Cultural Studies of Rights: Critical Articulations
A Special Issue for Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies
Special Issue Editor: John Nguyet Erni
In this special issue, we hope to explore a central question: in the
(re)turn to distributive, recognition, and representational justice, how
will cultural studies and critical communication studies critically
articulate with human rights as a global professional,
interdisciplinary, and humanitarian practice?
There are two conjunctural developments that help us to ascertain the
significance of a necessary encounter between cultural studies and human
rights. First, the new and persistent atrocities linked to state and
inter-state violence, including prison torture, poverty, epidemics, (war
on) terrorism, genocide, and various forms of exploitation in global
capitalism, have precipitated new social movements and forms of struggle
that act in consultation with international human rights law. To these
movements, cultural studies has had limited institutional, dialogic, or
procedural connection/collaboration. Second, from a communication
perspective, the legal field of human rights has been engaging in a
critical response to judicial and extra-judicial reform issues at the
national and international levels through deconstructive tactics. Some
have explicitly or implicitly referenced the theories and philosophical
assumptions associated with cultural studies and communication, and thus
offered a critical reassessment of theories of power, governmentality,
subject formation, and institutions. In turn, however, cultural studies
and communication have advanced with only a marginal (if often
skeptical) concern with a "theory of rights" within cultural struggles.
In this special issue, we hope to consider the conditions of
possibility, theoretically as well as strategically, for overcoming the
apparent non-correspondence between culture/communication and rights, or
between culture/communication and law.
We seek essays that consider any of the following possibilities:
l engaging with a range of international debates about, and critiques
of, human rights from a critical cultural studies perspective
l considering the advantages, limitations, and paradoxes brought about
by the theoretical and strategic possibilities of inserting human rights
legal discourse into cultural studies and communication studies
l developing a critical assessment of selected areas of scholarship
relevant to the human rights study of speech, visuality, gender,
sexuality, ethnic nationalism, intersectionality, and so on
l considering how rights can be promoted, and violations monitored and
challenged, through an analysis of the institutional arrangements and
procedures that give rise to various forms of political identities,
actors, events, and outcomes
l theorizing the notion of "normative power" and its associated
benchmarkable standards of justice, which might be put to pragmatic use
for the benefit of the injured
l remapping the various institutional sites of power that influence
rights, and therefore expanding our scope of analysis to include the
police, the courts, constitutions, and comparative law
l considering how we can work with those sites of power to open up a
space for a counter-hegemonic challenge, for building up capillary power
in Foucault's sense
l envisaging critical work that orients more toward the advancement of
cases rather than projects. In other words, how can we bring cases of
injustice to somewhere relevant? Can cultural studies find its way into
institutional spaces where cases can be heard, and not merely critiqued
and deconstructed?
In sum, we hope that this special issue will be an opportunity for us to
ask: how can cultural critique as a political exercise move us to an
intellectual condition for an advancement of actionable justice, backed
by institutional analysis and participation? Or, how can we move from
projects of "resistance to" into cases of "resistance for"?
Essays will be no more than 9,000 words, written with Chicago style.
Authors are requested to send ONLY an abstract of 500-1000 words to the
special issue editor via email (johnerni@ln.edu.hk
<mailto:johnerni@ln.edu.hk>) by May 30, 2009. The special issue editor
will sort out all submissions and then invite those suitable for the
special issue to submit full-length papers.
Send all inquiries and submissions to Special Issue Editor:
John Nguyet Erni
Professor
Department of Cultural Studies
Lingnan University
Tun Muen, N.T.
Hong Kong
Email: johnerni@ln.edu.hk <mailto:johnerni@ln.edu.hk>
