Human Rights as Cultural Practice: An Anthropological Critique

Abstract

(1993). The preparation of the present article has taken place during the last months of my assignment with the Danish Center for Human Rights, Copenhagen, in the Autumn of 1994. I am grateful to the researchers at the Center, particularly Katarina Tomasevski and Karin Poulsen, as well as the Center's Director, Morten Kjaerum, for stimulating discussions which have inspired my work. The research would not have been possible without the patient assistance of the Center's two librarians, Karen-Lise Thylstrup and Agnete Olesen, to whom I am equally grateful. Associate Professor Michael Whyte, Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, read an earlier draft of the article, and his comments have, as usual, been extremely useful in clarifying some of its most difficult issues. Last but not least, the shaping of my theoretical approach to human rights has benefitted immensely from discussions with Mr. Maurice Boussidan, philosopher and psychoanalyst, Association Freudienne Internationale, Paris. 2. Statement on Human Rights, 49 AM. ANTHROPOLOGIST 539, 542 (1947). This statement was submitted to one of the commissions of the United Nations, which, as is well-known, in 1947 carried out a theoretical inquiry into the foundations of an international declaration of human rights, drawing on a large number of individual philosophers, social scientists, jurists, and writers from UNESCO member states. For details, see Tore Lindholm, Prospects for Research on the Cultural Legitimacy of Human Rights: The Cases of Liberalism and Marxism, in HUMAN RIGHTS IN CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECIVES: A QUEST FOR CONSENSUS 387 (Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im ed., 1992) [hereinafter HUMAN RIGHTS IN