Special Issue: New Directions in the Sociology of Human Rights Foreword

Abstract

New Directions in the Sociology of Human Rights is a contribution to both sociology and to human rights research, particularly where these are oriented to challenging power relations and inequalities in contemporary societies. It expands and develops the sociology of human rights as a sub-field of sociology and of interdisciplinary human rights scholarship. The volume suggests new directions for the use of social and sociological theories to analyse issues such as torture and genocide; and addresses a range of issues and themes which have not previously been a sustained focus in the sociology of human rights literature, ranging from climate change and the human rights of soldiers to corporate social responsibility and children’s rights in relation to residential care. The collection is thus multi-dimensional, examining a range of specific empirical contexts, and also considering relationships between sociological analysis and human rights scholarship and activism. Hence in a variety of ways it points the way for future analyses, and also for human rights activism and practices. It is intended to widen our field of vision in the sociology of human rights, and to spark both new ideas and new forms of political engagement. We have co-edited this volume as conveners of the British Sociological Association’s Sociology of Rights Study Group. 1 New Directions in the Sociology of Human Rights is a successor to our previous special issue of the International Journal of Human Rights, titled ‘Sociology and Human Rights: New Engagements’, which was published in November 2010 and edited by the same team. 2 That original volume included an introductory article outlining the history of the relationship between sociology and human rights and the state of our sub-field as we saw it, 3 together with contributions by members of the study group, on a wide range of themes. The collection was subsequently published as a book of the same title. 4 More recently we have co-edited the annual special issue of the British Sociological Association’s journal Sociology, presenting a volume titled The Sociology of Human Rights which was published in October 2012. 5 That volume originated with a Call for Papers which received 83 submissions, and we were informed this was the highest number in the recent history of Sociology, demonstrating a huge appetite for the development of the sociology of human rights as a field. ‘The Sociology of Human Rights’ included a range of articles which delineated and engaged with the major analytical axes and conceptual parameters of the sociology of human rights, as suggested in a substantial editorial foreword; it thus offered an extensive map of the field in theoretical terms, while simultaneously including research from a number of empirical contexts internationally. New Directions in the Sociology of Human Rights by comparison is distinctive for opening up and addressing a wide range of substantive issues, empirical contexts and topics in the sociology of human rights, with a somewhat greater emphasis on examining the application of human rights in practice, while also pressing forward sociological analysis in areas where its deployment is underdeveloped. The collection addresses the place of human rights in relation to key social