Druckfrisch – Globalisierungsstudien und europäische Geschichte: The Rise and Fall of Human Rights. Cynicism and Politics in Occupied Palestine

Overview

What are the basic rights of humans, who defines and protects them and what agency do the victims have? These questions are, more than ever, the focus of political and academic discussions today, particularly with regard to the refugee crisis in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The SOAS-based anthropologist Lori Allen, an expert on the Middle East, has, in her book, focused on these and other questions with regard to the situation in occupied Palestine since 1979. She has investigated the field of human rights in the region and its protagonists: NGOs, government agencies, activists, and, not least, the victims. She argues that the human rights industry has become an object of cynicism for many Palestinians after it failed to secure independence. But, far from indicating apathy, such cynicism generates a productive critique of domestic politics and of Western interventionism. This book highlights the successes and failures of the Palestinians’ varied engagements with human rights in their quest for independence.

In a conversation with Gilad Ben-Nun (Leipzig U, Germany/ U Verona, Italy) – an historian who was, for a long time, active in international organizations in the Middle East – Lori Allen presents her book The Rise and Fall of Human Rights. Cynicism and Politics in Occupied Palestine, which was published in 2013 by Stanford University Press.

Author

Dr. Lori Allen (School of Oriental and African Studies, London, UK)
Lori Allen is a senior lecturer in anthropology (Near and Middle East) at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology of the London School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). She studied anthropology at the University of Chicago, where she obtained her BA, MA as well as PhD. Her work focuses on Palestinian politics, and she has published on topics such as the anthropology of nationalism, violence, gender, and human rights. She is currently engaged in a historical ethnographic inquiry into the political practices and discourses framed by the concepts of rights and suffering in Palestinian politics, from the 1920s to the present.

Moderator

Dr. Gilad Ben-Nun (University of Verona, Italy)
Gilad Ben-Nun is a senior researcher at the Centre for Area Studies of Leipzig University (Germany) as well as a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Verona (Italy). He studied history and philosophy at the University of Jerusalem (Israel) and worked for the United Nations in Geneva from 2001 to 2008. His research deals with migration, the history of international law, as well as regional security and peace building in the Middle East.