Human Rights Discourse in the Post-9/11 Age (eBook)

Kanishka Chowdhury is Professor of English and Director of the Program in American Culture and Difference at the University of St. Thomas, MN, USA. His first book, The New India: Citizenship, Subjectivity, and Economic Liberalization, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2011.

1. Introduction: Reading Rights Discourse in a Transnational EconomyHuman Rights Discourse in Our TimeConstructing Human Rights DiscourseHuman Rights Discourse and Wealth AccumulationOverview of the Argument2. Historicizing Rights Discourse Post-9/11IntroductionDecolonization and the Universal Declaration of Human RightsFetishizing the Politics of Development in the Declarations of the 1990sThe Post-9/11 Landscape of Rights: A Critical ConsiderationNeoliberalism and Rights Discourse3. Workers’ Rights, Exploitation, and the Transactional MomentIntroductionOppression and Exploitation: Some DifferencesMarx’s Analysis of the Injustice of Wage LaborUnsettling the Morality of Rights and RegulationsConclusion4. Gender Rights and the Politics of EmpowermentIntroductionEmpowerment and NeoliberalismNGOs and the Construction of “Civil Society”Microcredit: Empowerment and DebtNirantar, Gender Rights, and the Challenges of Transformative WorkConclusion5. “Tomorrow There Will Be More of Us: Rights Discourse, The State, and Toxic Capitalism in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s PeopleIntroductionThe State and the Struggle for RightsContextualizing Animal’s People in Neoliberal TimesThe Bhopal Disaster and its AftermathLiterature and the Language of Human Rights“Hope is Not a Fiction”: Interrogating Rights Discourse in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s PeopleConclusion6. Refugees’ Rights: Capital, Óscar Martínez’s The Beast, Gianfranco Rosi’s Fuocoammare, and the “Problem” of the Surplus PopulationIntroductionSeeking Refuge in a Global ContextÓscar Martínez’s The Beast: Inciting Rage, Generating Respect“Beyond the Reach of Political Discourse”: Gianfranco Rosi’s FuocoammareThe “Problem” of the Surplus PopulationDesignating “Crisis,” Fixing BordersConclusionChapter 7/Conclusion