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(Re)Framing the Subject(s) of Rights

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Human Rights Literacies

Part of the book series: Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Rights ((CHREN,volume 2))

Abstract

This chapter explores the shifting content of the concept subject (of rights). Although by common assumption the subjects of rights are “all members of the human family”, the divisive ontological and epistemological in(ex)clusionary premise of human rights points to the contrary. The critique of the subject of rights concerns questions regarding what the content of the concept subject is, and how the subject comes into existence. It also questions the privileging of the enlightenment humanist human as pre-existing subject and the privileging of the historic western epistemological framework. The chapter traces the subject of rights as premised particularly on the identity of the enlightenment western male, its metamorphoses into citizen, into human (rights) during the 1940s, and, in recent years, into victim. I argue that becoming subjects of rights is enacted through human rights literacies and processes of political and pedagogical subjectification. I conclude that the ongoing critique and the suspicion of the content of the concept subject (of rights), might open possibilities for the continual (re)framing of the subjects of rights in becoming.

… recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world

Preamble Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) (http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/.)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In this chapter I distinguish between the not-human (as the categorised sub-human related to race, ethnicity, gender, class and other classifications) and the non-human. The non-human turn does not make claims to teleology or progress but focuses on the inseparability of human and non-human. It critiques the dualisms constructed between humans, animals, organisms, plants, climate systems, affectivity, materiality and technological systems (Grusin, 2015, p. 3).

  2. 2.

    As illustration, Wolfe (2010), referencing Bostrom, argues that transhumanism has its roots in rational humanism. Wolfe (2010) regards transhumanism as an intensification of humanism. Transhumanism, Garreau (in Wolfe, 2010) poses, aims to enhance human intellectual, physical and emotional capabilities within an engineered evolution of ‘post-humans’. Posthumanism, Wolfe (2010) however advocates, is not an ‘after’ humanism but an opposition to the fantasies of disembodiment and autonomy.

  3. 3.

    This term should not be confused with a police force, as the word commonly refers to in English and French. The police or police order refers to the overall distribution of the sensible which precludes the emergence of politics. Police or the police order is therefore not in essence used to indicate oppression but indicates a totalising account of the population by assigning a title, role or position to each member of the population. It also determines in(ex)clusion (Ranciére, 2012, p. 89). In Greek society, for example, women, slaves and barbarians had determined roles and positions and were therefore included in society but were not allowed participation and therefore were simultaneously excluded from political spaces (Ranciére, 2015, p. 86). Better or worse police orders are indicated by the extent to which the order is open to breaches, dissensus and contestations (Ranciére, 2012, p. 89).

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  1. Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

    Anne Becker

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    Cornelia Roux  & Anne Becker  & 

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Becker, A. (2019). (Re)Framing the Subject(s) of Rights. In: Roux, C., Becker, A. (eds) Human Rights Literacies. Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Rights, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99567-0_2

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