rights advocates? How can they be resolved?
Human Rights In Indigenous Societies and Minority Peoples
1. Are there indigenous societies whose cultural practices violate human rights? Whose rights? What rights?
2. Does genital mutilation violate human rights? What rights? For
women? For men?
(Bettelheim 1962; Cawte 1966; Cawte, Djagamara, and Barrett 1966; Hicks
1993; Lyons 1981; Margetts 1960; Montagu 1937; Roheim 1949, Singer and
DeSole 1967; Slack 1988.)
3. Is the practice of headhunting or cannibalism a violation of human rights? What rights?
4. Is infanticide a violation of human rights? Is abortion a violation of human rights? How does infanticide differ from abortion in those situations where abortion facilities do not exist?
5. What is distributive justice? Do human rights as defined by international agreements have priority over the traditional distributive justice in a particular society? Or is the changing or interfering with the distributive justice of a society a violation of human rights? At issue here are gender rights. If those who are perceived to be victims of human rights abuse do not perceive that the distributive justice in their society is unfair, is this to be considered a form of false consciousness? Is interfering with the distributive justice of a society a form of cultural imperialism?
6. If an individual chooses to subject himself or herself to a practice that appears to be a violation of human rights, is this in fact a violation? How does this differ from violations that are forced on an individual? How do both of these differ from violations that are considered by an individual to be part of his normal cultural practices?
7. What types of officially sanctioned punishments for crimes are a violation of human rights and what rights do they violate? The death penalty? Bodily mutilation?
8. Are the claims for violations of the human rights of many indigenous groups founded on an overly romantic view of their cultures which ignores the wishes of the members of the societies themselves and the claim that the members of these cultures live a short and brutal life?
9. Does child labor always violate the human rights of the child? In what instances is it not a violation?
10. In any society how does the social construction of childhood affect the rights of a child and provide protection to the child?
11. Are equal rights in the best interest of children?
See Purdy 1992.
Conditions Precipitating Human Rights Abuses
1. What are the social processes which lead to the rise or decline in abuses of human rights?
2. What is the officially sanctioned language usually used by governments to rationalize violations of human rights? Is dehumanization and debasement always preparatory to the onset of the violations of human rights?
3. Are dehumanization and psychosocial debasement of a population or a sector of a population always leading indicators of potential human rights violations?
4. How does social dysfunction contribute to violations of human rights?
5. In terms of societal development, under what conditions are human rights most likely to be respected and most likely violated? In hunting and gathering societies? Agricultural societies? Industrial societies? Discuss ethnographic examples.
6. Can the explicit standards of human rights agreements be met while at the same time violate the spirit of the protocols? For example, the providing of education can result in the loss of the access to a population's culture.
Sanctions
1. How can human rights violators be persuaded to stop? What sanctions are available to apply to human rights violators and bring about conformity with the various documents on human rights?
The Anthropologist and Human Rights
1. What can different subfields of anthropology contribute to human rights, and how do human rights bridge the subfields of anthropology?
2. How have anthropologists and anthropological organizations historically dealt with human rights?
3. Anthropological Activities and Human Rights.
5. How are anthropologists to respond to the cultural practices of an ethnic group that violate international agreements on human rights? Should these violations be brought before the Commission/Committee of the American Anthropological Association? Or should the purview of the Commission/ Committee include only those infringements to the human rights of an ethnic group that are perpetrated by governments and external groups?
6. How can anthropology better communicate its relevance for human rights to advocacy organizations, governments, and the public, including indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities?
7. How can anthropologists distinguish between legal and political issues?
8. When should an anthropologist get legal counsel on an issue to inform his action? Should the American Anthropological Association have a list of legal anthropologists or others that a person could call upon for advice and counsel?
9. What is the role of anthropology in the context of political and physical violence? At what point should a research agenda be given second priority or even abandoned in favor of legal or political action? And what constitutes political action in the context of the anthropologist's role as an independent researcher?
10. Should there be more explicit guidelines for contentious field situations that might lead to political and/or legal actions that would involve the anthropologist?
11. Anthropologists gather information, much of it privileged. What role should such information play in political and legal actions and who decides which and what and when: The anthropologist? The sources and their community? Local politicians? International organizations? The American Anthropological Association?
12. What is the anthropologist's obligation to protect the people he/she is studying, as in the case of a murder, etc.?
13. Are there ethical and professional questions raised when an anthropologist and lawyer work for those who opposed the avowed interests of a culture or society, particularly in the instances when that society is an indigenous or tribal society? Should the anthropologist always side with indigenous peoples? Are there conditions under which anthropologists should not side with indigenous peoples? What lessons were learned from the experience of anthropologists in Southeast Asia in the 1960s?
14. How do societies differ in determining who is classified as a human being and at what stage in the development of the child? How does that affect their view of human rights?
15. How does the classification of roles in a society determine the equality or inequality of the distribution of rights and distributive justice?
16. Where do cultural practices fulfill the norms of human rights, although they are not expressed in terms of human rights, and thereby potentially support and add to the cross-cultural basis for human rights?
17. Where do cultural practices depart from human rights norms and practices? What are their cultural justifications, religious, economic, etc., and their relation to the society's belief system? How might this difference in norms and practices be reconciled?
18. What are the various types of discourse used by indigenous peoples in resistance to violations of their interests? Do these indicate the types of human rights being violated?
The Future
1. Are the UN Documents sufficient to define and protect human rights? Can they be used for violating human rights?
2. How can the conflict between internationally recognized human rights and national laws that violate these rights be negotiated?
3. Do indigenous cultures have their own philosophy of human rights? Should these take precedence over the internationally recognized human rights?
4. What are the directions in which the definition of human rights might evolve? What institutions might replace nation state and its role in human rights?
5. What are the frontiers for future anthropological research, teaching, and practice of human rights?
December 2, 1997
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