Paper/Proposal Title

Mrs. Human Rights Stays at Home

Presenter/Author Information

Lena Khor, Lawrence University

Location

River Campus Room M2005

Start Date

10-4-2013 1:00 PM

Abstract

Makau wa Mutua has argued that human rights and humanitarian narratives typically follow a savage-victim-savior metaphor, wherein the savage is a leader or cultural practice in an underdeveloped country that renders its people victims by abusing their rights. These victims are in need of saving by human rights and humanitarian workers or laws from developed countries. While this metaphor is accurate, it overlooks a key figure critical to the social practice of human rights and humanitarianism – the wives, daughters, mothers, and partners of these human rights and humanitarian saviors. This figure, often a female, is left behind to manage the responsibilities of her domestic, family, and professional life while her husband, father, son, or partner fights for a public cause abroad. To date, the roles and experiences of these women have been understudied. To address this gap, I analyze relevant selections from key human rights literary works (Anil’s Ghost, What is the What, Burmese Lessons). Attending to these selections that show women managing their relationship to the causes to which their loved ones are dedicated highlight how the public occupations and private lives of men and women collide in this field. In so doing, these selections underscore how vital these women are to the work of human rights, even if they are not human rights workers themselves. This analysis also spotlights the, hitherto overlooked, domestic cost of international human rights abuses and the domestic toll of the social practice of redressing them.

Comments

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Oct 4th, 1:00 PM

Mrs. Human Rights Stays at Home

River Campus Room M2005

Makau wa Mutua has argued that human rights and humanitarian narratives typically follow a savage-victim-savior metaphor, wherein the savage is a leader or cultural practice in an underdeveloped country that renders its people victims by abusing their rights. These victims are in need of saving by human rights and humanitarian workers or laws from developed countries. While this metaphor is accurate, it overlooks a key figure critical to the social practice of human rights and humanitarianism – the wives, daughters, mothers, and partners of these human rights and humanitarian saviors. This figure, often a female, is left behind to manage the responsibilities of her domestic, family, and professional life while her husband, father, son, or partner fights for a public cause abroad. To date, the roles and experiences of these women have been understudied. To address this gap, I analyze relevant selections from key human rights literary works (Anil’s Ghost, What is the What, Burmese Lessons). Attending to these selections that show women managing their relationship to the causes to which their loved ones are dedicated highlight how the public occupations and private lives of men and women collide in this field. In so doing, these selections underscore how vital these women are to the work of human rights, even if they are not human rights workers themselves. This analysis also spotlights the, hitherto overlooked, domestic cost of international human rights abuses and the domestic toll of the social practice of redressing them.