Archana Pandya – författare

Human rights organizations have grown exponentially across the globe, particularly in the global South, and the term human rights is now common parlance among politicians and civil society activists. While debates about human rights are waged in elite circles, what do publics in the global South think about human rights ideas and the organizations that promote them?Drawing on large-scale public opinion surveys and interviews with human rights practitioners in India, Mexico, Morocco, and Nigeria, Taking Root finds that most people are in fact broadly supportive of human rights discourse, trust local human rights groups, and do not view human rights as a tool of foreign powers. However, this general public support isn''t grounded in strong commitments of public engagement, money, or local ties to the human rights sector. Publics in the global South do donate to charitable causes and organizations but rarely give to local rights groups, and these organizations must instead seek aid from foreign sources.As the most informative and comprehensive account of public perceptions of human rights available across several regions of the world, Taking Root challenges a number of accepted truths held by human rights supporters and skeptics alike.

Human rights organizations have grown exponentially across the globe, particularly in the global South, and the term human rights is now common parlance among politicians and civil society activists. As international donors pour money into global human rights promotion, some governments, scholars, activists, and other critics fear a subtle, Western-led campaign for political, economic, and cultural domination. While debates about human rights are waged in elite circles, what do publics in the global South think about human rights ideas and the organizations that promote them? Drawing on large-scale public opinion surveys and interview with human rights practioners in India, Mexico, Morocco, and Nigeria, Taking Root finds that most people are in fact broadly supportive of human rights discourse, trust local human rights groups, and do not view human rights as a tool of foreign powers. Pro-human rights constituencies also tend to be highly skeptical of the U.S. government, multinational corporations, and their own governments. However, this general public support for human rights isn't grounded in strong commitments of public engagement, money, or local ties to the human rights sector. Publics in the global South do donate to charitable causes and organizations, but rarely give to local rights groups. Rights organizations instead seek aid from foreign sources, an increasingly untenable strategy as foreign aid to civil society declines. The book also describes the complex relations between religiosity and support for human rights as faith communities, worldviews, and traditions strongly influence the public's views of human rights, but often in contradictory ways. As the most informative and comprehensive account available of public perceptions of human rights across several regions of the world, Taking Root will challenge a number of accepted truths held by human rights supporters and skeptics alike.

Human rights organizations have grown exponentially across the globe, particularly in the global South, and the term human rights is now common parlance among politicians and civil society activists. As international donors pour money into global human rights promotion, some governments, scholars, activists, and other critics fear a subtle, Western-led campaign for political, economic, and cultural domination. While debates about human rights are waged in elite circles, what do publics in the global South think about human rights ideas and the organizations that promote them? Drawing on large-scale public opinion surveys and interview with human rights practioners in India, Mexico, Morocco, and Nigeria, Taking Root finds that most people are in fact broadly supportive of human rights discourse, trust local human rights groups, and do not view human rights as a tool of foreign powers. Pro-human rights constituencies also tend to be highly skeptical of the U.S. government, multinational corporations, and their own governments. However, this general public support for human rights isn't grounded in strong commitments of public engagement, money, or local ties to the human rights sector. Publics in the global South do donate to charitable causes and organizations, but rarely give to local rights groups. Rights organizations instead seek aid from foreign sources, an increasingly untenable strategy as foreign aid to civil society declines. The book also describes the complex relations between religiosity and support for human rights as faith communities, worldviews, and traditions strongly influence the public's views of human rights, but often in contradictory ways. As the most informative and comprehensive account available of public perceptions of human rights across several regions of the world, Taking Root will challenge a number of accepted truths held by human rights supporters and skeptics alike.

Human rights organizations have grown exponentially across the globe, particularly in the global South, and the term human rights is now common parlance among politicians and civil society activists. While debates about human rights are waged in elite circles, what do publics in the global South think about human rights ideas and the organizations that promote them?Drawing on large-scale public opinion surveys and interviews with human rights practitioners in India, Mexico, Morocco, and Nigeria, Taking Root finds that most people are in fact broadly supportive of human rights discourse, trust local human rights groups, and do not view human rights as a tool of foreign powers. However, this general public support isn''t grounded in strong commitments of public engagement, money, or local ties to the human rights sector. Publics in the global South do donate to charitable causes and organizations but rarely give to local rights groups, and these organizations must instead seek aid from foreign sources.As the most informative and comprehensive account of public perceptions of human rights available across several regions of the world, Taking Root challenges a number of accepted truths held by human rights supporters and skeptics alike.

This book collects and analyzes a repertoire of responses by human rights organizations to the crackdown against civil society in the populist context. Written by scholars and advocates in challenging political settings from around the world, this book offers ideas and inspiration to their peers in the human rights community who are grappling with and resisting the erosion of democracy and rights.This collection takes two steps towards clearing the path for this civil society transformation. First, it clarifies the specific challenges to human rights raised by contemporary populist regimes and movements. What is the populist playbook against human rights? Second, it contributes to documenting and learning from a wealth of initiatives by human rights actors. What innovations are human rights actors introducing into their strategies and narratives to counter those of populist regimes? In short, what is the human rights playbook against populism?From meticulous documentation of abuses in Turkey to more grassroots forms of social networking in Hungary, from peace caravans in India to finding new ways of being useful under 21st century dictatorships in Venezuela, like war correspondents reporting from the trenches, our authors step forward to share their own continuing struggles to help their communities.Based on evidence from populist governments in India, Venezuela, Hungary, Turkey, Russia, the United States, and Ecuador—as well as crackdowns against civil society in South Africa, Egypt and other countries—this volume provides hope, solidarity, and reinvigoration for the human rights movement.

What does justice mean in times of transition? What kinds of possibilities and dissapointments emerge from processes of seeking justice through transition? How might we understand these processes through narrative?In August 2015, a group of Global South human rights activists and researchers gathered in Colombia for a workshop organized around the theme of transitional justice. This book, the third in a series, is the result of the discussions performed in that encounter.The chapters in this volume illustrate many complexities of transitional justice processes from the perspective of young human rights advocates involved in these struggles, many with their own complicated personal connections to the search for justice. These advocates hail from countries that have divergent relationships with the notion of transitional justice, from places deeply embedded in its norms and processes, such as Argentina and Colombia, to countries undergoing various kinds of transitions on very different terms, such as Turkey and Mexico. All of the chapters, however, write the messiness of seeking justice through transitions, spanning from the personal and intimate to the national and global.Together, these chapters beautifully illustrate both the pain and the political possibilities that come from the inability to leave history in the past, as well as the creativity of individual and collective efforts to seek justice through transitions. They also demonstrate the beauty of speaking, working, and writing justice from the hear.