Transnational Human Rights and Local Activism: Mapping the Middle

Merry, Sally Engle

doi:10.1007/978-94-007-4710-4_10

Cited by 94 publications

(160 citation statements)

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“…An established literature on the role of intermediaries suggests that they modify, transform or even bypass institutional rules in the course of doing their jobs (Merry, 2006; Portes, 2006). Scant attention has been paid to the work of HIV counselors, however, who as intermediaries directly link the policies and programs of global AIDS interventions to their intended beneficiaries.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Working outside of the box: How HIV counselors in Sub-Saharan Africa adapt Western HIV testing norms

Angotti

2010

Social Science & Medicine

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The delivery of HIV counseling and testing programs throughout Sub-Saharan Africa relies on the work performed by trained HIV counselors. These individuals occupy a critical position: they are intermediaries between the rule-making of international and national policymakers, and the norms of the communities in which they live and work. This paper explains when, how and why HIV counselors adapt Western testing guidelines (the ‘3Cs’- consent, confidentiality and counseling) to local concerns, attempting to maintain the fidelity of testing principles, while reducing the harm they perceive may arise as a consequence of strict adherence to them. Data for this study come from Malawi: a poor, largely rural African country, where HIV prevalence is ranked 9th highest in the world. The analysis is based on 25 interviews with HIV counselors and a unique set of field journals, and captures local experiences and the moral quandaries that counselors in rural Sub-Saharan Africa face. The findings of this inquiry provide new insights into the implementation of HIV testing in rural African settings, insights that may guide HIV prevention policy.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Working outside of the box: How HIV counselors in Sub-Saharan Africa adapt Western HIV testing norms

Angotti

2010

Social Science & Medicine

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“…Merry's (2006a) investigation of the Convention to End All Forms of Discrimination against Women focused on the ways that elites translate between the vernacular language of duties and responsibilities and the global language of human rights. In particular, the language of rights has proved a powerful framework for social justice movements, especially since the end of the Cold War.…”

Section: Law Culture and Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

“…As anthropologists turn their attention to these transnational legal orders, they have expanded and further developed ethnographic methods to analyze intersecting legal orders on multiple scales through 'multisited' ethnography (Marcus, 1995;Merry, 2006b). Multisited ethnography, including sites that are vertically connected local and global spaces, enables anthropologists to explore the many ways in which both separate legal orders and the 'local' and 'global' are not opposing entities, but rather mutually constitutive social fields.…”

Section: Legal Pluralismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Law: Anthropological Aspects

Merry

Canfield

2015

International Encyclopedia of the Social &Amp; Behavioral Sciences

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Anthropologists approach law as a form of normative ordering that includes rules and processes. The anthropology of law has evolved significantly from viewing law as a measure of civilization and savagery to understanding law as an emergent cultural feature and form of power. Contemporary anthropologists investigate law ethnographically, by looking at disputes in spaces that lack formal legal institutions and codified law, as well as in the institutional sites where law is produced. Plural legal orders, each invested with particular modes of authority, are seen as a feature of all societies. With the growth of globalization and transnational law, anthropology has extended its scope to explore the dialectical interaction between these multiscalar forms of law.

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“…Among the variety of proposals that deal with the topic of migration, it is transnationalism (Basch et al 1994) that, as a theoretical and methodological position, questions neoclassical economist theories and national or nationalist models of research. We have been exposed over the last decades to other areas of interest such as studies and interventions around human rights (Wilson and Mitchell 2003;Merry 2006;Goodale and Merry 2007) or activism in postcolonial political movements (Cunningham 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropology and Initiation of Teachers' Training

Sánchez¹

2013

Anthropology in Action

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PrefaceI am currently working as a professor in the School of Education at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, where students are preparing to become teachers or pursuing graduate degrees in education. However, my initial training was in anthropology, a field in which I worked very actively for the first several years of my career. When I had to make a professional shift and started my work as professor in the area of Education, particularly in the training of teachers, I had to 're-invent' myself. Now my job was not only anthropology, but the training of teachers as well. In this professional transition, my own anthropological knowledge and training was what helped me navigate through the challenges of new professional tasks, where anthropology is not part of the curriculum. Likewise, anthropology has also coloured my career as educator; sometimes as major provider of feedback and sometimes as inspiration to articulate my initial profession within my role as educator as a way to unify both fields in research agendas and productive pedagogies in the classroom.Here I show how anthropology has provided some of the fundamental principles underlying my tasks and pedagogical strategies as professor in the area of the Didáctica de las Ciencias Sociales (Teaching of Social Sciences) at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Therefore, this study aims at demonstrating ways of doing anthropology by those who practice anthropology in different professional arenas; it is also my goal to show how to benefit from the anthropological field by using its knowledge in contexts where the discipline is not explicitly present, such as in the initial training of teachers.ABSTRACT: This article explores the pedagogical strategies of applying anthropology in the field of Education, particularly in the initial training courses for teachers. It shows a way of doing applied anthropology by anthropologists who work as non-anthropologists but use their anthropological training and knowledge in their work. This study presents anthropology as a productive discipline in promoting different perspectives for the analysis and understanding of the social phenomena which, used in the classroom, facilitates students in training as educators to critically approach the fundamentals of Education as much as the processes of teaching and learning. Ultimately, this article points out how the shifts in Education students' perspectives instigated by the use of anthropology in the classroom might eventually lead to changes in education policies.

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Transnational Human Rights and Local Activism: Mapping the Middle

Cited by 94 publications

References 0 publications

Working outside of the box: How HIV counselors in Sub-Saharan Africa adapt Western HIV testing norms

Working outside of the box: How HIV counselors in Sub-Saharan Africa adapt Western HIV testing norms

Law: Anthropological Aspects

Anthropology and Initiation of Teachers' Training

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