Unpacking rights in indigenous African societies: indigenous culture and the question of sexual and reproductive rights in Africa

Chi-Chi Undie,Chimaraoke O Izugbara

doi:10.1186/1472-698x-11-s3-s2

Abstract

BackgroundModern declarations on human rights have often proceeded without reference to the cultural content of rights, the existence of rights in African indigenous backgrounds, and the embodiment of certain key rights in the community itself. This paper is an attempt at developing an ‘inventory’ of rights in African cultures as a prelude to the generation both of a holistic theory of rights as well as a research agenda that can recognize the multifaceted nature of rights.MethodsWe use an interpretive ethnographic approach built on three sources of data: 1) our continuing ethnographic work among two distinct ethnic groups in southeastern Nigeria – the Ubang and the Igbo; 2) informal conversational interviews with individuals from a range of African countries; and 3) a review of relevant literature based on African cultures which provides a context for some of the issues we raise.ResultsAn examination of selected indigenous rights, entitlements, or privileges among the Ubang and Igbo illustrates indigenous culture as a key, but often neglected, axis of rights, as a critical framework for understanding human relationships with rights, and as a resource for, and challenge to, contemporary programmatic efforts focusing on universalized notions of rights. Understanding or interpreting rights in African settings within the framework defined by contemporary human rights discourse poses steep challenges to making progress in the realization of sexual and reproductive rights.ConclusionsDespite the potential dangers of privileging group rights over individual rights, when important rights are vested in the community; rights, entitlements, and privileges can also be recognized through community experiences, and realized through engagement with communities. Building on communal conceptualizations of rights in order to realize an even wider range of rights remains a largely unexplored strategy which holds promise for the achievement of sexual and reproductive health rights.

Highlights

Modern declarations on human rights have often proceeded without reference to the cultural content of rights, the existence of rights in African indigenous backgrounds, and the embodiment of certain key rights in the community itself
Interpretive ethnography requires inference, even speculation, but these inferences and speculations must be grounded in observation and inquiry, in depth, in situations ... where we have become familiar figures and can be treated casually by our informants” ([7]. p. xii). We build this approach on three sources of data: 1) our continuing ethnographic work among two distinct ethnic groups in southeastern Nigeria – the Ubang and the Igbo; 2) informal conversational interviews with individuals from a range of African countries (the informal conversational interview – referred to as ‘ethnographic interviewing’ – “relies entirely on the spontaneous generation of questions in the natural flow of an interaction, often as part of ongoing participant observation fieldwork” ([8]. p342)); and 3) a review of relevant literature based on African cultures which is useful in explaining some of the issues we raise
We have invariably worked independently, we have soon discovered that we were asking similar questions: How are rights constituted indigenously, and how important are local constructions of sexuality, gender, the body, and belonging in informing the realization of rights and entitlements in local Nigerian cultures? In this paper, we draw on the data which we have collected from these two cultural contexts to discuss the framing of rights and freedoms, and the implications of these constructions for pursuing the current sexual and reproductive health rights agenda

Summary

Introduction

Modern declarations on human rights have often proceeded without reference to the cultural content of rights, the existence of rights in African indigenous backgrounds, and the embodiment of certain key rights in the community itself. The individualized manner in which universal rights are often framed explains much of the controversy in African contexts, which many would describe as more ‘community-oriented’ than ‘individually-oriented’. This takenfor-granted categorization of African and other milieux has begun to be problematized in the literature, This refreshing observation is at the heart of our arguments elsewhere [2], that individual rights in many. African contexts are not stand-alone properties or events They are linked to, and embodied in the community, which often sees the individual as part of it. The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights [3] recognizes the interrelationship between the community and the rights of individuals and peoples. Rights are often simultaneously individual and social, the dissimilar weights assigned to each of these in varying contexts highlight the need for more culturally-sensitive approaches to the realization of rights in different societies

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