Intersectional Dialogue - A Cosmopolitical Dialogue of Ethics

Rebecca Adami

doi:10.5130/ccs.v5i2.3179

Abstract

The article is based on a critical cosmopolitan outlook on dialogue as not aimed at reaching consensus, but rather keeping dialogue of difference open, with the ability to reach common understanding of human rights on conflicting grounds. Intersectional dialogue is used as a concept that opens up possibilities to study, in a pragmatic sense, the ‘cosmopolitan space’ in which different axles of power met in the historical drafting of human rights. By enacting analysis of United Nations (UN) documents from 1948 on the process of drafting the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) the conceptualization of intersectional dialogue is put to work. The utopian foundation for deliberative democracy as dialogue in the absence of power and interest does not acknowledge the reality in which the human rights were negotiated and debated. The paper questions the dominant narrative of a western philosophical ground for the universality of human rights.

Highlights

There are some main challenges faced in a plural world, of conflict and intersection of power, which are not dealt with properly in a traditional view of dialogue as reaching consensus on rational arguments
The representative of UK declared that, ‘in spite of the arguments of the USSR representative, he would be guided by the views of the two female members of the United Nations (UN) Commission’6. Does this illustrate that women have greater influence in debates on human rights of women than men? I argue that an intersectional dialogue contains complex power relations that are under constant negotiations, which means that when people meet in cosmopolitan spaces, their belonging and rational for argumentations cannot be limited to analysis that focuses only on gender, culture, ethnicity or faith, but depend on how they want to position themselves in relation to a multitude of social belongings, connected to diverse cultural narratives
In 1948, people from all over the world met during intense discussions in over hundred sessions to claim universal human rights

Summary

Introduction

There are some main challenges faced in a plural world, of conflict and intersection of power, which are not dealt with properly in a traditional view of dialogue as reaching consensus on rational arguments.

Results

Conclusion