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This article made me reflect on the consequence that boys and girls might have on prostituting. They are at high risk of catching many infectious diseases such as contradicting HIV. Furthermore, they are likely to have serious long-term mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and mental disorders.  The horrendous thing is that  the Western is still  taking advantage from those less fortunate. (in this specific case pedopheles, that would never do such kind of thing in their country due to severe punishment) For how long will it be like this?
Stefania

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It was shocking for me to become informed about the nature of this particular child prostitution system through this source. It is heartbreaking to read that these children got into this business so early that they obviously do not even really understand what is happening to them. I can easily imagine that these acts provided for the guests' money only manifest in inconvenience for them, and they do not regard it as horrible of a situation as it truly is. By no means do I aim to lessen the significance of these matters by stating that possessing no understanding, most of the mentioned children do not acknowledge the actual relations between them and their clients. It is quite a severe signal in terms of the actual harm being done to them that some of them are already doing drugs under the age of ten. It is difficult to evaluate the parents' contribution in the existence of this phenomenon. It is safe to say that they do possess a throughout understanding of sexuality unlike their children do, but due to their culture they probably underestimate the hazards of engaging in such an activity. On the one hand, they do recognize the risks and long-term implications of their children working in this way, at least to some extent. On the other hand they are in dire need of financial support, and they might not be able to even feed most of their children, should they not be working as well. And one may argue that at least they could do something else for a living, but the source depicts well that other "jobs" can have so bad short-term consequences besides earning five times less, that it can be classified as a somewhat rational decision to opt for prostitution instead. In my opinion the parents' involved had collectively made a decision about their approach towards the early lives of their children a long ago. They concluded (or better to say that the trajectory of their history did) that there is no other way of survival other than letting their children do all these kinds of dirty work, as they themselves could not provide enough resources to keep them alive otherwise. This paired with my assumption that they do not regard child prostitution as such an inhuman or dangerous activity - even with the prohibitive voices of the western civilization and the governance of their own country reaching them, the surrounding culture has a stronger grip on their thinking - can altogether provide some sort of an explanation about why did they go down this path.

Andrew

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Something that interested me from this article and which came up in the other articles and the lecture as well, was the role of the law in stripping human rights of their social element.

I was particularly intrigued by the idea of “rights as culture”, where the law itself creates a social space. Human rights and written laws presume a subjectivity, an element of choice, or the ability to exit a culture (with culture being static). Whereas, identities and subjectivities cannot be easily regulated or confined within discourse, with laws trying to make identities “sites for regulation”.

I was intrigued by Strathern’s point that human rights should take into account the way that people “visualise themselves as carried by other persons… by their relations to others”, rather than as identifiable individuals, who can make simple choices.
Izzi B

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I found Montgomery’s argument about the need for a more holistic approach to rights convincing. Approaching the issue of exploitation of children with the mindset of cutting off the head to get rid of the headache (by invoking Article 34) does little in dealing with structural causes of issues and indeed, decontextualises the problem entirely. The piece effectively fleshes out the complexities that are intrinsic to an issue that is seems outwardly simple; one may naturally assume that a parent who implicitly pushes their child into prostitution is deserving of condemnation, but Montgomery highlights how notions of kinship and filial piety tie child and parent (and wider community) into a bind of mutual (well Montgomery says that its mutual, I wasn’t totally sure what mothers are obligated to do besides having given birth) obligation which complicates the matter significantly

I did find it strange that at one point, Montgomery essentialises ‘children in developing countries’ – that they have ‘always worked, have always married and have always had children younger than Western peers’ and then goes on to condemn generalisations about children/the childhood experience, acknowledging age, gender and positionality within families as important factors to consider, but failing to mention or consider class.
- Ayesha

Response to Ayesha by Anu: Good pick Ayesha on how Montgomery essentializes while standing against universalization. Thanks for helping me seeing it this way.

Response to Ayesha by Sheu Jeen:
Agree with Anu, well-spotted on the generalisation about children in developing countries! Also, we can draw parallels with Archambault's article on Ester and the Maasai community, whereby her father was condemned as "patriarchal" and "traditional" for arranging an early marriage for her, when upon deeper analysis his decision was made due to a lack of economic options and lack of trust in the state system for education and welfare - very similar to the case of the mothers in Baan Nua.

Response to Ayesha (and Anu) by Jennifer: Although the criticism that Montgomery characterisation of childhood in Africa can be seen as ‘essentialising’, her point is arguably to draw attention to the fact that the concept of childhood as an extended period of protected freedom during which the ‘child’ has rights but no responsibilities is a highly Western-centric view.

Response to Ayesha
I really enjoyed reading your bit which does a great job of highlighting the vast generalisation or "essentialising" that has been present in a lot of developing countries. We get to see how how child rights are pre-established and hence essentialism plays an important role here to demonstrate how a traditional approach is taken but concurrently questions generalisation and cultural norms.

-Enakshi

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I found Montgomery's rejection of the universal application of human rights compelling. However, I took issue with her conclusion that human rights should be subject to consent by the individual to which they apply. I would suggest that for consent to be valid, it must be derived from an actor who is fully informed and who has perfect knowledge of the right that they either accept or reject and the impact that it will subsequently have on their access to additional rights. I question the extent to which this perfect knowledge required for valid consent is always achievable.
- Claudia

Response to Claudia by Bo Yang:
Just one clue came up into my mind is about the accounts about freedom discussed by Foucault. Probably the children are really hard to be perceived as fully informed or empowered. It is so far for children could equip themselves with enough 'truth' from regimes, lacking of enough 'reflection' on surrounded discourses. Therefore, the ways for getting qualified consent without any intervention or impose from adults seem really ideal after all. Probably the 'humanitarianism' itself is still quite universal that is difficult to correspond with the reality of children.

Bo

Reply to Claudia
Claudia, I did not take the conclusion from Montgomery's piece that human rights should be subject to consent by the individual to which they apply. In my understanding, she argued that the opinions and desires of the child are important and 'should not be dismissed by adults working in the child's best interest, without reference to the child', but that ultimately, the goal of ensuring children's freedom from sexual exploitation should be strived for. She writes that 'Whatever the children said about sex work, they did not have the complete knowledge to make a fully informed decision.' What I understood her conclusion to be was that upholding a right should be done whilst taking into consideration the context of each individual situation, which often requires a more holistic, careful and less obvious solution. She gives the example of removing a child from his or her family because they are being prostituted, and questions whether this would be the right approach. She writes that 'By ensuring that their families could stay together and have a sustainable income, it would be possible to eradicate child prostitution without enforcing punitive measures against their parents,' therefore advocating for upholding the child's right to freedom from sexual exploitation, whilst also respecting the wishes of the child and the family to remain united.

What is missing from this explanation, I thought, was HOW one would ensure the family had a sustainable income that didn't involve child prostitution. Perhaps this would be too large a question to answer in this particular paper- the implication is that wider structural issues of poverty and marginalisation should be addressed. That then becomes a question of how long would this take, and how much psychological damage would the child have to endure before this goal of economic empowerment was achieved, and the child could stop having sex with peadophiles.

I thought this was a really engaging paper that successfully highlighted the issues of applying human rights universally, and challenged the dichotomy between cultural relativism and universal human rights. However, I did find Montgomery's conclusions a little confusing (perhaps I have misinterpreted them?), and I had to read the last section several times to work out what she was arguing.
DORA

Response to Dora by Sheu Jeen:
You raise a good question by asking about solutions, and for how long will the children have to put up with prostitution before these solutions come to pass. The article says in 1993, the Prime Minister ordered a crackdown on child prostitution due to the bad reputation the country was receiving. Without further elaboration I presume this would mean police or legal actions taken against perpetrators (the child sex offenders) and perhaps the parents and children themselves. This made me wonder that if there was enough political will for such an intervention, emphasis should also be given to devising some short-term livelihood options for the families. Otherwise such crackdowns are just targeting the symptoms and not the cause of the problem.

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Recognition of 'rights' - an ethnographic eg 

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Recognition of 'rights' - an ethnographic eg 

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To expand on the Q of rights, it reminded me of a reading I did last year - the case of Southern American cosmopolitics put forward by De La Cadena, who reflects on indigenous political action in Brazil. The ethnography explores how Andean people defended their cultural patrimony in Brazilian's secular politics -  they protested for the inclusion of a Sacred Mountain as a political stakeholder with rights, as they viewed it as real, sentient being. 'Modern' politicians in Brazil disputed this, enforcing the Western nature/culture dichotomy... Drawing it back to the lecture, how dominating ideas on who deserves rights can be limiting, by denying ontological realities, and entrenching epistemological divides - how as anthropologists in development, can we ensure indigenous communities aren't pressured to culturally assimilate? and the need for multi-natural perspectivism in rights/politics discourse
Kitty

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I found Archambault's paper particularly interesting in its thought around the dichotomies often presented when engaging with human rights. The binaries of tradition/modern and victim/violator are broken down through the ethnographic perspective of Ester's case and direct quotations from interviews that present alternative voices that prevent static interpretations. It made me think about specific examples of Maasai women who hold themselves not as victims of patriarchal oppressions but as empowerment figures wanting to be the forefront of change. Women such as Nico Leng'ete who persuaded her grandfather to enable her continue her education and not to marry at a young age. Nico used this as a way to begin educating Maasai people on the harms of FGM and was the first  woman to speak to the Maasai elders committee. I found it particularly interesting that Nico now works with the organisation Amref health Africa in looking for substitute rite of passage ceremonies.

The link to a video of more information about Nico is here -https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-africa-43349594
- Rebecca

In response to Rebecca:
Thanks for providing the link to the work Nico Leng’ete has done around FGM. I particularly liked how she mentioned that the Maasai communities that she has worked with maintained the rest of the circumcision ritual but just removed the harmful aspect, the cut. It goes against this idea of the ‘distinctive subjectivity’ of much human rights discourse and demonstrates that you can be within a community or within the demands of kin and custom and still, of course, make decisions that are in yours and others' best interests.
- Ayesha

Reply to Ayesha and Rebecca:
Likewise, I found the ethnographic insight of the father to expose the modern dichotomy. The "emotionally charged" rhetoric of humanitarian intervention and media exposure of practices such as early child marriage obscure the local meanings and specific contexts. Painting the patriarch father figure as the oppressor ignores the wider economic precarity of Enkop people, and the myriad structural factors shaping the social life. This article conveys the importance of ethnographic approaches and highlights the potential strengths of anthropologists working in development - the call for "debunking ...binary framework" is a relevant claim.
Kitty

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Merry outlines the historical trajectory of shifts in understandings of 'culture'. I suggest the usage of the term 'culture' is always implicated in relations of power and hierarchy, and processes of separation. Socially constructed cultural notions can be wielded to ideologies, an enduring colonial legacy - in early anthropology 'culture' became synonymous with race, to differentiate, deployed as some concrete thing, for example Tyler and theories of evolutionism. Today, as Merry argues, an ethnocentric employment of culture in Human Rights discourse prevails, the deployment of homogenizing cultural binaries flattening  incommensurablility. Merry introduces anthropological understandings of culture, such as Comaroff & Comaroff’s definition of culture as fluid, which links to Geertz and Clifford's definition of culture as symbolic systems, 'a web'. Yet, dominant popular understanding of culture as static is entrenched in coding of Human Rights laws, and hugely problematizing. Merry is critiquing "UNDHR" as "new form of imperialism" , utilizing the example of FGM, arguing the UN rail against 'culture' as fixed thing. The reading concludes that culture is central to human rights practice, the discourse built on ethnocentric binaries, producing and reproducing knowledge that subjucates. Merry posits Human Rrights Lawyers as "rooted in modernity and law and envision culture as the obstacle", the "model of legal rationality" ultimately "incompatbile with celebrating local cultural complexity". Merry argues for integration of anthropological theory, for nuanced approaches.

This connects to Archambault and Montgomery in their calls for structural solutions and contextualizing practices, so we are not reducing the irreducible, defining culture for others. To conclude, I argue there is recurring construction of, and speaking on behalf of the 'other' in HR discourse such as that UN article Archambault describes.

Kitty

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Montgomery lays bare here the inherent complexity of satisfying all the prescribed rights equally. Do we make a value judgment on the order of importance of rights or do we accept the fact that in some cases it may not be possible to satisfy all rights all of the time? The concept of agency was also apparent to me here. Many of the children involved insisted they were not being abused despite clearly being so, do we ignore agency in the name of protection? To me it is obvious we do in this case but there may be more nuanced situations. Ali Butler

Response to Ali by Anu:
Ali, I agree - Montgomery complicates agency well in the article - it was pretty clear that while the children insisted they derived a sense of satisfaction from the fact that they were supporting their families, the fact that they took to drugs during the day or shied away from referring to their work as "prostitution" meant that they shared an underlying unease about it.
And while I'm in full agreement that not all rights can be equally enforced, so naturally some rights need to be prioritized over others, the next obvious question will be who's rights? In this case, is it the child's, the parent's or the communities? And who will do the prioritizing? Difficult questions to answer.

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In pointing out that human right is to be approached through analysis on social context, which is specifically the socio-economic conditions shaping people's behaviors, the author suggests that a generalized concept of human right could become an obstacle rather than a useful tool for us to understand and address human right problems in a  local case. Here the emergence of early marriage is not mostly due to the ideology of patriarchy and traditional culture but is an alternative to education that can better support the daughters' lives. Besides helping us go beyond the dualisms, such analysis, which eliminates ideological illusions through socio-economic investigation, helps us to arrive at a specific, local understanding of human right. In this context, we need a series of institutional change and construction such as a stable public education system, a fair labor market, and a more active government in supporting pastoralism. These may help us build a clearer way towards human right.
Zhenyuan Fang

Response to Zhenyuan Fang:
I agree with your point on how socio-economic factors shape people’s behaviour, because people’s behaviours are reactions to the situational changes that occur in their world as well as preservation. Moreover just to add, it is important to understand how people respond and react to human rights in a local setting, so we do not run the risk of imposing our (western) views and judgements on groups of people without understanding their situation and perspective. We cannot understand others if we are judging them from our own expectation and cultural biases. Archambault makes clear in her ethnography that Anthropologists are essential in evaluating human rights discourse and that  “Legalistic” explanations of human rights abuses does not acknowledge social meanings of such cases as well as ignoring the uncertainties that are central to Human rights injustices.

+Phoebe's Response

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It is clear that there is so much more to cultural traditions than meets the eye, and in order to understand development issues, we must also understand the wider context of the social, economic and political structures, as a society and its culture does not exist in isolation. At the same time, this article raises difficult questions about whether there is a right or wrong, who is to judge, and where to draw the line between respecting a culture and promoting a right. This is especially pertinent in cases where people may be subject to beliefs and practices that endanger their health and life, or “harmful traditional practices” as Merry puts it (e.g. FGM, honour killing, caste systems). Perhaps this is where Chambers’ concept of always asking “Who” and “Whose” comes in handy. Asking “whose voice”, “whose choice” and “who is affected”, can help us to determine which individuals and groups should participate in discussions and decisions on matters that affect their futures and wellbeing.
- Sheu Jeen

Response to Sheu Jeen by Anu:
Interesting Sheu Jeen. I've had Chambers too at the back of my mind through all readings, but the "who's" voices and "who's choice" became doubly problematic for me when I read Montgomery's article on child prostitution in Thailand. Specifically when it comes to children,  will their voice be their own in any real sense? Or will it be what has been passed on to them through their families? The way the children of Baan Nua had internalized a strong sense of kinship and familial duties,  I started to question whether their voice would be but a mirror of their community or would it really be their own? Or is there any difference even between the voice of the children of Baan Nua, and the voice of the community of Baan Nua?

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I appreciated that this piece not only highlights how simplistic notions of female empowerment obscure more complex underlying issues like economic insecurity, but how it also reminds us that women within communities like Maasai have their own agency.  I’m sure we have all seen campaigns similar to the one Archambault includes in her article, where the UNPF describes a scenario in which “young women are cast into the role of innocent victims fighting against the evil intentions of fathers or uncles” (p. 634) as part of a rescue center promotion. The way the UNPF and rescue centers present themselves as many young girls’ only hope to having self-determination minimizes the grassroots efforts made by women in the Global South; they are not necessarily waiting around for Western NGOs to come in and impose our version of feminism to help them take action.

I realize that this was not the main focus of her piece, but as she provided a nuanced explanation as to why early marriage cannot always be simply chalked up to female oppression, I do wish Archambault had expanded more on how/why it is nonetheless always the daughters who leave the home to be married off for economic prospects, and not the sons. She mentions it is a “product of colonial intervention” (p. 640), but I would be interested to read more on this. - Mahali

Response by Priyanka

I completely agree and support the argument Mahali has covered above. It infact ties in well with the concept of cultural liberty (capability and right of people to live and be what they are) as covered by Cowan . Currently it seems that including human rights and culture as basis to design developmental policy take a libertarian paternalistic approach, similar to behavioural economic and nudging. However, ethics of hierarchy  and dehumanization then become concerns. For who is superior to decide and why? or is it just about who holds the power to decide what is the human right? A possible bottom up approach and giving the dignity of choice to the beneficiary could possibly be a more humane and cultural libertarian approach instead. This is where anthropologist could possibly help bridge the gap.

Response by Ali Butler

I completely agree with the above. the common narrative appears to reinforce the saviour story of NGO's. With money flowing in from foreign donors there is the whiff of colonialism and the imposing of supposedly modernised views. Although well intentioned it is clear that the pre determined agenda's of NGO's stifle a more nuanced discourse when it comes to development in the area. It is interesting to note that the age at which circumcision is taking place is falling in the area casting doubt on the idea that its practice is based on an outdated patriarchal tradition as supposed to early marriage being a result of economic and environmental strains that shift the needs of families.

Response to Mahali by Rebecca

It is interesting that you questioned  why it is always the daughters who leave the home to be married off instead of sons. The "trade" of women is not simply an economic transaction (for bride wealth) but is historically and deeply rooted in cultural practice. The idea of gift exchange suggested by Marcel Mauss suggest that exchange has formed the basis for social interaction and Levi-Strauss noted that the exchange of women is an essential principle in kinship systems. These ideas of exchange present women as "the gift" and men as "the giver", such distinction is suggested to keep the woman in her place and suggest the oppression of women is seen as consequence of the relations by which gender and sex are ordered and constructed.
To draw on your point further, gender Maasai relations could be seen as a product of "colonial intervention" as early British rule consolidated the emergence of patriarchy amongst the Maasai. The administrators presumed the Maasai authority figures were the elder men so gave them new rights and responsibilities (gathering tax, imposing livestock judgements) to control junior Maasai men and women. As you are interested to read more I would suggest to read Hodgson (1999) Pastoralism, Patriarchy and History: Changing Gender Relations among Maasai in Tanganyika - I too found it really interesting.

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If I ran into Robert Chambers ever, I would ask him one question – How would you know whether what you are hearing is a voice or an echo?

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If I ran into Robert Chambers ever, I would ask him one question – How would you know whether what you are hearing is a voice or an echo?

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This is a thought that was triggered when I read Montgomery’s article on child prostitution in Thailand. Like many would probably agree, when children enter the picture in any discussion, many of our predominant ways of thinking and knowing somehow are rendered obsolete as we start to look for new ways of understanding or making sense of the world.

After reading Chambers last week, I made a mental note to use “Who’s Voices” as a heuristic for unpacking the power structures that constitute development discourses. But then, reading Montgomery’s article where she, like Chambers, asked for the voices of the children to be at the center of the human rights and child prostitution debate, got me thinking in a different direction. As Montgomery has described, the children and the women of Baan Nua have, through a complex interplay and cultural norms and economic reasons have internalized prostitution, and throughout the text, I heard only this one voice. I couldn’t really separate the voice of the child, from the parent or the grandparent, or the community. In the context of who’s voices, this becomes problematic for me – what if this voice is really an echo that is bouncing off another voice? What if through generations of conditioning, the children are really only echoing what they have seen, heard or learnt. When we know that social conditioning and cultural norms play a significant role in legitimizing power hierarchies, how do we know that this conditioning is not playing out in the “voices” we hear? By legitimizing voices, are we also legitimizing the very power hierarchies we want to dismantle? How can we as anthropologists separate the echo from the voice? It this possible? Is this necessary?

-Anu-

Response by Mahali
You raise some really difficult and important questions, some of which also crossed my mind  in this reading, as well as when reading about female genital mutilation or early marriage. One of the most important lessons anthropologists are taught is to not generalize, and to be critical of statements declared to be universal truths. In this specific context, we could take that to mean that for every individual that does not wish to take part in cultural norms the West sees as exploitative or oppressive, there is an individual that is eager to. As you mentioned, of course, the discourse around “whose voices” becomes extremely more complex when children are involved, as children are widely perceived to lack the capability to act in their own best interests.

I don’t feel qualified to answer the questions you have posed but I think it would certainly require an intersection of critical theory, cultural analysis and extensive, truly inclusive ethnographic fieldwork to get there. As we can see from our readings, there is still much improvement needed in all of these areas, particularly with the "bottom-up" approach that would be necessary for this kind research.

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After reading his article, having read Merry's and Uvin's one first, Montgomery really resonated to me and I went on to have a discussion with a friend who is a lawyer.
After 3 hours of arguing, we realised that we were making the same points, but with different rationale's. While his first reaction was "arrest all the adults involved", I immediately retaliated that thats not how things work. While I did agree that they should be arrested for the cats they were doing, I kept insisting that it wasn't the way to go about the matter, that other options had to be implemented first before tampering with the situation. I do not support child prostitution and I think he believed that for a brief second when I was not matching his anger because I was thinking about the children themselves and how they would realise who is exposing the men to authorities, taking their money and thus making them stop sharing their information.
All in all, lawyers are tiring if you don't think the way they do.
- Riwa

Response to Riwa by Jessica:
I had a similar instinct to your friend when reading the paper - although I was aware the paper's focus was on the children, I couldn't help but wonder what exact policies/articles were in place to hold the western men who exploit the children accountable, as it is a very two sided problem of supply and demand .

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Structural violence - reply to Dora and Claudia

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Structural violence - reply to Dora and Claudia

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I really liked Montgomery's article. It neatly portrays how the national, local, and global intermesh - macro and micro are inextricably linked. With case of child prostitution, need to situate it within wider scope of complex issues, "commerical sexual exploitation of children does not exist in a vacuum". As stated above, the article’s critiques of top-down approaches, and call for move away from punative measures against individuals, but a re-shaping of social structures is interesting. I argue it is not for outsiders to condemn, and impose morality, since illustrated by Montgomery that the children are victims of structural violence, propelled to "edges of society", with "no structural power". Surely it is essential to address the economic conditions facilitating this, than blame cultural practices? Montgomery argues "culture is not a 'trump' card in international human rights", so the Q of imposing rights arguably overshadows the necessity to address structural violence. If prostitution is enabled by "structural, economic and political power", I therefore believe they are left structurally vulnerable by Thai gov which profits off of this industry - is there an angle to take analysing their klaptocratic vested interests?
And extra thought- it is the larger picture of capitalist system, in which these children become productive vectors for their families, that we need to examine? If familial obligations central to Baan Nua people, need for a restructuring of local economy (and national, and global) to enable alternative paths of 'work'? Their exploitation in a system of exploitation?
Kitty

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Response to Ayesha by María Mónica

I agree with you, and with Montgomery on the fact that Baan Nua fathers cannot be condemned by an easy moral assumption, because child prostitution does not happen in a "vacuum" as Montgomery says. This assumptions lack responsibility and once again, attend the binary vision of right/wrong, victim/violator, modern/tradition that really does not help this is really complex scenarios.

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Although Esther's voice and choice opened new possibilities in life for her -portraying "the agency of one's will"- she is nonetheless trapped in the vicious circle. The way in which here community functions will not make any easier for her to encounter these new possibilities her agency and bravery have led her to open.  If the community's general well being does not improve through holistic policy measures, adaptations such as early marriage will continue to appear as the "best" option for daughters. - María Mónica

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I really enjoyed reading this piece. The most interesting part of the paper, I found, was Merry's discussion of how the practices and procedures followed by bodies such as the UN are actually profoundly culturally shaped, despite positioning themselves as 'representing modernity and law, a culture-free zone.' I agree with Merry that the positioning of culture as in opposition to modernity is misplaced. This dichotomy is also very damaging, as it perpetuates racism and xenophobia towards communities that have visibly rich cultural practices.

The idea that 'culture' is anti-modern is something which shapes the way that many European societies are run. For example, 'secularism' laws in France and Germany which ban conspicuous religious symbols in public places such as schools, claim to be doing so on the grounds of neutrality, modernity and equality. However, the question must be asked- who decides what is neutral? Similarly, in human rights discussions, the assumption that cultural practices always contradict human rights is not a neutral position, but one which prioritises Euro-centric culture over others.
DORA

Response to Dora: I also found the discussion around the 'cultures' of the UN and other bodies really interesting and important. Despite aiming to be 'culture free', they are profoundly only are shaped by cultural norms and practices (many of which have not evolved with the times) and, they shape culture by their actions and influence. I completely agree that culture is not static and isolated but rather evolving and interconnected. -Karen

Response to Dora

I think your post raises a really interesting point, which think could have connections with the Cowan reading. Protecting cultural rights might risk essentializing and reifying cultures as separate entities - individuals within a group contest and challenge values - and - cultures are themselves a product of interaction between groups. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I agree that enforcing human rights is not a neutral position and needs to involve what Belhabib calls 'deliberative democracy'. Debate between people actually effected by a policy.

Elliot

Follow up response to Dora:

I find your question of neutrality very interesting because that presupposes that there is a universal neutral, which Merry was arguing against. I believe Escobar in recent writing discusses the concept of "pluriverse," which is premised on diversity and multiple states of being. This also brings me to the dialectical argument Merry was raising in HR wherein it should neither be treated as absolutely universal or relative , but rather be engaged with critically at the local level to see how HR can mean in each setting.

Moustafa

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The anthropologist in the field can provide insight through listening to and observing all parties as Archambault did rather than accept the dichotomy between traditional and modernity, victim and perpetrator being presented by the schools, NGOs and the church. By analysing and reviewing recent changes in the behaviour and beliefs of the Enkop people, such as their very positive attitude to education, the issue of early marriage was highlighted as one of multiple issues where human rights were arguably risk. The ethnography can present the whole community’s life, opportunities and challenges to be considered as part of the government and NGO structures and planning rather than individual cases to be measured and considered “successes”. A key goal of the NGOs is to highlight their success in “saving” girls by preventing early marriage to sponsors. This decontextualizes their position as daughters, sisters and future mothers by removing their agency to decide a future after education.
Susie Brand

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I really enjoyed this text!! It made me think… I found this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dp8t-0HR-o in which the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, argues that leaders around the globe are no longer defending human rights - especially because some of them, like Trump, are the first ones to violate them: for instance, when separating families at the US border. This resonates with Paul Uvin’s text and how human rights are failing at giving a binding space for real actions to happen, especially in the realm of development. I really appreciate how he says that one step towards making human rights effective is by redefining why injustices happen in the first place, how we need to seek accountability. As he claims, this can be made through “legal remedies” like “suing people before courts” but also through “open discussions and shared ideological constraints”. My question is: how important is then to force us -as individuals but also as the Western World- to be more critical with ourselves, be aware of the (present) consequences of colonization and the unequal power dynamics we have with the rest of the world? If we adopt this position, would there be more pressure to accomplish real change and equality? Would administrations and world leaders be forced to take accountability for their actions?
Laura Torres

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I agree with you, I had the same question (that you mentioned at the end of your post)  for how long it is really going to be like this?
Even if there are several organisations working on prevention and sensibilisation against child abuse and prostitution, the absence of the institutions is still visible.

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I agree with Uvin in the article that a right-based approach to development should respect human rights itself. Schemes that were devised in order to help (as were often claimed) sometimes focus on getting the job done without the self-reflections on how they got the job done. The marginalised and the vulnerable are not just the ones that "need help", they need first and foremost to be treated as humans. I also agree with the author that "development" is about the way the state's interactions with its citizens are structured and how it affects the most marginalised and vulnerable.
Siwei

Answer to Siwei:
I definitely agree with you. The article portrays the 'progress' of right to development into  rights-based development consistently ignore the outcomes that generally affect the population it concerns. I find this quite ironic and not at the same time, as I see he word development as Western one, an excuse to universalise their perceptions that they deem correct and profitable, without regards to how it affects the rest of the world as if we were a monopology game without our own traditions and cultures.
Riwa

Response by Mahali:
I agree with the points both Siwei and Riwa have raised above. There is a tendency in the aid world to think of all cultures and societies of the Global South as a monolith, aptly described by Escobar in one of the first articles we read for this course: “..a squatter in Mexico city, a Nepalese peasant, and Tuareg nomad become equivalent to each other as poor and underdeveloped” (p. 386).

I too was very glad to see how Uvin points out the hypocrisy within NGOs as the human rights they have deemed universal are implemented in the “Third World” without “requiring a critical look at oneself” (p. 602). Speaking from personal experience, I have witnessed how the neoliberal, hierarchical symptoms of larger actors have unfortunately begin to also seep into grassroots organizations — power struggles among colleagues and unfair or unrealistic expectations, to name a couple. There is also, within some grassroots efforts, little questioning if the work they do is actually necessary, and little if any conversation with the aid-receivers about what kind of aid they actually want to receive.

Response by Shabazz
First off all the insights above are really well articulated. I loved the way Riwa compared western development practice as a game of monopoly, which just sums up the capitalist nature of the world powers. In that light you could even argue that Article 17 (the right to own property) of the UDHR is one that is capitalist in nature.

Much like how you guys put it, the most prominent thought in my head reading this was the who's who debate. The adoption of "the right to development" was seen as a victory. But a victory for who? was it really a win for those living in conditions that were not good, or was it a win for those in power so they can justify exercising their power, from their moral high horse?

In my opinion, even if you were to take a legalistic view, this is nothing more than a political victory. So the right to development is protected? so what is development? how can you protect something for which you cannot have a bona-fide legal universal definition. Even within the declaration there is no definition to what they mean by development (https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/righttodevelopment.aspx). It is ridiculously vague and clearly, a political tool to exercise power.

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This was a interesting read to ay the least.

The way it focuses on the shifts of narratives in the discourse of human rights in development, shows what is lacking from the current practices in development and shows the relationship and benefits of an ethnographic approach in development.

What I found of remarkable interest was the way it perceived the practice of early marriage as not just a practiced age old phenomena but a modern one. A response to increasing poverty and marginalization. The parents were doing this out of concern for securing their daughters future, using early marriage as a tool to secure it. If we use this perspective we can see that using a legalistic approach of crime, punishment and deterrence doesn't facilitate the security of human rights, so addresses the symptoms which appear are violations, but not the cause. Under the presumption that early marriage is a tool used by parents to secure their child's future, what would happen if we removed this tool and didn't address any of the other issues? would we then violate art 3 (right to life...) and or art 22 (right to social security)? Sure they would no longer be an issue of early marriage but what is to happen to these individuals in their dying economic conditions.

It illustrates the need to create an environment in which their are other choices besides those that would lead to a human rights violation. In the case of the Maasai an improvement in economic security. Resulting in less early marriages etc.
- Shabazz

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The matched discourses of humanitarianism and development

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The matched discourses of humanitarianism and development

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I feel really interested that the discourse of humanitarianism is always twisted with that of development as a whole. It is hard to say one determines one another. Development shall define and blame those 'underdevelopment' areas, while humanitarianism also define and blame such 'non-humanitarianism' phenomenon. It is not to say such social reality like early marriage is 'right', but it is the fact that the discourses of humanitarianism tries to blur these issues while arbitrarily classifying them into 'tradition' and 'victimhood'. Standards of 'good' developments and humanitarianism are co-constitutive which resulting from the unstoppable tendency of modernisation, simultaneously they animate each other.

Bo Yang

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I also found this an interesting read. As well as contrasting culture with modernism, to place cultural relativism as the direct "obstacle" to the fight for international human rights is essentially to make it the antithesis to western morality and whether or not this was the intention of the "rational" side, it still serves to demonize the concept as an "excuse". Ironically, the other extreme is that "relativism as an excuse" could be used as a justification to dismiss cultural consideration and further solidify the already rigid infrastructure that keeps the western mindset as the dominant figure that supervises morality, and so I agree that making these into completely contrasting ideologies is unnecessary and problematic.

I also appreciated her example of how the global North perceives FGM and the problematic nature of their focus on it as the concept is so applicable to everyday life. While this is an extreme example that clearly has underlying moral issues, this way of thinking facilitates negative perceptions of the "other" in the west and how focus on the negative can quickly become a justification for xenophobia, nationalism, and racism.

Overall, I think she does a great job at highlighting that not only HR but morality as a whole, when only considered from the western perspective, may remove the initial glaring problems that the west deem most problematic, but will subsequently have inconspicuous negative knock-on effects only felt by the effected demographic. This is comparable to Montgomery's quote that "assuring one right becomes only possible at the expense of another".
Jessica

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Uvin’s article looks at how development discourse has implemented concepts of human rights, as the discourse shifts from the ‘right to development’ to a ‘rights-based approach’, which concludes with some suggestions about how the emphasis on rights might influence development practice. To me the shift from right to development to rights-based, seems like a shift in approach to development and human rights. This is where Instead having a top down approach, which ignores local knowledge and understandings of developmental issues and focus on the legal realm, it has shifted to bottom-up approaches, which challenges power relations from development donors and organisations and approaches the political sphere.

In addition, one of the things I though was interesting about Uvin’s article, was the emphasis on the importance of empowering marginalised groups, challenging oppression and changing power relations. By empowering marginalised groups, we are giving a voice to local actors and those who would typically be ignored by institutions, further ignoring their rights and not take into consideration their cultural background. If development is serious about making effective change, it needs to go beyond projects and more about extending support to local voices and actors who challenge and speak out against violations. Also, through collaborating with local actors, we learn about their culture by listening, which is more effective as you can adapt Human rights to their culture and understanding (Archambault discusses vernacularisation which is contextualising human rights violations by exploring their local interpretations and understandings). This is important because people’s voices can be heard and understood, giving marginalised groups dignity, which has been ignored or forgotten in the past

+Phoebe

I agree, and I think this relates to something from Merry's article, where marginalised groups used the language/discourse of the West to their own advantage, with the Aboriginal using the phrases of African-Americans fighting racism. So they used transnational discourse and appropriated these sentiments, but applied them to a local context to make their voices heard.
Izzi

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I found this article really compelling for all the reasons described above. For example - whose voice should be listened to; the need for holistic understanding and solutions that address the underlying causes rather than the symptoms; and finally how to address the underlying demand, which will always create supply. It also got me thinking about the role of the anthropologist. I was very moved when the author recounted the experience of taking the child to the hospital. It is very easy to intellectually discuss the issue in an objective manner, but it brought home to me the practical challenge as an anthropologist to stay objective in the field, balancing the intimacy you create with the distance needed to do the job. I have been thinking about how I would have handled a similar
situation. -Karen

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I thought the article provided an excellent overview of the 'complex and contradictory' entangled of culture and rights. Cowan described the differences between enlightenment universalism and liberal individualism and argues that in order to understand a culture, and thus the enforcement of its rights, you need see it as more than a single entity. Anthropology can offer insight into how rights and cultural claims operate in the real world, but political science attempts to predict how they ought to. His main focus was on multiculturalism, which he argues essentialises culture and fails to understand the determining dimension of the social. I guess the key questions which arose for me were:

Does an individual really live inside one culture at a time?

If not, then how can cultural rights seek to represent a whole group?

How would Benhabib's idea of 'deliberative democracy' work in practice and are there any examples?

Elliot

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Why are 'holistic' solutions not implemented?

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Why are 'holistic' solutions not implemented?

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I believe that Archambault’s “application” of anthropology in the field of development helps overcome the problems that the field intrinsically has, due to its Western-centric legacy (as seen in Escobar). In this case, the anthropologist, although working in the context of development, he is not working for development. This means that the anthropologists is challenging the assumption and the methods of developmental works through an holistic approach. Such holistic approach is allowing him to see ‘the big picture’, overcome the dichotomy traditional vs. modern, and thus provide solutions. Now, since the solutions are been suggested, and they feel even obvious after reading the paper, why are they not implemented? Probably "blaming the fathers/the patriarchy" is an easier approach, more short-sighted and thus felt as more 'manageable', but it's in facts like a medicine that relieves from the symptoms but does not cure the illness. Curing the illness is way more complicated and requires larger changes at the state/government level, and then probably “lazily” disregarded? Are there power relations or economic benefits at stake that prevents large-sighted actions to be implemented?

- Sarah M.

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Rethinking how we conceptualise rights and culture - Jennifer

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Rethinking how we conceptualise rights and culture - Jennifer

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Several of the readings this week illustrate and explore the apparent conflict between human rights seen as moral absolutes and the ‘messy’ world of local lives where practices conceived of as harmful are embedded in local social relationships and economic livelihoods. Merry argues (here and in subsequent writings such as ‘Changing rights, changing culture’) that the apparent conflicts between universal human rights and respect for local cultures in based on a faulty conceptualisation of both rights and culture as fixed, ahistorical entities. She sees both as “fluid, contested, and changing” and argues that human rights in development needs to be reconceptualized as an ongoing negotiation in which concepts and practices on both sides are transformed.

Responding to Jennifer
Merry argues there is a deeply flawed concept of culture where tradition and culture are used jointly and interchangeably suggesting practises and ideas which are an inflexible, rooted in the past and negative. By suggesting cultural and/ or traditional practices are responsible for controlling or removing the rights of women, the economic and political agency and access to services are overlooked. This was certainly the case with the Enkop people who were criticised for the practise of early marriage which was viewed as traditional and cultural but was also a direct response to economic and environmental issues.

As culture is fluid and not bound to tradition, the practices and beliefs as well as the political, economic and social structures of all countries need to be examined and challenged rather than simply using culture as a way of “othering”.

Susie Brand

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Merry's argument was compelling, especially so after I read the article by Montgomery's article on child prostitution in Thailand. "Culture" is often wrongly conceptualized by global human rights policymakers as a static, isolated, and bounded value that produces harmful traditional practices, while modernity and human rights are positioned opposite to solve the problems. As the author argues, the tendency to reduce the causes of a problem down simply to "culture" often end up dismissing other socioeconomic and political problems.
Reading this chapter, I remembered Stuart Hall's account on cultural identity. He contended that identity should be understood as something never unified but increasingly fragmented and fractured, constantly in the process of change and fluctuation (Hall and Du Gay 1996). Similarly, rather than seeing culture as an entity, it is important to recognize that culture is always contested and changing and to understand the surrounding power relations that affect its transformation. As the case of the Australian aboriginal group exemplifies, I think more attention should be paid to how the difference is negotiated and articulated by the subjects themselves. Anthropological perspectives help in this context, but still, how to bridge the gap  between those lawyers/ policymakers(global) and individual voices/ NGO (local) meaningfully remain a question to me... How do we overcome the binary between local/ global and traditional culture/modern human rights ?

Ryoko

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I still find this paper as a representation of the difficulty of moving away from the double equations "the west"=individual comes first, "the rest"=community comes first.  I still find some unease in the idea that the two keep being interpreted somehow in antithesis - so the case of 'community values' is either explained as being driven by external economic adaptation which required that the preferences of the individual on average have to fit in those of the community, or in the case of the 'west'  where allegedly there are no such pressures, the 'rights of the individual' come forth and actions based on using social pressure for the pursuit of community objectives becomes paternalism.    Again and again what we call 'imperialism', i.e. the resort to hierarchical relations of power in defining the agenda, also means that the ordering of preferences remains 'stable' and deviations are 'justified' but yet are interpreted as adaptive process to anomalies with respect to an 'order'  which lurks in the background.
Reflexively I find it really difficult to get rid of the baggage.

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One point brought up by Cowan which I thought was interesting is the idea that rights, in this case specifically 'culture rights' and the discourse of multiculturalism that surround them, don't merely recognise and protect reality but actively create/shape reality -- in this case, a culture. She makes this point in the context of her discussion of Aboriginal cultural rights, particularly to land, which depends on their performance of an 'Aboriginal culture' that Australian courts perceive as authentic and traditional, but that also doesn't offend their sensibilities. They are meant to exhibit just the right amount of cultural difference, and in the particular way that Australian courts prescribe. Therefore, 'culture rights' requirements, which supposedly only recognise culture, end up shaping and disciplining it. This is an interesting and much less recognised way in which (cultural) power is exercised through the legal system of rights. It reveals a quite violent aspect of it, where people have to conform to certain expectations in order to be entitled to rights; rights have a certain disciplinary power. I think it's interesting to think about rights themselves in a more critical way, and explore the role that they occupy in societies, including the human rights discourse. It also feels like the '(human) rights' discourse is the only framework in which we are able to think of the fight against injustice, oppression, etc., but I wonder, is there not another way? Are there other frameworks and conceptual tools that we can mobilise in that struggle?
- Mounia

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So clearly in the process of working through the reading list - all I said before is summarised by Cowan under point 1: rights vs culture.  Archambault in my opinion moves within this framework;  in my opinion, this becomes clear as it is  the placement of the father's behaviour within 'culture' that rescues it as legit; deviation from rights is understandable as a coping mechanism.   Archambault seems to shortly grasp the exception when she mentions the one informant who hints at the possibility that such arrangement is modern. I think her paper would have been a lot better had she gone down the route of exploring this opening and try and understand where this lead to and instead she took the direction of the 'needy situation' discourse, which I think is a shame.    She then concludes that 'In this light, policy initiatives aimed at eliminating the practice of early marriage should focus on
securing better livelihoods for Maasai [etc] ' so closing the circle.

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Archambault successfully argues her case that we need to move beyond the local and national popular discourse on early marriage within Maasai culture and the perpetuation of the same binary framework "The pervasive human rights dualisms of violator - victim, tradition - modernity, and collective rights - individual rights" which can limit our subjectivity and understanding of "social phenomena" which are ever changing and not static.

In theory, I am in favour of anthologist practice of Cultural Relativism but here is a perfect of example where it is in tension with Universalism. But on a personal level I am in opposition with the gendered inequalities and consequences of early marriage described, in particular the practice of FGM, a known human rights violation and illegal practice.

This throws up many questions; Has Human Rights interventions made FGM more unsafe for women and girls as they have been forced to perform these procedures in secret and the girls are becoming younger? At what point are children considered to be a fully fledged human or adult and who decides that? How can we differentiate between 'human' agency and in the case of FGM the permanence of a procedure that removes ones agency in the future? or the future of ones agency? What right do we have in the Global North and in Development to decide on the agency of individuals whether child or adult in the south?
-Natasha

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leads Merry criticizes ' Instead of Human-rights-based development, there is a technology that produces development-based human rights.' I agree with this point.
I have been working for an organic textile company for three years and my company is adopting organic cotton produced by farmers in Tanzania or either India. Their business is usually family-run and their children engage in farming work. The 'developed' countries and organizations might claim that it is child labor and they should receive education at schools however it has been their lifestyle for decades and in many cases, parents and children are enjoying it and truly proud of how they live and make living.
The lecture this week reminded me of this story and I could not stop thinking about this and it left a few questions such as why developed countries desperately advocate education? or is it worth exchanging with family-centered/traditional life that they have established for so long?
- Ayaka

Response to Ayaka:
This is an interesting example, and your question about why Western countries insist on education got me thinking. Sure, there is the very culturally entrenched idea that education leads to 'enlightenment' and freedom that is a big part of it, and which I can't help but agree with to some extent. But maybe we also shouldn't underestimate the power-imbued nature of Western systems of education? Schools can be seen as disciplinary institutions used for social control, as argued by Foucault. The knowledge disseminated by schools is also not neutral, but is itself produced and legitimised through, and in turn legitimises, power relations. I wonder if that is significant in this case? One thing that comes to mind is Archambault's case of school education being one of the primary avenues through which power-laden development narratives, in particular binaries of victim/violator, traditional/modern, etc., are disseminated in the Maasai community of Enkop.
- Mounia

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I also found that the reading well illustrated the complexity of social reality and power dynamics behind the child prostitution practices, and the difficulty of enforcing various rights equally, as "enforcing one right would mean infringing others that the children claim to value more." The question from last week on “who” and “whose” becomes even more important and complex, when the subject is children who do not seem to be able to make a reasonable consent. 

Your question of “how long” resonates with me too.  From the fieldwork, many issues, from health, education, social stigma, to the local economy can be pointed out. When the process of human rights introduced in the lecture (signature, ratification, courts…) is applied on the local level in solving all these issues and coming up with alternatives, the process started to look more multi-faceted and long-term to me.

On a side note, although it is not the main point of the reading, in relation to “health issue,” to question where the drug or alcohol comes from and how have they been used might shed light on the wider socioeconomic structure of the community or surrounding environment. 

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On the "high moral ground" and power play - Moustafa

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On the "high moral ground" and power play - Moustafa

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Uvin argues that the rights-based approach to development was but an excuse for the Global North to maintain a "high moral ground" through which developing countries have reduced to a category that requires the help of the moral savior to (eventually) reach an equal level. For Uvin, this is a hypocritical and dangerous downplay of the global system in which the Global North maintains its advantageous hegemonic position to further their capitalist agenda, in which countries of the Global South, will be at a disadvantage, while highlighting that the reason for "underdevelopment" is the lack of (universal) human rights. Escobar (1991: 668) argues that 'developing countries' as a category are viewed as "half-human, half-cultured benchmark against which the Euro-American world measures its own achievement," which reinforces Uvin's argument that HR is another tool for the Global North to maintain this relation of power and measurement of achievements. In the concluding remarks, Uvin criticizes developed countries and institutions for not upholding their 'rights-based approach' in addressing their own position of privilege and power, upon which global political economy is constructed. In this sense, what the "rights-based approach" is for Uvin, is what the "white gaze" is for Pailey.

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This ethnography brings in interesting perspectives of early marriage. I think it aims to highlight that this is not that straightforward of a situation, and fathers are not to be blamed solely based on one's bias about their agency in these matters. In this particular underdeveloped community it is somewhat understandable that fathers want to secure a future for their daughters, which school may not be able to provide, considering the 55 percent approval rate of children being approved for secondary education. This implies that education is by no means a safe bet, and finding the right family for the daughter to join (in terms of both financial and caring aspects) holds the promise of a better future (if we take into account the probability multiplier as well). I assume that this way of thinking is a product of organic cultural development given rise to by the forces of supply and demand. If there would be more room for girls to prevail in the education system, fathers may not insist so strongly on getting them a partner early on. What is interesting, is that despite odds of getting into higher education, still there are ones who choose this path for their daughter. I think this signals a growing consensus among parents that it is worth at least giving a shot for their daughter within education system over handing them to someone to take care of. I think this change of thinking manifested for example in the case of Esther, who has been accepted back to the family, after her father has been informed about her good academic performance. I think this means that her father's aim was really to secure her a future, and he got furious since Esther "threw away" this future by denying the wedding ceremony her father worked a lot on setting up. I can imagine that for her father it seemed as a disrespect to his efforts to set her life on the right track. Now that she has shown signs of potential which could render her able to engage in a successful career of her own, her father had to admit that this may as well be a right track for her. Even though she might have disrespected him previously, I think it shows some character development in terms of the father that he realized that his beliefs implied by the surrounding culture can be challenged.

Andrew

Andrew

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Empathy based on the deep reaserch and understand

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Empathy based on the deep reaserch and understand

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In the local area, the old custom is added to the new meaning and faction. If the gov or international institution knows this custom and makes some acts to limit, this custom still would be endless. Because it is suitable for livelihood. Thus, I very interesting in this type of case. When we face a bad local culture by understanding based on western culture, how the researcher can study further the culture meaning for local pastoral, rather than get the definition of this custom which should get away and give weaken people a weapon.
Jiahao

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Culture versus rights, a constant debate.

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Culture versus rights, a constant debate.

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Cowan describes the relationship that exists between culture and rights as a composite structure. This complexity has existed due to the constant tug of war of having universal rights and accepting and being cognizant of cultural differences. Correlating this to the lecture which represents the Statement of Human rights which was established in 1947 states how " respect for individual differences entails a respect for cultural differences." But do we see this incorporation in the global world ? It was interesting to see the regulations which are confined within a cultural space and within the legalizations of various rights which could still away an individual's identity as well as their rectitude. Cowan illustrates how this complex relationship between rights and culture needs to process simultaneously to give a voice to the daily local struggles with the incorporation of boundaries that are globally acknowledged and recognized.

Enakshi

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Cowan in his article culture and rights covers the definitions of culture as rigid and uniform versus dynamic and fluid. He also elaborates on  how the impact of this understanding of culture in politics,  influences how in the name of human rights development could be imposed upon populations. This is where he makes the point of cultural liberty (capability and right of people  to live and be what they choose). I found this to be the most profound insight of the article.
As he mentions when taking the example of the hijab or burkha. On grounds of human rights for culture that for periods banned women from wearing "religious headgear" (e.g. France), the question arises that were they standing by human rights or taking it away? For the media covered stories of women who felt liberated from the impositions of their culture in these countries, but there were also stories of women who felt their freedom to follow their cultural traditions were taken away. Within India, a country where the safety of women is questionable? One often comes across women who follow Islam and feel the hijab or burkha helps them feel safe. To me cultural liberty is a concept that needs to become the primary lens when designing policy for development. Anthropologists along with psychologist could then help understand the target audience, and what to them is their right to freedom of choice to serve as the basis before designing and implementing policies in development, including human rights and culture.- Priyanka

Response to Priyanka:
This is very nice. I found this text a bit difficult to follow so your comment has helped me a lot to take notes from it. I agree with you that cultural liberty is a much needed approach. The burka example is very illustrative -how people from one culture are completely blind to the reasons why people from other cultures would choose to do things differently. I feel that that is the step human rights are missing (and that anthropology needs to keep up with): to encourage dialogues between cultures and to create better ways of communicating and understanding the differences (Instead of setting an ideal and expect everyone to follow. Set common objectives -ie. equality between individuals- assuming that they would be reach from a space of diversity). Although, I am afraid we are just running again into the main problem: the inability of the Western to recognize that the Global South can be a source of knowledge (therefore, their differences can never bring anything good/valuable).

Laura Torres

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This incredible essay highlights so well the importance of discourse around a matter, and how problematizing tends to favor an agenda, whilst ignoring the most important socio-political and economical factors. In a world where human rights are considered universally applicable, a traditional rite of passage threatens a young Masaai girl's agency and sparks a huge debate among the agents that support female empowerment, gender equality and the rights of all children to an education. Esther is just one of many other young girls who has escaped early marriage and who has sought shelter in a special center, that allows her to pursue an education. Many young Maasai girls prefer education over early marriage.
Problematization comes into play when all the blame is turned towards fathers, the 'pastoral patriarchs' as the sole agents responsible for horrors of early marriage and other harmful practices such as FGM. The so-called primitives that would sell their daughters for an animal, like some posters in centers were saying, were in fact the worried fathers who were trying to secure all of their children's futures. Living in a community whose economic activity relies solely in pastoralism, in an era where climate change brings unexpected turbulences in nature, such as droughts, people are forced to find other means of securing their livelihood. One of these means is marriage, as it connects clans, it connects people.
I agree with what Archambault states: 'Esther's case identifies the root cause of early marriage as economic insecurity and lack of confidence in the ability of the educational system to provide for the well-being of Masaai children' . This highlights the importance that the discourse around an issue has had, and how problematizing Esther's father for marrying his daughter ignores the underlying economical and socio-political insecurity of Masaai people. Pastoral traditions, as the only means of economy, are impacted by outside forces that could not be controlled by them and should thus be sustained and helped by the state, especially in times of instability.
-Ioana Illes

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I agree with you so much on this in the sense that I have tried putting myself in the role of the anthropologist here as well, and I am still not sure what I would have done in that situation- I tend to believe I would have been much less objective.
It is usually difficult to talk about children's rights, but it is especially challenging when the ones involved in this story are so young, and they are basically fueled by western greed, power and deviancy. These people that are paying the children and helping sustain their community, are basically breeding the children to fulfill their sick fantasies.
If there is a way we can positively get involved and make a change, it should be through recapturing these children from their predators and giving them more agency. Showing them that they have choice, that there is hope. Of course, in most cases, this is much more easily said than done.
Relating everything discussed above to Children's Rights, I think it highlights the importance of considering all articles within the Children's Rights, especially the ones that give agency to children. An anthropologist can step in here and place them in a wider perspective/context. Real solutions can then be sought, in this case, it would be to assure economic safety within the families at Ban Nuua by creating real jobs for them.
-Ioana Illes