Anthropological Exploration of the Contention and Cooperation in International Rights Policies

本研究旨在了解围绕权利的国际政策是如何在世界决策者之间演变的。随着全球交流使以前互不联系的群体更加紧密地联系在一起，关于权利的辩论成为理解国家间稳定政治和经济关系的先决条件的焦点。这个项目特别关注农民，这个群体在历史上构成了文化人类学文献的主体。联合国于2007年通过了一项具有里程碑意义的《土著权利宣言》，目前正在采取行动，加强对占全球人口三分之一的农民、小农和无地劳动者的人权保护。随着2012年新的联合国政府间农民权利宣言工作组的成立，跨国土地运动希望效仿土著运动。本项目的问题包括：(1)农民权利进程如何反映和/或促进规范的演变？(2)农民利益攸关方及其盟友如何在政府间工作组中发出自己的声音，并制定战略影响其活动？(3)工作组将给联合国带来哪些体制变革？(4)自从他们发起一项新的人权文书运动以来，对人权的理解发生了怎样的变化？在审议《农民权利宣言》的所有关键时期，该项目在日内瓦采用文献研究、重要线人访谈和密集的参与者观察。新的工作组为观察人类学内外人权学术的核心进程提供了难得的机会。它为以下三个学术领域做出了贡献：(1)有争议的政治和跨国社会运动；(2)人权人类学；(3)联合国人类学和民间社会如何影响全球治理的研究。这项研究通过增进我们对国际合作演变的理解，具有广泛的社会影响。该项目还通过让来自代表性不足群体的本科生和研究生参与数据分析，扩大了代表性不足群体在STEM学科中的参与。

This study seeks to understand how international policy surrounding rights evolves among world policymakers. As global communication brings previously disconnected groups closer together, debates about rights are a focal point for understanding the preconditions for stable political and economic relationships between nations. This project focuses specifically on peasants, a group which has historically made up a bulk of the literature in cultural anthropology. The UN approved a landmark Declaration on Indigenous Rights in 2007 and is now moving to strengthen human rights protections for the one-third of the global population that consists of peasants, small farmers, and landless laborers. With the creation in 2012 of a new UN Intergovernmental Working Group on a Peasants' Rights Declaration, transnational agrarian movements hope to follow the example of the indigenous movements. This project's questions include: (1) How does the peasants' rights process reflect and/or contribute to norms evolution? (2) How do peasant stakeholders and their allies make their voices heard in the Intergovernmental Working Group and strategize to influence its activities? (3) What institutional changes in the UN will emerge from the Working Group? And (4) how have understandings of human rights changed since they initiated the campaign for a new rights instrument? The project employs documentary research, key informant interviews, and intensive participant observation in Geneva during all key periods when the peasants' rights Declaration is under consideration. The new Working Group provides an extraordinary opportunity to observe processes that are central to human rights scholarship in and outside of anthropology. It contributes to three bodies of scholarship: (1) contentious politics and transnational social movements; (2) the anthropology of human rights; and (3) the anthropology of the UN and research on how civil society influences global governance.This research has broad societal impacts through enhancing our understanding of the evolution of international cooperation. The project also broadens participation of underrepresented groups in a STEM discipline by involving undergraduate and graduate students from underrepresented groups in the analysis of data.