There are not many books dealing with the topic of postcolonialism and human rights, which makes this recent publication particularly interesting. The volume, Reworking Postcolonialism, discusses human rights and postcolonial discourses in the context of globalisation. There are four main themes: (1) Globalisation, Modernities and Other Histories, (2) Globalisation, Labour and Work, (3) Globalisation, Labour and Citizenship, (4) Globalisation, Rights and Citizenship.
Some of the chapters:
- Once Were Internationalists? Postcolonialism, Disenchanted Solidarity and the Right to Belong in a World of Globalized Modernity
- Urban Poverty and Homelessness in the International Postcolonial World
- Discoursing on Slums: Representing the Cosmopolitan Subaltern
- Human Rights, Security and Global Political Hinduism
- Postcolonial and Settler Colonial Studies Offer Human Rights a Revised Agenda
As mentioned in the book: both postcolonial and human rights discourses address human suffering in search of justice. But each has its own theorists, archives and spheres of engagement. If human rights imaginaries consider victims, perpetrators, duty bearers and rights holders, postcolonials studies scrutinize the colonizers and the colonized people.
In my view, relating human rights to postcolonial discourses implies, thus, examining at least two things: the asymmetrical power relations, and the collision of global and local spheres.