Rights: Rethinking theory and practice

Whether seeking to protect civil right of citizens or fighting for broader social economic rights, the focus of social movements generally has been state-centred and legalist. While this understanding has served in the last five decades to empower citizens there is a need today to rethink the emancipatory potential of rights as they are conceived by cotemporary social movements. The following set of five papers was written in response to this position paper, around which a conference, Culture, Rights and the Culture of Rights, was organised at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in March 1996.